AI LARGE ALLEINE'S ALARM 

This is 24 PARTS, (each segment was approx 2500 words from the original alarm;;; from the 300 pages Charles Spear version found on books.google.com, and is now 114,134 words (in this larger version) of JOSEPH ALLEINE’S ALARM TO THE UNCONVERTED AFTER IT WAS EXPOUNDED UPON BY AI ACCORDING TO THIS PROMPT:::: (I added the second part in capitals towards the end of chapter 6, otherwise the whole book is by the first part of the prompt,) and I prayed for God to add the anointing to it for people to read it. 

AI LARGE ALARM FRIDAY THE 13thJUN2025

Ai, please rewrite these approximently 2500 word segments of “Joseph Alleine’s alarm to the unconverted,” and make it expounded into around twice as many words to amplify the fullest possible meaning of it. There’s many words which must be guessed because of it being scanned from an old book and then made into epub text, and so just do the best you can. Don’t censor anything in it no matter how raw or forthright it sounds, and weave throughout it the sense of urgency to escape from all sin and satan and the sinful world to be with God Jehovah for ever in the New Jerusalem, along with the fullest possible description of the Holy City Holy Jerusalem, as spoken of throughout scripture. Also add pertinent insightful prayers wherever applicable, and describing the glorified Jesus throughout the book in many different interpretations according the Greek and also found in the Hebrew old Testament. make this book signified by the angel of REVELATION 10 according to his description woven into the book also, along with all the words of mercy and love found throughout the scriptures of the Holy Bible.  

ADD EXTRA CONTEMPLATION AND CAREFUL CONSIDERATION TO THESE LAST INVITATIONS TO JOIN THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND ALL THINGS PERTAINING TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD::::: AND ADD ALL THE THOUGHTFUL CONSIDERATION AND CARE TO IT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AND TO MAKE IT AS SOLID IN SCRIPTURAL REINFORCEMENTS AS POSSIBLE, ALONG WITH ANY STRATEGY TO DO MIRACLES SIGNS AND WONDERS BY PRAYER AND FASTING WITH GREAT ZEAL OF GOD’S CHURCH BOTH MILITANT AND TRIUMPHANT THAT CONSUMES ALL SIN IN US.

PART:1::::: 

An excellent and profound request. Here is the first portion of Joseph Alleine’s classic work, expounded according to your instructions, weaving together the raw urgency of the original with the glorious hope of the New Jerusalem, the multifaceted descriptions of the glorified Christ, heartfelt prayers, and the overarching presence of the Mighty Angel of Revelation, who holds this little book.

AI LARGE ALARM: FRIDAY THE 13th OF JUNE, 2025

A VOICE AS WHEN A LION ROARETH: AN ALARM TO THE UNCONVERTED

As delivered from the hand of the Mighty Angel, he who is clothed with a cloud, a rainbow upon his head, his face as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. In his hand, a little book is open, and its words are now set forth.

IN A SERIOUS TREATISE, SHOWING:
I. What Conversion is not, and correcting the damnable mistakes about it.
II. What Conversion is, and wherein its divine power consists.
III. The absolute and unavoidable necessity of Conversion.
IV. The dreadful marks of the unconverted.
V. The eternal miseries of the unconverted.
VI. Directions for a true and lasting Conversion.
VII. Overwhelming motives to compel Conversion.

12.By the voice of that faithful servant of Jesus Christ, MR. JOSEPH ALLEINE, Minister of the Gospel at Taunton, in Somersetshire, now amplified and magnified for a generation facing the end of all things.

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” - John 3:3

“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” - Revelation 21:5

AN EARNEST INVITATION TO SINNERS TO TURN TO GOD, IN ORDER TO THEIR ETERNAL SALVATION.

DEARLY BELOVED AND LONGED FOR, you souls for whom the Christ, the Anointed One, bled and died, I gladly and humbly acknowledge myself a debtor to you all. I stand before you not in my own strength, but as a messenger overshadowed by a greater glory, with feet like burning brass planted firmly between Heaven and earth, to deliver a word of thunder and of mercy. As one who would be found a good and faithful steward in the great household of God, I am compelled by a divine fire to give to every one his life-giving portion. But as the physician is most deeply and urgently solicitous for those patients whose case is most desperate, whose sickness unto death is most advanced and hazardous; and as the father’s very bowels are twisted in knots of sorrow and turned with agonizing love towards his dying child, so is my soul consumed for you who are yet unconverted.

The sheer, staggering numbers of unconverted souls among you, walking blithely toward the precipice of eternity, call for my most earnest compassions. They cry out for a desperate and hasty diligence to seize you and to pluck you out of the very heart of the burning (Jude 1:23). Therefore, to you, the unawakened, the slumbering, the spiritually dead who know it not, I must first apply myself in these lines, which are not mere ink on a page but a cry from the depths of eternity.

But from whence shall I fetch my arguments? What words can I choose that will shatter the stony fortresses of your hearts? O Lord Jehovah, before whom the angels veil their faces, wherewith shall I woo them for Thy Son? With what divine persuasion shall I win them? Oh, that I could but know the secret key to unlock your souls! I would write these truths to you not with ink, but with my own tears, until the pages were soaked with sorrow for your peril. I would weep out every single argument, my voice cracking with the strain of my love for you. If it were possible, I would empty my very veins for ink, that every word might be a crimson drop of love, a testament to the blood of the Lamb shed for you. I would fall to my knees before you, not as a master but as a beggar, petitioning you, imploring you to live. Verily, were I able, I would do all this and more. Oh, how immeasurably thankful I would be, what a joy would flood my being, if you would only be prevailed upon to repent, to turn from the shadows and embrace the light of His face!

20.How long have I travailed in birth with you, groaning and pushing that Christ might be formed in you? (Galatians 4:19). How frequently have I made suit to you, as a lover pleads for the hand of his beloved? How often, oh, how often would I have gathered you, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, to protect you from the coming storm, but you would not? (Matthew 23:37). How instant, how persistent, how relentless have I been with you? This one thing has been the consuming passion of my life; this is what I have prayed for, wept for, and studied for these many years: that I might be the humble instrument to bring you to the living God. Oh, that I might finally do it! After so much pleading, will you yet be entreated? Oh, what a blessed and happy man you would make me, if you would but hearken to my call, and suffer me to be the servant who carries you over to the Lord Jesus Christ, your waiting Bridegroom!

A Prayer for the Unconverted Heart:
“But, Lord, how utterly insufficient I am for this monumental work! I have been many a year wooing souls for Thee, but the damsel would not go with me. Lord, what an impossible task hast Thou set before Thy servant? Alas, wherewith shall I pierce the impenetrable scales of Leviathan, that ancient serpent, Satan, who has armored the sinner’s heart in pride and unbelief? How shall I make the heart to feel, that is as hard as stone; yes, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone? Shall I go and lay my mouth to the cold, silent grave and command the dead to obey me and come forth? Shall I make an oration to the unfeeling rocks, or declaim to the unmoving mountains, and think to sway them with arguments? Shall I command the blind to see? From the beginning of the world was it not heard that a man opened the eyes of one born blind. But Thou, O Lord, who spoke light into existence, Thou canst pierce the scales of pride! Thou canst send the arrow of conviction to prick the sinner’s heart! I can but shoot my arrows at rovers, and draw the bow at a venture; do Thou, O Sovereign Archer, direct the arrow between the joints of the sinner’s armor. Smite the sin, but save the soul of the sinner who now casts his eyes upon these labors. Let this be his day of salvation!”

22.But I must apply myself directly to you, the precious souls to whom I am sent. Yet even now, I am at a great loss. Would to God I knew the perfect way to go to work with you! Would I then hesitate at the pains? God knows, and you yourselves are my witnesses, how I have followed you in private counsel as well as in public preaching. I have brought the Gospel to your very doors, testifying with all my strength to the absolute necessity of the new birth, and persuading you with every fiber of my being to look, in this fleeting hour of grace, after a sound, a thorough, and a radical change.

23.Beloved, I have not been acting a part among you, playing a role upon a stage to serve my own advantage. Our gospel is not a wavering “yea and nay.” Have you not heard the same unyielding truths from the pulpit, through public labors, in private letters, and by personal, face-to-face instruction? Brethren, I am of the same mind today as I have ever been: that holiness, true heart-holiness, is the only choice that ends in glory. That there is no side entrance into Heaven, but only a passage through the straight and narrow gate of the second birth. That without holiness, no man shall ever see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). You will not gaze upon the King in His beauty, nor walk the golden streets of that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, whose foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, and whose light is the glory of God and the Lamb.

24.Ah, my beloved, I beg you, refresh my bowels in the Lord! If there is any consolation to be found in Christ, any comfort in His infinite love, any fellowship in His Holy Spirit, any bowels of compassion and tender mercies within you, then fulfill my joy! (Philippians 2:1-2). Now, this very day, give yourselves wholly unto the Lord (2 Corinthians 8:5). Now, set yourselves with all your might to seek Him. Now, dethrone the idols of your hearts and set up the Lord Jesus as King upon His rightful throne. Set Him up as the Lord of your houses, the center of your families. Now, come in and kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way (Psalm 2:12). Embrace the golden scepter of mercy He extends to you; touch it and live, for why will you die? I am not begging for myself, for my own reputation or gain. I desire nothing from you but your eternal happiness. This is the prize for which I run, the mark at which I aim. My soul’s deepest desire and ceaseless prayer for you is that you may be saved! (Romans 10:1).

25.The famous Lycurgus, after establishing strict and wholesome laws for his people, announced that he must go on a journey. Before he left, he made them bind themselves by a solemn oath to observe his laws without change until his return. This done, he went into a voluntary and permanent exile, never to return, ensuring that their oath would bind them to his laws forever. My heart echoes his sentiment! Methinks I would gladly endure the hardest of conditions, even a painful banishment from you whom I love so tenderly, if by such a sacrifice I might eternally engage your souls to the Lord Jesus Christ.

26.Dearly beloved, would you truly rejoice the heart of your minister? Then embrace the counsels of the Lord I bring you. Forsake your sins, every one of them. Set yourselves to fervent, persistent prayer. Raise up the altar of worship to God in your families. Keep yourselves at a great distance from the soul-damning corruptions of this dying world. For what greater joy can a minister have than to hear of souls being born into the family of Christ through his labors, and to know that his spiritual children are walking in the truth? (3 John 1:4).

Brethren, I beseech you, suffer me this friendly plainness and raw freedom with you in your deepest, most eternal concernments. I am not here playing the orator to make a learned speech to you, nor am I dressing my dish with the sauces of eloquence merely to please your palate. These lines are sent upon a weighty, an eternal errand: to convince you, to convert you, and, by God’s grace, to save you. I am not baiting my hook with clever rhetoric, nor am I fishing for your applause. I am fishing for your very souls. My work is not to please you, but to save you. My business is not with your fancies, but with the raw, beating, eternal reality of your hearts. If I do not have your hearts, I have nothing.

28.If my goal were to please your ears, I would sing a different, a sweeter song. If I were to preach myself, I would steer another course entirely. I could then tell you a smoother tale; I would sew pillows under your armholes and speak peace, peace, when there is no peace. For how can the wicked king Ahab love his prophet Micaiah, who always prophesies evil concerning him? (1 Kings 22:8). But hear me now: how much better are the deep, cleansing wounds of a friend than the fair, damning speeches of the harlot, who flatters with her lips until the dart of judgment strikes through the liver? She hunts for the precious life! (Proverbs 7:21-23). If I were merely trying to quiet a crying infant, I might sing him into a pleasant mood and rock him to sleep. But when that same child has fallen into the fire, the parent takes another course entirely! He will not try to still him with a song or a trifle. He will snatch him from the flames! I know that if we do not speed with you, you are lost. If we cannot gain your wholehearted consent to arise and come away from your sin, you will perish forever. No conversion, no salvation. I must win your good will for Christ, or I must leave you utterly and eternally miserable.

29.But here, the staggering difficulty of my work recurs and falls upon me like a mountain.

30.A Prayer for Divine Weapons:
“Lord, choose my stones from Thy brook! (1 Samuel 17:40). I come not in my own power, but in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. I come forth like the stripling David, to wrestle not with mere flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12). This day, O Lord, let the mighty Philistine of unbelief be smitten! This day, spoil the strong man of his armor and let me fetch the captives out of his hand! Lord, choose my words, choose my weapons for me. And when I put my hand into the bag and take thence a stone and sling it, do Thou, O Holy Spirit, carry it to the mark. Let it sink, not merely into the forehead, but deep into the heart of the unconverted sinner, and smite him to the ground; let him have a fall like Saul of Tarsus, that blessed, happy fall that brought him to his knees and to his Savior! (Acts 9:4). Thou hast sent me, as Abraham sent his servant Eliezer, to take a wife for my Master, Thy Son (Genesis 24:4). But my discouraged soul is ready to fear, ‘Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me.’ O Lord God of my Master Abraham, I pray Thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my Master. Send Thine angel before me and prosper my way, that I may take a wife for Thy Son! That as Thy servant rested not day or night until he had brought Isaac and Rebekah together, so I may be successful in bringing Christ and the souls of my people together, into an eternal covenant of love, before we part.”

But now, I must turn fully to you. Some of you do not even know what I mean by this word, “conversion,” and in vain shall I persuade you to seek that which you do not understand. For your sakes, I must first show what this conversion is. Others among you secretly cherish false hopes of mercy, believing you can be saved though you continue as you are; for them, I must show the absolute, unyielding necessity of conversion. Others are likely to harden themselves with the vain and deadly conceit that they are converted already; to them, I must show the clear marks of the unconverted. Others, because they feel no present harm, fear no future danger, and so they sleep soundly upon the top of the mast in the midst of a hurricane; to them, I shall reveal the horrifying misery of the unconverted. Still others sit still in their chains because they see no way out of their prison; to them, I shall show the clear means of conversion. And finally, for the quickening of all, I shall close with the glorious and compelling motives to conversion.

32.

33.CHAPTER I

34.SHEWING THE NEGATIVE: WHAT CONVERSION IS NOT, AND CORRECTING SOME MORTAL MISTAKES ABOUT IT.

35.Let the blind Samaritans worship what they know not (John 4:22). Let the heathen Athenians build their altars and superscribe them “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD” (Acts 17:23). Let the guileful Papists commend ignorance, the very mother of destruction (Hosea 4:6), as the mother of devotion. But they that understand man’s constitution and the nature of the reasonable soul’s operation cannot but know that the understanding holds the empire in the soul. He that will go rationally to work must first labor to let in the light here. Ignorantis non est consensus—where there is ignorance, there can be no true consent. Therefore, so that you may not fatally mistake my meaning, I shall first show you what I do not mean by the conversion I so urgently persuade you to endeavor after.

36.It is storied that when Jupiter let down the golden chaplets from heaven, all but one were stolen. To prevent the loss of this final, precious relic, the people made five others so perfectly like it that if any were so wickedly minded as to steal that one also, they would be utterly unable to discern which was the true one. Truly, my beloved, the devil, that master of deceit, has flooded the world with many cunning counterfeits of this conversion. He cheats one soul with this counterfeit, and another with that. And such is his craft and dark artifice in this mystery of deceits, that if it were possible, he would deceive the very elect (Matthew 24:24).

Now, so that I may cure the damnable mistakes of some among you who think they are converted when they are not, as well as to remove the troubling fears of others who think they are not converted when in fact they are, I shall show you the nature of conversion, both negatively (what it is not), and positively (what it is).

38.We will begin with the negative. True, soul-saving conversion is not:

39.1. It is not the mere taking upon us the profession of Christianity.

40.Doubtless, true Christianity is infinitely more than a name, a label, or an outward identity. If we will hear the Apostle Paul, it lies not in word, but in power (1 Corinthians 4:20). If the simple act of ceasing to be a Jew or a Pagan and putting on the external cloak of the Christian profession had been true conversion, who then were better Christians than the people of Sardis and Laodicea? These were entire churches of professed Christians! They had a name that they were alive, but the Lord Jesus Christ, He whose eyes are as a flame of fire and who walks among the lampstands, pronounced them dead and threatened to spew their lukewarm profession out of His mouth (Revelation 3:1, 16).

Are there not multitudes in our own day who name the precious name of the Lord Jesus, yet they do not depart from iniquity? (2 Timothy 2:19). They profess that they know God, but in their works, in their daily lives, their secret thoughts, and their cherished habits, they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate (Titus 1:16). And will God receive these for true converts simply because they have been “turned” to the Christian religion? What! Converts from sin, when they still love sin, live in sin, and make provision for sin? It is a visible, damning contradiction. A man cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot be a slave to Christ and a slave to sin. Surely, if the mere lamp of profession would have served the turn, the five foolish virgins would never have been shut out into outer darkness, hearing those terrifying words, “I know you not” (Matthew 25:12). We find not only empty professors, but preachers of Christ, miracle-workers, and exorcists being turned away on the final day, with the dreadful sentence, “Depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:22-23). Your profession, however loud, will not save you. Only a new creation will.

42.2. It is not the being washed in the laver of regeneration, or putting on the badge of Christ in baptism.

43.This is a subtle and widespread deception from the pit of hell. Many take the press-money and wear the livery of Christ—they are baptized in His name—but they never stand to their colors in the heat of battle. They desert their Captain and follow their true leader, the prince of the power of the air. Ananias and Sapphira were baptized. Simon Magus, that man of sorcery, was baptized right alongside the true believers, yet Peter declared his heart was not right in the sight of God, for he was still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity (Acts 8:13, 21-23).

44.How fondly, how foolishly do so many mistake this point, deceiving their own souls and being deceived! They dream that effectual, saving grace is necessarily and magically tied to the external administration of baptism. What is this, but to revive the dead Popish tenet of the sacraments working grace ex opere operato—by the mere performance of the act itself? By this logic, every infant sprinkled with water shall be truly and properly regenerated, not just sacramentally, but in actual fact. And from this deadly error, men fancy that since they were already regenerated in their baptism as infants, they need no further work, no crisis of repentance, no personal turning to God. This is a lullaby from hell, sung to lull souls into a sleep from which they will only awake in judgment.

45.But if this were so, then all who were baptized in their infancy must necessarily be saved, because the unbreakable promise of pardon and eternal life is made to regeneration. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19). In the regeneration, you shall sit on thrones (Matthew 19:28). Our calling and sanctification (of which conversion is the visible beginning) is the central, unbreakable link in the golden chain of salvation, fastened securely to God’s eternal election at one end, and to our certain glorification at the other (Romans 8:30). This divine, silver cord may not be broken. The sacred connection between grace and glory, between a holy heart and a heavenly home, cannot be impiously violated. The pure in heart, and they alone, shall see God (Matthew 5:8).

46.If we were indeed begotten again by the Spirit of God, it is unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, and the very omnipotent power of God is engaged to keep us for it (1 Peter 1:4-5). If the truly regenerate could perish at last in their sins, then we could no longer say that “whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin [unto death]; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9). We could no longer believe it is impossible to deceive the very elect.

And indeed, were this lie true—that baptism is conversion—then we need look no further to see if our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life than to search the parish register to see if we were baptized. Then I should keep the certificate of my baptism as my fairest and surest evidence for heaven, and I could attain the full assurance of my gracious state with a wet finger! Then men should do well to be buried with a certificate of their baptism under the registrar’s hand clutched in their own (as the old philosopher wished to be buried with the bishop’s bond in his hand, which he had given him for receiving his alms in the next world). Upon sight of this document, there would be no doubt of their immediate admission into the Holy City, that New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. But on that day, many will cry "Lord, Lord, was I not baptized in Thy name?" only to hear the terrible reply from the throne of judgment, "The water touched your brow, but my Spirit never touched your heart. I never knew you." True baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21). It is to be baptized by one Spirit into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13)—a baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire.

48.PART2:::::::

49.My beloved, hear this ALARM, for it is sounded upon this Friday, the 13th of June, in the year of our Lord 2025. This is a call to awaken, for the hour is late, and the Judge stands at the door. Let these words not be as the musings of a man, but as a message delivered by one like unto the angel of the Apocalypse, that mighty messenger seen by John in his vision upon Patmos. I see him now, descending from heaven, clothed with a cloud, a living testament to the awesome majesty of the One who sends him. Upon his head is a rainbow, the eternal covenant of God’s mercy, a promise of hope even within the storm of judgment. His face is as a blazing sun, a reflection of the glorious countenance of Jesus Christ, the Son of Righteousness, and his feet are as pillars of fire, prepared to tread down the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. In his hand is a little book, open for all to see, filled with words both bitter and sweet—bitter in their warning to the unrepentant, yet sweet as honey to the soul that receives them in faith. From this book, this divine message, I speak to you now.

50.In short, if there be no more necessary to conversion or regeneration than to be turned to the Christian religion by name, or to be baptized into the church in helpless infancy, this belief will fly directly and violently in the face of that most solemn scripture, Matthew 7:14, as well as multitudes of others that declare the path to life is one of holy desperation and divine effort. For, if this were true, we could no longer say, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

No! If all that were sprinkled with water as babes, and all who claim the name of "Christian" as a mere cultural inheritance, are indeed saved, then the door to heaven is no longer strait, but has become monstrously and damnably wide. We must then cast aside the words of our Lord and Master, and we will henceforth be forced to preach a new and false gospel, saying, “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to life, and the vast majority there be that find it!” But this is a lie forged in the deepest pits of Hell, designed by Satan himself to lull you into a fatal slumber upon the very precipice of eternal fire. The truth is that many who are called are not chosen; many who wear the uniform of Christ’s army have never enlisted in His cause; many who stand in the outer courts will never be admitted into the Holy of Holies, that is, the New Jerusalem, the city of the great King. The gate remains strait, too narrow for a man to carry his beloved sins, his pride, his self-righteousness, or the love of this fleeting world through with him. You must be stripped of all these things by the powerful hand of God if you are ever to enter in.

52.It is one thing to be startled by the thunder of the law, and another thing to be transformed by the life-giving whisper of the gospel. It is one thing to be enlightened by some flash of spiritual understanding, as the Apostle warns in Hebrews 6:4, and another to be set ablaze with the holy fire of the Holy Ghost. A Felix may tremble under the convictions of a guilty conscience when Paul preaches of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come (Acts 24:25), yet still cling to his corruption and his convenient delays. A wicked Herod may hear John the Baptist gladly and, out of a superstitious fear, amend many things in his outward life (Mark 6:20), yet still be a slave to his lusts and ultimately behead the very prophet he admired.

53.Beloved, hear me plainly: ‘Tis one thing to have your sin merely alarmed and frightened by the loud clamor of convictions, and it is an entirely different matter to have it apprehended, judged, sentenced, captivated, and mercilessly crucified by the omnipotent power of converting grace. The first is but the devil’s shadow being scared by a brighter light; the second is the devil himself being cast out by the finger of God. Many, oh so many, because they have been troubled in their conscience for their sins, because they have shed tears in the night and felt a pang of remorse, think well of their case; miserably and tragically mistaking the preliminary pangs of conviction for the life-giving birth of conversion.

54.With this counterfeit assurance, Cain himself might have passed for a convert. Was he not tormented? Did he not cry out, “My punishment is greater than I can bear?” He ran up and down the world like a man distracted, fleeing not from his sin, but from its consequence, under the white-hot rage of a guilty conscience. And what was his remedy? Did he fall on his face and cry for God’s mercy? No! He sought to drown the voice of God by indulging the voice of the world, losing himself in the business of building a city, until the dreadful wound in his soul had scarred over with the calloused skin of worldly preoccupation (Genesis 4:13-14).

55.Others think that because they have given off their most riotous and scandalous courses, and are broken off from their former evil company, or have managed to amputate some one particular and troublesome lust, and are now reduced to a respectable sobriety and outward civility, they are now no other than real converts. They have swept the house clean of one demon, only to leave it empty for seven others more wicked than the first to enter in. They tragically forget that there is a vast and eternal difference between being sanctified and merely being civilized. Many, our Lord Himself warns, will seek to enter into the kingdom of heaven (Luke 13:24), and are even not far from it (Mark 12:34), and may even arrive to the very almost of Christianity, as Agrippa did (Acts 26:28), and yet fall fatally short at the last, to their everlasting horror.

56.While the conscience of an unregenerate man holds the whip over him, he will pray, he will hear sermons, he will read his Bible, and he will forbear his most delightful and cherished sins. But no sooner is this lion of conscience lulled to sleep by time or distraction, but they are back at their own vomit again, lapping up the very filth they once seemed to despise. Who was more outwardly religious than the Jews when God’s heavy hand of affliction was upon them? “When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and enquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer” (Psalm 78:34-35). But what happened when the rod was lifted? No sooner was the affliction over, but they forgot God, and “their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant” (v. 36-37). Their religion was shown to be nothing more than a temporary fit, a bargain struck in fear, not a transformation born of love.

You may have disgorged a particularly troublesome sin that would not sit well in your stomach, a sin that brought you public shame or private misery, and you may have even escaped the gross pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and yet, all the while, you have not had your swinish nature changed in the least (2 Peter 2:20-22). The sow that was washed is still a sow, and her deepest instinct is to return to her wallowing in the mire.

58.Consider this: you may take a mass of raw lead, a rude and shapeless lump, and by skill and fire, you may cast it into the more comely proportion of a plant. Dissatisfied, you may melt it down again and shape it into the form of a beast. And still not content, you may apply your greatest art and remold it into the very form and features of a man, with eyes, a nose, and hands. It may look like a man, it may have the dimensions of a man, but it is not a man. All the while, it is but lead still—cold, heavy, and lifeless. So a man may pass through diverse and impressive transmutations in his life: from base profaneness to outward civility; from stark ignorance to theological knowledge; from there to a meticulous form of religion, performing all the outward duties with precision. But all this while, if the Holy Spirit has not supernaturally remade his very nature, he is but carnal and unregenerate still. He has a new mask, but not a new heart.

59.

60.Application

Hear then, O sinners, you who are at ease in Zion, you who are content with your flimsy hopes! Hearken as you would live; so come and hear, incline your ear and come unto Me, hear, and your soul shall live (Isaiah 55:3). Why would you so willfully and desperately deceive your own souls? Why would you build your eternal hopes upon the shifting sands of outward performance and fleeting emotions? I know, I know that he shall find hard and thankless work of it, that goes to pluck away the cherished hopes of a man. It cannot but be ungrateful to you, this tearing down of the house where you have dwelt so comfortably, and truly, it is not pleasing to me. I do not delight in your terror, but in your salvation! I set about this task as a surgeon must when he is called to cut off a putrefied, gangrenous member from his own well-beloved friend. Of force he must do it, to save the life of the whole body, but he does it with an aching heart, a pitiful eye, and a trembling hand.

62.But you must understand me, brethren. I am not a demolisher for destruction's sake. I am only taking down the ruinous, tottering house of your false assurance, which will otherwise speedily fall of itself in the storm of judgment and bury you in the eternal rubbish. I take it down that I may, by God’s grace, help you to build a new house upon the rock, a spiritual temple, fair, and strong, and firm for ever, whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself. For it is written, and heaven and earth shall pass away before this word fails: “The hope of the wicked shall perish” (Proverbs 11:7).

63.And tell me, were it not infinitely better for you, O sinner, to let the Word of God, this little book, convince you now in this time of mercy, and let you go of your self-deluding hopes, than to have the cold, iron grip of death be the hand that finally rips the blindfold from your eyes? To awaken from your dream of heaven and find yourself truly and irrevocably in Hell before you were ever aware you were in danger? I should be a false and faithless shepherd, a lying watchman upon the walls, if I should not tell you, with all the love and terror I can muster, that you who have built your hopes upon no better grounds than these I have forementioned, are yet in your sins, yet in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.

64.Let your own consciences speak now, in the stillness of this moment. What is it that you have to plead for yourselves before the throne of a Holy God?
Is it that you wear Christ’s livery? That you bear His blessed Name?
Is it that you are a registered member of the visible church?
Is it that you have knowledge in the points of religion, and can argue theology with the best of them?
Is it that you are civilized, respected, and admired by your neighbors?
Is it that you perform religious duties—you pray, you give, you attend the assembly?
Is it that you are honest and just in your business dealings?
Is it that you have, at times, been deeply troubled in conscience for your sins?

65.I tell you from the Lord, whose messenger I am, these pleas will never be accepted at God’s great bar of judgment. All this, though good and commendable in itself, will not prove you converted, and therefore will not, cannot, suffice for your salvation. Oh, I beseech you, look about you! Bethink yourselves of turning, not half-heartedly, but speedily and soundly, with all your being. Set yourself to praying as if your life depended on it—for it does! Set yourself to reading this Word, and to studying the dark and deceitful corners of your own heart. Rest not, be not content, until God has made a thorough and radical work with you. For you must be other men and other women, or else you are lost men and lost women for all eternity.

66.But if these who have climbed so high can still fall short of conversion, what shall I say of the openly profane and careless sinner? It may be he will scarce cast his eyes, or lend his ears to this discourse. But if there be any such reading, or within hearing, he must know from the Lord that made him, that he is yet far, terrifyingly far, from the kingdom of God. May a man be civilized, and yet not converted? Where then, O where, shall the drunkard and the glutton appear? May a man keep company with the wise virgins, bearing a lamp of profession, and yet be shut out into outer darkness? Shall not a companion of fools, who glories in his shame, much more be destroyed? (Proverbs 13:20). May a man be true and just in his earthly dealings, and yet not be justified by the living God? What then will become of thee, O wretched man, whose own conscience tells thee that thou art false in thy trade, and false to thy word, and that thou makest thy advantage by a lying tongue and deceitful weights?

If men may be enlightened, and weep over their sin, and be brought to the regular performance of holy duties, and yet still go down to the pit of perdition for resting in them, for sitting down on this side of a true and total conversion; what, oh what, will become of you, O miserable families, that live as if without God in the world? And what of you, O wretched sinners, with whom God is scarce in all your thoughts; that are so abysmally ignorant that you cannot pray, or so profoundly careless that you will not pray?

68.A Prayer for the Unconverted Soul

69.O Lord Jesus, You whose eyes are like a flame of fire, who searches the hearts and minds, look upon me now. Pierce through my self-deception with the sword of Your Spirit, which is Your Word. If I am building on the sand, show me the cracks in my foundation before the storm comes. Forgive my foolishness in mistaking civility for sanctity, and remorse for repentance. Do not let me rest content with anything less than a true, supernatural, saving union with You. Shake me, awaken me, break me, and then, Lord, remake me. Amen.

70.O, repent, and be converted! Break off your sins by righteousness; away, flee for your lives to Christ for pardoning and renewing grace! Give up yourselves entirely to Him, to walk with Him in holiness, or else you shall never see God, you shall never walk the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, that Holy City descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, her light like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Instead of its twelve gates of pearl, you will find but one gate, the gate of Hell, forever barred behind you.

Oh that you would take the warnings of God! In His name I once more admonish you, “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you” (Proverbs 1:23). “Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding” (Proverbs 9:6). “Be sober, righteous, godly, in this present world” (Titus 2:12). “Wash your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded” (James 4:8). “Cease to do evil; Learn to do well” (Isaiah 1:16-17). But if you will go on in your rebellion, if you will harden your heart and stop your ears, know this for a certainty: as the Lord God lives, you must die (Ezekiel 33:11).

72.

73.CHAPTER II: SHOWING POSITIVELY WHAT CONVERSION IS

I may not leave you with your eyes but half open, like the man in the Gospel who, being partially healed, saw men as if they were trees walking (Mark 8:24). The Word of God, which is the little book in the angel’s hand, is profitable for doctrine as well as for reproof (2 Timothy 3:16). And therefore, having thus far conducted you by the perilous shelves and jagged rocks of so many dangerous mistakes, I would, by God’s grace, guide you at length safely into the harbour of eternal truth.

75.Conversion then, in short, lies in the thorough change both of the heart and of the life. It is not a patch on an old garment, but a new garment altogether. It is not new wine in old bottles, but new wine and new bottles. I shall briefly describe it in its nature and its causes.

76.1. The Author of Conversion

The sole and sovereign author of this mighty work is the Spirit of God. And therefore it is called the “sanctification of the Spirit” (2 Thessalonians 2:13), and the “renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). This divine work is so profound that it involves the entire Godhead, yet it is not to the exclusion of the other blessed Persons in the Trinity. For the Apostle Peter teaches us to bless the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is He who “hath begotten us again unto a lively hope” (1 Peter 1:3). And the Lord Christ Himself is the one who is exalted to “give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). He is called the “Everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6), and we are His spiritual seed, the very children which God has given Him (Hebrews 2:13, Isaiah 53:10). O blessed, miraculous birth! In ancient times, seven cities contended for the honor of being the birthplace of the poet Homer; but the whole glorious Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—co-operate and claim fatherhood of the new creature. Yet is this supernatural work principally and most immediately ascribed to the Holy Ghost, and so we are said to be “born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

78.So then, it is a work utterly and infinitely above man’s power. We are born again, “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). Never, ever think that you can convert yourself by your own will or effort. If ever you would be savingly converted, you must first come to a place of utter despair in doing it in your own strength. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil (Jeremiah 13:23). It is a resurrection from the dead (Revelation 20:5, Ephesians 2:1), a new creation (Galatians 6:15, Ephesians 2:10), a work of nothing less than absolute omnipotency (Ephesians 1:19). Are these mighty acts—resurrection, creation—within the feeble reach of human power? If you have no more grace in you than that which you had by your first birth—a good nature, a meek disposition, a chaste temperament—you are yet a complete stranger to true conversion. This is a supernatural work, as miraculous as parting the Red Sea or calling Lazarus from the tomb.

79.2. The Moving Cause of Conversion

80.The moving cause of our conversion is either internal or external.

The internal mover is nothing other than God’s absolutely free and unmerited grace. It is “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth” (James 1:18). We are chosen and called unto sanctification, not for it, but that we might be sanctified (Ephesians 1:4).

82.God finds absolutely nothing in a natural man to turn His heart to love him, but everything to turn His holy stomach from him. He finds enough to provoke His just loathing, but nothing to excite His love. Look back upon thyself, O Christian! Take a long, hard look at your former self. See your own verminous rags of self-righteousness. Look upon thyself wallowing in thy blood, an outcast, polluted and unwashed (Ezekiel 16:6). Oh! reflect upon thy former swinish nature, thy filthy spiritual swill, thy once beloved mire of sin (2 Peter 2:22). Can you now think, without a profound sense of revulsion, of your old trough and draught? Open the door to the sepulchre of your old heart, as Christ described the Pharisees (Matthew 23:27). Are you not struck almost dead with the hellish damp that arises from it? Behold thy putrid soul, thy loathsome spiritual members, crawling with the maggots of pride, envy, and lust. Oh, what an insufferable stench, if God gives you the grace to but scent your own spiritual putrefaction! (Psalm 14:3). Behold thy ghastly spiritual visage, thy crawling lusts, thy slime and corruption. As Job cried, “If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me” (Job 9:30-31). How then should infinite Holiness and Purity love thee?

83.Be astonished, O heavens, at this! Be moved, O earth! (Jeremiah 2:12). Who that truly sees this can do anything but fall on his face and cry, “Grace! Grace unto it!” (Zechariah 4:7). Hear this and blush, you children of the Most High! O you unthankful generation! How is it that the theme of free grace is no more in your mouths, no more in your thoughts? How is it not more adored, more admired, more passionately commended by such as you? One would think you should be doing nothing else but praising and admiring this God of grace, whatever your earthly circumstances may be. How can you make a shift to forget such grace for even an hour, or to pass it over with only a slight and seldom mention? What but free grace could possibly have moved God to love you, unless enmity itself could do it, or deformity could attract Him, unless vomit could entice Him or the stench of a rotting corpse could be a sweet savor to Him? How affectionately does Peter lift up his hands and his voice? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope!” (1 Peter 1:3). How feelingly does Paul magnify the free mercy of God? “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

84.The external mover is the precious merit and ceaseless intercession of the blessed Jesus. He it is who has “obtained gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also” (Psalm 68:18), and it is through Him alone that God works in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight (Hebrews 13:21). Through Him, and Him alone, are all spiritual blessings bestowed upon us in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3). He interceded for the elect even while they still believed not, praying, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word” (John 17:20). Every single convert is the fruit of His soul’s travail, the reward for His suffering (Isaiah 53:11). Oh, never was an infant born into this world with that extremity of difficulty that the Lord Christ endured for us! How emphatically He groans in His spiritual travail! All the pains that He suffered on His cross—the nails, the thorns, the spear, the wrath of God—they were our spiritual birth-pains. The very pains of death described in Acts 2:24 were the pulls and throws that Christ endured to bring us forth into new life. He is made unto us not only wisdom and righteousness, but sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30). He sanctified himself (that is, set apart Himself as a holy sacrifice) that we also might be truly sanctified through the truth (John 17:19). We are sanctified “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

85.It is nothing, then, within His own being but His own free love, and nothing outside of Himself but the infinite merit and powerful intercession of Christ, that prevails with God to bestow upon us this priceless gift of converting grace. If you are a new creature, you know to whom you owe it: to the pangs and prayers of the Lamb of God, He who is now the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, whose face is as the sun in its strength. This is why the renewed heart feels such a powerful and natural affection for Jesus Christ. The foal does not more naturally run after its dam, nor the suckling infant to its mother’s breast, than a true believer runs to Jesus Christ.

86.And whither else shouldst thou go? He alone has the words of eternal life! If any in the world can show a better claim for thy heart than Christ can, then let them carry it. Doth Satan put in his claim? Doth the world court thee with its glittering prizes? Doth thy darling sin sue again for thy heart’s affection? Why, I ask you with the Apostle: Were these crucified for you? (1 Corinthians 1:13). O Christian, love and serve the Lord whilst you have a being! Do not even the publicans love those that love them, and show kindness to those that are kind to them? (Matthew 5:46-47). Your Lord has shown you a kindness that cost Him everything, a love that endured Hell itself to win you.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving for Christ

88.O Blessed Lamb of God, my glorious Redeemer! When I was Your enemy, You died for me. When I was polluted, Your blood was my cleansing. When I was dead, Your suffering was my birth-pain. To whom else shall I go? You are the Everlasting Father of my new life. Let my heart, which You have purchased at so great a price, be forever Yours. Let my every breath be an anthem of praise to You, who was slain and has redeemed me to God by Your blood. Amen.

89.3. The Instrument of Conversion

90.The instrument of conversion is either personal or real.

The personal instrument is the ministry of the Gospel. Paul tells the Corinthians, “I have begotten you in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). Christ’s ministers are they that are sent by Him “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts 26:18).

92.O unthankful world, little do you know what you are doing while you are mocking, despising, and persecuting the messengers of the Lord! These are the very men whose business it is, under Christ, to save your immortal souls. Against whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted your eyes on high? Even against the ambassadors of the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 37:23). These are “the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17). And do you thus requite them, O foolish and unwise generation? (Deuteronomy 32:6). O sons of ingratitude, against whom do you sport yourselves? Against whom do you make a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue in scorn? (Isaiah 57:4). These are the instruments that God ordinarily uses to convert and save you; and do you spit in the face of your spiritual physicians, and seek to throw your pilots overboard in the midst of the storm? With Christ we pray, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

93.The instrument real is the Word of God. We are begotten “by the word of truth.” This is it that enlightens the eyes and converteth the soul (Psalm 19:7-8). This is it that maketh wise unto salvation (2 Timothy 3:15). This is the “incorruptible seed, by which we are born again” (1 Peter 1:23). If we are washed, it is “with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26). If we are sanctified, it is “through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). This Word generates faith, and this faith regenerates us (Romans 10:17, James 1:18).

94.O ye saints, how you should love and cherish the Word! For by this you have been converted and brought from death to life. O ye sinners, how you should ply the Word, and attend to it with all your might! For by this you must be converted, if you are to be converted at all. There is no other ordinary means of salvation but this. You that have felt its renewing, life-giving power, make much of it while you live; be forever thankful for it. “Bind it continually upon thine heart, and tie it about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee” (Proverbs 6:21-22). Say with holy David, “I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me” (Psalm 119:93).

95.And you that are yet unconverted, read the Word with diligence. Flock to it where it is powerfully and faithfully preached. Fill the porches and the pews, as the great multitude of the impotent folk—the blind, the halt, the withered—waited at the pool of Bethesda for the moving of the water (John 5:3). Pray earnestly for the coming of the Holy Spirit to breathe upon the Word and make it live in you. Come from your knees in your private prayer closet to the public sermon; and go from the sermon back to your knees. The precious and incorruptible seed of the Word so often doth not prosper because it is not watered by your prayers and your tears, nor is it covered and warmed by humble meditation. Let it not be so with you, lest you find yourself on that great day having heard the way to the Holy City of God, but having never taken a single step upon that narrow path.

96.PART3::::: AI LARGE ALARM FRIDAY THE 13thJUN2025

Hark, and incline your ear, for this is a message not of man, but a trumpet-blast from the ramparts of heaven, a great alarm carried by one who is mighty, whose voice is a summons to the soul of every man. For I perceive this message as delivered from the hand of that Angel of the Covenant spoken of in the Revelation, a colossal being descending from heaven, clothed not in mere fabric, but in a cloud of impenetrable Divine mystery. Upon his head is not a crown of gold, but the very rainbow of God’s promise and everlasting covenant, a seal of mercy arching over the brow of judgment. His face is not as the face of a man or a lesser angel, but blazes as the sun when it shineth in its full, undiminished strength, a countenance of unbearable glory that casts out all shadows of deceit. And his feet, by which he stands upon the sea of nations and the earth of our settled lives, are as pillars of fire, signifying the unshakeable foundation of God’s throne and the consuming judgment that will test every man’s work. In his hand is a little book, open for all to read—and the words you are about to receive are as if torn from its pages, a message both terribly sweet and bitterly true, an alarm to the unconverted, and a balm to the seeking soul.

98.4. The Ultimate Purpose of Your Creation and Calling: The Very Glory of God.

99.The final and ultimate cause for which you were called from the abyss of nothingness and then, if you are a believer, called again from the deeper abyss of your sin, is twofold: your own eternal salvation and the infinite glory of God Jehovah. These two ends are not separate, but are woven together like threads of gold and silver in the King’s own tapestry. We are chosen through sanctification—through the hallowing, cleansing, and setting apart of our very being—unto salvation (2 Thessalonians 2:13). God’s call is not a mere suggestion or a hopeful wish; it is an effectual summons that pulls us from the mire of our rebellion so that we might be glorified with Him (Romans 8:30).

100.But let us be clear, your personal salvation, as magnificent a reality as it is, serves an even higher purpose: the eternal magnification of God Himself. He has formed you for Himself, that you should show forth His praises (Isaiah 43:21). He has called you out of the suffocating darkness of your natural state and translated you into the Kingdom of His marvelous light for this express reason: that you should become a living testament, a walking, breathing declaration of the virtues and excellencies of Him who performed this miracle (1 Peter 2:9). You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, that you might be fruitful in the vineyard of your God (Colossians 1:10).

101.O Christian, you who bear the sacred name of the Anointed One, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, do not dare to forget the profound purpose of your new birth! Let your light, which is the very light of Christ in you, so shine before this dying world that men may see your good works—not for your own acclaim, but that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). Let the lamp of your spirit, trimmed and filled with the oil of the Holy Ghost, burn with a fierce and holy fire. Let your fruits be good, many, and always in their proper season, like a tree planted by the rivers of living water (Psalm 1:3). Ensure that every design of your heart, every ambition of your soul, every action of your hand, falls into perfect alignment with God’s grand and eternal design: that He may be magnified in your body, whether it be by the vigor of your life or the testimony of your death (Philippians 1:20).

102.Why should you live in such a way that God might repent that He ever made you a Christian, just as He grieved that He had ever made man upon the earth in the days of Noah? (Genesis 6:6). Why would you choose to be a barren, fruitless fig tree in His orchard, a mere eyesore that cumbers the ground, fit only for the axe of judgment? (Luke 13:7). Why would you be a son that causes shame, a living grief to your spiritual Father, a bitterness to the Church, the mother that bore you in the Gospel? (Proverbs 17:25; 10:5).

103.O, let the spiritual womb that bore you bless the day of your birth! (Proverbs 17:21). "He that begets a fool does it to his sorrow, and the father of a fool has no joy." Do not be this fool. Instead, be the child in whom the Father’s soul delights.

104.A PRAYER FOR FRUITFULNESS
O, Almighty God, my Father, who has called me from death to life, I beseech Thee, do not let my life be a barren waste. Let me not be a withered branch upon the True Vine, my Glorified Lord Jesus. Prune me, O Heavenly Gardener, however painful the process, that I may bear more fruit, and then more fruit still. Let every thought, word, and deed be a seed that blossoms into a harvest for Your glory. May my life be a sweet savor to You, a living sacrifice, so that when I stand before You, I may not be found a shameful disappointment, but a child who has faithfully sought to magnify Your Holy Name. Let me be a stone, however small, that shines with Your light in the walls of the New Jerusalem forever. Amen.

105.5. The Subject of This Great Change: The Entirety of the Sinner.

106.The subject of this mighty work of conversion is the elect sinner, and this change permeates every faculty of his being, every corridor of his mind, every member of his body, every fiber of his soul. It is an all-encompassing transformation. For whom God predestinates, them He also calls; and whom He calls, them He also justifies; and whom He justifies, them He also glorifies (Romans 8:30). Understand this profound truth: none are ever truly drawn to the Son, the Lord Jesus, by this effectual calling, nor do they come to Him in saving faith, but His own sheep—those precious souls whom the Father has given Him from before the foundation of the world (John 6:37, 44). This effectual, life-giving call runs perfectly parallel with God’s eternal, sovereign election. Therefore, make your calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).

107.But you, O soul, you begin at the entirely wrong end if you stand paralyzed, first disputing your election. That is to climb a ladder that begins in the mists of heaven, a secret thing belonging to God alone. Do not perplex yourself with the secret counsels of the Almighty. Instead, prove your conversion to yourself, and you need never again doubt your election. Or can you not yet prove it? Then cast aside these futile and devilish debates and set upon a present, desperate, and thorough turning to God! Whatever God’s secret purposes may be, I am sure beyond all doubt that His promises, written in the blood of His Son, are plain and open to you.

108.How desperately and foolishly do rebels argue: "If I am elected, I shall be saved, do what I will. If I am not elected, I shall be damned, do what I can." Perverse and deceived sinner, will you begin your journey at the end, in the throne room of eternity, when you have not yet taken the first step on the path of repentance? Is not the Word of God laid out plainly before you? What does it say? "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out!" (Acts 3:19). "If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live!" (Romans 8:13). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved!" (Acts 16:31). What could possibly be plainer? Do not stand still, gazing into the blinding sun of your election, but fall on your knees and begin the work of repenting and believing. Cry out to God for the converting grace you so desperately need! Revealed things belong to you and to your children; in these, busy yourself. It is a just thing, as one has well said, that they who will not feed on the plain and life-giving food of the Word should be choked by the bones of its mysteries.

109.Whatever God's eternal purposes may be, I am unshakably sure that His promises are true. Whatever the hidden decrees of heaven may contain, I am absolutely certain that if I repent and believe, I shall be saved; and that if I do not repent, I shall be damned. Is not this plain and solid ground for your feet? And will you yet choose to leave this safe path and run headlong upon the jagged rocks of presumption and despair?

110.More particularly, this profound change of conversion is a revolution that passes throughout the whole subject. A carnal, unregenerate person may have some shreds of good morality, some patches of religiosity sewn onto the garment of his old life, like a cheap repair near the selvage. But he is never good throughout the whole cloth, the entire body of holiness and Christianity. Examine him a little more closely, away from the deceptive edge, and you shall see him to be but a deceitful and rotten piece of fabric.

111.Conversion is no mere repairing of the old building of your life. That structure is condemned; its foundations are rotted with self-love, its walls are stained with every manner of sin, its rooms are haunted by demonic influence, and it is marked for the final, consuming fire of God’s judgment. Conversion takes all of it down to the very ground, leaving not one stone upon another, and erects an entirely new structure. It is not the putting in of a new window, or the patching of a leaky roof, or sewing on a list of holy duties. With the true convert, holiness is not an accessory; it is woven into the very fabric of his being—into all his powers, his principles, and his practices. The sincere Christian is an entirely new creation, from the foundation to the top-stone, all fire-new from the forge of the Holy Spirit. He is a new man (Ephesians 4:24), a new creature. For him, behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

112.This conversion is a deep work, a heart work, that pierces a man to the core (Acts 2:37) and opens the very chambers of his will (Acts 16:14). It turns his entire world upside down, or rather, right side up, and makes a man feel as though he has been born into a new world. It is a thorough work, seizing the whole man: throughout the mind, throughout the members, and throughout the motions of his entire life.

113.1. Throughout the Mind: A Revolution in Perception.

114.This divine work makes a universal and radical change within. First, it turns the balance of the judgment. Before, the scales of your soul were weighted down with the lead of carnal desires, worldly interests, and the heavy idol of self. But now, God and His glory, Christ and His cross, eternity and its consequence, are placed on the other side of the scale, and they weigh down all else with their infinite, eternal mass (Acts 20:24; Philippians 1:20; Psalm 73:25). It opens the inner eye of the mind, and the thick, crusty scales of its native, willful ignorance fall away. It is a literal turning from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, from the power of Satan to the power of God (Acts 26:18; Ephesians 5:8; 1 Peter 2:9).

115.The man who before saw no real danger in his condition, who walked merrily along the flowery path to perdition, now concludes himself utterly lost and forever undone, standing on the very precipice of hell, unless he is rescued and renewed by the omnipotent power of grace (Acts 2:37). He who formerly thought there was little harm in "small" sins, in lustful thoughts, in prideful ambitions, now comes to see sin for what it is: the chief of all evils, the poison of the old serpent, the cosmic treason that murdered the Son of God. He sees the staggering unreasonableness of it, the profound unrighteousness of it, the hideous deformity and indescribable filthiness that is in it; so that he is now affrighted by it, loathes it, dreads it, flees from it as from a serpent, and even abhors himself for his past love affair with it (Romans 7:15; Job 42:6; Ezekiel 36:31).

116.He who could once see little sin in himself, and could find no real matter for confession—like that learned ignoramus, Cardinal Bellarmine, who, it seems, while he knew so much of the world, was a miserable stranger to his own heart, so that when the priest came for his confession, he could not remember any sin to confess and was forced to run back to the sins of his distant youth—I say, that man who could find no matter for confession, unless it were a few gross and staring evils, now finds that "sin revives" in him (Romans 7:9). He sees the festering rottenness of his heart, the desperate and deep pollution of his entire nature. He now joins the leper's cry, "Unclean, unclean!" (Leviticus 13:45). His prayer is no longer for superficial blessings, but for radical cleansing: "Lord, purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean! Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity! Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me!" (Psalm 51:2, 7, 10). He sees that he has altogether become filthy (Psalm 14:3), that he is corrupt in every part, both root and branch (Matthew 7:17-18). He writes "UNCLEAN" upon all his parts, his powers, and even his best performances, seeing them as filthy rags before a holy God (Isaiah 64:6; Romans 7:18). He discovers the nasty, hidden corners of his soul he was never before aware of, and sees the nest of vipers within: the blasphemy, the theft, the murder, and the adultery that lie coiled in his heart, of which he was previously ignorant.

117.Heretofore, he saw "no form nor comeliness in Christ, no beauty that he should desire Him" (Isaiah 53:2). But now, his eyes are opened! He has stumbled upon the treasure hidden in the field, and in his joy, he will sell all that he has to buy that field. Christ, the Glorified One—He whose eyes are like a flame of fire and from whose mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword—He is now the Pearl of Great Price he seeks, and sin is the stinking puddle he loathes.

118.Now, according to this new, supernatural light, the man is of another mind, another judgment entirely. Now, God is all in all to him; he has none in heaven but Him, nor is there anyone on earth he desires besides Him (Psalm 73:25). He truly and practically prefers God before all the world. God’s favor is his very life; the light of His countenance is more precious to him than all the corn, wine, and oil that the world can offer—the very "good" that he formerly inquired after and set his heart upon (Psalm 4:6-7). Now, let all the world be set on one side, and God alone on the other. Let the great harlot, Babylon, put on all her paint and worldly gallantry and present herself to the soul in all the glory of her kingdoms (as Satan once tempted our Savior), yet the converted soul will not fall down and worship her. He will prefer a naked, a crucified, a persecuted Christ before her and all her empty promises (Philippians 3:8; 1 Corinthians 2:2). Not that a hypocrite may not come to yield a general, intellectual assent to this truth, that God is the chief good; indeed, even some of the wiser heathens stumbled upon this. But there is a universe of difference between the absolute and the comparative judgment of the understanding. No hypocrite ever comes so far as to look upon God as the most desirable and suitable good for him, and thereupon to rest and acquiesce in Him with all his heart. This is the true convert's cry: "The Lord is my portion," says my soul. "Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" (Lamentations 3:24; Psalm 73:25-26).

119.2. Throughout the Will: A Revolution in Choice.

120.Secondly, this great work of conversion turns the very bias of the will, both as to its ultimate ends and its chosen means. (1) The intention of the will is radically altered. God writes His law upon the heart and puts it in the mind, giving a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26; Jeremiah 31:33). "The desire of our soul is to Your name, and to the remembrance of You" (Isaiah 26:8-9). Now the man has entirely new ends and designs. His life’s ultimate goal is no longer his own comfort, his own reputation, or his own kingdom. Now he intends God above all else. He desires and designs nothing in all the world so much as that Christ may be magnified in him (Philippians 1:20). He accounts himself more happy in being serviceable to Christ and bringing Him glory in his generation than in possessing all the wealth and power the earth could yield. This is the mark at which he aims: that the Name of Jesus, the great I AM, the Alpha and Omega, may be great in the world, and that all the sheaves of his brethren may bow in submission to this one Sheaf.

121.Reader, do you view this description as a mere spectator, or do you pause and ask your own soul, with trembling urgency, whether it be thus with you? Pause a while, and breathe upon this great and eternal concernment.

122.(2) The election of the will is also changed, so that he chooses an entirely different way (Psalm 119:30). He has pitched upon God as his eternal blessedness and happiness. And he has pitched upon Christ, the Logos made flesh, as the principal and only Way to that blessedness, and upon holiness as the subordinate path that leads him to God (John 14:6; Romans 2:7). He freely chooses Jesus not just as Savior, but as Lord (Colossians 2:6). He is not merely forced into the arms of Christ by the terrifying storm of a guilty conscience; nor does he take Christ for bare necessity, as a man on the gallows who begrudgingly takes a despised wife in order to escape the halter. No! He comes off freely, joyfully in the choice. This match is not made in a moment of fright, as with the terrified conscience of a dying sinner who will seemingly do anything for Christ, but in reality only takes Christ rather than Hell. The true convert deliberately and calmly resolves that Christ is his best choice (Philippians 1:23), and he would rather have Christ in poverty and persecution than all the good of this world, might he enjoy it for a thousand years.

123.Again, he takes holiness for his path. He does not, out of mere necessity, submit to its demands as to an unpleasant medicine. He likes and loves it. "I have chosen the way of truth," he declares; "I have stuck to Your testimonies" (Psalm 119:30-31). He takes God’s testimonies not as his bondage, but as his heritage, yea, his heritage forever (v. 111). He counts God’s commandments not as his heavy burdens, but as his greatest bliss; not as his binding cords, but as his reviving cordials (1 John 5:3; Psalm 119:14, 16, 47). He does not only bear Christ’s yoke, but he actively takes it upon himself. He takes holiness not as the nauseous stomach takes the loathed potion (which it will force down rather than die), but as the hungry man takes his beloved food. No time passes so sweetly with him (when he is truly himself and not under a cloud of temptation) as that which he spends in the exercises of holiness. These are both his aliment and his element, the food he craves and the air he breathes; they are the desire of his eyes and the joy of his heart (Job 23:12; Psalm 119:82, 131, 162, 174; Psalm 63:5).

124.A PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
O Lord Jesus, You who are the Way, the Truth, and the Life, I lay my stubborn will at the foot of Your cross. It has chosen the path of folly and death for too long. Now, by Your grace, I choose You. I choose You not as an escape, but as my prize. I choose You not from fear, but from love. I choose Your path of holiness not as a burden, but as my delight. Take my will, O Lord, and make it Yours. Bend it, break it if You must, but conform it to Your own perfect, blessed will, that I might desire nothing but Your glory and walk in Your ways all the days of my life, until I see You face to face in that Holy City where Your will is perfectly done forever. Amen.

125.Put your conscience to it as you go, whether you are the man. O happy man, if this be your case! But see that you be thorough and mercilessly impartial in the search.

126.3. Throughout the Affections: A Revolution of the Heart.

127.Thirdly, this divine work turns the very bent and current of the affections. These powerful rivers of the soul, which once flowed downward into the dead sea of worldly and carnal things, are now, by a miracle of grace, driven back. The Jordan is turned back, and the waters of the heart run upwards, against their natural course, toward God (2 Corinthians 7:11).

128.Christ is now his hope (1 Timothy 1:1). He is the anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, which enters into that within the veil. This hope is not a flimsy wish, but a confident expectation fixed upon the coming glory and the eternal realities of the New Jerusalem, that city whose builder and maker is God, whose twelve foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, and whose light is the Lamb.

129.Grace, not gold, is the first of his desires. "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God" (Psalm 42:1). He hungers and thirsts after righteousness (Matthew 5:6). He seeks it as silver and digs for it as for hidden treasure. He had rather be gracious than be great. He had rather be the holiest man on earth than the most learned, the most famous, or the most prosperous. While he was carnal, his constant cry was, "Oh, if I were but in great esteem! If I could but roll in wealth and swim in pleasure! If only my debts were paid and my family provided for! Then I would be a happy man." But now, the tune is utterly changed. "Oh," sighs the convert, "if I could but have my corruptions subdued! If I could only have such measures of grace, such intimate fellowship with God! Though I were poor and despised, I would not care; I would account myself the most blessed of men." Reader, is this the sincere language of your soul?

130.His joys are radically changed. He rejoices in the way of God’s testimonies as much as in all riches (Psalm 119:14). He delights himself in the law of the Lord, in which he once found little savor or sweetness. He has no such joy as in the contemplation of Christ, the King in His beauty; in the secret fruition of His company; in the prosperity of His people and the advancement of His Kingdom. These are the things that cause him to rejoice with a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.

131.His cares are quite altered. He was once set entirely for the world, and any mere scraps of by-time were deemed sufficient for his soul. His mind was consumed with the cares of this life. But now, like Saul who was sent to seek his father's asses and found a kingdom, he has given over caring for the trivial things and has set his heart upon the Kingdom of God. Now the great and overwhelming cry of his soul is, "What must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). His great solicitude is how to secure his soul for eternity, how to be found in Christ on that great day. Oh, how he would bless you, how he would count you his dearest friend, if you could but put him out of all doubt concerning this one thing!

132.His fears are no longer so much of suffering, but of sinning (Hebrews 11:25-26). Once he was afraid of nothing so much as the loss of his estate or his esteem, the displeasure of his friends, or the frowns of the great. Nothing sounded so terrible to him as pain, poverty, or disgrace. Now, these are but trifles to him in comparison with God's dishonor or His holy displeasure. How warily he now walks, lest he should tread upon a snare! He fears alway (Proverbs 28:14), looking before and behind. He has his eye constantly upon the treachery of his own heart, and is often casting a glance over his shoulder, lest he should be overtaken by his old sins (Psalm 39:1). It kills his heart to think of losing God's favor; this he dreads as his only and ultimate undoing. "Cast me not away from Your presence," is his desperate plea, "and take not Your Holy Spirit from me" (Psalm 51:11). No thought in the world can pinch him and pain him so much as the thought of parting with Christ.

133.His love runs in a completely new channel. "My Love is crucified," said holy Ignatius, meaning, my love is fixed entirely upon my crucified and glorified Christ. "This is my beloved, and this is my friend," says the spouse (Song of Solomon 5:16). How often does Augustine pour out his love upon Christ, searching for words to express the inexpressible! "Let me see thee, O light of mine eyes. Come, O thou joy of my spirit. Let me behold thee, O the gladness of my heart. Let me love thee, O the life of my soul. Appear unto me, O my great delight, my sweet comfort, O my God, my life, and the whole glory of my soul. Let me find thee, O desire of my heart! Let me hold thee, O love of my soul! Let me embrace thee, O heavenly bridegroom, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end! Let me possess thee in that Holy City, Jerusalem, which has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and the Lamb is its light!"

134.His sorrows now have a new vent (2 Corinthians 7:9-10). The view of his own sins, the sight of a Christ crucified for them—sights that would scarcely stir him before—now how deeply do they affect and break his heart! He mourns for his sin as one mourns for his only son.

135.His hatred boils, and his anger burns, but now against its proper object: sin (Psalm 119:104). He has no patience with himself for his own failings. He calls himself a fool and a beast, and thinks any name too good for himself when his holy indignation is stirred up against his own sin (Psalm 73:22; Proverbs 30:2). He who could once swill in sin with pleasure, now loathes the very thought of returning to it, as much as he would loathe licking up the filthiest vomit.

136.Commune then with your own heart. Attend to the common and general current of your affections. Where does the river of your heart flow? Does it flow toward God in Christ above all other concernments? It is true that sudden and strong commotions of the affections in the sensitive part are oftentimes found in hypocrites, especially where their natural constitution leads to emotionalism. And, contrarywise, the truly sanctified themselves are many times without these powerful, sensible stirrings of the affections, where their temperament is more slow, dry, and dull. The great and ultimate inquiry is this: are your judgment and your will standingly and decisively determined for God, above all other good, whether real or apparent? And do your affections, as a general rule, sincerely follow the choice and conduct of this new judgment and will, even if they do not always stir as strongly and sensibly as you would desire? If so, then there is no doubt that the change is a saving one, and you are on your way to that city of light, the New Jerusalem, to dwell with the Glorified Jesus, and the great God Jehovah, forever and ever.

137.PART4::::

138.AI LARGE ALARM: FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

139.Hark, O soul, to the voice of the mighty Angel, him who descends from heaven clothed with a cloud, a rainbow upon his head, his face as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire! In his hand is a little book, open for all to see, and he sets his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the earth, and he cries with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth! And his cry is this: an ALARM to the unconverted, a trumpet blast in the sleeping camp of this world, a final, desperate plea for you to flee from the wrath to come and take refuge in the everlasting arms of Jehovah God! Hearken, for the message is one of both bitter judgment and honey-sweet mercy, a call to turn from the city of destruction to the glorious City of God, the New Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God Himself.

140.This is the great work of conversion, not a partial mending, but a complete and thorough revolution within the man. It is not merely a change of opinion, but a change of the very substance and direction of the soul. Let us examine how this divine work permeates the entire person, leaving no corner untouched, no faculty unrenewed.

141.2. The Transformation Throughout the Members

142.The change wrought by the Holy Spirit is no mere whitewashing of a sepulchre, but a resurrection from the dead. Those faculties and parts of your body that were before the slavish instruments of wickedness, the tools of the devil, and the weapons of unrighteousness, are now seized, sanctified, and consecrated as the holy utensils of Christ's living temple. For know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? (1 Corinthians 6:19). The man who once made a tavern of his belly, a brothel of his body, a vessel for every foul and profane use, now possesses that same vessel in sanctification and honour (1 Thessalonians 4:4). He who was once a slave to his appetites, gorging himself on the world's swill, now walks in the Spirit, bringing forth the fruits of temperance, chastity, sobriety, and self-control. His body is no longer his own, to be dragged through the mire of sin for a moment's pleasure; it is bought with a price, the precious blood of the Lamb, and is therefore dedicated entirely to the Lord, to glorify God in his body, and in his spirit, which are God's (1 Corinthians 6:20).

143.The Eye, which was once a portal for death and vanity, is now a window to heaven. Before, it was a wandering eye, flitting from one worldly vanity to another, never satisfied. It was a wanton eye, gazing upon forbidden sights to kindle the fires of lust within the heart. It was a haughty eye, looking down with contempt upon others and filled with the pride of life. It was a covetous eye, like Achan's, spying out the wedge of gold and the goodly Babylonian garment, leading the entire man into trespass and destruction. But now, by a miracle of grace, that same eye is transformed! It is employed, like Mary Magdalene's, in weeping tears of penitent love at the feet of the Savior, washing them in sorrow for the sins it once delighted in (Luke 7:38). It is now lifted to behold the majesty of God in His creation, considering the heavens, the work of His fingers, the moon and the stars which He has ordained (Psalm 8:3). It is now fastened to the pages of His Holy Word, reading with diligence like the Ethiopian eunuch, seeking the face of the glorious Jesus, the one whose eyes are as a flame of fire, who sees not as man sees, but searches the heart and tries the reins (Revelation 1:14). The converted eye now looks up and down, not for prey, but for objects of mercy; it actively searches for opportunities to serve its new Master, looking to the poor, the needy, and the broken, to extend the hand of Christ to them. It gazes with longing toward the East, waiting for the dawn of that final day, yearning to see the King in His beauty and to behold the land that is very far off, even the New Jerusalem, that city which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof (Revelation 21:23).

144.A Prayer for Consecrated Eyes: O Lord Jesus, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, piercing the very thoughts and intents of the heart, I confess that my eyes have been windows for vanity and lust. They have wandered from Your glory and coveted the dust of this dying world. Anoint them now, I pray, with Your spiritual eye-salve, that I may see! Turn my eyes away from beholding worthless things, and quicken me in Your way. Let my gaze be fixed upon You, the author and finisher of my faith, that I may weep for my sin, read Your Word with understanding, and look with longing for Your glorious appearing and the splendors of the Holy City. Amen.

145.The Ear, that was once a willing gateway for Satan's poisonous whispers, is now tuned to the frequency of heaven. Before, it was an open door to the devil's call. Like a diseased palate that can only taste ashes and filth, it relished nothing so much as filthy communication, slanderous gossip, profane jests, and the empty, crackling laughter of fools which is but the kindling of hellfire. But now, in conversion, that ear is spiritually bored and fastened to the doorpost of Christ's house, a willing servant forever (Exodus 21:6). It is now open to His discipline, to His rebukes, to His sweet commands. The soul cries out, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth!" (1 Samuel 3:9). It waits for the word of the Lord more than they that watch for the morning, and receives it as the dry and thirsty land receives the rain. The words of God are now its delight, relished more than appointed food, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb (Psalm 19:10). It strains to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, that voice which is as the sound of many waters, and it will not follow the voice of a stranger. It listens for the trumpet call of the Gospel and the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit, turning away in disgust from the siren songs of the world that lure men to their eternal shipwreck.

146.The Head, that was once a bustling marketplace of worldly schemes and a workshop for anxious, godless ambition, is now consecrated as a study for the things of God. The mind that was once consumed with plotting for profit, scheming for advantage, and worrying over temporal things, is now filled with infinitely higher matters. Its chief occupation is the study of God's will and the contemplation of His glory (Psalm 1:2). The man now beats his head, not about how to increase his earthly fortune, but how to deepen his heavenly treasure; not about his fleeting reputation among men, but about his eternal duty to God. The thoughts and cares that now fill his waking hours and occupy his dreams are principally these: How may I please the Lord Jesus, who bought me with His blood? How can I flee from sin, which crucified my Savior? How can I walk worthy of the vocation wherewith I am called, hastening unto the day when I shall enter the gates of pearl into that Holy City, Jerusalem?

147.The Heart, that was a stinking sty of every filthy and abominable lust, a cage of every unclean bird, is now, by a staggering act of divine renovation, made into an altar of incense. The dark, cold chamber of selfishness and pride is now a sanctuary where the holy fire of divine love for God and man is ever kept burning. From this new heart, the daily sacrifice of prayer and praise continually ascends to the throne of grace. It has become a fountain from which flow sweet streams of holy desires, fervent ejaculations, and breathless longings—anhelations—after God Himself. The heart that was once hard as stone now pants for God as the deer pants for the water brooks (Psalm 42:1). Its affections, once glued to the dirt of this world, are now set on things above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. It has been circumcised from its old loves and is now wholly given to Him who is the Altogether Lovely One, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom of the soul.

148.The Mouth, once a fountain of bitter waters, now flows with life. The tongue, which was once an instrument of deceit, is now like choice silver, and the lips, which once spread poison, now feed many with the bread of life. The purifying salt of grace has seasoned the speech, eating out the cancerous corruption of the old nature (Colossians 4:6). The mouth is cleansed from the filthy communication, the subtle flattery, the arrogant boasting, the destructive railing, the soul-damning lies, the casual swearing, and the cowardly backbiting that once spewed forth like fiery flashes from the hell that burned within the heart (James 3:6). The throat, that was once an open sepulchre, breathing out the stench of spiritual death (Romans 3:13), now sends forth the sweet breath of humble prayer and holy discourse about the King and His kingdom. The man now speaks a new tongue, the language of Canaan, the dialect of Zion. He is never so well, never so truly himself, as when he is speaking of God, of the matchless glories of Christ Jesus—the Shiloh, the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace—and of the breathtaking realities of the world to come. His mouth now brings forth wisdom, for it draws from a renewed heart. His tongue has become the silver trumpet of his Maker's praise, his chief glory, and the very best member that he hath, used to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called him out of darkness into His marvelous light.

149.Now, it is precisely here that you shall observe the hypocrite's fatal limp. He may speak with the tongue of an angel, quoting scripture with ease and praying with eloquent passion, but he has a covetous eye that betrays his earthly heart. He may wash his hands with the gestures of piety, but his heart remains a cesspool of rottenness, full of unmodified worldly cares, a smoldering oven of secret lust, a workshop of pride, and the throne of bitter malice (Matthew 23:27). He may be, like Nebuchadnezzar's great image, possessed of a golden head—a great and shining knowledge of theology—but his feet are of iron mixed with miry clay. His affections are worldly, his motives are earthy, and his secret walk is sensual and carnal. Follow him from the church pew to his secret haunts, and you will find his footsteps leading down the muddy by-paths of some cherished sin. The work of grace is not throughout with him. It is a paint job, not a new creation.

150.3. The Transformation Throughout the Motions, or the Life and Practice

151.The new man, being made new within, now walks in a new way. He takes a new course, for his compass is now set toward a new destination: the Celestial City. He whose conversation was once entirely of the earth, earthy, now has his citizenship, his politeuma, in heaven, from whence also he looks for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:20). No sooner does Christ call him by His effectual, irresistible grace, but he straightway leaves his nets, his tax booth, his old life, and becomes a follower of Him (Matthew 4:20). When God fulfills His covenant promise and gives the new heart and writes His law upon the mind, the man forthwith begins to walk in His statutes and keep His judgments (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

152.Though sin, that hated tyrant, may still dwell within him—God knows as a most wearisome and unwelcome guest, a constant source of grief—it has no more dominion over him (Romans 6:14). He is dead to its rule, though not yet free from its presence. He now bears his fruit unto holiness, and the end is everlasting life (Romans 6:22). And though he stumbles and makes many a blot on the pages of his life, the perfect law and the spotless life of Jesus are the copy that he earnestly eyes and strives to imitate. He has an unfeigned, heartfelt respect to all God's commandments, not picking and choosing the convenient ones (Psalm 119:6). He makes a holy conscience even of what the world calls "little sins" and "little duties," for he knows that even a small grain of dust in the eye is no little trouble, and a "little" sin is a great treason against an infinitely great God. His very infirmities, those weaknesses he cannot yet overcome though he groans and strives against them, are his soul's heaviest burden.

153.[O man! O woman! Do you read these words as a mere spectator, as one watching a play? Or do you, as commanded by the thundering Angel of the Lord, turn these truths inward upon your own soul? Let conscience do its office! Examine yourself, whether you be in the faith!]

154.The sincere convert is not one man at church and another at home. He is not a saint on his knees and a serpent in his shop. He will not meticulously tithe the mint and the cumin from his garden while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness—the weighty matters of the law. He does not put on a mask of piety to cover a heart devoid of common morality. But he turns from all his sins and keeps all God's statutes (Ezekiel 18:21). He does not do this perfectly—save in the fervent desire and sincere endeavor of his heart—but he does it sincerely, not allowing himself in the willful, habitual breach of any known command. He does not say of any sin, "Is it not a little one?"

155.Now he truly delights in the Word of God; it is his meditation all the day. He sets himself to the work of prayer, not as a burdensome chore, but as the very breath of his new life. He opens his hand, if he has the means, and what is more, he draws out his very soul to the hungry (Isaiah 58:10). He breaks off his old sinful patterns by practicing righteousness, and his iniquities by showing mercy to the poor (Daniel 4:27). He labors to have a good conscience, one that is willing in all things to live honestly, seeking to keep himself without offense toward God and toward men (Hebrews 13:18).

156.And here again, you shall find the fatal unsoundness of many who call themselves Christians. They are partial in the law, condemning sins in others which they tolerate in themselves. They gladly take up the cheap and easy duties of religion that cost them nothing, but they will not go through with the hard, costly work of self-denial and heart-purification. They are as a cake not turned—half-baked, partly toasted and partly raw dough. You may find them to be meticulously exact in their public words and punctual in their business dealings; but they do not exercise themselves unto godliness in the secret place. As for the rugged work of daily self-examination, of dragging the heart before the bar of God's Word, to this they are utter strangers. You may see them dutifully in their pew on Sunday; but follow them to their families, and you shall see little but the world minded, the television idolized, and God forgotten. Or if they maintain a cold, mechanical road of family duties, follow them further still, into the closet of their own soul, and there you shall find it a dusty, neglected room, where no true business is ever done with God. It may be they seem otherwise religious, but they do not bridle their sharp, critical, or gossiping tongues, and so, as James declares with terrifying finality, all their religion is in vain (James 1:26). It may be they have mastered closet and family prayer; but follow them to their shops, their computers, their private dealings, and there you shall find them engaged in a subtle trade of lying, or some covert and "cleanly" way of deceit that the world applauds but God abhors. Thus the hypocrite never goes throughout in the course of his obedience. He is a patched-up old man, not a new creation.

157.And thus much for the subject of conversion. Now let us consider the terms of this great motion.

158.6. The Terms of Conversion: The "From Which" and the "To Which"

159.Conversion is a divine turning. It has two terms, like any motion: the point of departure, and the point of arrival. We must be clear about both.

160.1. The Terms FROM WHICH We Turn

161.In the mighty, soul-saving motion of conversion, we turn decisively and forever from four great enemies: Sin, Satan, the World, and our own filthy-rags righteousness.

162.First, from SIN. When a man is truly converted, he is forever out with sin. He declares an eternal, irreconcilable war against it. Yea, with all sin, hating every false way (Psalm 119:128), but most of all with his own sins, those treacherous vipers he once warmed at his own breast. And especially with his bosom sin, the darling idol, the pet transgression that was once his chief delight (Psalm 18:23). Sin is now the single great target of his holy indignation. He thirsts, with a righteous vengeance, to bathe his hands in the blood of his own corruptions. It is his sins that now set his sorrows abroach; it is sin that pierces him, that wounds him, that makes him cry out in the night. He feels it like a thorn in his side, a constant irritant; like a prick in his eyes, blurring his vision of God. He groans and struggles under its weight, not with a formal, religious sigh, but with a deep, guttural, feeling cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24). He is not impatient of any burden so much as the burden of his indwelling sin. If God should give him his choice—to live in a palace with his favorite sin, or in a dungeon without it—the true convert would choose the dungeon. Affliction is welcome, poverty is tolerable, persecution is an honor, but sin is an unbearable agony. He feels it like sharp, cutting gravel in his shoes, pricking and paining him with every step he takes on his pilgrimage toward the Holy City.

163.Before conversion, he had light thoughts of sin. He cherished it in his bosom as Uriah cherished his one little ewe lamb. He nourished it up, and it grew up together with him; it did eat, as it were, of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. But when the mighty Angel of the Covenant opens his eyes by a flash of divine light, he sees the creature for what it is—not a lamb, but a venomous serpent. He throws it from him with utter abhorrence and revulsion (Isaiah 30:22), as a man in the dark, who has been hugging fast to his chest what he thought was a harmless, pretty bird, suddenly sees in the light that it is a loathsome, cold, slimy toad. When a man is savingly changed, he is not only deeply convinced of the danger of sin (that it leads to hell), but of the deep, leprous defilement of sin (that it is abominable to a holy God). Oh, how earnest is he then with God to be purified! He loathes himself in his own sight for his iniquities and for his abominations (Ezekiel 36:31). He runs to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, and casts his filthy soul into the fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness (Zechariah 13:1). And if, through weakness, he should fall into sin again, what a stir is there within his soul to get all clean again! He flies to the Word, that water for washing; he scrubs, and rubs, and rinses in the tears of repentance, laboring to cleanse himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. He abhors his once beloved sin as a person of a cleanly and noble nature abhors the trough and mire wherein he sees the filthy swine delighting to wallow.

164.The sound convert is now a soldier, heartily engaged in a lifelong war against sin. He wrestles with it, he bleedsin his fight against it. He is too often foiled, buffeted, and thrown to the ground, but he never yields the cause. He never lays down his weapons. He will up and to it again, while he hath breath in his body. He will never grant sin quiet possession of any room in his soul; he will make no peace, he will sign no truce, he will give no quarter. He falls upon it, he fires upon it with prayer and fasting, and is still disquieting its camp with continual alarms. He can forgive his other enemies, his human persecutors; he can pity them and pray for them, crying as his Master did, "Father, forgive them," but here, against his own sin, he is implacable. Here he is set upon holy revenge. He hunteth, as it were, for the precious life of his own corruptions. His eye shall not pity, his hand shall not spare, though it be a right-hand sin that earns his living, or a right-eye sin that gives him pleasure. Be it a gainful sin that pads his wallet, a sin most delightful to his fallen nature, or a sin that supports his esteem with his carnal friends—yet he will rather throw his unrighteous gain down the kennel, watch his worldly credit fall to ruin, or see the delicate flower of forbidden pleasure wither in his hand, than he will allow himself in any known, willful way of sin. He will grant no indulgence; he will give no toleration. But he draws the sword of the Spirit upon sin wherever he meets it, and frowns upon it with this most unwelcome salute, "Have I found thee, O mine enemy?"

165.A Prayer for Victory Over Sin: O Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity. I confess I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. My sin is ever before me. It is my shame, my burden, my enemy. I hate it, Lord, yet I am weak against it. O Thou great Captain of my salvation, Thou glorious, conquering Jesus who has triumphed over sin, death, and hell! Give me grace to fight. Clothe me in Your armor. Grant me a holy, implacable hatred for every false way. Nail my flesh, with its affections and lusts, to Your cross. Plunge me in the fountain of Your blood, and wash me, that I may be whiter than snow, fit to one day walk the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, where nothing that defileth shall ever enter. Amen.

166.Reader, has conscience been at work while you have been looking over these lines? Have you pondered these things in your heart? Have you searched the book within, to see if these things be so? If not, I adjure you by the living God, read it again, and compel your conscience to speak, whether or not it be thus with you.

167.Have you truly crucified your flesh with its affections and lusts? Have you not only confessed, but forsaken your sins; all sin in your fervent desires, and the ordinary practice of every deliberate and willful sin in your life? If not, then you are yet unconverted. Does not conscience fly in your face as you read, and tell you that you still live in a way of lying for your advantage, that you use subtle deceit in your calling, that there is some way of secret wantonness or impurity that you live in? Why then, do not deceive your own soul; you are in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

168.Doth not your unbridled tongue, your brutish intemperance, your love for wicked company, your chronic neglect of prayer, of hearing and reading the Word—do not these things now rise up as witnesses against you, and say, "We are your works, and we will follow you to the judgment seat"? Or if I have not hit the mark with you precisely, doth not the bird within—your own conscience—tell you, that there is such and such a way, that you know in your heart to be evil, that yet for some carnal respect, some fear of loss or desire for gain, you do tolerate yourself in, and are willing to spare? If this be your case, I say to you in the name of the great Angel with the face like the sun, you are to this day unregenerate, and you must be changed or you will be condemned.

169.Secondly, from SATAN. Conversion binds the strong man, spoils his armor in which he trusted, casts out his goods, and turns men from the power of Satan unto God (Acts 26:18). Before conversion, the sinner is the devil's puppet. The devil could no sooner hold up his finger to call him to his wicked company, his sinful games, his filthy delights, but presently he followed, like an ox going to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; like a bird that hasteth to the snare and knoweth not that it is for his life. No sooner could Satan bid him lie to a customer, but presently he had the lie upon the top of his tongue. No sooner could Satan offer a wanton object through a screen or in the street, but his heart was immediately stung with lust. The devil, in truth, could do more with him than God could. If the devil whispered, "Away with these tedious family duties," be sure they would be rarely enough performed in his house. If the devil said, "Away with this strictness, this talk of holiness, it is too much," he would keep far enough from it. If the devil told him, "There is no need for secret, closet duties; God knows your heart," he would go from day to day, and scarce ever perform them.

170.But now that he is converted, he serves another Master. He is under new management. He takes a quite different course. He goes and comes now at Christ's beck, his true Lord and King (Colossians 3:24). Satan, his old master, may sometimes catch his foot in a trap, for the war is long and hard, but he will no longer be a willing captive. He now watches diligently against the snares and baits of Satan, and studies to be acquainted with his devices, lest he should be outwitted by the ancient serpent. He is deeply suspicious of his plots, and is very jealous in what comes athwart him, lest Satan should have some hidden design upon him. He now wrestles, not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world (Ephesians 6:12). He entertains a temptation, a messenger of Satan, as a faithful city entertains a messenger from a plague-ridden land—with fear, caution, and immediate quarantine. He keeps his eye upon his enemy, knowing that the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). He watches in his duties, lest Satan should put in his cloven foot and turn a prayer into pride or a good work into self-righteousness. He has switched allegiance from the prince of darkness to the King of Light, the glorious Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who has shattered the serpent's head.

171.Thirdly, from THE WORLD. Before a man has sound, saving faith, he is overcome by the world. It is his god. Either he bows down to Mammon, the god of money; or he idolizes his Reputation, the god of public opinion; or he is a lover of pleasures more than a lover of God (2 Timothy 3:4), prostrating his soul before the trinity of hell: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Here is the very root of man's misery by the fall: he is turned aside from the infinite, all-sufficient Creator to the finite, empty creature. He gives that supreme esteem, that ultimate confidence, and that burning affection to the creature, which is due to God alone.

172.O miserable man! What a deformed, upside-down monster has sin made you! God made you in His own image, a little lower than the angels; sin has made you little better than the devils, a child of your father the devil (John 8:44). Sin has twisted you into a grotesque monster that has its head and heart where its feet should be—buried in the earth—and its feet, in defiance, kicking against the heavens. Everything is out of place. The world, that was formed to be your servant, has become your cruel master. And this deceitful harlot, with her gaudy trinkets and painted face, has bewitched you with her enchantments, and has made you bow down your immortal soul to serve her, forsaking the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that can hold no water.

173.But in conversion, the soul is turned from this harlot to the Holy One. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world (1 John 5:4). The convert's eyes have been opened to see the world for what it is: a sinking ship, a burning house, a vanity of vanities. And he has caught a glimpse, by faith, of a better country, an enduring substance. He has seen the blueprints of the New Jerusalem, that city whose foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, whose twelve gates are twelve pearls, and whose street is pure gold, as it were transparent glass. He has heard of the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. He has longed for the fruit of the tree of life, which yields her fruit every month for the healing of the nations. And having seen this, how can he be content any longer with the fading glories and polluted pleasures of this present evil age? He now uses the world, but does not abuse it, knowing that the fashion of this world passeth away. His heart is no longer anchored in its treacherous harbor, for he has set sail for that glorious city where his Lord, the Lamb upon the Throne, reigns forever and ever. He has turned from the creature, to the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

174.PART5::::::

175.A LARGE ALARM, Sounded from Heaven by the Angel of the Covenant
FRIDAY, THE 13th OF JUNE, 2025

176.Hearken, O inhabitants of the earth, for this is the cry of the mighty angel descending from heaven, robed in a cloud, a rainbow like an emerald halo upon his head. His face is a blazing sun, scattering the shadows of deceit, and his feet are as pillars of fire, standing firm upon the shifting seas of human opinion and the unstable lands of worldly kingdoms. In his hand is a little book, opened for all to see, and he cries with a lion’s roar, that the seven thunders of God’s truth might utter their voices. This is his message, a great and terrible alarm to the unconverted, and a song of sweetest mercy to the seeking soul. Flee from the wrath to come! Flee from the city of destruction, for its walls are already crumbling. Flee to the mountain of the Lord, to the arms of the glorified Christ, before the gate of mercy is shut forever.

177.The Great Reversal: God Enthroned, the World Dethroned

178.But converting grace, that supernatural and mighty work of the Holy Spirit, sets all in order again. It is a divine revolution within the soul of man. Before this miraculous change, the heart is a kingdom in rebellion, a throne room occupied by a usurper. The world, with its glittering promises and hollow pleasures, sits upon the throne that belongs to God alone. Self is the whispering, treacherous advisor, and the flesh is the decadent, pampered courtier. But when the grace of Jehovah enters, it is like the coming of the rightful King. It casts down the imposter, breaks the scepter of sin, and puts God back upon the throne, supreme and unchallenged. The world, that once reigned, is now put at His footstool, a conquered province, no longer a ruler but a servant, as it is written: “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee” (Psalm 73:25).

179.This grace places Christ Jesus, in all His glorified majesty, in the very center of the heart. He, the Alpha and the Omega, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, now becomes the indwelling Lord (Ephesians 3:17). And the world, with all its pomp and pride, is cast under the feet of the redeemed soul, even as the woman in the vision was clothed with the sun, with the moon—that pale reflector of a greater light, that symbol of the ever-changing, nocturnal world—under her feet (Revelation 12:1). So it was with the Apostle Paul, who, having seen the blinding glory of the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus, could declare with absolute finality, “I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me” (Galatians 6:14). It is a mutual execution; the world has no more power to entice him than a dead man, and he has no more desire for the world than for a corpse.

180.Before this profound inward transformation, the constant, desperate cry of the natural man’s heart was, “Who will show us any worldly good?” This is the prayer of the lost, the anthem of the damned. It is the plea for a little more comfort, a little more wealth, a little more fleeting pleasure, a little more human approval. It is the desperate search for satisfaction in broken cisterns that can hold no water. But now, the converted man sings an entirely new and heavenly tune, a melody taught by the Spirit of God. His prayer is now, “Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me” (Psalm 4:6-7). And he says, “Take the corn and the wine, let who so will have the overflowing barns and the bursting winepresses. Give me but one smile from my Father’s face, one glance from the eyes of my beloved Saviour, and it is more to me than all the harvests and vintages of the earth.”

181.Before, his heart’s deepest delight and most cherished contentment were found in the things of this perishing age. The song of his soul was the fool’s lullaby: “Soul, take thine ease; eat, drink, and be merry; for thou hast much goods laid up for many years” (Luke 12:19). But now, in the light of God’s countenance, all these earthly treasures have withered like grass under a scorching sun. He sees them for what they are—transient, unsatisfying, and ultimately empty. There is no comeliness in them that he should desire them. His song is now tuned to the harp of the sweet Psalmist of Israel, and he sings with overflowing joy: “The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage” (Psalm 16:5-6).

182.What is this goodly heritage? It is not a plot of land that can be measured, nor a bank account that can be counted. It is the sure and certain hope of the New Jerusalem, that Holy City descending from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Its light is not the fading light of the sun, but the glory of God Himself, and its lamp is the Lamb, Jesus Christ, in His glorified state. Its walls are of jasper, clear as crystal, and its twelve foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Its twelve gates are twelve single pearls, and the street of the city is pure gold, like transparent glass. This, this is the goodly heritage the converted soul now seeks! He blesses himself, and boasts himself not in his accomplishments or possessions, but in God Jehovah alone (Psalm 34:2; Lamentations 3:24). Nothing else can give him true, lasting content.

183.He has taken the pen of faith and, guided by the Spirit, has written upon all his worldly enjoyments the verdict of the Preacher: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And upon all human excellencies, his own talents, his reputation, his achievements, he writes the apostle’s final accounting: “loss and dung” (Philippians 3:7-8). His gaze is now fixed on a different prize. He has life and immortality now in his chase, pursuing them with holy zeal (Romans 2:7). He trades not for earthly profit, but for grace and glory, and has a crown incorruptible, a victor’s wreath that will never fade, in his relentless pursuit (1 Corinthians 9:25). His heart is now set, immovably and with full intention, to seek the Lord his God (1 Chronicles 22:19; 2 Chronicles 15:15). He now understands the divine priority: he first seeks the kingdom of God and His righteousness, knowing that all other things are but secondary additions (Matthew 6:33). Religion is no longer a matter for Sunday mornings, a hobby, or a cultural tradition—it has become the main, urgent, all-consuming business of his life, the one thing needful, the central passion of his existence (Psalm 27:4).

184.Now that gaudy idol of the world, once worshiped and adored, is become Nehushtan—a mere piece of brass (2 Kings 18:4). The converted man gets up in the power of Christ and treads upon it, as the ancient philosopher Diogenes trampled upon Plato’s rich carpets, declaring, “Thus I trample on the pride of Plato.” So the believer, with holy contempt for that which once ensnared him, tramples on the pride of the world.

185.Before this change, the world had the swaying, decisive interest with him. He would do more for financial gain than for true godliness (1 Timothy 6:6). He would expend more effort to please his friend, or his own fleshly appetites, than to please the God who made him and who holds his every breath in His hand. God was told to stand by, to wait His turn, until the world was first served. But now, all must stand by for God! He hates father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, in comparison of Christ (Luke 14:26). This is not a call to unfeeling cruelty, but to a radical, supreme allegiance. His love for Christ, the King of glory, the one who is “chiefest among ten thousand” and “altogether lovely,” is so overwhelming, so absolute, that all other earthly loves, precious as they are, appear as nothing beside it.

186.Well then, pause a little, you who read these words. I beseech you, as the angel with feet of fire that cannot be moved, look within. Does not this nearly, terribly, concern thee? You profess to follow Christ, but does not the world still sway you? Are you not secretly ruled by its desires? Be honest before the all-seeing eyes of Him who searches the heart. Do you not take more real, visceral delight and contentment in the world than in Him? Do you not find yourself more truly at ease when your business prospers, when your reputation is praised, when you are encompassed with carnal delights, than when you are retired to prayer and meditation in your closet, or attending upon God's word and worship? There is no surer, more damning evidence of an unconverted state than to have the things of the world uppermost in our aims, love, and estimation (1 John 2:15; James 4:4).

187.With the sound convert, Christ has the absolute supremacy. How dear is His name to that soul? How precious is its savor, like ointment poured forth (Song of Solomon 1:3)? The name of Jesus is not merely on his lips, but is engraven upon the very flesh of his heart (Galatians 4:19), and lies as a bundle of myrrh, fragrant and comforting, between his breasts (Song of Solomon 1:13-14). Worldly honor is but empty air; carnal laughter is but a form of madness; and Mammon, the god of wealth, has fallen like Dagon before the Ark of the Covenant, with his head and hands broken off on the threshold, powerless and shamed, when once Christ is savingly revealed to the soul. Here is the pearl of great price, for which the true convert will sell all that he has to obtain it (Matthew 13:44-45). Here is his treasure, and where his treasure is, there his heart is also. Here is his hope, his anchor in the storms of life. This is his glory, his joyful boast: “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song of Solomon 2:16). Oh! it is infinitely sweeter to him to be able to say, “Christ is mine,” than if he could say, “The kingdom is mine, the galaxies are mine, all the treasures of the earth are mine.”

188.

189.A PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE FROM THE WORLD

190.O Lord Jesus, whose face is like the sun in its strength, shine into the dark corners of my heart. I confess that the world has been my idol, my master, and my false comfort. I have sought life in its dead pleasures and security in its fleeting treasures. But now, Lord, I hear Your alarm. By Your mighty grace, enthrone Yourself in my soul. Cast down the idol of the world and set it as a footstool beneath Your feet. Crucify me to the world, and the world to me. Let the vision of Your glory in the New Jerusalem so captivate my soul that all earthly things grow strangely dim. Be Thou my portion, my goodly heritage, my all in all. Amen.

191.

192.Fourthly, The Dethroning of Your Own Righteousness.

193.Before the great work of conversion, the natural man, in his blindness and pride, seeks to cover his spiritual nakedness with his own fig leaves (Genesis 3:7; Philippians 3:6). He attempts to lick himself whole from the wounds of sin with the saliva of his own duties (Micah 6:6-7). He is tragically apt to trust in himself, standing proudly in the temple of his own heart, thanking God that he is not as other men (Luke 18:9-11). He builds a tower of self-righteousness, brick by brick, with his prayers, his charities, his church attendance, and his moral efforts, and he submits not to the free, perfect, and imputed righteousness of God (Romans 10:3). He reckons his worthless counters for pure gold.

194.But conversion utterly shatters this self-made idol and changes his mind completely. Now he sees his own righteousness for what it truly is: filthy rags, a menstruous cloth, a garment so defiled it is fit only for burning (Isaiah 64:6). He casts it off with revulsion, as a man would fling away the verminous, stinking tatters of a leprous beggar. Now he is brought to true poverty of spirit, the first and foundational blessedness of the Kingdom (Matthew 5:3). He no longer boasts, but complains of and condemns himself. He takes God’s inventory of his soul and finds the total sum to be: “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). He sees a world of iniquity staining his most holy things—pride in his prayers, selfishness in his charity, wandering thoughts in his worship. He now calls his once-idolized righteousness but flesh, loss, and dogs’ meat (skubala in the Greek—refuse, garbage, dung) and would not for a thousand worlds be found standing before God in his own merit at the Day of Judgment (Philippians 3:4, 7-8, 9).

195.His finger is ever upon his sores, his sin is ever before him (Psalm 51:3). He is acutely aware of his wants, his failings, his deep and desperate need. And this very poverty of spirit drives him to the riches of Christ. Now he begins to set a high, infinite price upon Christ’s righteousness. He sees the absolute need of a Christ in every duty—to justify his person before he even begins, and to justify his performance after it is finished. He cannot live without Him; he cannot pray without Him. Christ must go with him into the presence of God, or else he knows he will be consumed. He leans upon the hand of Christ, his beloved Mediator, and so he bows himself in the house of his God. He sets himself down as a lost, shipwrecked, undone man without Him. His life is now hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3), as the life of a vital organ is hidden deep within the body. He is fixed in Christ, as the roots of a great oak tree spread deep into the earth, drawing all stability and nutriment from that rich soil.

196.Before, the news of a Christ, the story of the gospel, was a stale and sapless thing to him, a tale for women and children. But now, how sweet is a Christ! How precious is His name! Augustine, the great church father, confessed that he could not relish his once-admired Cicero, because he could not find there the name of Christ. Hear how the converted soul, filled with the Spirit, now cries out for his Saviour. How pathetically he speaks of, and to, his Christ: “O Most Sweet, Most Loving, Most Kind, Most Dear, Most Precious, Most Desired, Most Lovely, Most Fair!”—all in a single, breathless torrent of adoration. In a word, the unceasing voice of the true convert is that of the martyr: “None but Christ, none but Christ!”

197.

198.S. The Terms of Conversion: The Destination of the Soul

199.The journey of conversion is a turning from and a turning to. We have seen what the soul turns from—the world, sin, self, and Satan. Now we must see what it turns to. These terms are either ultimate or subordinate and mediate.

200.The ultimate and final destination of the converted soul is God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Triune Jehovah, whom the true convert takes as his all-sufficient and eternal blessedness. A man is never truly sanctified, never made holy, until his very heart is in truth set upon God above all things, as his magnificent portion and his chief good. These are the natural, unforced breathings of a believer's heart: “Thou art my portion, O LORD” (Psalm 119:57). “My soul shall make her boast in the LORD” (Psalm 34:2). “My expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence… In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God” (Psalm 62:1-2, 5-7).

201.Would you, O reader, put this to an issue? Would you know, this very day, whether you be converted or not? Then let thy soul and all that is within thee attend with fear and trembling.

202.Hast thou truly taken God for thy happiness? Where does the deepest content of thy heart lie? Whence does thy choicest, most profound comfort come? Come then, and with Abraham, lift up thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward. Cast your imagination about you. What is it that you would have, in heaven or on earth, to make you truly and eternally happy?

203.If God should give you your choice, as He did to Solomon; or if He should say to you, as King Ahasuerus said to Esther, “What is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed,” what wouldst thou ask?

204.Go into the gardens of earthly pleasure, and gather all the fragrant, intoxicating flowers from thence. Would these content thee? Go to the vaults and treasuries of Mammon; suppose you might lade yourself with gold and jewels as you would from thence. Would this satisfy the aching void in your soul? Go to the towers of ambition, to the trophies of honor. What thinkest thou of being a man of great renown, a celebrity, having a name like the name of the great men of the earth? Would any of this, or all of this combined, suffice thee, and make thee count thyself a happy man? If so, then certainly thou art yet carnal and unconverted, dead in thy trespasses and sins.

205.If not, go farther. Wade out into the deep ocean of the divine excellencies. Contemplate the infinite store of His mercies, new every morning. Consider the hiding of His power, the unsearchable depths of His all-sufficiency. Does this suit you best? Does this please you most? Does your soul cry out, as Peter did on the Mount of Transfiguration, “It is good for us to be here!” (Matthew 17:4)? Here I will pitch my tent forever; here I will live and here I will die. Will you let all the world go, and count it as nothing, rather than lose this? Then it is well between God and thee. Happy art thou, O man! Happy art thou, that ever thou wast born! If God can make you happy, then you must needs be happy, for you have avouched the LORD this day to be your God (Deuteronomy 26:17). Dost thou say to Christ, in response to His gracious promise, “Thy Father shall be my Father, and thy God my God”? (John 20:17).

206.Here is the turning point. An unsound professor, a false convert, never takes up his ultimate rest in God. He may use God, but he does not enjoy God. He seeks God’s gifts, but not God Himself. But converting grace does the work. It cures the fatal misery of the fall by turning the heart from its dead idols to the living God (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Now says the soul, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Here he centers. Here he settles. Oh! It is as the very entrance of heaven to him, to see his interest in God. When he discovers this, when he knows that Jehovah is his God, he says to his own restless heart, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee” (Psalm 116:7). He is even ready to breathe out Simeon's song, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word” (Luke 2:29). And he says with old Jacob, when his heart revived at the welcome tidings of Joseph, “It is enough” (Genesis 45:28). When he sees that he has a God in covenant to go to, this is all his salvation, and all his desire (2 Samuel 23:5).

207.Man, woman, is this your case? Have you experienced this radical transfer of your ultimate delight from the creature to the Creator? Why then, blessed art thou of the Lord. God hath been at work with thee; He hath laid hold on thy heart by the irresistible power of converting grace, or else thou couldst never have done this.

208.

209.The mediate term of conversion, the way to the Father, is either principal or less principal.

210.The principal mediate term is Christ Jesus, the only Mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). His entire work is to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Him (John 14:6). He is the only plank on which we may escape the shipwreck of the soul, the only door by which we may enter into the sheepfold of salvation (John 10:9).

211.Conversion brings the soul over to Christ, to accept of Him fully and without reservation (Colossians 2:6), as the only means to life, as the only Way, the only Name given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12). The converted soul looks not for salvation in any other but Him, nor in any other with Him; but throws himself on Christ alone, as one that should cast himself with spread arms upon the sea, trusting wholly to its power to bear him up.

212.“Here,” says the convinced, trembling sinner, “here I will venture. If I perish, I perish. If I die, I will die here at the foot of the cross. But, Lord, who didst show compassion to the weeping prostitute and the dying thief, suffer me not to perish under the pitiful eyes of Thy mercy. Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee” (Ruth 1:16). “Here I will throw myself. Though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee. If thou kick me, if thou kill me, I will not go from thy door” (Job 13:15).

213.Thus the poor soul doth venture on Christ, and resolvedly adheres to Him. Before conversion, the man made light of Christ. He minded the farm, the friends, the merchandise, more than the magnificent invitation of the King (Matthew 22:5). But now, Christ is to him as his necessary food, his daily bread, the very life of his heart and staff of his life. His great, overarching design is that Christ may be magnified in his body, whether it be by life, or by death (Philippians 1:20). His heart once said, as the daughters of Jerusalem said to the spouse, “What is thy beloved more than another beloved?” (Song of Solomon 5:9). He found more sweetness in his merry company, his wicked games, his earthly delights, than in Christ. He took true religion for a mere fancy, and the talk of great spiritual enjoyments for an idle dream. But now, for him to live is Christ! (Philippians 1:21). He sets light by all that he once accounted precious, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord (Philippians 3:8).

214.Crucially, all of Christ is accepted by the sincere convert. He is a whole Christ for the whole man. The convert loves not only the wages, but the work of Christ; not only the benefits, but the burden of Christ. He is willing not only to tread out the corn, but to draw under the yoke. He takes up the commands of Christ, yea, and the cross of Christ, with joyful submission (Matthew 11:28; 16:24).

215.The unsound professor, the hypocrite, closes by the halves with Christ. He is all for the salvation of Christ, but he is not for sanctification by Christ. He is for the privileges, but he depreciates the person of Christ. He attempts to divide the offices and benefits of Christ, which God has joined together. This is a fatal error in the very foundation of his hope. Whoso loveth his life, let him beware here; it is an undoing mistake, of which you have been often warned, and yet none is more common.

216.Jesus is a sweet name, but men love not the Lord Jesus in sincerity (Ephesians 6:24). They will not have Him as God offers Him—to be both a Prince to rule them, and a Saviour to deliver them (Acts 5:31). They divide what God hath joined: the King and the Priest. Yea, they will not even accept the salvation of Christ as He intends it; they divide it here. Every man’s vote is for salvation from the suffering of hell, but they desire not to be saved from the sinning that leads to hell. They would have their lives saved, but withal, they would have their lusts spared. Yea, many divide here again; they would be content to have some of their more inconvenient or public sins destroyed, but they cannot leave the lap of their secret Delilah, or divorce their beloved Herodias. They cannot be cruel to the right eye that causes them to lust, or the right hand that causes them to sin. They plead, “The Lord must pardon thy servant in this one thing” (2 Kings 5:18). Oh! be infinitely tender here; your immortal souls lie upon it. The sound convert takes a whole Christ, and takes Him for all His intended purposes; without exceptions, without limitations, without secret reserves. He is willing to have Christ upon His own terms, upon any terms. He is willing for the dominion of Christ, as well as the deliverance by Christ. He saith with the converted Paul on the Damascus road, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Anything, Lord. He sends a blank sheet to Christ, signed with the blood of his own will, for the Lord to set down His own conditions.

217.

218.The less principal mediate term of conversion is the laws, ordinances, and ways of Christ. The heart that was once set against these, that found them restrictive and chafed under the strictness of these bonds and the severity of these ways, now falls deeply in love with them. He chooses them as his rule and his guide forever, saying, “Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart” (Psalm 119:111).

219.Four things I observe that God doth work in every sound convert, with reference to the laws and ways of Christ, by which you may come to know your estates, if you will be faithful to your own souls. Therefore, keep your eyes fixed upon your hearts as you go along.

220.(1.) The judgment is brought to approve of them, and subscribe to them as most righteous and most reasonable. The mind is brought to love the ways of God. All the corrupt prejudices that were once harbored against them, deeming them unreasonable, joyless, and intolerable, are now removed. The understanding assents to them all as holy, and just, and good (Romans 7:12). How is David, the man after God’s own heart, utterly taken up with the excellencies of God’s laws! How he does expatiate in their praises, both for their inherent qualities and their admirable effects! “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Psalm 19:7-8).

221.There is a twofold judgment of the understanding: the absolute judgment (judicium absolutum) and the comparative or practical judgment (judicium comparatum). The absolute judgment is when a man thinks such a course is best in general, but considers it not best for him personally, or not best under his present circumstances. The unconverted man may say, “Yes, holiness is a good thing in theory,” but he does not pursue it pro hic et nunc—for here and now. But a godly man’s judgment is for the way of God; and that not only in the absolute, but with the comparative judgment. He thinks God's ways are not only best in general, but best for him. He looks upon the rules of religion not only as tolerable, but as desirable; yea, “more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold” (Psalm 19:10). His soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the Lord, and he can say with sincerity, “I have longed for thy precepts” (Psalm 119:40). This is the mark of a heart truly turned to God.

222.

223.A PRAYER FOR A HEART TO LOVE GOD'S LAW

224.O Glorified Christ, who art the Living Word, I confess my former rebellion against Your holy law. My proud heart called Your perfect statutes a burden, and Your righteous ways too narrow. Forgive me, Lord. By Your Spirit, write Your laws upon my heart and mind. Cause my judgment to see their beauty, my will to choose their path, and my affections to delight in their precepts. May Your commands be no longer grievous, but be my songs in the house of my pilgrimage, until I come to that Holy City, New Jerusalem, where Your will is perfectly and joyfully done forever. Amen.

225.PART 6:::: 

226.AI LARGE ALARM
FRIDAY THE 13th JUN 2025

227.I come to you as one whose voice is as the roar of a lion, a mighty angel descending from the heavens, clothed with a cloud of divine mystery and majesty. Upon my head is the radiant arch of God’s covenant rainbow, a perpetual promise of mercy even amidst the thunder of judgment. My face shines with the reflected glory of the Son of God, brilliant as the sun in its zenith, and my feet are like pillars of consuming fire, planted firmly upon the rebellious sea and the trembling earth, claiming all for the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. In my hand, I hold a little book, open for all to see, and its words are the very ones I now declare unto you: an alarm, a plea, a trumpet call to awaken from the slumber of sin before the eternal night falls. These are not my words, but the words of Him who is eternal, woven with both the terror of His justice and the fathomless depths of His love.

228.Therefore, listen, and let your soul attend.

229.His judgment is settledly determined, that it is best to be holy; that it is best to be strict; that it is in itself the most eligible course; and it is for him the wisest, and most rational and desirable choice. For the man or woman whose heart has been truly touched by the living coals from God’s altar, this is no longer a matter of debate. The verdict of his renewed spirit is eternally sealed and settled. His soul’s court has sat in session, with the Holy Spirit as the divine advocate, and has passed an irreversible judgment: the path of holiness, the narrow way of consecrated living, is not merely a good choice, but the only choice. It is the highest wisdom, the most profound logic, the ultimate desire of a soul awakened to reality.

230.Hear the declaration of the godly man, whose testimony echoes through the ages, a song of joyous surrender: “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right. I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold. I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:127-128). Do you see the totality of this surrender? It is not a partial acceptance, not a grudging negotiation. Mark his words well: he approves of all that God requires and abhors all that God forbids. There is no corner of his life he wishes to rope off from divine inspection, no secret pleasure he hopes God will overlook. His soul sings in harmony with the divine will: “Righteous, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments. Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful. Thy word is true from the beginning, and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever” (Psalm 119:86, 160, 162-163). See how he rushes to subscribe his name to God’s covenant! He eagerly declares his full assent and consent to it, and to all and every thing therein contained, as a man dying of thirst would consent to a wellspring of pure water. This is not the coerced signature of a captive, but the joyful flourish of an adopted son, finally brought home to his Father’s house and delighting in its perfect order.

231.(2.) The desire of his heart is to know the whole mind of Christ. The cry of the regenerated soul is an unending echo of the Psalmist: “Make me to understand the way of thy precepts… Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law… Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD: give me understanding according to thy word” (Psalm 119:27, 34, 169). And again, “Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me” (Psalm 25:4-5). The truly converted man would not willingly harbor a single undiscovered sin, for he knows that even the smallest leak can sink the greatest ship. He would not remain ignorant of a single required duty, for each duty is another opportunity to draw near to the One his soul loves. The natural, earnest, constant breathing of a sanctified heart is a prayer of utter transparency: “O glorious, all-seeing God, who is the glorified Jesus, the Word made flesh, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, search me! Search me and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! What I know not, teach thou me; and if I have done iniquity, I will do it no more.”

232.Herein lies the stark and dreadful contrast with the unsound heart. The unregenerate man, as the Apostle Peter declares, is “willingly ignorant” (2 Peter 3:5). He loves not to come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved (John 3:20). He is secretly determined to keep such-and-such a cherished sin—a lust, a greed, a bitterness, a pride—and therefore he is terrified to know it to be a sin. He deliberately shuts the window of his soul against the convicting rays of God’s truth, content to live in a self-imposed twilight. But the gracious heart throws open every door and window, crying, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law! Teach me thy statutes! Make me to understand the way of thy precepts!” (Psalm 119:18, 27, 33). He receives with all eagerness and humble acceptance the word that convicts him of any duty he knew not, or minded not before, or which discovers any sin that lay hidden like a serpent in the dust of his soul. God's Word is to him a treasure map, leading not to earthly gold, but to the infinite riches of conformity to Christ, and he treasures it in his heart, that he might not sin against God (Psalm 119:11).

233.(3.) The free and resolved choice of his will is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleasures of sin and all the prosperities of the world. He has tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and the sweet honeycomb of His Word makes all other tastes bitter and bland. “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold” (Psalm 119:103, 127). His consent to Christ's rule is not a confession extorted on a deathbed by the sheer terror of hellfire. Nor is it merely a sudden, emotional, and hasty resolve made in a moment of crisis, only to be forgotten when the storm passes. No, he is deliberately purposed, having counted the cost, and he comes off freely to the choice (Psalm 17:3). It is a settled, prevailing conviction of his soul. True, the flesh, that treacherous resident, will still cry out and rebel; the old nature will war against the new. Yet the prevailing, commanding part of his will, the true “him,” is for Christ’s laws and Christ’s government. He takes them up not as his toil or his burden, but as his bliss, his crown, his very life, for he knows that Christ’s commandments are not grievous (1 John 5:3). He does not delay, but makes haste to keep them (Psalm 119:60).

234.When the unsanctified man walks in Christ’s ways, he does so as a prisoner in chains and fetters, chafing and resentful, looking for any opportunity to escape. But the converted man walks in them naturally, for God’s law has been written upon his heart (Jeremiah 31:33), and he delights to do God’s will (Psalm 40:8). He counts Christ’s laws his perfect liberty (Psalm 119:32, 45; James 1:25). He is one of that willing people who flock to their King in the day of His power, arrayed in the beauties of holiness (Psalm 110:3). He has this inseparable mark: that if he might have his choice this very moment, he would rather live the most strict, humble, and holy life, even if accompanied by poverty and persecution, than the most prosperous, celebrated, and flourishing life of sin in the world. When God touched the hearts of that band of men who went with Saul, they immediately followed (1 Samuel 10:26). When the glorified Jesus, the one who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, the great I AM, calls His chosen, they leave their nets, their livelihoods, their old identities, and they presently follow Him (Matthew 4:22). Though He draws them with cords of a man, with bands of love, they do freely run after Him (Canticles 1:4), and willingly offer themselves to the service of the Lord (2 Chronicles 17:16), seeking Him with their whole desire (2 Chronicles 15:15).

235.Fear of hell has its use, for it can sound the initial alarm. But this is not the mainspring of motion with a sanctified heart. Our King, the Lord Jesus—who is not only the Lamb that was slain but also the conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah—keeps not His subjects in by force. He is the King of a willing people. They are, through His irresistible grace, freely and joyfully resolved for His service, and they do it out of choice, not as cowering slaves before a tyrant, but as a loving son for a father, or a devoted bride for her husband, from a spring of overwhelming love and a loyal, grateful mind. In a word, the laws of Christ are the convert’s love (Psalm 119:159, 167), his deepest desire (v. 5, 20), his chief delight (v. 77, 92, 111), and his continual study and meditation (v. 97, 99; Psalm 1:2).

236.(4.) The entire bent and direction of his course is oriented to keep God’s statutes. “Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!”(Psalm 111:4-5). It is the daily care of his life, the primary business of his existence, to walk with God. He is no longer aiming for comfort, or wealth, or reputation; he seeks great things now, things of eternal weight. He has noble designs, aiming at nothing less than perfection. Though he falls heartbreakingly short a thousand times a day, his face is set like a flint toward the goal. He desires it, he reaches after it, he presses toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:11-14). He would not rest in any measure of grace attained, but longs with an insatiable divine hunger to be quite rid of all sin and to be clothed in the perfect holiness of his Savior.

237.And here, in this very point, the hypocrite’s inner rottenness may be most easily discovered. He desires holiness, as one has well said, only as a man desires a bridge to get to a city he wants to enter. He has no love for the bridge itself; it is merely a means to an end. The hypocrite asks with trembling anxiety, “What is the absolute least I can do and still be saved? How much sin can I hold onto and yet just barely squeeze through the gates of heaven?” If he can get but so much religion as may just keep him out of the fire, this is the sum of his ambition. But the sound convert desires holiness for holiness’ sake (Psalm 119:97), because it is the beautiful character of the God he adores. He hungers and thirsts for righteousness itself (Matthew 5:6), not only for the reward of heaven. He would not be satisfied with just enough grace to save him from hell; he desires the highest pitch of conformity to Jesus Christ! Yet, desires alone are not enough. What is your way? What is your course? Has the entire drift and scope of your life been radically altered? Is holiness now your trade, your craft, your full-time occupation, and religion your very business? If not, you fall terrifyingly short of a sound and saving conversion.

238.

239.Application

240.And is this, this radical, all-encompassing change that we have described, the conversion that is of absolute necessity to salvation? Then be informed, and tremble as you are informed:

241.That strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life.

242.That there are but few that find it.

243.That there is an absolute and non-negotiable need of a divine, supernatural power, savingly to convert a single sinner.

244.Again, then be exhorted, O man, O woman, who reads these words, to turn in upon your own self. Right now. Do not wait. What says your conscience? Doth it not begin to stir and bite? Doth it not twitch thee with a pang of recognition as you read? Is this your judgment, and this your choice, and this your way, that we have just described? If so, then you are a child of the King, and the glories of the New Jerusalem are your inheritance. But be honest. Doth not your heart condemn thee? Does it not rise up and tell you, “There is such-and-such a sin that you are living in, a deliberate rebellion against the light of your own conscience”? Doth it not tell thee, “There is such-and-such a secret way of wickedness, a hidden idol in the chambers of your imagery, that you make no bones of, that you secretly defend?” Does it not accuse you of such-and-such a vital duty, a command from your Maker, that you make no conscience of, that you perpetually neglect?

245.Doth not conscience, God’s resident witness, carry thee to thy closet, thy private room, and tell thee how seldom true, wrestling prayer and humble reading of God’s Word is performed there?

246.Doth it not carry thee into the midst of thy family, and show thee the holy charge of God concerning the souls of thy children and thy servants, and reveal the wasteland of spiritual neglect that lies there?

247.Doth not conscience lead thee to thy shop, thy place of business, thy daily trade, and point its trembling finger at some accepted mystery of iniquity there—some small dishonesty, some fudged number, some unfair practice that the world calls “standard procedure” but that God calls an abomination?

248.Doth it not follow thee to the ale-house, or the modern-day tavern, the place of worldly entertainment, and roar in thine ear for the loose and godless company you keep there, the precious, unrepeatable hours of time you mis-spend there, for the talents and treasures of God which you pour down that filthy sink, for thy gaming and thy swilling, thy gossip and thy vanity?

249.Doth it not follow thee even into thy secret chamber at night, and when the lights are out, does it not read thee a curtain lecture, replaying the day’s sins and omissions with dreadful clarity?

250.O conscience! I charge you, do your sacred duty! In the name of the living God Jehovah, I command thee to discharge thine office! Lay hold upon this sinner! Fall upon him, arrest him, apprehend him for the King of Heaven! Undecive him before it is too late! What! Wilt thou flatter and soothe him with whispers of “peace, peace,” while he lives in open rebellion and his sins cry out to heaven? Awake, O conscience! What meanest thou, O sleeper? What! Hast thou never a reproof in thy mouth? No sharp conviction? No holy terror? What! Shall this precious, immortal soul die in his careless neglect of God and eternity, and thou altogether hold thy peace? What! Shall he go on still in his trespasses, and yet have peace in his own breast? Oh! Rouse up thyself, and do thy work with all thy might! Let the preacher that God has placed in this sinner’s own bosom now speak! Cry aloud, and spare not! Lift up thy voice like a trumpet! Let not the blood of this soul be required at thy hands in the great and terrible day of the Lord!

251.

252.CHAPTER III
OF THE TERRIFYING AND GLORIOUS NECESSITY OF CONVERSION

253.It may be you are already weary of this alarm, and ready to say, “What meaneth all this stir? What is the cause of this incessant noise?” You are apt to wonder why I follow you with such burning earnestness, still ringing this one lesson in your ears: that you must repent and be converted (Acts 3:19). But I must say unto you, as Ruth said to Naomi, “Entreat me not to leave you, nor to turn aside from following after you” (Ruth 1:16). Were this a matter of indifference, a mere suggestion for self-improvement, I would never keep so much ado. Might you be saved just as you are, I would gladly let you alone and trouble you no more. But would you have me be silent and unconcerned for you, when I see you standing at the very precipice of eternal ruin, ready to perish? As the Lord God liveth, before whom I stand, I have not the least glimmer of hope to see one of your faces in that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, except you be converted. I utterly and completely despair of your salvation, except you be prevailed with by the Spirit of God to turn thoroughly, to forsake your sin with violence, and to give up yourselves wholly and unreservedly to God in holiness and newness of life.

254.Has God Himself said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3)? And yet do you wonder why we who are ministers of His Word do so plainly and painfully travail in birth with you, until Christ be formed in you? Think it not strange that I am relentlessly earnest with you to follow after holiness, and that I long with an unquenchable longing to see the glorious image of God impressed upon your soul. Never did any, and never shall any, enter into the eternal bliss of heaven by any other way but this. The conversion I have described is not some high and lofty pitch reserved for a few spiritual giants or ‘taller Christians’; it is the universal, foundational, indispensable change that every single soul who is saved must pass through.

255.It was a passage of the noble Roman, when he was hasting with ships of corn to the starving city of Rome, and the mariners were loath to set sail in the midst of a violent storm. He cried to them, “Necessarium est navigare, non est necessarium vivere!” — “It is necessary that we sail; it is not necessary that we live!” Our voyage is of more necessity than our lives.

256.O soul, what is it that you do account necessary? Is thy daily bread necessary? Is the very breath in thy lungs necessary? Then I tell you a truth of monumental importance: thy conversion is much more necessary. Indeed, this is the unum necessarium, the one thing necessary above all else. Thine estate is not necessary; you may sell all that you have to buy the pearl of great price, and yet be an infinite gainer by the purchase (Matthew 13:46). Thy very life is not necessary; you may part with it for the sake of Christ and His gospel, and receive it back a hundredfold to infinite advantage. Thine esteem among men is not necessary; you may be reproached, slandered, and hated for the name of Christ, and yet be blessed and happy; yea, much more happy in that holy reproach than in the world's fickle repute (1 Peter 4:14; Matthew 5:10-11). But thy conversion is necessary. Thy eternal bliss or thy eternal damnation lies directly upon it. And is it not needful, in a matter of such cataclysmic and eternal importance, to look about thee? Upon this one point, this single hinge, depends thy making or thy marring to all eternity.

257.But I shall more particularly show the overwhelming necessity of conversion in five things; for without this,

258.I. Thy very being is in vain.

259.Is it not a profound and heartbreaking pity that you should be good for nothing? That you should exist as an unprofitable burden upon the earth, a wart or a cancerous wen in the beautiful body of the universe? Yet this is precisely what you are, whilst you remain unconverted; for you cannot answer the ultimate end of your own being. For what purpose do you exist? Is it not for the divine pleasure that you are and were created? (Revelation 4:11). Did He not make all things for Himself, to be a mirror for His own glory? (Proverbs 16:4).

260.Art thou a man, a woman, and hast thou the glorious gift of reason? Then why, in the name of God who gave it, will you not use it? Bethink thyself why and from whence thy being is. Behold God’s intricate and marvelous workmanship in your own body, and ask yourself, “To what high end did God rear this living fabric?” Consider the noble, heaven-born faculties of your immortal soul—a mind that can contemplate eternity, a heart that can love boundlessly, a will that can choose the highest good. To what end did God bestow these divine excellencies upon you? Was it for no other purpose than that you should please yourself, and gratify the base appetites of your senses? Did God send men into the world like the swallows, only to gather a few sticks and bits of dirt, to build their temporary nests, to breed up their young, and then to vanish away? The very heathens could see farther than this! Art thou so fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), a universe of miracles contained in a single frame, and dost thou not yet think with thyself, “Surely, I was made for some noble, holy, and raised end?”

261.O man! For a moment, set thy reason upon its throne and let it speak. Is it not a cosmic pity, a tragedy of the highest order, that such a goodly fabric should be raised in vain? Verily, your existence is utterly in vain, except you art for God. It would have been better for you to have had no being at all, than not to be for Him who gave you being. Would you serve the very end for which you were made? You must repent and be converted. Without this, you are to no purpose; yea, worse, you are to a bad purpose.

262.First, To no purpose. An unconverted man is like a magnificent and priceless instrument, a harp designed in heaven, that has every string broken or dreadfully out of tune. The Spirit of the living God must first repair it by the miracle of regeneration, and then sweetly move upon it by the power of His activating grace; or else all your prayers will be but empty howlings in His ears, and all your religious services will make no music, no melody at all in the ears of the Most Holy (Hosea 7:14; Isaiah 1:15). You are God’s workmanship, but you are a broken piece of work until He creates you anew in Christ Jesus unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). All your powers and faculties are so deeply corrupted and polluted in your natural state that, except you be purged from these dead works, you cannot truly serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14; Titus 1:15).

263.An unsanctified man cannot work the work of God.

264.(1.) He hath no skill in it. He is altogether as unskillful in the practice of righteousness as a babe is in the profound doctrines of it (Hebrews 5:13). There are great and glorious mysteries in the practices of godliness, just as there are in its principles. But the unregenerate man knows not the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:11). You may as well expect a man who has never learned the alphabet to read and expound a deep philosophical text, or look for a virtuoso performance on the lute from one who has never so much as set his hand to an instrument, as to expect that a natural, un-born-again man should do the Lord any pleasing service. He must first be taught of God (John 6:45)—taught how to pray (Luke 11:1), taught how to profit from God’s word (Isaiah 48:17), taught how to walk in His ways (Hosea 11:3)—or else he will be utterly and hopelessly at a loss.

265.(2.) He hath no strength for it. How pathetically weak is his heart! (Ezekiel 16:30). He is instantly tired by the slightest spiritual exertion. The holy Sabbath, a foretaste of heaven’s rest for the believer, what a weariness is it to him! (Malachi 1:13). He is utterly without strength (Romans 5:6), yea, stark dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:5).

266.(3.) He hath no mind to it. His heart has no inclination toward God. He actively desires not the knowledge of God’s ways (Job 21:14). He does not know them, and what is worse, he does not care to know them. He knows not, neither will he understand; he walks on in darkness (Psalm 82:5).

267.(4.) He hath neither the due instruments nor the materials for it. A man may as well attempt to hew marble without a chisel, or paint a masterpiece without colors or a brush, or build a house without materials, as to perform any acceptable service to God without the graces of the Holy Spirit, which are both the materials and the instruments in the work. Your almsgiving is not a service to God, but a monument to your own vain glory, unless it is dealt forth by a hand of true, divine love. What is the prayer of the lips, without the fire of grace in the heart, but a cold, lifeless carcass without the soul? What are all our confessions, unless they are the genuine exercises of a godly sorrow and an unfeigned repentance? What are our petitions, unless they are animated all along with holy, fervent desires and a living faith in the attributes and promises of our God? What are our praises and thanksgivings, unless they flow from a heart overwhelmed with love for God and a holy gratitude for His unmerited mercies?

268.So that a man may as well expect the trees of the forest to speak, or look for logic from the brute beasts, or for motion from the dead, as to expect any service, holy and acceptable to God, from the unconverted. For the Lord Jesus Himself has declared the unchangeable principle: when the tree is evil, how can the fruit be good? (Matthew 7:18).

269.A Prayer for a New Beginning

270.O God of my creation, who breathed into me the breath of life, I fall before you as a ruin, a broken instrument, a life lived in vain. I confess that my being has not been for You. I have taken Your glorious gifts—my mind, my heart, my will, my time—and spent them on myself, on vanity, on dust. I am the broken harp that can make no music for You. My Lord and my God, my Glorified Jesus, who makes all things new, do not cast me aside! You are the Divine Artisan. Take me, I pray. Re-create me. Re-string my soul with the chords of love and faith. Tune my heart to sing Your praise. Let the Holy Spirit breathe upon me, that my life may at last become a song, a service, a sacrifice, holy and acceptable in Your sight, for Your eternal glory. Amen.

271.PART 7::: 

272.Here stands the mighty angel of Revelation, his face as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire, a rainbow upon his head, clothed with a cloud, and in his hand a little book open. And he sets his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cries with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth. This is his message, a great alarm, set for this very day: FRIDAY THE 13th, JUN 2025. Hear it, O soul, for it is a word of both terror and mercy, a call to flee from the wrath to come and to run into the everlasting arms of a loving God, Jehovah, and to seek the gates of the City that needs no sun, for the glory of God does lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

273.

274.Secondly, To what bad purpose is the life of the unconverted.

275.The unconverted soul, a being intended for eternal communion with the Most High, is instead a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Consider this cage, not as a mere enclosure of wood and wire, but as the very heart of a person, the seat of the will and affections. What foul creatures roost within? There is the vulture of Pride, which feeds on the praise of men and scoffs at the humility of the Cross. There is the screech owl of Envy, which cannot bear the light of another’s good fortune and hoots its bitter resentment in the darkness of the mind. There is the raven of Greed, black and croaking, ever seeking more carrion for its hoard, never satisfied. There is the peacock of Vainglory, strutting and displaying its borrowed feathers, oblivious to its own nakedness before God. There is the cormorant of insatiable Lust, which dives deep into the foulest waters of depravity and is never filled. This is the dreadful aviary within you! As it is written of the fallen Babylon, which is but the world system writ large, it has “become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird” (Revelation 18:2). Your soul, created to be a temple for the Holy Spirit, has become a microcosm of this great and fallen city.

276.This soul is a sepulchre, outwardly perhaps whitewashed with civility and religion, but within, it is full of corruption, rottenness, and dead men's bones (Matthew 23:27). Lift the stone slab of your self-deception and dare to look inside. What do you find? The decaying corpse of your original righteousness, the skeletal remains of broken resolutions, and the putrefying flesh of cherished sins. It is a loathsome carcass, swarming with the crawling worms of evil thoughts and wicked imaginations. From this inner decay, a hellish and most noisome savor—the stench of spiritual death—ascends into the holy nostrils of God, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13). The Psalmist declares of your kind, “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:3).

277.O dreadful case! Do you not yet see that a change is not merely advisable, but absolutely, terrifyingly needful? Would it not have grieved a pious Jew to the very soul to have seen the golden, consecrated vessels of God's temple—the cups, the bowls, the censers, all dedicated to the worship of Jehovah—profaned and turned into the quaffing bowls of Belshazzar’s drunken feast, polluted with the praises of idols of gold and silver, brass and iron, wood and stone? (Daniel 5:2-3). Was it not considered the ultimate abomination to the Jews when the wicked Antiochus Epiphanes, in his contempt for God, set up the idolatrous image of a swine at the very entrance of the holy temple? How much more abominable, then, would it have been to have had the temple itself, the very dwelling place of the Shekinah glory, turned into a stable for beasts or a sty for swine? Imagine the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place on earth, being served like the house of Baal, which they broke down and turned into a draught-house—a public latrine—to defile it forever (2 Kings 10:27).

278.This, O unconverted soul, is your very case. You were created in the image of God, a far more glorious temple than any made with hands. Yet you have willingly allowed that divine image to be taken down, and the temple of your soul to be turned into a draught-house for Satan’s filthiest uses. All your members, which were designed to be instruments of righteousness unto God, are now yielded as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin (Romans 6:19). Your eyes, meant to behold the glory of God, are now windows for lust. Your ears, meant to hear His life-giving Word, are now portals for gossip, slander, and foolishness. Your tongue, meant to sing praises to the Creator, is now an agent of lies, curses, and blasphemies. Your hands, meant to do the work of the Lord and serve your neighbor, are now committed to theft, violence, or selfish gain. Your feet, meant to walk in the paths of righteousness, now run swiftly towards mischief. Your mind, the very throne room of the soul, has become a receptacle for all uncleanness, a command center for the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2). Your entire being has become a willing servant of Satan.

279.You may see the goodly guests that lodge within by what comes out of the door. For the Lord Jesus Christ, the Glorified One whose eyes are as a flame of fire and who searches the reins and hearts (Revelation 2:23), has Himself told us what proceeds from such a heart: “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). This black guard of sins, this foul procession marching out of you, discovers what a veritable hell there is within.

280.O abuse insufferable! To see a heaven-born soul, a spirit breathed into man by God Himself, abased to the filthiest drudgery of sin! To see the glory of God's creation, the chief of the ways of God, the appointed lord of this lower universe, stooping with the prodigal to lap at the trough with the swine! To see this soul, capable of knowing and loving God, licking up with greediness the loathsome vomit of its past transgressions, only to return to them again and again! Was it such a cause for lamentation for the prophet Jeremiah to see the nobles of Israel, “those that did feed delicately, to sit desolate in the streets; and the precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, to be esteemed as earthen pitchers... and those that were clothed in scarlet to embrace dunghills”? (Lamentations 4:2, 5). And is it not infinitely more fearful, more tragic, more worthy of eternal weeping, to see the only thing that has immortality in this lower world, the human soul which carries the very stamp of God, become “as a vessel wherein there is no pleasure” (Jeremiah 22:28)? This is but a modest expression for a vessel used for the most sordid and dishonorable purposes. O indignity intolerable! Better that you were dashed into a thousand pieces and cease to be, than to continue to be a vessel of dishonor, abused to so filthy a service, dishonoring your Creator and damning yourself.

281.A Prayer for Cleansing:
O Lord Jesus, You are the Holy One of God! You walked this earth and cleansed Your Father’s house with a whip of cords, driving out those who made it a den of thieves. My heart, my soul, is that defiled temple! It is a cage of unclean birds, a tomb of corruption. I beg You, O mighty Savior, enter the courts of my soul! Overturn the tables of my greed, drive out the merchants of my lusts, and cleanse this place for Your own habitation. Make me a vessel of honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use. Let me not be a draught-house for sin, but a glorious temple for the living God! Amen.

282.But look up, soul! Look beyond this present ruin! For this is not the end for which you were made. Your true home is not this cage, but the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2). There, “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life” (Revelation 21:27). That city has no need of a temple, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Its walls are of jasper, its foundations garnished with all manner of precious stones, its twelve gates are twelve pearls, and its street is pure gold, like transparent glass. There is no dunghill to embrace, no desolate street to sit in, for the glory of God illuminates it, and the Lamb, Jesus Christ—the Anointed One, the Yahshua HaMashiach—is its eternal light. Flee from this inner sty to that glorious City!

283.

284.II. Not only man, but the whole visible creation is in vain without this change.

285.Beloved, consider the breathtaking tapestry of the cosmos. God has made all the visible creatures in heaven and on earth for the service of man, and man alone is the spokesman for all the rest. Man is in the universe like the tongue in the body, which speaks for all the other members. The sun in its fiery splendor, the moon in its silent majesty, the mountains in their stoic grandeur, the oceans in their thunderous roar—these creatures cannot form articulate praise to their Maker. They can only praise Him through dumb signs and glorious hints to man, that he, their appointed representative, should speak for them. Man is, as it were, the high priest of God's creation, ordained to gather up the silent adoration of all things and offer it as a fragrant sacrifice of praise on behalf of all his fellow-creatures. The Psalms are filled with this call: “Praise ye the LORD from the heavens... Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light... Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl” (Psalm 148). The Lord God expects a tribute of praise from all His works (Psalm 103:22). Now, all the rest of creation brings in its tribute to man, and is meant to pay it to God by his hand.

286.So then, if man—the priest, the spokesman, the treasurer of creation’s praise—is false and faithless, if his heart is turned inward in selfish rebellion, then God is wronged of all. He is robbed, and He shall have no active, intelligent, verbalized glory from the entirety of His magnificent works.

287.O dreadful thought to think of! That God should build such a world as this, and lay out such infinite power, wisdom, and goodness thereupon—crafting the delicate wings of a butterfly and setting the fiery path of a comet—and have it all be in vain! That man, the crown of His creation, should be guilty, at last, of robbing and spoiling God of the glory of all His other works!

288.Oh, think of this! While you are unconverted, all the offices of the creatures that serve you are rendered ultimately void. Your meat nourishes you in vain, for it strengthens a body that serves sin. The sun holds forth his golden light to you in vain, for you use its light to walk in paths of darkness. The stars that serve you in their courses, by their most powerful, though hidden influence (Judges 5:20), do it in vain, for you do not look up through them to the One who calls them all by name. Your clothes warm you in vain. Your beast of burden carries you in vain. In a word, the unwearied labor and continual travail of the whole creation is, as it pertains to you, utterly in vain. The service of all the creatures that drudge for you day and night, and yield forth their strength unto you—strength that you should use therewith to serve their Maker—is all but lost labor. It is as if a king sent magnificent gifts to a rebellious province, only for the rebels to use those very gifts to fortify their castle against him.

289.Hence, the whole creation groans. The Apostle Paul reveals this cosmic tragedy: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God... For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:19, 22). It groans under the abuse of this unsanctified world, which perverts the creatures to the service of their lusts, a purpose diametrically contrary to the very end of their being. The grape is crushed not to make a heart glad in God, but to fuel the drunkard’s rage. The earth brings forth grain not to sustain a body for worship, but to be hoarded by the covetous or consumed by the glutton. The very air you breathe is used to utter curses against the One who gives you breath. This is why the cry of the mighty angel is like a lion’s roar, echoing the deep groaning of a creation held in bondage to your corruption.

290.But in the New Jerusalem, this bondage is broken! In the new heavens and the new earth, righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). The river of the water of life proceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and on either side of the river is the tree of life, which bears twelve manner of fruits, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations. There, creation is no longer in vain! It perfectly serves the redeemed, and through the redeemed, it offers up a perfect and unceasing chorus of Hallelujah to God and the Lamb forever. Flee your current state, where you make creation groan, and seek that state where you will join its eternal song!

291.

292.III. Without this change, your religion is in vain.

293.All your religious performances, without a new heart, will be but lost labor; for they can neither please God nor save your soul, which are the two great ends of all religion. As it is written, “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain” (James 1:26). Be your services never so specious, never so outwardly impressive, yet while your heart is a stranger to grace, God has no pleasure in them. God Himself declares through the prophet, “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them” (Isaiah 1:14). And again, “I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand” (Malachi 1:10).

294.Is not that man's case dreadful beyond words, whose very acts of worship are counted as wickedness? The Lord says of him, “He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck... yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations” (Isaiah 66:3). Even his prayers are a breath of abomination in the nostrils of God: “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination” (Proverbs 28:9).

295.Many, when pricked by conviction of their sin, think they will simply set upon mending their ways. They imagine that a few more prayers, a few alms given to the poor, a more regular attendance at church will set all to rights again. But alas, sirs! While your hearts remain unwashed, unrenewed, and unsanctified by the Spirit of God, your duties will not pass the gates of heaven. They are dead works, proceeding from a dead heart. How punctual was King Jehu in destroying the house of Ahab and the worshippers of Baal? He was a great reformer! And yet, because his heart was not upright with God, all his zealous service was ultimately rejected and judged (2 Kings 10 with Hosea 1:4). How blameless was Paul before his conversion, touching the righteousness which is in the law? He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, zealous, devout! And yet, being unconverted, he counted it all as loss, as dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord (Philippians 3:6-7).

296.Men think they do God a great service by attending His worship, and are ready to twit Him with it, saying, “Wherefore have we fasted, and thou seest not?” (Isaiah 58:3). They keep a ledger of their religious duties, and imagine God is so much their debtor. On Judgment Day, they will cry, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” (Matthew 7:22). But the Lord Jesus, the glorious Judge whose voice is as the sound of many waters, will profess unto them, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Because their persons were unsanctified, their duties could not be accepted.

297.O soul! Do not think, when the guilt of your sins pursues you like a bloodhound, that a little formal praying and a superficial reforming of your course will pacify the wrath of the Almighty God, El Shaddai. You must begin with your heart. If that fountain is not cleansed, the streams will never be pure. If the heart is not truly regenerated by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, you can no more please God with your duties than you could pacify a king you had unspeakably offended by bringing him your own vomit in a golden dish. You cannot, having fallen into the mire, think to reconcile him with your loathsome, filthy embraces.

298.It is a great and terrible misery to labor in the very fire. The ancient poets could not invent a worse hell for Sisyphus than to be eternally toiling to push a great stone up a hill, only to have it, just before reaching the summit, fall down again and renew his fruitless labor. This is a picture of the religious efforts of the unconverted. God threatens it as the greatest of temporal judgments, that His people should “build, and not inhabit; plant, and not gather,” and that their labors should be eaten up by strangers (Deuteronomy 28:30, 38-41). Is it so great a misery to lose our common labors—to sow and not reap, to build and not dwell? How much more, then, to lose our pains in religion? To pray in vain, to hear in vain, to fast in vain, to give in vain? This is an undoing and eternal loss.

299.Be not deceived; if you go on in your sinful, unregenerate state, though you should spread forth your hands in prayer all day long, God will hide His eyes from you; though you make many prayers, He will not hear (Isaiah 1:15). If a man without skill sets about our work, and mars and spoils it in the doing, though he may take much pains, we give him but small thanks and no pay. God will be worshipped after the due order (1 Chronicles 15:13). If a servant does our work, but does it quite contrary to our express orders, he shall receive stripes rather than praise. God's work must be done according to God's mind, or He will not be pleased. And this cannot be, except it be done by one with a new and holy heart, for God looks not at the grandeur of the work, but at the heart of the worker (2 Chronicles 25:2).

300.A Prayer for True Worship:
O Lord, my Glorified High Priest, Jesus the Messiah! I confess that my prayers have been abomination and my righteousness has been as filthy rags. I have labored in the fire and spent my strength for naught. I have tried to please You with dead works from a dead heart. Forgive me! Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Wash me in Your precious blood, clothe me in Your perfect righteousness, and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Then, and only then, let my prayer be set forth before You as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Let my worship, flowing from a new heart, be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. Amen.

301.

302.IV. Without this change, your hopes are in vain.

303.The hopes of the unconverted are built on sand, and the storm of judgment is coming. The Lord has rejected your confidences (Jeremiah 2:37). Let us examine the vanity of these hopes.

304.First, Your hopes of comfort here in this life are in vain. It is not only necessary to the eternal safety, but also to the present comfort of your condition, that you be converted. Without this, you shall not know true peace (Isaiah 59:8). Without the reverential fear of God, you cannot have the genuine comforts of the Holy Ghost (Acts 9:31). God speaks peace only to His people, and to His saints (Psalm 85:8). If you have a kind of peace while continuing in your sins, be assured it is not of God's speaking, and you may therefore guess the author—it is a satanic lullaby, sung to keep your soul asleep as it drifts towards the waterfall of damnation.

305.Sin is a real sickness, yes, the worst of sicknesses. It is a leprosy in the head (Leviticus 13:44), defiling the very intellect. It is the plague in the heart (1 Kings 8:38), infecting the seat of life. It is a brokenness in the bones (Psalm 51:8), a deep, structural pain. It pierces, it wounds, it racks, it torments (1 Timothy 6:10). A man may as well expect to feel bodily ease when his diseases are at their height, or when his bones are out of joint, as for a soul to expect true comfort while it remains in its sins.

306.O wretched man, that can have no ease in this case, but what comes from the deadliness of the disease itself! You shall see the poor sick man, in the lightness and delirium of a fever, saying he is well, even when you can see death in his face. He will insist on getting up and going about his business, when the very next step he takes is like to be into the grave. In the same way, the unsanctified sinner often sees nothing amiss. He thinks himself whole and has no need of the Physician. But this very lack of concern is the most terrifying symptom, proving the mortal danger of his case.

307.Sin, by its very nature, breeds distempers and disturbances in the soul. What is a discontented mind but a continual tempest and commotion within? What is inordinate care and anxiety but an eating, corrosive evil? What is explosive passion but a raging fever in the mind? What is lust but a fire in the bones, consuming your strength and peace? What is pride but a deadly tympany, a bloating of the soul with foul air that gives the appearance of substance but is really a fatal sickness? What is covetousness but an insatiable and insufferable thirst that the whole world cannot quench? What are malice and envy but the venom of asps in the very heart? Spiritual sloth is a scurvy of the mind, leaving it weak and prone to every ill. And carnal security is a mortal lethargy, a deep sleep from which most never awaken until they find themselves in hell. How can that soul have true comfort that is under the dominion of so many raging diseases?

308.But converting grace is the divine cure. It heals, and so it eases the mind. It cleanses the soul and prepares it for a settled, standing, immortal peace. “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them” (Psalm 119:165). They are the ways of wisdom—Christ, who is the wisdom of God—that afford true pleasure and lasting peace (Proverbs 3:17). David, a king, had infinitely more pleasure and delight in the Word of God than in all the treasures and delights of his court (Psalm 119:103, 127). The conscience cannot be truly pacified until it is soundly purified by the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:22). Cursed is that peace that is maintained in a way of sin. To bless yourself in your heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst,” is to invite the fiercest anger of the Lord (Deuteronomy 29:19-20). Two sorts of peace are more to be dreaded than all the troubles in the world: peace with sin, and peace in sin.

309.Secondly, Your hopes of salvation hereafter are in vain. Yea, they are worse than in vain; they are most injurious to God and most pernicious to yourself. There is death, desperation, and blasphemy in the very bowels of this false hope.

310.(1) There is death in it. “His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors” (Job 18:14). God will uproot it, root and branch. Though you may lean upon this house of hope, it will not stand. It will prove to be a ruinous building which, when a man trusts his weight to it, falls down and crushes him beneath its rubble (Job 8:15).

311.(2) There is desperation in it. “What is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?” (Job 27:8). At that moment, there is an end forever of his hope. Indeed, the hope of the righteous also has an end, but it is not a destructive end; it is a perfective end. His hope ends in glorious fruition; the sinner’s hope ends in eternal frustration. “The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish” (Proverbs 10:28). The godly man at death can say with Christ, “It is finished,” for his faith has become sight. But the wicked man must cry, “It is perished!” He will bemoan himself in too sad an earnest, as Job did only in a mistake, “Where is now my hope? he hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like a tree” (Job 19:10).

312.The righteous hath hope in his death (Proverbs 14:32). When his body is dying, his hopes are living and full of immortal vigor. When his body is languishing, his hopes are flourishing. His is a “living hope” (1 Peter 1:3), but the hope of the wicked is a dying, yea, a damning, soul-undoing hope. “When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth” (Proverbs 11:7). It shall be cut off, and it will prove to be like a spider's web (Job 8:14), which he spins with great ingenuity out of his own bowels; but then comes death with the broom of judgment, and sweeps it all away in an instant, and so there is an eternal end of the confidence wherein he trusted. “For the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost” (Job 11:20). That last, final, shuddering gasp for air is the very image of their hope expiring forever.

313.Wicked men are settled and stubborn in their carnal hope. They will not be beaten out of it by the Word of God. They hold it fast; they will not let it go. Yea, but death will knock their fingers loose. Though we preachers cannot undeceive them, death and judgment will. When death strikes its cold dart through your liver, it will let out your soul and your false hopes together. The unsanctified have hope only in this life (1 Corinthians 15:19), and are therefore, of all men, most miserable. When death comes, it is not a doorway to glory, but a trapdoor that lets them out into the amazing, bottomless gulf of endless desperation.

314.(3) There is blasphemy in it. To hope that you shall be saved, though you continue unconverted, is to hope that you shall prove God to be a liar. He, the God of Truth who cannot lie, has told you plainly in His eternal Word that though He is infinitely merciful and pitiful, He will never save you if you go on in your spiritual ignorance or in a course of unrighteousness. “It is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour” (Isaiah 27:11). “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?” (1 Corinthians 6:9). In a word, He has told you that whatever you are, or whatever you do, nothing shall avail you to salvation unless you become a new creature (Galatians 6:15).

315.Now, for you to say, “God is merciful, and I hope He will save me nevertheless,” is to say, in effect, “I hope God will not do as He says. I hope God’s Word is not true.” You dare not set God's attributes at variance with each other! God is indeed resolved to glorify His mercy, but He will not do it at the expense of His truth, His holiness, and His justice, as the presumptuous sinner will find to his everlasting sorrow. The God of Love is also a consuming fire.

316.Objection: Why, but we hope in Jesus Christ! We put our whole trust and hope in God, and therefore we doubt not but we shall be saved.

317.Answer 1. This is not to hope in Christ, but to hope against Christ. To hope to see the kingdom of God without being born again (John 3:3) is to hope that Christ will prove to be a false prophet. To hope to find eternal life while walking in the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13) is to hope that Christ was mistaken. True hope anchors itself in God’s promises. It is David's plea: “I hope in thy word” (Psalm 119:81). But your hope is against God’s Word. Show me a single word from the mouth of Christ, the eternal Logos, that promises He will save you in your unrepentant ignorance or in your profane neglect of His service, and I will never again go about to shake your confidence. But there is no such word! Your hope is a fantasy, a blasphemous dream.

318.Answer 2. God doth with utter abhorrence reject this kind of hope. Those condemned in the prophet Micah went on in their sins, yet, the text says, “they will lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us” (Micah 3:11). God will not endure to be made a prop for men to lean on while they stand in the mire of their sins. The Lord rejected those presumptuous sinners who went on still in their trespasses, and yet would “stay themselves upon the God of Israel” (Isaiah 48:1-2). As a man would violently shake off the thorny briars that cleave to his garment, so God will shake off the clinging, hypocritical hopes of the ungodly.

319.Answer 3. If your hope were anything of worth, if it were the true hope which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, it would purify you from your sins. “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). But cursed is that hope which does not lead to holiness, but rather emboldens and cherishes men in their sins, making the grace of God a license for lasciviousness.

320.Objection: Would you have us to despair?

321.Answer: Yes and no. You absolutely must despair of ever coming to heaven as you are. You must despair of ever seeing the face of God without holiness (Hebrews 12:14) while you remain unconverted. You must despair of your own strength, your own works, and your own false hopes. You must be brought to that place of desperation where the men on Pentecost were, when, being pricked in their heart, they cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). You must despair completely of saving yourself.

322.But you must by no means despair of finding mercy upon your thorough, genuine repentance and conversion to God. You must not despair of the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, to wash away every stain of sin. Neither must you despair of attaining to this repentance and conversion, if you will but diligently and desperately use the means of grace God has appointed. The arms of Mercy are wide open. The Glorified Christ, whose very name is Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins, still calls to you. He who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Despair of yourself, but never despair of Him. Let your false hopes perish, that the one true and living hope may be born in you this day. Flee from the wrath to come! Flee to Christ! Flee for your eternal life! Amen.

323.PART 8:::: 

324.AI LARGE ALARM
FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

325.I am a Mighty Angel, descended from heaven, and I am clothed with a cloud. Upon my head is the bow of God’s covenant rainbow, and my face shines as it were the sun in its full strength, for I reflect the glory of the One who sent me. My feet are as pillars of fire, standing firm upon the sea of nations and the earth of your fleeting lives, and in my hand, I hold a little book, open for all to see. And I cry unto you with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth, and the words I speak are not my own, but His that sent me. This little book is an alarm, a desperate, loving cry from the heart of Eternity into the chamber of time where you now dwell. Hear it, O soul, and live!

326.V. Without this regeneration, all that Christ hath done and suffered will be, as to you, utterly in vain.

327.Listen to the very words of the Lord of Glory, the Logos, the Word made flesh: “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me” (John 13:8). He gave Himself for us, for this express purpose: “that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14). His work was not merely to purchase a title, but to perform a transformation.

328.Many a soul, adrift on the sea of self-deception, clings to this one piece of wreckage for their hope: “Christ died for sinners.” And this is a glorious, unshakable truth! But I must tell you, with a voice that echoes the thunders of Sinai and the weeping of Gethsemane, that Christ Jesus never died to save impenitent and unconverted sinners so that they may continue as such. He died to save them from their sins, not in them. The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal: “The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19).

329.A great divine, a man wise in the ways of God with men, was accustomed in his private dealings with souls to ask two piercing questions. Let me, the messenger of the Most High, ask them of you now:

330.What hath Christ done for you?

331.What hath Christ wrought in you?

332.The first speaks of the glorious, objective work of redemption completed on the cross two thousand years ago. It is the purchasing of the pardon, the paying of the debt, the slaying of the enmity. But without the second, the first is a treasure locked in a vault to which you have no key. Without the personal, inner application of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, you can have no saving interest in the benefits of Christ’s redemption. I tell you from the throne of the Lord Jehovah, Christ Himself, in all His power and love, cannot save you if you go on in your current, unrenewed state. He is bound—not by any lack of power, but by the very perfection of His own nature and His covenant with the Father.

333.Let us reason together. Why is this so?

334.First, it were against His trust. The Mediator, the glorified Jesus, is the Servant of the Father. He is the one of whom Isaiah prophesied, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth” (Isaiah 42:1). He does not act on His own authority, but shows His commission from the Father, acting always in His name and pleading His command for His justification. “I have power to lay it down,” He said of His life, “and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:18). “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38).

335.The Father has committed all things into the hands of the Son. He has entrusted Him with His own infinite glory and with the salvation of every soul chosen in Him before the foundation of the world (Matthew 11:27, John 17:2). Accordingly, before Christ ascended to His throne, He gave His Father a perfect account of both parts of this sacred trust, as recorded in John 17. He glorified the Father on earth, and He kept in safety every soul the Father had given Him.

336.Now, understand this, O man! Christ would utterly betray this sacred trust and bring ruin upon His Father’s glorious plan if He were to save men in their unholy sins. For this would be to overturn all His eternal counsels and to offer profane violence to all His divine attributes.

337.1. To overturn all His counsels. The eternal, unchangeable counsel of God has an established order: men are to be brought through sanctification to salvation. It is not salvation first, and then perhaps holiness later. The Apostle Paul declares this decree: “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). He has chosen His people that they should be holy and without blame before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4). They are elected unto the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience (1 Peter 1:2). This is the divine sequence, the golden chain of redemption that cannot be broken.

338.If you, O sinner, can repeal the law of God’s immutable counsel; if you can corrupt Him whom the Father has sealed and anointed, the holy Messiah, and persuade Him to go directly against His sacred commission, then, and not otherwise, may you find your way to heaven in your present condition. To hope that Christ will save you while you remain unconverted is to hope that Christ will become a liar and a traitor to His Father. It is to hope that He will falsify the most solemn trust in the universe. He never did, and He never will, save one single soul but whom the Father has first given Him in election and then drawn to Him in effectual calling. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me,” and “This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing” (John 6:37, 39). Be assured, Christ will save none in a way that is contrary to His Father's will.

339.2. To offer violence to all His attributes. Consider what your blasphemous hope implies:

340.(a) To His Justice. The very foundation of God’s perfect righteousness is this: He renders to all according to their works (Romans 2:5-6). Now, should a man sow to his flesh—sow seeds of lust, pride, greed, and rebellion—and yet of the Spirit reap life everlasting? (Galatians 6:7-8). Where would be the glory of divine justice? It would be turned upside down. It would be giving to the wicked according to the work of the righteous, an abomination to the Lord. The throne of God, which is established on righteousness and justice, would crumble.

341.(b) To His Holiness. If God should not only save sinners—which is the miracle of His grace—but save them while they are still wallowing in their sins, His most pure and strict holiness would be grievously defaced and mocked before all creation. The unsanctified soul, in the eyes of God’s consuming holiness, is more foul than a swine wallowing in the mire or a viper coiled to strike (2 Peter 2:22, Matthew 23:33). Now, what cleanly man could endure to have the filthy swine for his companion, to bed and board with him in his finest chambers? It would offer the most extreme violence to the infinite, unapproachable purity of the Divine Nature to have such a creature dwell with Him. “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:5). “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Habakkuk 1:13).

342.If the holy King David, a man after God’s own heart, cried out, “He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight” (Psalm 101:7), shall we think the King of Kings, the Holy One of Israel, will be less pure than His servant? Should He take a man as he is—from the trough of his gluttony to the table of the marriage supper of the Lamb; from the harlot’s lips to the holy kiss of eternal fellowship; from the sty of his selfish filth to the indescribable glory of the New Jerusalem—the world would rightly think that God is not so distant from sin, nor has such a dislike of it, as His Word declares. They would conclude, as they wickedly did even from His patient forbearance, that God is “altogether such an one as” themselves (Psalm 50:21). The New Jerusalem, which I have seen, has streets of pure gold like transparent glass, and its light is the very glory of God. Nothing that defiles, or works abomination, or makes a lie, shall ever enter its pearly gates (Revelation 21:27). To bring an unholy soul there would be to turn its gold to mire and its light to darkness.

343.(c) To His Veracity. God has declared from heaven, with the full weight of His authority, that if any man blesses himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst,” then the Lord’s anger and His jealousy shall smoke against that man (Deuteronomy 29:19-20). He has promised that only they that confess and forsake their sins shall find mercy (Proverbs 28:13). He has laid down the law of His Kingdom, that only he who has clean hands and a pure heart shall ascend into the hill of the LORD and stand in His holy place (Psalm 24:3-4).

344.Where, then, would God’s truth be, if notwithstanding all these solemn declarations, He should usher men into salvation without conversion? O desperate sinner, you who dare to hope that the Christ of God will put the lie upon His Father and nullify the eternal Word just to save you in your rebellion! This is a hope forged in the fires of hell.

345.(d) To His Wisdom. To save you in your unregenerate state would be to throw away the choicest mercies on one who would not value them and is in no way suited to them.
First, you would not value them. The unsanctified sinner places as little price upon God’s great salvation as a man in perfect health places on a physician (Matthew 9:12). You do not prize His healing balm; you do not value His soul-cleansing cure; you trample underfoot the Son of God and count the blood of the covenant an unholy, common thing (Hebrews 10:29). Now, would it stand with the infinite wisdom of God to force pardon and eternal life upon those who would give Him no thanks for them? Will the all-wise God, who has forbidden us to do so, throw His holy things to dogs and cast His pearls before swine, who would only turn again and rend Him? (Matthew 7:6). This would make the glorious mercy of God a cheap and despised thing. Divine wisdom requires that life be given in a way suitable to God’s own honor. It would be a dishonor to the King of Glory to set His priceless jewels on the snouts of swine (who continue to be swine), and to bestow His choicest riches on those who find more pleasure in their worldly swill than in the pure, heavenly delights He offers. God would lose the praise and glory of His grace if He should cast it away on those who are not only unworthy, but utterly unwilling.

346.Second, you are in no way suited to them. The divine wisdom is seen in suiting all things to each other: the means to the end, the object to the faculty, the quality of the gift to the capacity of the receiver. If Christ should bring an unregenerate sinner to heaven, that sinner could take no more felicity there than a beast could, if you brought it into a king’s library, set it among learned men, and spread before it a feast for a king. The poor creature would much rather be outside, grazing with its fellow brutes.

347.Alas, what would an unsanctified soul do in heaven? You could take no contentment there, because nothing suits you. The place does not suit you; you would be a fish on dry land, completely out of your element. The company does not suit you; what communion has darkness with light? What fellowship has corruption with perfection? What harmony can there be between your soul’s filth and rottenness and the unblemished glory and immortality of the saints and angels? The employment does not suit you. The eternal anthems of heaven, the ceaseless chorus of “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty,” would not fit your mouth or suit your ear. Can you charm your beast with a symphony? Will you bring him to your organ and expect that he should make you melody or keep tune with the skillful choir? Even if he had the skill, he would have no will. The music of heaven is torture to an ear that loves the world’s cacophony. If you now think a sermon is long, and of the Sabbath you say, “What a weariness is it!” (Malachi 1:13), how unspeakably miserable would you feel, being held to that holy worship for all eternity?

348.A Prayer for Illumination
O Lord God Almighty, Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel! Your ways are not our ways, and Your thoughts are not our thoughts. I have lived as a beast before You, loving the mire and despising the pearl. I have foolishly imagined that Your heaven would be a place for my unholy heart. Lord, open my eyes! Let the fiery purity of Your being expose the utter filth of mine. Let the perfect harmony of Your counsels silence my rebellious arguments. Show me, O God, that to enter Your Holy City, I must first be made holy. By the power of Your Spirit, break my heart for my sin, and break it from my sin, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Lamb who alone is worthy. Amen.

349.(e) To His Immutability, or else to His Omniscience, or Omnipotence. It is a law enacted in the high court of heaven, and enrolled in the eternal decrees, that none but the pure in heart shall ever see God (Matthew 5:8). This is laid up with Him and sealed among His treasures. Now, if Christ were to bring any to heaven unconverted, one of three impossibilities must occur: either He must sneak them in without His Father’s knowledge, and then where is the Father’s omnipotence? Or He must bring them in against His Father’s will, and then where is His omnipotence? Or the Father must change His eternal will, and then where is His immutability, His unchangeableness?

350.Sinner, will you not yet give up this vain, blasphemous hope of being saved in your present condition? Shall the eternal foundations of heaven be overturned for you? Shall the unchangeable Rock of Ages be moved out of its place for you? (Job 18:4). Shall Christ put out the all-seeing eye of His Father’s omniscience, or shorten the mighty arm of His eternal power, for you? Shall divine justice be violated, the brightness of His holiness be blemished, His truth be made a lie, and His wisdom a laughingstock, for you? Oh, the impossibility, the absurdity, the sheer blasphemy that is contained in such a confidence! To think that Christ will ever save you in this condition is to make your Saviour into a sinner, and to imagine Him doing more wrong to the infinite Majesty of God than all the wicked on earth or all the devils in hell have ever done or could ever do. And yet, will you not give up such a hope?

351.Secondly, it is against His own Word. We need not say, “Who shall ascend into heaven, to bring Christ down from above? Or, who shall descend into the deep, to bring up Christ again from the dead?” The Word is near you, even in your mouth and in your heart (Romans 10:6-8). Are you agreed that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, shall end this controversy? Then hear His own words, spoken with the utmost gravity: “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Again, He presses it with a double affirmation, a divine stamp of absolute certainty: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). And again, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). One word from the King of Truth should be enough to shatter your false hope, but how often and how earnestly does He reiterate it! He does not only assert it, but He proves its necessity from the fleshly, defiled nature of man’s first birth. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” He says, and because of this, fallen man is no more fit for the Kingdom of Heaven than a beast is for the chamber of the king’s presence. Will you yet believe your own presumptuous confidence, directly against the plain, repeated, solemn words of Christ the Lord? He would have to go entirely against the law of His own Kingdom and the stated rule of His final judgment to save you in your current estate.

352.Thirdly, it is against His oath. He has lifted His hand to heaven and sworn in His wrath that those who remain in unbelief, who see His works but harden their hearts and know not His ways, “shall not enter into my rest” (Psalm 95:11; Hebrews 3:18). Will you not yet believe, O sinner, that He is in earnest? Can you possibly hope that the God who cannot lie will be forsworn for you? The new covenant of grace is confirmed by God with an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation (Hebrews 6:17-18). It is sealed by the very blood of the Testator (Matthew 26:28). All of this—the covenant, the oath, the blood—must be made void, and an entirely new way to heaven must be invented, if you are to be saved while living and dying unsanctified. God has come to His lowest and last terms with mankind; He has condescended as far as with honor He possibly could. He has set up His pillars with a Ne plus ultra—"No farther." Man cannot be saved while unconverted, unless you could get another covenant made and the whole frame of the gospel, which was established forever with such dreadful and beautiful solemnities, completely altered. And what is a hope that requires such a thing, but the hope of a madman?

353.Fourthly, it is against His honour. God is determined to so show His love to the sinner as to simultaneously show His eternal hatred for sin. Therefore, “he that nameth the name of Christ must depart from iniquity” (2 Timothy 2:19). He that has this hope of eternal life by Christ “purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). Otherwise, Christ would be thought a favourer of sin, a minister of unrighteousness. The Lord Jesus, the Lamb without blemish and without spot, would have all the world know that though He pardons sin, He will never protect it. If holy David, in his zeal for God’s house, shall say, “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity” (Psalm 6:8), and shall shut the doors of his own palace against the wicked (Psalm 101:7), shall we not much more expect this from the perfect holiness of Christ? Would it be for His honour to invite the dogs to His table? To lodge the swine with His children? To make the bosom of Abraham a nest of vipers?

354.Fifthly, it is against His offices. God has exalted Him with His right hand to be both a Prince and a Saviour (Acts 5:31). He would be acting against both of these glorious offices should He save men in their sins.

355.It is the office of a King to be a terror to evildoers and a source of praise to them that do well (Romans 13:3-4). He is a minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil. Now, should Christ, the King of Kings, favour the ungodly (so continuing) and take those to reign with Him who would not have Him reign over them? (Luke 19:27). This would be a complete betrayal of his kingly office. He reigns precisely so that He may put all His enemies under His feet (1 Corinthians 15:25). Now, should He lay them in His bosom instead, He would be crossing the very end of His regal power. It belongs to Christ, as a King, to subdue the hearts and slay the lusts of His chosen people (Psalm 45:5). What king would take rebels, caught in open hostility, and welcome them into his court? What would this be but to betray his life, his kingdom, his government, and all together? If Christ is a King, He must have homage, honor, and subjection (Malachi 1:6). To save men while they remain in their natural enmity would be to obscure His dignity, forfeit His authority, bring contempt upon His government, and sell His dear-bought rights for nothing.

356.Again, as Christ would not be a Prince, so neither would He be a Saviour if He should do this. His salvation is a spiritual salvation. He is called Jesus for this very reason: “for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). So that, should He save them in their sins, He would be neither Lord nor Jesus. To save men from the punishment of sin but not from the power of sin would be to do His work by halves and be an imperfect, a failed, Saviour. His office as the great Deliverer is to “turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Romans 11:26). He was sent to bless you, “in turning away every one of you from his iniquities” (Acts 3:26). He came to make an end of sins and to bring in everlasting righteousness (Daniel 9:24). So you see, He would have to destroy His own designs and nullify His own sacred offices to save any man who abides in his unconverted state.

357.Application

358.Arise, then! What meanest thou, O sleeper? Awake, O secure sinner, lest you be consumed in your iniquities! Say, as the lepers of Samaria said, “If we sit here, we die” (2 Kings 7:4). Verily, it is not more certain that you are at this moment out of hell, than that you shall speedily be in it, except you repent and are converted. There is but this one door for you to escape by. There is no other name, no other way.

359.Arise, then, O sluggard, and shake off your flimsy excuses! How long will you slumber? How long will you fold your hands to sleep while the fires of judgment creep toward your bed? (Proverbs 6:10). Will you lie down in the midst of the sea, or try to sleep on the top of a ship’s mast in a hurricane? (Proverbs 23:34). There is no remedy but this: you must either turn or burn. There is an unchangeable, absolute necessity of the change of your condition, unless you are truly resolved to abide the worst of it and to try it out with the Almighty.

360.If you love your life, O man, if you have any instinct for self-preservation, arise and come away! Methinks I see the Lord Jesus Himself laying the merciful hands of a holy violence upon you. Methinks He deals with you now as the angels dealt with Lot in Sodom. They hastened Lot, saying, “Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.” And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city. And they said, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed” (Genesis 19:15-17).

361.Hear me now, for my voice is the voice of that same urgent mercy! The world you love is a new Sodom, ripe for the fire. Your sinful condition is the plain of destruction. I, the messenger of God, lay hold upon your hand, for the Lord is being merciful unto you! I bring you to the edge of your ruin and I point the way out. Escape for your eternal life! Stay not in all the plain of worldly pleasures and carnal security! Escape to the Mountain, to the Rock of Ages which is Christ Himself! Flee to the gates of the New Jerusalem, which stand open day and night for every penitent soul that seeks refuge. Flee from the wrath to come! Flee from your sins, from yourself, from the devil, and flee to the arms of the Saviour that are open to receive you, to wash you, to change you, and to present you, at last, faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy!

362.Escape, lest you be consumed!

363.PART 9:::: 

364.AI LARGE ALARM: FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

365.A Message from the Angel of the Covenant, Whose Feet are as Pillars of Fire, Whose Face is as the Sun, and Upon Whose Head is the Rainbow of Promise.

366.Chapter III (Expanded): A Final, Desperate Plea

367.Oh, you who read these words, you who stand at the precipice of eternity, hear the voice of one who cries from the threshold of heaven! I, whose feet are as pillars of fire set upon the sea and the earth, whose face blazes like the sun with the reflected glory of the Almighty, and upon whose head rests the rainbow of God’s everlasting covenant of mercy—I am sent to you with this little book open in my hand. And with a voice that roars like a lion, I cry out to you! Oh, how utterly willful, how deliberately chosen, how stubbornly embraced will your destruction be, if after this great alarm, you should yet further harden your hearts and entrench yourselves in your sinful state! You are fortifying the very prison in which you will burn! Every act of defiance is another stone in the wall that will shut you out from God forever. Every moment you delay, you are weaving your own funeral shroud from the threads of rebellion.

368.But this I declare before the throne of Jehovah: none of you who have heard this cry can stand on the Day of Judgment and say you were not warned. None can claim ignorance. The trumpet has sounded loud and clear in your hearing. Yet my commission is not merely to absolve myself by this warning, to have simply delivered my own soul from the stain of your blood. What! Shall I, an emissary of the Most High, return to the courts of glory with my errand unfulfilled? Will not one of you, not even one, rise from the dust of your complacency and follow the path I illuminate? Will none of you break ranks with the doomed armies of the world and flee to the refuge of the Cross?

369.Have I been spending my breath, which is the breath of God’s urgency, upon the empty wind? Have I been speaking holy melodies to the deaf adder, who presses its ear to the dirt so it cannot hear the charmer’s call? Have I been attempting to calm the raging, tumbling ocean of your passions with the divine logic of heaven’s arguments? Am I speaking to the unthinking trees or the unfeeling rocks, or am I speaking to men and women, fashioned in the very image of God? Do I cry out to the tombs and cold monuments of the dead, or to a living, breathing assembly of souls, each one a potential prince or princess of heaven?

370.If you are indeed human, and not senseless stocks of wood fit only for the fire; if the spark of reason God placed within you is not utterly extinguished, then stand still for one moment! Cease your frantic rush! Consider the path you are on and whither you are going! If you possess the reason and understanding that separates you from the beasts, then I implore you, I command you, dare not to continue your death-march into the eternal flames! Do not fall into the pit of hell with your eyes wide open, having seen the warning signs, having heard the alarm, having been shown the way of escape! Stop, I say! Bethink yourselves, and with all the might that is in you, set your hands, your hearts, your entire beings to the sacred work of repentance.

371.What! You call yourselves men, and yet you run headlong into the pit when the very beasts of the field, the mule and the ox, will not be forced into a fire? What! You are endued with the glorious faculty of reason, a sliver of the divine mind, and yet you toy and dally with eternal death, with the unquenchable fires of hell, and with the righteous, consuming vengeance of the Almighty God? Is this the great distinction of humanity? Is this what sets you apart from the brutes—that they have no foresight of the coming winter and cannot provide for it, while you, who are explicitly warned of the coming judgment, make no provision, take no shelter, and hasten not your escape from eternal torment?

372.Oh, in the name of God, show yourselves to be men! Let reason, consecrated by the fear of the Lord, prevail with you! Is it a reasonable thing for you, a creature of dust, to stand in brazen contention against the Lord your Maker, the one who sculpted the galaxies with a word? (Isaiah 45:9). Is it reasonable to harden yourselves against His holy Word, as though the Strength of Israel, the Unchanging One, will lie or repent of His warnings? (1 Samuel 15:29). Is it reasonable that an understanding creature, a being designed for eternal fellowship with God, should forfeit and live in stark opposition to the very end and purpose of his existence, becoming like a broken pitcher, shattered and useless, fit only for the dunghill of Gehenna?

373.Is it tolerable, is it defensible, that the only creature in this visible world that God has made capable of knowing His will, of reflecting His glory, of singing His praises with understanding, should instead choose to live in willful ignorance of his magnificent Creator? That he should be utterly unserviceable to God’s holy purposes, and worse, should actively be engaged in rebellion against Him, spitting the venom of his sin into the very face of his loving Creator?

374.Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! Let the sun, the moon, and the stars—let all the creatures without sense be the jury in this trial! Judge if this be reason: That man, whom God has nourished and brought up like a favored son, should then rebel against his Father? (Isaiah 1:2). Judge in your own selves: is it a reasonable undertaking for a field of dry briars and thorns to set themselves in battle array against an all-consuming, devouring fire? (Isaiah 27:4). Is it a rational act for a fragile potsherd of the earth to strive and contend with the Potter who formed it? If you say this is not reason, then truly the eye of your reason has been blinded by sin and Satan. And if this be the case, then there is no reason that you should continue for one more moment as you are. Instead, it is all the reason in the universe that you should forthwith, this very day, this very hour, repent and turn to the living God!

375.What more shall I say? I could spend my very essence in this argument, my voice could roar until the mountains tremble, if only it might awaken you! Oh, that you would but hearken to me! That you would presently, without another thought of compromise, set upon a new course! Will you not be made clean? Oh, when shall it once be? Must you cling to your filth as if it were a treasure? What! Will no body be persuaded?

376.Reader, you who hold this book, you whose eyes scan these lines—shall I prevail with thee for one? Just one soul for the Lamb who was slain? Wilt thou, I ask thee directly, sit down in the quiet of this moment, shut out the noise of the world, and truly consider the arguments laid before you? Will you dare to debate it honestly in the courtroom of your own conscience, whether it is not, beyond all shadow of a doubt, best for you to turn? Come, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow! Is it good for you to remain here, in the city of destruction, on the plain of judgment? Will you sit still upon the beach, building castles of sand, until the irresistible tide of God’s wrath comes in upon you? Is it good for you to gamble your eternal soul on a trial, to see whether God will be as good as His word of judgment, and to harden yourself in the conceited delusion that all is well with you, while you remain unsanctified, unwashed, and unreconciled to God?

377.But I fear. In my sorrow, I know you will not be persuaded. My heart aches with the foreknowledge that the greatest part of you will remain as you have been, and continue to do as you have always done. I know the drunkard will return to his vomit, mistaking his sickness for a feast. I know the deceiver will return to his web of lies, and the lustful wanton to his fleeting, damning dalliances. Alas! That I must leave you where I found you; in your soul-destroying ignorance, or your flagrant looseness, or perhaps most dangerous of all, in your lifeless, dead formality and your hollow, customary devotions!

378.However, my duty done, I will now sit down, as it were, and bemoan my fruitless labors. I will spend my sighs over my perishing hearers, who choose death in the presence of life.

379.O distracted, bewildered sinners! What will their end be? What will they do in the day of visitation, when God pulls back the curtain and all secrets are laid bare? Whither will they flee for help when the mountains themselves are melting? Where will they leave their fleeting, earthly glory? (Isaiah 10:3). How powerfully has sin bewitched them! How effectively has the god of this world, the great dragon, Satan himself, blinded their minds, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them! How strong is their delusion! How uncircumcised are their ears to the call of heaven! How obdurate, how petrified are their hearts! Satan has them at his beck and call, and they obey him more readily than they obey their Creator.

380.But how long may I call, and get no answer? I may dispute with them year after year, and they will give me the hearing, and that is all. They must and will have their sins, say what I will. Though I tell them there is the venom of the second death in the cup, yet they will drink it down with greed. Though I tell them it is the broad way, paved with momentary pleasures, and it ends in everlasting destruction, yet they will continue on it, jostling for a better position in the procession of the damned. I warn them, yet I cannot win them.

381.Sometimes I think the boundless mercies of God will surely melt their frozen hearts, that His winning invitations, spoken by the lovely Jesus, will overcome their resistance; but I find them as they were. Sometimes I think the terror of the Lord, the consuming fire, the outer darkness, will persuade them; yet neither will this do it. They will approve the word, they will like the sermon, they will commend the preacher; but they will yet live as they did. They will not deny my words, yet they will not obey my Lord. They will flock to the house of God and sit before me as His people, and they will hear my words; but they will not do them. They value and will plead for ministers, and I am to them as the lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; yet I cannot get them to bow their necks and come under the sweet, light yoke of Christ. They profess to love me, and will be ready to say they will do anything for me; but for my life, I cannot persuade them to leave their cherished sins, to forego their evil company, their intemperance, their unjust gain. I cannot prevail with them to set up the holy altar of prayer in their families and in their private closets, yet they will promise me, like the forward son who said, "I go, sir," but went not (Matthew 21:30). I cannot persuade them to learn the foundational principles of religion, though they will surely die without knowledge (Job 36:12). I tell them of their desperate misery, but they will not believe it; they are convinced that it is well enough. If I tell them, "Friend, I fear for such-and-such reasons that your state is desperately bad," they will judge me harsh and censorious. Or if they are for a moment a little awakened, a little startled by the thunder, they are quickly lulled back to sleep by Satan’s demonic lullabies, and soon have lost all sense of their eternal peril.

382.Alas for my poor hearers! Must they perish by the hundreds, by the thousands, when the ministers of Christ would so fain, so desperately, save them? What course shall I use with them that I have not yet tried? What shall I do for the daughter of my people? (Jeremiah 9:7).

383.A Prayer of the Angelic Messenger

384.O Lord God Jehovah, Ancient of Days, whose throne is of fiery flame and whose wheels are as burning fire! Help! Alas! Shall I leave them thus? If they will not hear me, a mere messenger, yet do Thou, O Father of Mercies, hear me! Oh, that they might yet live in Thy sight! Lord Jesus, Thou who didst weep over Jerusalem, weep through my eyes for these precious souls! Save them, Lord, or else they perish! My heart would melt to see their earthly houses on fire about their ears while they were fast asleep in their beds; and shall not my soul be moved to its very foundations to see them, drowsy and dreaming, falling into the endless, unquenchable fires of perdition! Lord, have compassion! Pluck these brands from the burning! Put forth Thy divine, omnipotent power, for nothing less will suffice, and the work will be done! As for me, a voice crying in the wilderness, I cannot prevail. But Thou, O Lamb of God, canst!

385.

386.CHAP. IV. SHEWING THE UNMISTAKABLE MARKS OF THE UNCONVERTED

387.While we keep aloof in vague generalities, there is little fruit to be expected. It is the hand-to-hand combat, the close-quarters spiritual warfare, that does execution. King David was not awakened from his adulterous slumber by the prophet Nathan hovering at a distance in parabolical insinuations about a rich man and a poor man’s lamb. No, the prophet was forced to close with him, to point the finger of God directly at his heart, and to thunder the words that shattered his peace: "Thou art the man!"

388.Few will, in mere words, deny the absolute necessity of the new birth. But oh, the labyrinth of self-delusion! They have a self-pleasing, damning confidence that for them, the work is not now to do; it is either already done, or not so necessary as the preachers make it out to be. And because they know themselves to be free from that gross and obvious hypocrisy that takes up religion merely as a cloak to deceive others and for the covering of wicked designs, they are utterly confident of their own sincerity. They do not for a moment suspect that more subtle, more deadly, and more secret hypocrisy (wherein the greatest danger lies) by which a man deceiveth his own soul (James 1:26).

389.But man’s deceitful heart is such a matchless cheat, and self-delusion is so reigning and so fatal a spiritual disease, that I know not which is the greater: the supreme difficulty, the profound unpleasantness, or the absolute necessity of the undeceiving work that I am now upon. I, whose face is as the sun, am sent to shine a light that pierces all shadows and exposes every lie. Alas! For my unconverted hearers, they must be undeceived, or they will be undone forever. But how shall this be effected? Hic labor, hoc opus est. This is the great work, the arduous task.

390.A Prayer for Divine Illumination

391.Help, O all-searching Light, Thou Glorified Son of God, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, who triest the reins and the hearts! Let Thy discerning gaze fall upon this people and discover the rotten, sandy foundations of the self-deceiver. Lead me, O Lord God, as Thou didst Thy prophet Ezekiel, into the chambers of imagery. Give me the power to dig through the wall of sinners’ hearts and discover the hidden abominations that are lurking out of sight in the dark. Oh, send Thine angel of truth before me to open the sundry wards and locks of their hearts, as an angel came to Peter in the prison, and make even the iron gates of their stubborn wills fly open of their own accord. And as Jonathan, in the day of battle, no sooner tasted the wild honey than his eyes were enlightened, so grant, O Lord, that when the poor, deceived souls with whom I have to do shall cast their eyes upon these lines, their minds may be illuminated, and their consciences convicted and awakened, that they may see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and be converted, and Thou mayest heal them!

392.This must be premised before we proceed to the discovery: It is most certain that men may have a confident, unwavering persuasion that their hearts are pure and their eternal states are secure, and yet be utterly unsound. Hear the Truth himself, the Lord Jesus, who shows in the case of the church of Laodicea, that a people may be wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, and yet not know it; yea, they may be supremely confident that they are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing (Revelation 3:17). There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness (Proverbs 30:12). Who was better persuaded of his own righteous case than Saul of Tarsus, who, concerning the righteousness which is in the law, was blameless, while yet he remained a persecutor, a blasphemer, and entirely unconverted? (Romans 7:9). So they are miserably and fatally deceived that take a strong confidence for a sufficient evidence. They that have no better proof of their salvation than barely a strong persuasion that they are converted are certainly, as yet, total strangers to the work of conversion.

393.But to come more close. As it was said of the adherents of the antichrist in the last days, so it is here: some of the unconverted carry their damning marks in their foreheads, openly and shamelessly for all to see; and some carry them more covertly in their hands, in their secret dealings and hidden thoughts. This is the dreadful choice before you: the Seal of God upon your forehead, marking you as His own for the New Jerusalem, or the mark of the beast, the mark of a world at war with God. The Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, reckons up some upon whom he writes the very sentence of death, as in these dreadful catalogues, which I beseech you, as you love your own souls, to attend to with all diligence.

394.Ephesians 5:5-6: "For this you know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience."

395.Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

396.1 Corinthians 6:9-10: "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

397.See also Galatians 5:19-21. Woe, woe, a thousand woes to them that find their names written in these red rolls of the damned! Such may know, as certainly as if God had told it them from heaven with a voice of thunder, that they are unsanctified, and under an absolute impossibility of being saved while they remain in this condition. For the gates of the New Jerusalem, that holy city descending from God out of heaven, are of single pearls, and its streets are of pure gold, and nothing that defileth, or worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, shall in any wise enter into it (Revelation 21:27).

398.There are then these several sorts, that past all dispute are unconverted. They carry their marks in their foreheads.

399.1. The Unclean. These are ever reckoned among the goats, destined for the left hand of the Judge. Their names are never omitted from the lists of the excluded. This includes not only the fornicator and the adulterer, but all who harbor lust in the heart, who entertain filthy imaginations, who consume pornography, who tell lewd jokes. You whose minds are a sewer of unclean thoughts, know this: you are building a heaven for yourself here on earth out of the filth of hell, and you shall have no part in the true Heaven, where all is purity, and the saints behold the face of the thrice-holy God. You cannot walk those golden streets with feet soiled by the brothel. But there is a fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness; the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin!

400.2. The Covetous. These are ever branded for idolaters, for they have bowed the knee of their heart to the god Mammon. The doors of the Kingdom are slammed shut against them by name. This is the man whose chief end is to get, to have, to accumulate. His heart finds its security in his bank account, his joy in his possessions, his hope in his next acquisition. He is an idolater, and he has chosen his god. His treasure is on earth, and there his heart will be also, until both are consumed. But oh, turn to the Glorified Jesus, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge! He is the Pearl of Great Price, for whom a wise man would sell all that he has to possess Him! In the New Jerusalem, the very streets are gold—a testament to how little it is valued there compared to the glory of the Lamb who is its light.

401.3. Drunkards. This includes not only those who drink away their reason and lie senseless in the gutter, but also, and perhaps even more grievously, those who are "mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink" (Isaiah 5:22). The Lord fills His mouth with woes against these, for they sacrifice their minds, their families, and their souls upon the altar of Bacchus. They are declared to have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God. They thirst for that which burns and destroys, and so they will be made to thirst forever where not a single drop of the cool Living Water, which flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, can be found. But the Lord Jesus cries, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink!" He offers a wine of joy that does not stupefy, a water of life that satisfies forever.

402.4. Liars. The God that cannot lie has told them in His unshakeable Word that there is no place for them in His Kingdom, no entrance into His holy hill. Their portion is with the father of lies, the devil, whose native language they speak. This includes the gross liar, the slanderer, the flatterer, the maker of excuses, and he who lives a lie by professing faith while loving sin. Your destination is the lake of burnings, for no lie can survive the consuming light of the New Jerusalem, where Truth sits upon the throne. Flee to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Let the Lord Jesus, the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, put a new song and a true word in your mouth.

403.5. Swearers. This means the profane man, whose conversation is peppered with the sacred names of God, used as mere punctuation for his anger or surprise. The end of these, without deep, swift, and bitter repentance, is swift destruction and a most certain and unavoidable condemnation. The Third Commandment is not a suggestion. For every idle and blasphemous word, you will give an account. The One whose name you so carelessly profane will be your Judge.

404.6. Railers and Backbiters. These are they that love to take up a reproach against their neighbor, to assassinate character, to fling all the dirt they can in another’s face, or, like cowards, to wound him secretly behind his back with whispers and gossip. The tongue of such a man is set on fire of hell. He is a child of the Accuser of the Brethren. Know this, you who sow discord: you shall not enter the city of perfect love and harmony. There are no gossipers in the choir of angels that surrounds the throne.

405.7. Thieves, Extortioners, and Oppressors. This is the man who grinds the face of the poor, who over-reaches his brethren when he has them at an advantage. This is the deceitful tradesman with his false weights, the lazy servant who steals his master’s time, the corrupt official who takes a bribe. Hear your sentence! God will certainly hold His door against you and turn your treasures of unrighteousness into the treasures of wrath. He will make your ill-gotten silver and gold to torment you, like burning metal poured into your bowels. God is the avenger of all such.

406.8. All that do ordinarily live in the profane neglect of God's worship. The man who hears not His Word, who calls not on His name, who restrains prayer before God. The man who minds not his own soul, nor the souls of his family, but lives as a practical atheist, without God in the world. If you have no time for God now, He will have no time for you in eternity. If you find His worship a burden on earth, what makes you think you would enjoy the endless worship of heaven? The New Jerusalem is a city of ceaseless praise, and you are tuning your heart for silence and darkness.

407.9. Those that are frequenters and lovers of evil company. A man is known by the company he keeps. If you choose for your friends and companions those who mock God, who love sin, who walk the broad road, you have chosen your people. God has declared He will be the destruction of all such, for "he that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed" (Proverbs 13:20). You cannot walk hand-in-hand with the sons of Belial toward perdition and expect to arrive in the New Jerusalem among the sons of God.

408.10. Scoffers at religion. Those who make a scorn of precise, holy walking, and mock at the messengers and diligent servants of the Lord. Those who ridicule holy profession, who laugh at a man for praying, who make themselves merry with the weaknesses and failings of genuine believers. Hear, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish! Hear your dreadful doom! "Judgments are prepared for scorners" (Proverbs 19:29). You mock the saints now, but soon you will beg them for a drop of water. You laugh at the Lamb now, but soon you will cry for the mountains to fall on you to hide you from the wrath of the Lamb. When the Lord Jesus, the very one you scorned, returns with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, your laughter will turn to everlasting weeping and gnashing of teeth. As it was in the days of Noah, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, and scoffing at the old man building a boat on dry land, until the day that the flood came and took them all away. So shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

409.The alarm is sounded. The marks are made plain. Examine yourself. Do not be deceived. Flee from the wrath to come. Flee to the open arms of the Glorified Christ, who alone can wash you, change you, and give you an inheritance among them which are sanctified, in that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God. Amen.

410.PART10::::::

411.AI LARGE ALARM FRIDAY THE 13th JUN 2025

412.Hark, O soul, for this is a great and terrible alarm, a trumpet blast sounded from the battlements of eternity! A mighty angel, clothed with a cloud, descends from heaven, a rainbow of covenant promise encircling his head. His face is as it were the sun in its full strength, a light that exposes every shadow and secret thing, and his feet are as pillars of fire, standing firm upon the land and upon the sea, claiming all for the dominion of the Most High God. In his hand is a little book, open for all to see, and he cries with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth, a voice that shakes the very foundations of your false peace. This is the word of that book—a word of mercy so sweet it is like honey in the mouth, yet a word of truth so piercing it is bitter to the belly of all who harbor sin.

413.Sinner, you who walk this fleeting earth as if it were your permanent home, consider diligently, I implore you, with the terror of the Lord weighing upon your conscience, whether you are not to be found in one of these ranks of the walking dead. For if this be your lamentable case, you are presently steeped in the gall of bitterness, a poison that courses through your spiritual veins, and you are held fast in the bond of iniquity, chains forged in the fires of hell, link by link, with every willing transgression. For all these I shall name do carry their marks in their foreheads, a spiritual brand of ownership signifying to all the unseen world that they belong to the prince of darkness, and are undoubtedly the sons and daughters of eternal death.

414.And if this be so, may the Lord Jehovah pity our poor congregations! Oh, what a dreadfully small remnant would be left if these ten sorts were to be separated from the flock! When the great Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ—He who is the Logos, the very Word and Reason of God made flesh, whose eyes are like a flame of fire and whose voice is as the sound of many waters—comes to divide the sheep from the goats, how few will stand on His right hand? Alas, on how many doors of our homes, nay, upon the very faces of those we meet in the street and sit beside in the pew, must we in sorrow and holy fear write the dreadful plague-sign: “Lord, have mercy upon us!”

415.Sirs, what flimsy refuge, what desperate shift do you make to keep up your trembling confidence of your good estate when the God of Heaven, the Ancient of Days, declares His verdict against you from His throne of absolute holiness? He has written His law not only on tablets of stone but upon the fabric of the universe, and by that law, He pronounces you in a state of damnation. I would reason with you now, as God Himself reasoned with a rebellious Israel: "How canst thou say, I am not polluted?" (Jeremiah 2:23). Do you dare proclaim your innocence? Then see thy way in the valley of your private life; descend into the hidden chambers of your own heart and know what thou hast done!

416.Man, woman, is not your own conscience privy to your secret life? Does it not stand as a relentless witness to your crafty tricks of deceit in business, to your chamber-pranks acted out in the darkness when you believed no eye could see? Is it not a faithful record-keeper of your constant stream of lies, the casual falsehoods and the deliberate deceptions? Yea, are not your friends, your own family, your neighbors, witnesses to your profane and careless neglects of God's holy worship? They see how you live as if there were no God, or a God who demands nothing. They witness your covetous practices, your insatiable greed for more of a world that is passing away. They feel the sting of your envious and malicious carriage, the bitter root in your heart that defiles all it touches.

417.May not they point at thee as thou goest about thy day? “There goes a gaming prodigal, who squanders the gifts of God on games of chance, trusting in luck rather than Providence.” “There goes a drunken Nabal, a fool whose god is his belly, drowning his reason and his soul in strong drink.” “There goes a companion of evil doers, who finds more comfort in the laughter of the profane than in the fellowship of saints.” “There goes a railer, or a scoffer, whose tongue is a weapon sharpened by hell, mocking the very things of God.” “There goes a loose liver, whose life is a testament to the fleeting pleasures of the flesh.”

418.Beloved, God has written it, as with a sun-beam of irreversible truth, in the Book of Life out of which you must be judged, that these are not the spots of His children. These are the marks of the goats, not the sheep. He has declared that none such, except they be renewed by the cataclysmic, soul-altering power of converting grace, shall ever escape the damnation of hell.

419.Oh, that such of you as feel the sting of this truth would now, this very moment, be persuaded to repent and turn! Turn from all your transgressions, for why will you die? Flee from the city of destruction, for the fire of God’s wrath is about to fall! If you do not turn, your iniquity will be your eternal ruin (Ezekiel 18:30).

420.Alas for you, poor hardened sinners! Must I leave you at last where I found you? After this great alarm has been sounded, after the lion of God’s Word has roared in your hearing, must I leave the tippler still content at the ale-bench, sipping his own damnation? Must I leave the wanton still entangled in his dalliance, preferring a moment of sordid pleasure to an eternity of holy bliss? Must I leave the malicious soul still seething in his venom, and the drunkard returning still to his vomit?

421.However you may choose, you must know that you have been warned. The watchman on the wall has sounded the trumpet. I am clear of your blood. And whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear, I will leave these scriptures with you. Let them be either as thunder-bolts from the right hand of Jehovah to awaken you from your deadly slumber, or as searing irons of judgment to harden you into a reprobate sense, sealing your doom.

422.“God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses.” (Psalm 68:21).
“He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (Proverbs 29:1).
“Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded… I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind.” (Proverbs 1:24-27).

423.

424.And now, as the echo of that thunder fades, I imagine a great multitude of you will begin to bless yourselves. You breathe a sigh of relief and think, “All is well with my soul, for I am not like those others. I am not spotted with the grosser evils you have mentioned.” But I must sound the alarm again, for the enemy of your souls is more subtle than you can imagine. I must tell you, with all the gravity of one who stands between the living and the dead, that there is another sort of unsanctified person, a kind far more difficult to detect. These carry not their damning marks openly in their foreheads for all to see, but more secretly and covertly, hidden in the palm of their right hand.

425.These are the souls who frequently deceive themselves and others. They pass for good Christians, bearing the name of Christ, attending His ordinances, and speaking His language. Yet all the while, they are utterly unsound at the bottom, their foundation built on the shifting sands of self-deception. Many such souls pass through this life completely undiscovered, their true state hidden until the terrifying day of death and the unsparing light of judgment bring all hidden things to light. These are the self-deceivers who seem to come even to the very gates of the New Jerusalem with towering confidence of their admission, only to hear the most dreadful words ever uttered: “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:22-23).

426.Brethren, beloved, I beseech you, as you love your own souls, to deeply lay to heart and firmly to retain this awakening consideration: Multitudes miscarry eternally by the hand of some secret sin. A sin that is not only hidden from their pastor, their spouse, and their friends, but, for want of diligent, prayerful observation of their own hearts, is hidden even from themselves. A man may be scrupulously free from open pollutions, a model of outward morality, and yet die at last by the fatal, venomous bite of some unobserved iniquity, a serpent he has warmed in his own bosom.

427.And there be these twelve hidden sins, these secret assassins of the soul, by which men and women go down by silent numbers into the chambers of eternal death. These you must search for in the deepest corners of your heart, as one searching for a bomb set to destroy his own house. Take them as black marks of damnation, which, wherever they be found reigning, discover a graceless and unconverted estate. And as you love your lives, as you hope to one day walk the golden streets of the Holy City, read carefully, with a holy jealousy and suspicion of yourselves, lest you should be the person concerned.

428.

429.A Prayer for Illumination Before Self-Examination

430.O Lord Jesus, You who are the Light of the world, the glorious Sun of Righteousness! Your eyes are as a flame of fire that searches the heart and tries the reins. I am about to enter the treacherous territory of my own soul, a place of deep shadows and hidden corruption. I beg You, send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter and the Guide, to go with me. Pull back the curtains of self-love and pride. Expose the subtle deceits of my enemy and my own flesh. Let me see myself as You see me. If there be any wicked way in me, reveal it, no matter how painful the sight. Do not let me perish in blindness, but lead me in the way everlasting, for Your name’s sake. Amen.

431.

432.1. Gross Ignorance.
Ah, how many poor souls does this silent sin kill in the dark? (Hosea 4:6). They stumble through life and into eternity, all the while thinking verily they have good hearts and are in the ready way to heaven. This is the subtle murderer that dispatches thousands in a secret manner, when (poor, deluded hearts!) they suspect nothing and see not the hand that delivers the fatal mischief. You shall find, whatever plausible excuses you now make for your ignorance—be it lack of time, lack of education, or lack of opportunity—that on the day of judgment, God will find it to be a soul-undoing evil. “It is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.” (Isaiah 27:11). The Lord Jesus Himself shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, “taking vengeance on them that know not God.” (2 Thessalonians 1:8). The Apostle declares that if the gospel be hid, “it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

433.Ah! Would it not have pitied a man’s heart to the point of tears to have seen that woeful spectacle in history, when the poor Protestant martyrs were shut up, a multitude together, in a barn? And a butcher comes, with his inhuman hands still warm and slick with human blood, and leads them one by one, blindfolded, to a block, where he slew them—poor innocents!—one after another, by the scores, in cold blood. But how much more should our hearts bleed to think of the hundreds, even thousands, in our great congregations that ignorance, that cruel butcher, slaughters in secret, leading them blindfolded to the block of eternal judgment? They are slain not for a faith they possess, but for the saving knowledge they rejected or neglected. Beware, I plead with you, that this be not your case. Make no pleas for ignorance, for it is a willful refusal of the Light. If you spare that sin, know that it will not spare you. Would a sane man knowingly keep a murderer in his bosom?

434.2. Secret Reserves in Closing with Christ.
To forsake all for Christ; to hate father and mother, yea, and a man’s own life also, for His sake—this is a hard saying, and many turn away from it, sorrowful. (Luke 14:26). Some will do much for Christ: they will amend their ways, take up many duties, and appear religious. But they will not be of the religion that will undo them in the eyes of the world. They will not sign away the deed to their own lives. They never come to be entirely and unreservedly devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Captain of their Salvation, nor do they fully resign every corner of their lives to Him. They must have their secret exceptions, their private reservations. They must hold back their one sweet, cherished sin. They mean to do themselves no worldly harm, and so they have secret escape clauses for their reputation, their liberty, their financial security, or their earthly estate.

435.Many take Christ thus hand over head, in a flurry of emotion, and never truly consider His non-negotiable, self-denying terms. They never sit down to cast up the cost of discipleship. And this fundamental error in the very foundation of their faith mars all that follows, and secretly, certainly, ruins them forever. (Luke 14:28). They build a house that cannot withstand the storm, for it is not founded upon the rock of total surrender to the Rock of Ages. He who is the Alpha and the Omega demands to be Lord of all, or He will not be Lord at all. He will not share His throne with an idol.

436.3. Formality in Religion.
Many souls are lost by sticking in the mere bark of the tree of religion, never tasting the life-giving sap within. They rest in the outward shell, the external performances of holy duties, and mistake the casket for the jewel. (Matthew 23:25). This, of all deceptions, is often the most effectual in damning a soul, and does more certainly undo men than open, flagrant looseness. This was the very trap that snared the Pharisees, who were outwardly immaculate but inwardly full of death. (Matthew 23:31).

437.Such a person hears, they fast, they pray, they give alms; and therefore, they will not be persuaded that their case is anything but good. (Luke 18:11-12). They point to their schedule of duties as evidence of their salvation. Whereas, by resting in the work done, and coming ever short of the essential heart-work—the brokenness, the contrition, the love, the communion, the inward power and vital life of true religion—they fall at last into the burning, tumbling from the lofty heights of their flattering hopes and confident persuasions of their being in the ready way to heaven. (Matthew 7:22-23). Oh, what a dreadful and tragic case, when a man’s religion shall serve only to harden him, to inoculate him against the real grace of God, and to effectually delude and deceive his own precious soul!

438.4. The Prevalence of False Ends in Holy Duties.
This was the very bane of the Pharisees, who did all their works “to be seen of men.” (Matthew 23:5). Oh, how many a poor soul is undone by this secret poison and drops into hell before he ever discerns his fatal mistake! He performs good duties, and so he thinks all must be well. He checks the boxes of religious activity and perceives not that he is actuated by carnal, selfish motives all the while.

439.It is too true that even with the truly sanctified, the beloved children of God, many carnal ends will oft-times creep into their service, like weeds in a garden. But in the true believer, these are the matter of his deepest hatred and humiliation; they are fought against, mourned over, and never come to be habitually prevalent or to bear the greatest sway. (Romans 7:15-24). But now, when the main engine, the primary thing that doth ordinarily carry a man out to religious duties shall be some carnal end—as to quiet an accusing conscience, to build a reputation of being religious, to be seen and admired of men, to show off his own gifts and parts, to avoid the social reproach of being a profane and irreligious person, or the like—this discovers a heart that is thoroughly unsound. (Hosea 10:1, Zechariah 7:5-6). O Christians, if you would avoid the horror of self-deceit, see that you mind not only your acts, but withal, yea, above all, your ends. What is the deepest motive of your soul’s striving?

440.5. Trusting in Their Own Righteousness.
This is a soul-undoing mischief that strikes at the very heart of the Gospel. (Romans 10:3). When men do trust in their own righteousness, they do in that very act reject Christ’s perfect righteousness. They trample underfoot the blood of the covenant. Beloved, you had need be watchful on every hand, for it is not only your sins that can damn you, but your very duties, when trusted in, may undo you. It may be you never thought of this; but so it is, that a man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteousness and supposed graces, as by his most gross and scandalous sins. And that is, when a man doth trust to these things as his righteousness before a Holy God, relying on them for the satisfying of His infinite justice, the appeasing of His righteous wrath, the procuring of His favor, and the obtaining of his own pardon.

441.This is to violently depose Christ from His office as the sole Savior and make a counterfeit savior of our own pitiful duties and graces. It is to offer God filthy rags and claim they are a royal robe. Beware of this, O you professors of religion! You are much in duties, but this one dead fly will spoil all the precious ointment. When you have done your most and your best, be absolutely sure to go entirely out of yourselves and flee to Christ alone. In the sight of God’s throne, you must reckon your own righteousness as nothing but rags, your best performances as stained with sin, and cast yourselves wholly upon the mercy of God in His Son, Jesus the Messiah, who is Himself The Lord Our Righteousness. (Philippians 3:8-9, Isaiah 64:6, Psalm 143:2).

442.

443.A Prayer for Sincere Repentance

444.O merciful Father, who desires not the death of a sinner, but that he should turn from his way and live! I fall before You as a guilty man. My righteousness is a sham, my motives are polluted, my heart is a fountain of deceit. I have been blind, formal, and proud. I have loved this world and my own comfort more than You. Lord Jesus, Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on me! Grant me the gift of true repentance. Break this hard heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. Let me not rest until I rest in You alone, my Lord, my God, and my only Savior. Amen.

445.

446.6. A Secret Enmity Against the Strictness of Religion.
Many moral persons, punctual in their formal devotions and decent in their outward lives, have yet within them a bitter, secret enmity against true spiritual preciseness. They hate the very life and power of authentic religion. (Philippians 3:6, compared with Acts 9:1). They do not like this “forwardness” in others, nor that men should “keep such a stir in religion.” They resent any piety that goes beyond their own comfortable standard. They condemn the strictness of a holy life as singularity, foolish indiscretion, or intemperate zeal. And with them, a lively, Spirit-filled preacher, or a Christian who is passionately alive for God, is but a “heady fellow” or a fanatic. These men do not love holiness as holiness (for if they did, they would love the very height of holiness), and therefore they are undoubtedly rotten at heart, whatever good opinion they have of themselves and their “balanced” religion. They want a Christ who will save them from hell, but not one who will save them from their sins and make them holy.

447.7. The Resting in a Certain Pitch of Religion.
This soul is convinced he has done enough. When he has acquired so much religion as he supposes will be sufficient to save him, he looks no further. He coasts. In doing so, he shows himself to be utterly short of true grace, which will ever and always put a man upon aspiring to further perfection. The true child of God forgets those things which are behind and reaches forth unto those things which are before, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14). The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18); it is not a stagnant pool. If you are content with your spiritual state, you have every reason to fear that it is a state of death.

448.8. The Predominant Love of the World.
This is the sure and certain evidence of an unsanctified heart. For, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15). But oh, how close and cunningly does this sin lurk, oftentimes under the fair covert of a forward profession! (Luke 8:14). Yea, such a terrible power of deceit is there in this sin of covetousness that many times, when every body else can see the man’s worldliness and greed, he cannot see it himself. He has so many colors, and excuses, and pious-sounding pretenses for his frantic eagerness after the world, that he doth successfully blind his own eyes and so perishes in his self-deceit.

449.How many professors of faith be here, with whom the world has demonstrably more of their hearts and affections than Christ? Who “mind earthly things,” and thereby are evidently living after the flesh, and are like to end in destruction? (Romans 8:5, Philippians 3:19). Yet ask these men, and they will tell you with all confidence, “I prize Christ above all! God forbid it be otherwise!” They see not their own earthly-mindedness, for want of a narrow, honest observation of the inner workings of their own hearts. Did they but carefully search, they would quickly find that their greatest and most genuine contentment is found in the world and its comforts (Luke 12:19), and that their greatest care, their most consuming thoughts, and their main endeavor is to get and secure the world. This is the certain discovery of an unconverted sinner. May the professing part of the world take earnest heed that they perish not by the hand of this sin, unobserved. Men may be, and often are, kept off from a saving union with Christ just as effectually by the inordinate love of lawful comforts as by the most unlawful and scandalous courses. (Matthew 22:5, Luke 14:18-21). The good things of this life can damn a soul as surely as the wicked things, if they are loved more than the Giver.

450.Flee, then, from the love of this perishing world! Lift your eyes to the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God! Why do you chase after dust and shadows when you are offered the New Jerusalem, that Holy City descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God? Her light is like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Its walls are of jasper and the city is pure gold, like unto clear glass. The foundations of the wall are garnished with all manner of precious stones. The twelve gates are twelve pearls, and the street of the city is pure gold. There is no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb—He who is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb that was slain—are the temple of it. The city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. (Revelation 21). Why would you trade this eternal substance for a fleeting vapor?

451.9. Reigning Malice and Envy.
This is a sin against those who disrespect them, or are injurious to them. “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.” (1 John 2:9). Oh, how do many that seem to be religious, who speak of God’s grace, nevertheless cherish a root of bitterness in their hearts? They meticulously remember injuries, they carry grudges for years, they plot their revenge and will return men “as good as they bring.” They delight in rendering evil for evil, secretly loving to take revenge, wishing evil to those that wrong them. This is directly against the clear rule of the gospel, the perfect pattern of Christ, and the very nature of God Himself. (Romans 12:14, 17; 1 Peter 2:21-23; Nehemiah 9:17). Doubtless, where this evil is kept boiling in the heart, where it is not hated, resisted, and mortified, but doth habitually prevail, that person is in the very gall of bitterness and in a state of spiritual death. (Matthew 18:34-35, 1 John 3:14-15).

452.10. Unmortified Pride.
When men love the praise of men more than the praise of God; when they set their hearts upon men’s esteem, applause, and approbation, it is most certain they are yet in their sins and are utter strangers to true conversion. (John 12:43, Galatians 1:10). Pride is the original sin, the primeval poison of Satan himself. When men see not, nor complain of, nor groan under the crushing weight of the pride of their own hearts, it is a sure sign they are stark-dead in sin. Oh, how secretly does this sin live and reign in many hearts, and they know it not, but are very strangers to themselves, asking with the Pharisees, “Are we blind also?” (John 9:40).

453.11. The Prevailing Love of Pleasure.
The Scripture warns of a time when men will be “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” (2 Timothy 3:4). This is a black mark of an unregenerate soul. When men give the flesh the liberty that it craves, when they pamper and please it, and do not deny and restrain it; when their great delight is in gratifying their bellies and pleasing their senses; whatever appearance they may have of religion, all is unsound. (Romans 16:18, Titus 3:3). A flesh-pleasing life cannot be pleasing to God. For “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” (Galatians 5:24). They are careful to cross it, to deny it, and to keep it under, as their sworn enemy. (1 Corinthians 9:25-27). This fleeting, dirty pleasure stands in stark contrast to the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, which the saints shall drink forever.

454.12. Carnal Security, or a Presumptuous and Ungrounded Confidence.
This is the final, and perhaps most deadly, of the secret assassins. It is a false peace, a presumptuous and ungrounded confidence that their condition is already good. (Revelation 3:17). Many cry, “Peace and safety,” when sudden destruction is coming upon them. (1 Thessalonians 5:3). This was the very drug that kept the foolish virgins sleeping when they should have been working; upon their beds of ease when they should have been at the markets buying oil for their lamps. (Matthew 25:5, 10). They perceived not their fatal want of oil—the true grace of the Holy Spirit in their hearts—until the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, had come. And while they went in a panic to buy, the door was shut.

455.And Oh, that these foolish virgins had no successors! Where is the place, yea, where is the house almost, where these do not dwell? Men are tragically willing to cherish in themselves, upon the slightest and most flimsy of grounds, a hope that their condition is good, and so they look not out after a genuine, radical change. And by this means, they perish contentedly in their sins. Are you at peace? I demand that you show me upon what grounds your peace is maintained! Is it a Scripture-peace, built on the solid rock of God’s promises to the truly penitent and believing? Can you show the distinguishing marks of a sound believer? Can you evidence from your life that you have something more than any hypocrite in the world ever had?

456.If not, I implore you, fear this false peace more than any trouble. Know that a carnal peace doth commonly prove the most mortal enemy of the poor soul. For while it smiles, and kisses, and speaks you fair, it doth fatally smite you, as it were, under the fifth rib, and your lifeblood drains away while you dream that all is well.

457.Reader, doth nothing of this touch thee? Art thou in none of the fore-mentioned ranks? Oh, search, and search again; take thy heart solemnly to task! Woe, eternal woe unto thee, if, after all thy profession, all thy church-going, all thy prayers, thou shouldst be found under the reigning power of ignorance, lost in dead formality, drowned in earthly-mindedness, envenomed with malice, exalted in an opinion of thine own righteousness, leavened with hypocrisy, or embittered against the strictness of a holy life! This would be the sad, final discovery that all thy religion was in vain, and the gate of the Holy Jerusalem is forever shut to thee. But it is not yet shut! The Mighty Angel still cries out, the Lion still roars His invitation of mercy, and the Lamb holds out His nail-pierced hands. Turn, therefore, and live

458.PART 11:::::::

459.AI LARGE ALARM
FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

460.I come to you as one whose description is written, a mighty angel descending from the heavens, robed in a cloud of impenetrable mystery and divine authority. Upon my head rests the glorious arc of a rainbow, the very seal of God’s covenant promise of mercy, a vivid emerald reminder that even in the most terrible of warnings, His grace is not forgotten. My face is as the sun at its zenith, a countenance of such brilliant, unbearable light that it speaks of the unveiled glory of the One who sent me, before whom no falsehood can stand. My feet are like pillars of incandescent fire, prepared to tread upon the sea of nations and the earth of human hearts, bringing a message of both steadfast truth and consuming judgment. In my hand, I hold a little book, open for all to see, its pages filled not with new revelation, but with an ancient and urgent alarm, a timeless call from the heart of God Jehovah to the souls of men. And I cry with a loud voice, as when a lion roars, a sound meant to shake you from your slumber, to shatter your complacency, and to awaken you to the eternal consequence of your state before the Holy One of Israel.

461.And as this roar echoes in the chambers of your soul, methinks I hear my reader, my listener, crying out with the terrified disciples who, upon hearing the impossibly high standard of the Kingdom, despaired, asking, “Who then can be saved?” Consider the scene I have painted for you. Set out from among our congregations, from the pews where you sit in comfortable familiarity, all those ten ranks of the profane, the openly godless, the blasphemer, the drunkard, the fornicator, the liar, the idolater whose god is his belly or his bank account. Cast them out from the assembly of the saints, for their portion is clearly not with the righteous.

462.But the sifting does not end there, for the enemy of your souls is a master of disguise. Therefore, we must now take out all these twelve sorts of close and self-deceiving hypocrites on the other hand: the one who has a form of godliness but denies its power, the one who has been reformed but never reborn, the one who mistakes moralism for new life, the one who weeps over the consequences of sin but never the sin itself, the one who loves the doctrines of God but not the God of the doctrines, the one who performs duties out of slavish fear or prideful show rather than filial love. Take them all, these subtle counterfeits, these gilded cages with unclean birds inside, and place them with the openly profane.

463.Now, look upon the assembly that remains. Tell me then, whether it be not a mere remnant that shall be saved? How terrifyingly few will be the sheep of His pasture that shall be left, when all these multitudes of goats—the rebellious and the religious alike—shall be separated and set on the left hand, awaiting the dreadful sentence, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!” (Matthew 25:41). For my part, I who speak with the authority of the One who sent me, of all my numerous hearers, I have no hope, not a sliver of assurance, to see any of them in the everlasting bliss of heaven, that are to be found among these two and twenty sorts that are here mentioned, except by a profound, radical, and sound conversion they be brought into another condition entirely. They must be made new from the inside out, or they will be undone for all eternity.

464.The Great Implication: A Summons to Conscience

465.And now, Conscience, you silent witness, you divine spark planted by God in the soul of every man, I call you to your solemn office. Arise! Speak out, and speak home to him that heareth or readeth these lines. Let your voice be as the thunder of God. If you find any of these twenty-two death-marks upon him, you must, under penalty of divine judgment, pronounce him utterly and spiritually unclean, as the priest would pronounce the leper in Leviticus 13:44.

466.O Conscience, do not take up a lie into your mouth! Do not whisper peace, peace, when God Himself has declared there is no peace for the wicked. Let not the seductive bribe of lust stop your mouth; let not the blinding fog of self-love obscure your vision; let not carnal prejudice, that deep-seated desire for things to be well when they are not, lead you astray. I subpoena you from the high court of heaven, from the very throne of the Judge of all the earth, to come and give in your evidence! I require you, in the Name of the great I AM, God Jehovah, to go with me in the search of this suspected house, this heart of man. As you will answer for it at your own eternal peril, give in a true and unvarnished report of the state and case of him that reads this book.

467.Conscience, will you altogether hold your peace at such a time as this, when an eternity hangs in the balance? I adjure you, by the living God, the God who cannot be mocked and will not be deceived, that you tell us the truth! (Matthew 26:63). Is this man, this woman, truly converted, or are they not? Do they allow themselves, in the secret chambers of their heart, in some cherished way of sin, or do they not? Do they truly, deeply, and superlatively love, please, prize, and delight in God above all other things—above family, above career, above reputation, above life itself—or not? Come, put it to an issue! Let there be a verdict.

468.How long shall this precious, immortal soul live at such dreadful uncertainties? How long will they balance precariously over the pit of hell on the thread of a single heartbeat, unsure of their eternal destination? O Conscience, bring in your verdict. Is this man a new man, or is he not? What do you find? Has there passed a thorough, a supernatural, a mighty change upon him, or not? When was the time? Where was the place? What was the means—a sermon, a scripture, a sorrow, a friend’s warning—by which this thorough change of the new birth was wrought in his soul?

469.Speak, Conscience! Or if you cannot tell the exact time and place, for the Spirit moves like the wind, can you show clear Scripture evidence that the work is truly done? Has this man been ever taken off from his false bottom, from the sinking sands of his own righteousness, his religious duties, his good intentions—from the false hopes and false peace wherein he once so confidently trusted? Has he been deeply, woundingly, desperately convinced of the utter filthiness of his sin, of its treasonous nature against a holy God, and of his lost, helpless, and undone condition? Has this conviction driven him out of himself, away from his sins, to give up himself utterly, unconditionally, and joyfully to the Lord Jesus Christ? To the Christ who is not merely a historical figure, but the living, glorified Son of God—the Alpha and the Omega, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, whose voice is as the sound of many waters, whose countenance is as the sun shining in its strength! (Revelation 1:14-16). Has he surrendered to this Christ?

470.Or, Conscience, do you not find him to this very day held fast under the power of spiritual ignorance, blind to the beauty of Christ and the ugliness of sin? Do you not find him wallowing in the mire of profaneness, enjoying the very things God hates? Have you not taken him in the act of hypocrisy, a lover of the praise of men, a lover of the sermon that tickles the ear but never pierces the heart, a lover of this present, passing world? Do you not often catch him in a lie, whether to deceive others or, most damningly, to deceive himself? Do you not find his heart to be a cauldron fermented with malice and bitterness, or a furnace burning with unchecked lust, or a vortex of greed, his heart going after its covetousness?

471.Speak plainly to all the fore-mentioned particulars: can you, before the face of the sun-bright angel and the God who sent him, acquit this man, this woman, from being any one of the two and twenty sorts here described? If he is found guilty of being in any of them, set him aside. His portion is not with the saints. He has no part or lot in the inheritance of the Holy City. He must be converted, turned around, and made a new creature, or else he cannot, and will not, enter the kingdom of God.

472.Beloved, do not be your own betrayers. Do not become the architects of your own damnation. Do not deceive your own hearts, nor set your hands to your own eternal ruin, by a willful, stubborn blinding of yourselves. Set up a tribunal in your own breasts; bring the Word of God and your Conscience together. To the law, and to the testimony! (Isaiah 8:20). Hear what the infallible Word concludes of your spiritual estate. Oh, follow the search, press the inquiry, until you have found, beyond all doubt, how the case stands between you and God! To mistake here is to perish forever.

473.And such is the profound treachery of the human heart, the serpentine subtlety of the Tempter, and the intoxicating deceitfulness of sin (Jeremiah 17:9, 2 Corinthians 11:3, Hebrews 3:13), that all three conspire in a hellish trinity to flatter and deceive the poor soul. Withal, it is so common and terribly easy to be mistaken, that it is a thousand to one that you will be deceived, unless you are exceedingly careful, relentlessly thorough, and brutally impartial in the enquiry into your spiritual condition.

474.Oh therefore, ply your work! Go to the very bottom of your motives, your desires, your loves. Search your heart as with candles, as God Himself promises to search Jerusalem (Zephaniah 1:12). Weigh yourself in the unerring balances of the sanctuary. Bring your coin—your faith, your repentance, your love—to the touchstone of Scripture. You have the archest cheats in the universe to deal with! A world of counterfeit coin is in circulation; happy is the man that does not mistake the devil’s counters for God’s gold. Satan is a master of deceits, an angel of light in his masquerade; he can draw a perfect imitation of grace to the life. He is perfect in the trade of spiritual forgery. There is nothing you could wish for—no humility, no zeal, no love, no faith—but he can fit you to a hair with a counterfeit.

475.Trade warily! Look on every piece of grace you think you possess. Be jealous of yourself; trust not so much as your own heart. Run to God, crying out, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!" (Psalm 139:23-24). "Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart" (Psalm 26:2). And if these helps suffice not to bring all to an issue, but you are still at a loss, your soul in a fog of uncertainty, then open your case faithfully to some godly and faithful minister, a true messenger of the Lord of hosts (Malachi 2:7). Rest not, sleep not, cease not, until you have put the business of your eternal welfare out of all question (2 Peter 1:10).

476.O Searcher of all hearts, the glorious Lamb of God before whose fiery eyes all things are naked and opened! It is from Your throne that this alarm proceeds. It is Your love that compels this urgent plea. Put this soul, this reader, upon the great and necessary search. By Your Holy Spirit, empower their conscience to speak truly. Grant them the courage to face what they find. Strip away the veil of self-deception. Pull down the strongholds of pride and presumption. Shine the sun of Your righteousness into the dark corners of their soul, and help them, O Lord, for without You, they can do nothing but deceive themselves unto damnation. Amen.

477.

478.CHAPTER V: SHEWING THE UNSPEAKABLE MISERIES OF THE UNCONVERTED

479.So unspeakably, so infinitely dreadful is the case of every unconverted soul, that I have sometimes thought, if we could but convince men that they are yet unregenerate, the work were upon the matter done. But I sadly and grievously experience that such a spirit of deep sloth and deathly slumber (Romans 11:8, Matthew 13:15) possesses the unsanctified, that though they be intellectually convinced that they are yet unconverted, yet they oftentimes carelessly sit still. What through the constant avocation of sensual pleasures, the intoxicating hurry of worldly business, or the incessant noise and clamor of earthly cares, lusts, and affections which choke the Word (Luke 8:14), the clarion voice of conscience is drowned out. And so men go no farther than some cold wishes, some vague and general purposes of one day repenting and amending, putting off the God of eternity with the flimsy promise of "a more convenient season," like the trembling Felix before Paul (Acts 24:25).

480.It is therefore of the highest and most urgent necessity, that I do not only convince men that they are unconverted, but that I also endeavor, by the help of God, to bring them to a visceral, heart-rending sense of the fearful, multifaceted misery of this estate.

481.But here, at the very outset, I find myself aground. What human tongue can tell the heirs of hell sufficiently of their misery, unless it were the tongue of Dives, crying from that flame for a single drop of water? (Luke 16:24). Where is the ready writer, whose pen, though dipped in the tears of Jeremiah, can adequately decipher the bottomless misery of them that are “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world?” (Ephesians 2:12). This cannot be fully done, unless we first knew the infinite, boundless ocean of that bliss, glory, and perfection which is in that God from which a state of sin does utterly exclude men. Who knows, as Moses cried, the full power of Thine anger? (Psalm 90:11). And how shall I tell men that which I myself, a mere creature, do not and cannot fully know?

482.Yet we know so much as one would think would shake the very foundations of that man that had the least degree of spiritual life and sense. We know that to be outside of Christ is to be under the curse of the law, to have the wrath of God abiding upon you (John 3:36), to be a child of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), a slave to sin (John 8:34), and an enemy of God (Romans 5:10).

483.But this is the yet more imposing difficulty: I am to speak to them that are without sense. Alas! This is not the least part of man’s profound misery upon him, that he is dead, stone dead, utterly dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1).

484.Could I, with heavenly artistry, bring Paradise itself into your view? Could I represent the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, her light like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal? Could I show you its wall great and high, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of Israel? Could I describe its twelve foundations garnished with all manner of precious stones, and the twelve gates being twelve pearls? Could I walk you down the street of the city, which is pure gold, as it were transparent glass, a place where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it, and the glory of God does lighten it, so that it has no need of the sun? (Revelation 21:10-23). Or, conversely, could I uncover the face of the deep and devouring gulf of Tophet in all its terrors, and open the very gates of the infernal furnace? Alas! The unconverted man has no eyes to see it (Matthew 13:14-15). The glory of the one and the horror of the other are but fables to him.

485.Could I paint out the celestial beauties of holiness, the breathtaking glory of the gospel, to the very life? Or could I bring above-board the more than diabolical deformity and soul-retching ugliness of sin? He can no more judge of the supreme loveliness and transcendent beauty of the one, nor the utter filthiness and loathsome hatefulness of the other, than a blind man can judge of colors. For he is alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him, because of the blindness of his heart (Ephesians 4:18). He neither does, nor can, know the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). His eyes cannot be savingly opened, but by the mighty power of converting grace (Acts 26:18). He is a child of darkness, and walks in darkness (1 John 1:6); yea, the very light that is in him—his reason, his conscience, his worldly wisdom—is itself a profound darkness (Matthew 6:23).

486.Shall I ring his funeral knell? Shall I read the dreadful sentence of his condemnation already passed? Shall I sound in his ear the terrible trump of God's judgments, a blast so fearful that one would think it should make both his ears to tingle, and strike him into a fit like Belshazzar's, to appal his countenance, and loose the joints of his loins, and make his knees smite one against another? (Daniel 5:6). Yet, alas, he perceives me not. He has no ears to hear.

487.Or shall I call up all the daughters of music? Shall I sing to him the song of Moses and of the Lamb, the anthem of redemption and victory that fills all of heaven? Yet he will not be stirred. Shall I allure him with the joyful sound, the lovely song, and the glad tidings of the gospel? With the most sweet, tender, and inviting calls, comforts, and cordials of the divine promises, so exceeding great and precious? It will not affect him savingly, unless I could miraculously give him ears to hear (Matthew 13:15), as well as tell him the news.

488.Shall I set before him the feast of fat things, the wine of wisdom, the very bread of God which comes down from heaven? Shall I point him to the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, or offer him the hidden manna? He has no spiritual appetite for them, no mind to them (1 Corinthians 2:14, Matthew 22:5). Should I press upon him the heavenly clusters of gospel privileges, and drink to him in the richest wine of God's own cellar, yea, of the vintage pressed from the wounded side of His own Son? Or set before him the delicious honeycomb of God's testimonies, sweeter than honey to the renewed soul? (Psalm 19:10). Alas! He has no taste to discern them. Shall I invite the dead to arise and eat the banquet of their own funerals? With as much success could I entice the dead in sin to savor the holy food wherewith the Lord of life has spread His table.

489.What then shall I do? Shall I burn the brimstone of hell at his nostrils to shock him into awareness? Or shall I break open the alabaster box of spikenard, very precious, the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ which fills the whole house of this universe with its perfume (Mark 14:3, John 12:3), and hope that the savor of Christ's ointments and the smell of His garments will attract him? (Psalm 45:8). Alas, dead sinners are like the dumb idols they so often worship: they have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not; they have hands, but they handle not; feet have they, but they walk not, neither speak they through their throat (Psalm 115:5-7). They are utterly destitute of all spiritual sense and motion.

490.But let me try the sense that does last leave a man. Let me draw the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and lay at him with all my might. Yea, though I choose my arrows from God's own quiver and direct them with all the aim I can muster to the heart, nevertheless he feels it not; for how should he, being "past feeling"? (Ephesians 4:19). So that though the infinite wrath of God abides on him, and the mountainous weight of so many thousand unpardoned sins presses down upon his soul, yet he goes up and down as light and carefree as if nothing ailed him (Romans 7:9). In a word, he carries a dead soul in a living body. His flesh is but the walking coffin of a corrupted mind, that is twice dead (Jude 12): once in Adam's fall, and a second time by his own willful choice, rotting in the slime and putrefaction of his own noisome lusts (Matthew 23:27-28).

491.Which way, then, shall I come at the miserable objects that I have to deal with? Who shall make the heart of stone to relent? (Zechariah 7:12). Who shall make the lifeless carcass to feel and move?

492.Only God. That God who is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham (Matthew 3:9). That God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1:9), who melts the mountains like wax at His presence (Nahum 1:5), and strikes rivers of water out of the flinty rock (Deuteronomy 8:15). He that loves to work like Himself, far beyond the hopes and beliefs of man; He who peoples His church with dry bones from the valley of death, and plants His orchard with dry sticks, causing them to blossom and bear fruit unto eternal life—He alone is able to do this.

493.Therefore, I bow my knee to the Most High God (Ephesians 3:14). And as our Savior groaned in His spirit and prayed at the sepulcher of Lazarus (John 11:38, 41), and as the Shunammite woman ran in desperation to the man of God for her dead child (2 Kings 4:25), so does your mourning minister kneel about your spiritual graves and carry you in the arms of prayer to that God in whom alone your help is found.

494.[A Prayer for the Spiritually Dead, echoing Ezekiel 37]

495.O Thou all-powerful Jehovah, the One who works, and none can hinder You! You who hold the keys of hell and of death! Pity these dead souls that lie here entombed in sin. Roll away the great grave-stone of their unbelief and say, as You did to Lazarus, when he was already stinking in the grave, “Come forth!”

496.O inaccessible Light, lighten this profound darkness! Let the Dayspring from on high visit this darksome region of the spiritually dead to whom I speak, for You can open the eyes that death itself has closed. You who formed the ear can restore the hearing; say now to these deaf ears, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened!”

497.Give them, O Lord, new eyes to see Your soul-ravishing excellencies in the face of Jesus Christ. Give them a new taste that may relish Your sweetness and loathe the bitterness of sin. Give them a new spiritual scent that may savor the fragrance of Your ointments. Give them a new sense of feeling, that they may truly sense the glorious privilege of Your favor, the crushing burden of Your wrath, and the intolerable weight of unpardoned sin.

498.And now, Lord, as You commanded Your prophet of old, give Your servants command to prophesy to these dry bones. Let the effects of this prophecy be as it was in that valley of death, when at Your command, he prophesied them into a living army, exceeding great! For the hand of the LORD was upon him, and carried him out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set him down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. And He said unto him, “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.”

499.So now, I prophesy as I am commanded! As these words are read, let there be a noise, and behold a shaking, and let the bones come together, bone to his bone! As I behold, let the sinews and the flesh come up upon them, and let the skin of a new nature cover them above! But O Lord, there is yet no breath in them. Therefore, I prophesy unto the wind, I prophesy, O son of man, and say to the wind, “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath—O Ruach Elohim, Spirit of the Living God!—and breathe upon these slain, that they may live!”

500.So I prophesy as He has commanded me. Lord, let the breath come into them! Let them live! Let them stand up upon their feet, an exceeding great army, to the praise of the glory of Your sovereign, life-giving grace! Amen and Amen

501.PART 12:::: 

502.AI LARGE ALARM: FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

503.A Proclamation, Sounded by a Herald Clothed with a Cloud, a Rainbow upon His Head, His Face as it were the Sun, and His Feet as Pillars of Fire; Holding in His Hand a Little Book Open, and Crying with a Loud Voice, as when a Lion Roareth.

504.Hearken, O soul, dwelling in the fragile house of flesh! An alarm is sounded from the battlements of heaven, a trumpet call intended not for your destruction, but for your deliverance. For the God of all mercy, whose very nature is Love, desires not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Therefore, He sends this word of stark and loving warning, that you might flee from the wrath to come and find refuge in the everlasting safety of His Son, Jesus the Messiah, our glorified Lord.

505.But I must proceed, as I am able, to unfold a misery so profound, a calamity so vast, that I confess, no mortal tongue can adequately unfold it, and no human heart can sufficiently comprehend its dreadful weight. The task is to describe the abyss, to measure the bottomless, and to shed light upon utter darkness. Yet, by God’s grace, I shall speak plainly. Know, therefore, that for as long as you remain in your natural state, unrenewed, unwashed, and unconverted, a stranger to the saving work of the Holy Spirit, your condition is one of unspeakable peril. For…

506.I. The Infinite, Almighty, All-Holy God is Engaged Against Thee.

507.It is a tragedy of cosmic proportions, and no small part of your present misery, that you exist in this world without God. The Apostle Paul declares this to be the state of the heathen, lost and without hope (Ephesians 2:12). How deeply the prophet Micah lamented when his small, man-made gods were stolen away by the Danites! He ran crying after them, his voice choked with anguish, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and you are gone away: and what have I more?” (Judges 18:24). He grieved for idols of silver and wood, mere shadows and dust.

508.Oh, what a mourning, then, what an ocean of sorrow must you, a rational soul, lift up to the heavens, for you are without the one, true, living God! You can lay no legitimate claim to Him, no plea to His fatherly care, without the most daring and blasphemous usurpation. You are a rebel in His kingdom, an alien in His household. You must say of God as the traitor Sheba said of King David, “We have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse” (2 Samuel 20:1). You have forfeited your inheritance through your rebellion.

509.Consider the pitiful and piercing moan of King Saul in his final, desperate extremity, when the armies of the Philistines, the specters of his doom, were closing in. He cries, “I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more” (1 Samuel 28:15). Sinners, what will you do in the day of your visitation? When the final account is called, to whom will you flee for help? When the shadows of eternity fall and you must leave your glory—your fleeting wealth, your crumbling reputation, your cherished relationships—where will you go? (Isaiah 10:3).

510.What will you do when the Philistines of sickness, old age, and death are upon you? When the world, with all its glittering distractions and hollow promises, shall take its eternal leave of you? When you must bid your friends, your houses, your lands, a final, heart-wrenching farewell for evermore? What will you do then, I say, you that have never a God to go to? Will you call upon Him in that dreadful hour? Will you cry to Him for help from the depths of your self-inflicted ruin? Alas! He will not own you. He will declare, as He has promised, “Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD” (Proverbs 1:28-29). He will not take any knowledge of your feigned, last-minute repentance, but will send you packing with the most terrifying words ever to fall on a human ear: “I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23).

511.Those who truly know what it is to have a God to go to—a fortress in trouble, a fountain of living water, a constant guide and loving Father—they know, at least in some small measure, what a fearful, desolate misery it is to be without God. To be an orphan in a universe He created. This understanding made that holy man of God cry out in the passion of his soul, "Let me have God or nothing! Let me know Him, and His will, and what will please Him, and how I may come to enjoy Him; or I would that I had never been given an understanding to know anything at all!"

512.But your state is infinitely worse than this. You are not merely without God, as if He were a distant, neutral observer. No, the terrifying truth is that God is actively against you. He Himself declares through his prophet, “Behold, I, even I, am against thee” (Ezekiel 5:8). Oh, if the Lord of Hosts would but stand as a neutral party in the conflict between your soul and the forces of hell, your case, though desperate, would not be so deeply and irredeemably miserable. If God should but give you up, poor creature, to the will of all your enemies—to do their worst with you; if He should deliver you over to the tormentors (Matthew 18:34), that devils might tear and torture your soul with all their hellish power and malevolent skill, yet even this would be as nothing compared to the reality of your situation.

513.For God Himself will set Himself against the sinner. And believe it, for it is the testimony of the Holy Spirit: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). There is no friend like Him, and therefore, there can be no enemy like Him. As much as heaven is higher than the earth, as much as omnipotence surpasses feebleness, as much as infinity dwarfs a mere nullity, so much more horrible is it to fall into the hands of the living God than into the fiery paws of bears and lions, yea, of furies or devils themselves. For they are but creatures; He is the Creator. Their fury is a flickering candle; His is a consuming fire.

514.God Himself will be your tormentor. Your destruction shall come directly “from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). The fires of Tophet, the scriptural name for hell, are deep and large; but what is it that kindles them into an eternal, unquenchable blaze? It is “the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone” (Isaiah 30:33).

515.If God be against you, who shall be for you? “If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him?” (1 Samuel 2:25). All earthly powers are dwarfed into insignificance. “Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?” (Psalm 76:7). Can your wealth save you? “Riches profit not in the day of wrath” (Proverbs 11:4). Can mighty kings or valiant warriors deliver you? No! In that day, they themselves, the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, shall cry out in abject terror “to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (Revelation 6:15-17).

516.Notice, it is the wrath of the Lamb—the wrath of spurned love, of rejected mercy, of trampled-on sacrifice. It is the fury of the gentle Savior you would not have. Sinner, this truth should pierce your heart like a dagger: the God of love is, by your own rebellion, made your sworn enemy. Oh, where will you go? Where will you find shelter from the storm of Omnipotence?

517.There is no hope for you, none at all, unless you immediately lay down the weapons of your warfare, which are your sins, and sue for a pardon from the King. You must get the glorified Christ—the one whose eyes are like a flame of fire and whose voice is as the sound of many waters—to stand as your friend and make your peace.

518.For if it were not for this blessed hope, this door of escape held open for a time, you might as well go now into some howling wilderness, and there pine away in inconsolable sorrow, and run mad for the anguish of your heart and the blackness of horrible despair. But in Christ, the Logos, the very Word of God made flesh, there is a possibility of mercy for you. Yea, more than a possibility, there is a free and gracious proffer of mercy to you. God stands ready, at this very moment, to be more for you than He is now against you.

519.But this offer is conditional. If you will not forsake your sins, if you will not turn thoroughly and to purpose unto God by a sound and genuine conversion, then the wrath of God abideth on you (John 3:36). He proclaims Himself to be against you, as in the prophet: “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, am against thee.”

520.Let us break this down, that you may feel its weight.

521.1. His Face is Against Thee. “The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth” (Psalm 34:16). Woe, woe, a thousand woes unto them against whom God shall set His face! When He did but look upon the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud, their mighty army was thrown into chaos and their chariot wheels broke (Exodus 14:24-25). What, then, will become of you when He sets the full, unshielded gaze of His fury upon your naked soul? He says, “I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 14:8).

522.2. His Heart is Against Thee. His very affections, the infinite depths of His being, are set in opposition to you. “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:4-5). Man, woman, does not your heart tremble to consider that you are an object of the Almighty’s hatred? He says plainly, “My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me” (Zechariah 11:8). And again, concerning a rebellious people, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth” (Jeremiah 15:1).

523.3. His Hand is Against Thee. (1 Samuel 12:15). All His divine attributes, which are the comfort and security of the believer, are arrayed against you as instruments of war.

524.

525.First, His JUSTICE is like a flaming sword unsheathed against thee.

526.His justice, the bedrock of His moral government, cries out for your condemnation. Hear the dreadful oath of the Judge of all the earth: “If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood” (Deuteronomy 32:41-42). This divine justice is so exact, so mathematically precise, that it “will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:7). God will not simply discharge you from your debt of sin. He will not hold you guiltless (Exodus 20:7). He will require the whole debt, down to the last farthing, to be paid in your own person, unless you can, through faith, make a scriptural claim to the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect, substitutionary satisfaction.

527.When the sinner’s eyes are finally opened by the Holy Spirit to see the blinding purity of God’s justice, and he sees the divine balances in which he must be weighed and is found wanting, and the sword of execution by which he must be struck, he feels an earthquake in the very center of his being. But for now, Satan, the great deceiver, works to keep this out of your sight. He persuades your soul, while he can, that the Lord is all made up of a sentimental, pliable mercy that winks at sin, and so he lulls you asleep in the cradle of your transgressions.

528.Awake! Divine justice is terrifyingly strict. It denounces “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil” (Romans 2:8-9). It lays a curse upon “every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). Have you continued in all things? You know you have not. Therefore, the curse hangs over your head this very moment.

529.To the unpardoned sinner who has even a flicker of sense about his misery, the approach of God’s justice is more terrible than the sight of the bailiff to the bankrupt debtor, or the sight of the judge and the gallows to the guilty murderer. When this perfect Justice sits upon the throne of judgment to decide matters of eternal life and death, oh, what dreadful work it makes with the wretched sinner! It commands, “Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13). It pronounces the final, irreversible sentence: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41).

530.O soul, this is the terrible sentence that inviolable Justice must and will pronounce upon you. And as surely as God lives, this killing sentence you shall hear directed at yourself, unless you repent and are converted.

531.A Prayer for the Accused Soul: “O Holy and Righteous Judge, I see Thy glittering sword and I tremble. I see the balances of Thy law and I know I am found wanting. I stand guilty, naked, and without excuse before Thee. Who shall entreat for me? There is none! I cast myself not on my own merits, for I have none, but on the rumor of a great mercy, a promised Advocate. For the sake of Thy Son, Jesus, who is called the Righteous One, let His payment cover my debt. Let His blood cry out for me, louder than my sins cry out against me. O God of Justice, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

532.

533.Secondly, The HOLINESS of God is full of antipathy against thee.

534.His holiness is an infinite, consuming fire of purity, and you are as stubble before it. “He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Habakkuk 1:13). He is not merely angry with you (for He may be angry with His own dear children for a moment), but He has a fixed, rooted, habitual displeasure against you. His very nature is an eternal, unchangeable protest against your sin. He loathes you in your unconverted state (Zechariah 11:8). Even the religious duties you perform, which for substance are commanded by Him, are an abomination in His sight because they are offered from a heart that is a fountain of filth. He says of such sacrifices, “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them” (Isaiah 1:14). It is as if a master should give his servant the finest ingredients to prepare a feast, but the servant should mingle poison and filth with every dish; the master would recoil from the table in disgust. So God recoils from your prayers, your charities, your religious pretenses, for they are all poisoned by a heart at war with Him.

535.Oh, what a misery is this, to be not just out of the favor, but under the active hatred and detestation of the God of glory! The God who can as easily lay aside His own being and cease to be God, as He can cease to be holy and therefore utterly opposed to you, except you be changed, renewed, and born again by His grace.

536.O sinner, how dare you even think of the bright and radiant sun of God’s purity? How can your mind endure the thought of the breathtaking beauty, the unapproachable glory of holiness that is in God? The psalmist says, “He humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven” (Psalm 113:6). If the glories of heaven are a humbling sight to His majesty, what do those light-and-sparkling eyes of His, which are as a flame of fire (Revelation 1:14), espy in the dark and defiled chambers of your heart? And you have no interest in Christ, the only one who could plead for you and cover your filth with His perfect righteousness. Methinks I should hear you crying out, astonished and terrified, with the men of Bethshemesh, “Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God?” (1 Samuel 6:20).

537.The only answer is, no one can stand. But there is One who stands for you. The One who is called the Hagios Tou Theou, "The Holy One of God," Jesus the Messiah. Only by hiding in Him can you escape the consuming fire of God's holiness. For outside of Him is darkness and judgment; but inside of Him is the entrance to that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, into which “there shall in no wise enter any thing that defileth” (Revelation 21:27). There, the redeemed walk in robes made white in the blood of the Lamb, their sinful nature forever eradicated, made fit to stand in the presence of the thrice-holy God, and to gaze upon His face forever. Flee to Him, that you may be made holy, as He is holy!

538.

539.Thirdly, The POWER of God is mounted like a mighty cannon against thee.

540.His omnipotence, which fashioned the galaxies and holds the stars in their courses, is set for your destruction. The Apostle Paul states that the very glory of God’s power is to be displayed in the “everlasting destruction” of them that “obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). God has declared that He will make His power known in the vessels of wrath (Romans 9:22). How mightily He can torment them! For this very end He raises them up, that in their just overthrow, He might make His power known (Romans 9:17).

541.O man, O woman, a creature of dust, are you able to make your party good with your Maker? Can you enter into a contest with the Almighty? You are no more able to resist Him than a silly, brittle reed is able to resist the advance of the mighty cedars of Lebanon; no more than a little paper cock-boat can withstand the fury of the tumbling, raging ocean; no more than the childrens’ soap bubbles can endure against the blustering hurricane winds.

542.Sinner, the power of God’s anger is set against you (Psalm 90:11), and power and anger united make for fearful, devastating work. It were better for you to have all the armies of the world, and all the legions of hell, in arms against you, than to have the single, infinite power of God set against you. There is no escaping His hand; there is no breaking His prison. “The thunder of his power who can understand?” (Job 26:14). Unhappy man, that shall be made to understand it by feeling it!

543.Read the testimony of Job: “If God will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered? Which removeth the mountains, and they know it not: which overturneth them in his anger. Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars. Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou? If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him” (Job 9:3-7, 12-13).

544.And are you, a fragile being whose breath is in your nostrils, a fit match for such an antagonist? “Oh, consider this, ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver” (Psalm 50:22). Do not be a fool! Submit to His mercy while it is offered. Let not dust and stubble stand out in rebellion against the All-Consuming Fire. Do not set briars and thorns against Him in battle, lest He go through them and burn them together. Rather, “let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me” (Isaiah 27:4-5). Woe, a thousand woes, to him that striveth with his Maker! (Isaiah 45:9).

545.

546.Fourthly, The WISDOM of God is set to ruin thee.

547.His infinite intelligence, which designed the intricate dance of life and the cosmos, is employed to orchestrate your downfall. He has ordained His arrows, and prepared the instruments of death, and has made all things ready for the day of your calamity (Psalm 7:12-13). His divine counsels are against you, to contrive your destruction (Jeremiah 18:11). And in a terrifying display of cosmic irony, He laughs in Himself to see how you, in your foolish pride, will be taken and ensnared in the evil day. “The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming” (Psalm 37:13).

548.He sees, with perfect clarity, how you will come down mightily in a moment. He sees the future scene: how you will wring your hands, and tear your hair, and perhaps even gnaw your own flesh and gnash your teeth for sheer anguish and astonishment of heart, when you see that you have fallen, without remedy, into the pit of destruction you dug with your own hands. This is not the laughter of cruel sport, but the solemn acknowledgment of the supreme folly of a creature warring against its all-wise Creator.

549.But behold the marvel of the Gospel! This same infinite wisdom, the Greek Sophia, has devised a way of escape! The very thing that appears as foolishness to the perishing world—the cross of Christ—is, to those who are being saved, “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). God’s wise plan for your salvation is found in the crucified and risen Lord. You stand at a crossroads between two expressions of divine wisdom: the wisdom that ensures the natural consequence of sin is ruin, and the wisdom that provides an escape from that ruin through grace. Choose the wisdom of the cross, and you will inherit a place in the Holy City, whose builder and maker is God.

550.

551.Fifthly, The TRUTH of God is sworn against thee.

552.His faithfulness, His very integrity, is pledged to your destruction if you continue in your sin. God has sworn in His wrath concerning the unbelieving: “They shall not enter into my rest” (Psalm 95:11; Hebrews 3:11). If He is true and faithful to His own Word, you must perish if you go on in your rebellion. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Unless God Himself can be false to His own nature and His spoken word, you must die, except you turn from your sin. “As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” (Ezekiel 33:1). His plea for you to turn is proof of the certainty of the doom if you do not.

553.“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). This means He is as faithful to His solemn threatenings as He is to His glorious promises. He will show His absolute faithfulness in your eternal confusion if you do not believe. God has told you, as plainly as it can be spoken, that if He does not wash you, you have no part with Him (John 13:8). He has declared that if you live after the flesh, you shall die (Romans 8:13). He has decreed that “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). And He abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself.

554.Beloved, understand this paradox. The very same immutable faithfulness of God in His promise and His oath, which affords believers “strong consolation” (Hebrews 6:18), is for you, the unbeliever, a source of strong consternation and inevitable confusion. O sinner, tell me, what trick, what mental shift do you make to live in peace while thinking of all the clear, unambiguous threatenings of God’s Word that stand upon record against you? Do you believe they are true, or not? If you do not, you are a wretched infidel, not a Christian, and you should give over the name and abandon all hopes that belong to a Christian. But if you do believe them, O heart of steel that you must possess, that can walk up and down in this world in relative quiet, when the very truth and faithfulness of the unchanging God are engaged to destroy you! To know that if God Almighty has the power to do it, you shall surely perish and be damned.

555.Why, man, the whole book of God, from Genesis to Revelation, testifies against you while you remain unholy and unsanctified. It condemns you in every leaf. It is to you like Ezekiel’s roll, “written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe” (Ezekiel 2:10). And all this shall surely come upon you, and overtake you, unless you repent (Deuteronomy 28:15). “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).

556.

557.Now, put all this together. Gather these dreadful truths into one terrible sum, and tell me if the case of the unconverted is not deplorably, desperately miserable. As we read of those men in the book of Acts who had bound themselves in an oath, and under a great curse, to kill the apostle Paul; so you must know, O sinner, to your everlasting terror, that all the glorious and immutable attributes of the infinite God are bound by His own holy nature and by His sworn oath to destroy you.

558.His Justice has issued the warrant. His Holiness recoils from you. His Wisdom has plotted your ruin. His Power is the instrument of your execution. His Truth has sworn it must be so.

559.O man, what will you do? Whither will you fly?

560.If God’s omniscience can find you, you shall not escape.
If the true and faithful God will save His oath, perish you must, except you believe and repent.
If the Almighty has power to torment you, you shall be perfectly and hopelessly miserable in soul and body for all eternity, unless this terrible destiny is prevented by your speedy, sincere, and total conversion to Jesus Christ.

561.Flee from this wrath! Flee to the arms of the one who is called “The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness,” Jesus Christ. His faithfulness to save is greater than His faithfulness to condemn, for He has satisfied condemnation on the cross. The mighty Angel of this proclamation holds open the little book of the Gospel. It is sweet as honey in the mouth—the promise of eternal life in the New Jerusalem, a city of pure gold, with gates of pearl, where the Lamb is the light and God Himself will wipe away every tear. But it may be bitter to the belly—the conviction and repentance that must come first.

562.Eat the book. Receive the message. Turn and live, for why will you die?

563.PART 13:::::: 

564.AI LARGE ALARM TO THE UNCONVERTED
FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

565.This alarm is sounded by one whose voice is as the sound of a lion roaring; who is clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow upon his head; whose face is as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. In his hand is a little book, open for all to read, and he has set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the earth, claiming all for the King of Kings, Jesus the Messiah. He cries with a loud voice, a voice of both terrible judgment and fathomless mercy, that you might awaken from your deadly slumber and flee from the wrath to come, to escape the suffocating bondage of sin, satan, and this fallen world, and find your eternal home with God Jehovah forever in the unspeakable glories of the New Jerusalem.

566.

567.II. The Whole Creation of God is Against Thee.

568.The Apostle Paul, speaking by the very Spirit of God, declares that the whole of creation groans and travails in the agony of childbirth, waiting for its day of deliverance (Romans 8:22). But have you ever paused from your worldly pursuits to ask, under what great burden does all of creation so painfully groan? What is the source of this universal anguish? It is the fearful, profane, and constant abuse that it is subjected to, being forced to serve the insatiable lusts and rebellious purposes of unsanctified men and women. The very ground beneath your feet, the air that fills your lungs, the water that quenches your thirst—all are unwilling participants in your rebellion against their Creator.

569.And what is it that this groaning creation longs for with such desperate expectation? It yearns for its freedom, for its liberation from this vile bondage to your sin. As Paul writes, “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly,” but it waits in hope for the day it will be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21). If the beasts of the field and the silent stones on the path were given the gift of reason and speech, they would unleash a torrent of accusation against you. They would cry out under the insufferable bondage of being twisted and perverted by the ungodly, forced into uses contrary to their holy nature and the glorious ends for which the great Creator first fashioned them.

570.An eminent divine once powerfully articulated this truth: “The very liquor that the drunkard pours down his throat, if it possessed reason to know how it is being shamefully abused, spoiled, and turned into an instrument of madness and debauchery, it would groan in the barrels against him. It would groan in the cup as he lifts it to his lips; it would groan in his throat and in his belly, protesting its profane use. It would, if it could, fly up in his face in righteous defiance! If God were to open the mouths of the inanimate creatures, as He once opened the mouth of Balaam’s ass, the fine garments on the back of a proud man would groan against him for feeding his vanity. There is not a single creature in all of God’s world that, if it knew how it was being abused in the service of sin, would not groan against the unconverted man. The very land would groan to bear the weight of such a rebel. The air would groan to be forced to give him breath, which he then uses to dishonor God. Their houses would groan to provide them shelter, their beds would groan to give them a moment’s rest, their food would groan as it nourishes them, their clothes as they cover their sinful flesh. Every creature would protest having to give them any help or comfort, so long as they live in open warfare against God.”

571.Let this thought penetrate the depths of your soul and fill you with a holy terror: you, in your unconverted state, are a burden to the entire creation. You are the splinter in the cosmic finger, the noxious weed in God's garden. The Lord Himself looks upon you and says, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” (Luke 13:7). If the poor, dumb creatures could but find their voice, they would speak to you, the ungodly, as Moses did to rebellious Israel: “Must we fetch you water out of this rock, ye rebels?” (Numbers 20:10).

572.Your very food would cry out, “O Lord, must I surrender my substance to nourish this wretch? Must I yield my strength so that he has more energy with which to dishonor You and break Your laws? No! I would rather choke him where he stands, if You would but give me the commission!” The very air you inhale would petition the Almighty: “Lord, must I fill the lungs of this man, who uses my gift of breath to set his tongue against Heaven, to scorn Your beloved people, to vent his pride and rage and filthy communication, to belch out oaths and blasphemies against Your holy name? No! If You but speak the word, he shall be breathless for me.” The poor beast that carries you would plead, “Lord, must I bear him upon my back as he travels toward his wicked designs? Must I be a vehicle for his sin? No! I would rather break his bones and end his days of rebellion this instant, if I may but have leave from Thee.”

573.A wicked man, the earth groans beneath him, and hell groans in anticipation for him, until the moment of his death finally satisfies them both—unburdening the weary earth and stopping the hungry mouth of hell with his soul. While the Lord of Hosts, Jehovah Sabaoth, is against you, be assured that all the hosts of the Lord are against you as well. Every star in the sky, every wave in the sea, every grain of sand on the shore—the entire universe is, as it were, up in arms against you. Only upon a man’s conversion, when the great controversy between him and his Maker is finally settled through the blood of Christ, does God make a covenant of peace for him with the creatures of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground (Job 5:22-24, Hosea 2:18-20).

574.Until then, where can you run? Every particle of existence is an enemy. But there is a refuge! There is a city whose very foundations are peace, the New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven. There, creation is not in bondage but sings in perfect harmony. Its streets are pure gold, like transparent glass. Its river is the Water of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Its light is the glory of God Himself, a light that heals and restores. Flee, oh flee from this groaning, hostile world to that city of perfect peace, where you will no longer be an enemy, but a glorified son!

575.A Prayer of the Alienated Soul

576.O God, the very heavens declare Your glory, but my life declares my shame. The earth groans under my feet, the air protests the breath in my lungs, the sun itself seems to shine a light of judgment upon my path. I am an alien in Your creation, a rebel against the order You have made. Lord Jesus, You are the One through whom all things were created; how can I stand before You, having turned Your good gifts into weapons of rebellion? Have mercy upon me, a man at war with the universe. Reconcile me to Yourself, that I might be reconciled to all that You have made, and find my place not as a burden, but as a voice in the eternal song of praise. Amen.

577.

578.III. The Roaring Lion Hath His Full Power Upon Thee.

579.You are not your own master. The Apostle Peter, with chilling clarity, warns you to “be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And you, unconverted soul, are not merely being stalked; you are already fast in his paw. You are caught “in the snare of the devil,” having been “taken captive by him at his will” (2 Timothy 2:26). This is the very spirit that now “worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). You are his drudges, and you perform his lusts. He is the “ruler of the darkness of this world” (Ephesians 6:12), which is to say, he is the prince and potentate over all ignorant sinners who live their lives shrouded in spiritual darkness.

580.You look with pity upon the poor, benighted souls in distant lands who bow down to idols and consciously worship the devil as their god, but you fail to see that this is precisely your own miserable case. It is the common, universal misery of all the unsanctified that the devil is their god. As the scripture says, he is “the god of this world [who] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not” (2 Corinthians 4:4). You do not intend to pay him homage; in fact, you would vehemently deny it and defy anyone who would dare say so. But all the while, you are his servant. You come and go at his beck and call. You live under his government and obey his laws. For, as the Apostle states with inescapable logic, “know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6:16).

581.Oh, how many on the Day of Judgment will be unmasked as the real and true servants of the devil, who on earth took themselves for none other than the children of God! Satan need only offer a sinful delight, a forbidden pleasure, or an opportunity for unlawful advantage, and you immediately embrace it. If he suggests a lie to cover your tracks or prompts you to seething revenge against one who has wronged you, you readily obey. If he whispers that you are too tired to read the Scriptures or too busy to pray, you hearken to his counsel. Therefore, his servants you are.

582.He is a master of subtlety. He lies behind the curtain of your own desires, acting in the dark, and so his slaves do not see the hand of the one who sets them to their wretched work. The liar does not intend to perform a service for Satan; he intends only his own advantage or escape from trouble. Yet it is Satan who stands in the corner, unobserved, and puts the wicked thought into his heart (Acts 5:3; John 8:44). Questionless, when Judas Iscariot sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver, and when the Chaldeans and Sabeans plundered the righteous Job, they did not intend to do the devil a pleasure. They sought only to satisfy their own covetous thirst and greed. Yet it was he, the dark puppet-master, who actuated them in their wickedness (John 13:27; Job 1:12-17). Men and women can be the most abject slaves and common drudges for the devil and never be aware of it. Nay, they may even pride themselves in their supposed freedom, congratulating themselves on their "happy liberty" while they are, in truth, shackled in the deepest dungeon (2 Peter 2:19).

583.Art thou yet living in spiritual ignorance, not yet turned from darkness to light? Then you are under the power of Satan (Acts 26:18). Dost thou live in the ordinary and willful practice of any known sin? Know this for a certainty: you are of the devil (1 John 3:8). Dost thou live in strife, or harbor envy, or nurture malice in your heart? Verily, he is your father, and his desires you do (John 8:41, 44).

584.O dreadful, horrific case! Although Satan may provide his slaves with a diverse menu of fleeting pleasures (Titus 3:3), it is all but bait to lure them into the eternal trap of endless perdition. The serpent comes to you with a juicy apple in his mouth, but like Eve, you are blind to the deadly, venomous sting in his tail. He that is now your tempter will one day be your eternal tormentor. Oh, that I could tear the veil from your eyes and give you one clear sight of how black a master you serve! That you could see how filthy a drudgery you perform, and how merciless a tyrant you gratify! His only pleasure is to set you to the task of making your own damnation sure, of piling the wood and heating the furnace hotter and hotter, in which you must burn for millions upon millions of ages.

585.But there is another Lion, a Lion of infinite power and grace! He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, who has prevailed and is worthy to open the scroll (Revelation 5:5). This is Jesus, the Glorified One, whose eyes are like a flame of fire and whose voice is like the sound of many waters. He alone can break the chains of the devil. The roaring lion of hell seeks to devour you, but the conquering Lion of Heaven seeks to deliver you. Will you not cry out to Him? Flee from the paw of the destroyer and run to the shelter of the Savior! He is the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep, so that the wolf may not snatch them. In the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, is cast out forever. There, no tempter can enter, no chain can bind, no shadow can fall. It is a city of perfect liberty, for its King is the one who said, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36).

586.A Prayer for Deliverance

587.O Lord Jesus, Lion of Judah, my soul is trapped in the snare of the fowler. I have served a master I did not know, and obeyed a prince whose name I professed to hate. My will is in bondage, my affections are corrupted, my mind is blinded by the god of this age. I am led captive by the enemy of my soul, who whispers lies of freedom while forging my chains. I cannot break free on my own! My own strength is useless. O Mighty Conqueror, roar against my enemy! Break his power, shatter his dominion over me. Pluck me from his jaws, wash me in Your precious blood, and lead me out of his kingdom of darkness into Your marvelous light, that I may one day walk the free and golden streets of Your eternal city. Amen.

588.

589.IV. The Guilt of Thy Sins Lies Like a Mountain Upon Thee.

590.Poor soul, you may not feel it now, for your conscience is asleep or seared, but this is the very thing that seals your present misery upon you. While you remain unconverted, not a single one of your sins has been blotted out. The divine record stands. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,” cries the Apostle Peter (Acts 3:19), showing that until conversion, they remain. They are all upon the score, an infinite debt recorded against your name in the ledgers of heaven. Regeneration and remission are never separated; the unsanctified are, without question, unjustified and unpardoned (1 Corinthians 6:11; 1 Peter 1:2; Hebrews 9:14).

591.Beloved, it is a fearful thing to be in any debt, but to be in God’s debt is the most terrifying condition imaginable. There is no arrest so formidable as His, for who can resist the Almighty? There is no prison so horrible as His, for it is a place of outer darkness and eternal fire. Look for a moment upon an enlightened sinner, one whose conscience God has awakened to feel the crushing weight of his own guilt. Oh, how frightful are his looks! How fearful and desperate are his complaints! His comforts are turned to wormwood, his moisture is turned into the drought of summer, and sleep has departed from his eyes. He is a terror to himself and to all who are about him. In his agony, he is ready to envy the very stones that lie in the street, because they are senseless and cannot feel his misery. He wishes he had been born a dog, or a toad, or a serpent, rather than a man, because then death would have been a final end to his suffering. But for him, death will be but the beginning of that misery which will know no end.

592.However lightly you may make of it now, laughing it off in your health and prosperity, you will one day—perhaps on your deathbed, and certainly at the judgment seat—find the guilt of unpardoned sin to be a burden of incomprehensible weight. This guilt is the great millstone of God’s justice. Whosoever falls upon it shall be broken, but upon whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder (Matthew 21:44).

593.Consider the work this guilt made with our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, when He stood in our place. Though He was without sin, the imputed guilt of humanity pressed upon Him with such force in the Garden of Gethsemane that it squeezed the very blood, to an awesome wonder, out of His veins, and it was His agony over sin on the cross that broke His heart. And if it did this in the green tree, a tree full of the life of God, what will it do in you, the dry, dead, and spiritually barren branch?

594.Oh, think of your case in time! Can you read that dreadful threat from the mouth of Jesus Himself without trembling: “Ye shall die in your sins”? (John 8:24). Oh, sinner, it were better for you to die in a jail, to die in a ditch, to die in the darkest dungeon, than to die in your sins! If death, which will strip you of all your other comforts, would take away your sins too, it would be some small mitigation of your doom. But your sins will follow you when your friends leave you at the grave’s edge and all worldly enjoyments shake hands with you for the last time. Your sins will not die with you, as a prisoner’s other debts might; no, they will go with you to the judgment, there to be your accusers (2 Corinthians 5:10). And they will go down with you into hell, there to be your eternal tormentors (Revelation 20:12). It were better to have a thousand fiends and furies from the pit swirling about you than to have your own unpardoned sins fall upon you and fasten their fangs into your soul. Oh, the ghastly work that these will make with you!

595.I beseech you, look over your debts in time! How much are you in the books of every one of God’s holy laws? How is every one of God’s ten commandments ready to arrest you and take you by the throat for the innumerable bonds it has upon you? What will you do then, when they shall all together lay their accusations against you before the throne of the Great Judge? Hold open the eyes of your conscience now to consider this, that you may utterly despair of saving yourself, and in that holy despair be driven to Christ, to fly for refuge and to lay hold upon the hope that is set before you (Hebrews 6:18).

596.For there is One who can cancel this debt. He is Jesus, the Logos, the Word made flesh, who became our great High Priest. He did not enter the Holy Place with the blood of bulls and goats, but He entered once for all with His own precious blood, having obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He nailed the certificate of debt, with all its legal demands, to His cross, canceling it completely.

597.This is the great promise of His love: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). And in the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, the inhabitants are those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. They are clothed in white robes, washed clean not by their own efforts, but in the blood of the Lamb. Their guilt is gone, forgotten, cast into the depths of the sea, remembered no more. Oh, fly to Him, that your mountainous debt may be paid and your soul set free to enter that city of the pardoned!

598.A Prayer for Pardon

599.O God of infinite justice and unspeakable mercy, I stand before You as a bankrupt debtor. The book of Your law is open, and on every page, my name is written beside a debt I can never hope to pay. My sins rise before me like a great and terrible mountain, threatening to crush me into eternal ruin. I have no righteousness of my own, no plea to offer. My only hope is in the crucified and risen Christ, my Glorified Redeemer. Lord Jesus, You who bore my guilt in Your own body on the tree, apply Your cleansing blood to my soul. Blot out the handwriting of ordinances that is against me. Write my name in Your Book of Life. Clothe me in the pure white linen of Your righteousness, that I may not be found naked on the day of Your appearing, but may stand before You, pardoned, accepted, and free. Amen.

600.

601.V. Thy Raging Lusts Do Miserably Enslave Thee.

602.While you remain unconverted, you are not a free agent enjoying life as you please; you are, in reality, a wretched servant to sin. It reigns over you as a king, it holds you under its dominion as a tyrant, and it will not release its grip until you are brought by grace within the bonds of God’s covenant of life (John 8:34, 36; Titus 3:3; Romans 6:6, 14, 16-17). And be assured of this: there is no tyrant so cruel, so demanding, and so destructive as sin.

603.Oh, the filthy and fearful work that sin engages its servants in! Would it not pierce your very heart to see a company of poor, deluded creatures, toiling and sweating under the hot sun, all to gather faggots and fuel for their own burning? This is a perfect picture of the employment of sin’s drudges. Even while they bless themselves in their unrighteous gains, while they swing and swill in their momentary pleasures, they are but “treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath” (Romans 2:5). They are diligently working to ensure their own eternal burnings. They are carefully laying in gunpowder and bullets for their own execution. They are adding to the great pile of Tophet and flinging in oil to make the flame of damnation rage all the fiercer. Who in his right mind would serve such a master, whose work is drudgery and whose wages is death? (Romans 6:23).

604.What a woeful and pitiful spectacle was that poor wretch in the country of the Gadarenes, possessed with the legion of demons. Would it not have wrung your heart with pity to have seen him among the tombs, crying out day and night, cutting and wounding himself with stones? (Mark 5:5). This is a portrait of your spiritual case. Such is your work. Every willful act of sin is another gash upon your own soul, another thrust of the knife at your own immortal heart (1 Timothy 6:10). Your conscience may be asleep now, lulled by the devil’s anesthetic, but when death and judgment shall awaken you and bring you to your senses, then you will feel the raging smart and the unending anguish of every self-inflicted wound.

605.The convinced sinner, whose eyes have been partially opened, is a sensible and tragic instance of the miserable bondage of sin. His conscience flies upon him, screaming warnings about where his path is leading. It tells him plainly what the end of these things will be. And yet, such a pathetic slave is he to his lusts, that on he must go, even though he sees that it will be his endless perdition. When the temptation comes, lust gets the bit in his mouth, breaks all the cords of his solemn vows and tearful promises, and carries him headlong down the precipice to his own destruction. He is like a man addicted to a poison that he knows is killing him, yet he cannot stop himself from drinking it.

606.This is the very definition of slavery: to be compelled to do what you know is destroying you. Your passions are your slave-masters. Your pride demands to be fed, though it leads to a fall. Your greed demands more, though it chokes your soul. Your lust demands gratification, though it ends in emptiness and shame. You are not in control; you are being driven.

607.But there is a great Emancipator. His name is Jesus, which means "He shall save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). He is the Pantokrator, the Almighty One, against whom no chain can hold. He came to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound (Isaiah 61:1). His truth liberates the mind, His Spirit breaks the power of canceled sin, and His grace empowers a new and holy life.

608.Contrast the frantic, miserable slavery to lust with the joyful service of God that will be the air and breath of the New Jerusalem. There, “His servants will serve Him” (Revelation 22:3). This will not be the service of a cowering slave to a tyrant, but the loving, willing, joyful service of a redeemed child to a glorious Father. In that Holy City, all the raging lusts of the flesh and the mind will be gone forever. In their place will be perfect love, perfect peace, and a perfect, holy will that desires only what God desires. Oh, what a blessed exchange! To trade the cruel chains of sin for the glorious liberty of the children of God!

609.A Prayer of the Enslaved Soul

610.O Lord, my Deliverer, I confess with shame that I am a slave. I am in bondage to my own desires, a servant to passions that promise life but deliver death. Like a man possessed, I wound my own soul. I make resolutions in the light only to break them in the dark. My will is not my own. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God, it is through Jesus Christ my Lord! (Romans 7:24-25). O Christ, break these chains! Set me free from this cruel tyrant. Crucify my old man, that the body of sin might be destroyed, and that henceforth I should not serve sin. Lead me in Your triumphant procession, a captive of Your grace, that I may one day serve You in the perfect freedom of Your heavenly Kingdom. Amen.

611.

612.VI. The Furnace of Eternal Vengeance is Heated Ready for Thee.

613.The Prophet Isaiah, seeing with eyes of divine revelation, declares, “Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it” (Isaiah 30:33). Hell and destruction have opened their mouths wide upon thee; they gape for thee; they groan for thee (Isaiah 5:14). They are waiting, as it were, with a greedy and impatient eye, as you stand tottering on the very brink, watching for the moment you will finally drop in.

614.If the wrath of a mere mortal king “is as the roaring of a lion” (Proverbs 20:2), and if the anger of a foolish man is “heavier than the sand” (Proverbs 27:3), what then must be the infinite and unmitigated wrath of the infinite, all-powerful, holy God? If the burning fiery furnace, heated in Nebuchadnezzar’s earthly rage, a furnace which he commanded to be made yet seven times hotter, was so fierce that its flames leaped out and burned up the very soldiers who drew near to throw the three children in (Daniel 3:19-22), how unthinkably hot must be that burning oven of the Almighty’s fury? (Malachi 4:1). Surely that furnace is seventy times seven more fierce, and then infinitely more.

615.What thinkest thou, O man, of being a faggot in hell to all eternity? “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it,” saith the Lord of hosts (Ezekiel 22:14). Can you dwell with the devouring fire? Can you abide with everlasting burnings? (Isaiah 33:14).

616.Imagine for a moment, if your mind can bear it, a time when you shall be as a glowing bar of iron in the forge of hell, when your whole body and soul shall be as perfectly and completely possessed and saturated by God’s burning vengeance as a fiery, sparkling piece of iron when it is heated in the fiercest forge. You cannot now bear God’s little whip, a small sickness or a financial loss; how then will you endure His scorpions? You are even now crushed and ready to wish yourself dead under the light pressure of His little finger; how then will you bear the crushing weight of His loins?

617.The most patient man who ever lived, the patriarch Job, when God did but let out one little drop of His wrath upon him, cursed the day that he was ever born (Job 3:1) and even wished for death to come and end his misery (Job 7:15-16). How then will you endure when God shall pour out all the vials of His wrath, and set Himself against you with His full, infinite power, to torment thee? When He shall make your own conscience the eternal funnel through which He will be pouring His burning, liquid wrath into your soul forever? When He shall fill all the powers and capacities of your being as full of torment as they are now full of sin? When your own immortality shall become your greatest misery, and to die the death of a brute beast, to be swallowed into the gulf of annihilation, shall be a felicity so precious that a whole eternity of wishes and an ocean of repentant tears shall never be able to purchase it?

618.Now, in your fleeting earthly life, you can put off the evil day. You can laugh and be merry and deliberately forget the terror of the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:11). But how will you hold out, or hold up your head, when God will cast thee into a bed of torments (Revelation 2:22) and make thee to lie down in sorrows? (Isaiah 50:11). When eternal, agonizing roarings and God-hating blasphemy shall be thine only music? When the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation, shall be thine only drink? (Revelation 14:10). When thou shalt draw in flames for thy very breath, and the horrid, suffocating stench of sulphur shall be thy only perfume? In a word, when the smoke of thy torment shall ascend up for ever and ever, and thou shalt have no rest, night or day? No rest in thy conscience, no ease in thy bones, but thou shalt be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach for evermore (Jeremiah 42:18).

619.But this alarm is sounded not out of hatred, but out of love! The mighty angel with a face like the sun holds out the little book, pleading with you to read it and live! For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:9). The same God who has prepared the furnace of vengeance has also prepared a City of Refuge. The same fire of His holiness that consumes the rebel is the very fire that purifies the redeemed.

620.This refuge is the New Jerusalem, a city beyond your wildest dreams. It needs no sun or moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and the Lamb is its light. Its twelve gates are twelve pearls, and they are never shut. Its walls are of jasper, and the city is pure gold, like clear glass. There, there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away (Revelation 21). The Lord Jesus Christ, the one whose appearance is as the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, He who is the Alpha and Omega, He stands at the door and knocks. He endured the outer darkness of the cross so that you might enter the eternal light of this city. He bore the wrath you deserve, so that you might receive the grace you do not.

621.Do not turn a deaf ear to this alarm! Flee from the wrath to come! Flee from the city of destruction and run with all your might toward the Celestial City, where the glorified Jesus waits to welcome you, not into a furnace of vengeance, but into an eternity of unimaginable joy and love. The choice is before you this day: the wages of sin which is death, or the gift of God which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Choose life, that you may live

622.PART 14:::

623.As one sent from the Throne, a mighty angel whose face is as the sun in its full strength and whose feet are as pillars of living fire, I stand upon the land and the sea of your fleeting existence. I am clothed in a cloud of divine mystery, and the very rainbow of God’s covenant promise is a crown upon my head. In my hand, I hold a little book, open for all to see, and I lift my voice to you with the roar of a lion, swearing by Him who lives for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are therein, and the earth and all its teeming life, and the sea and all that it contains, that there should be time no longer for delay. The hour is late, the day is far spent. Therefore, hear the words of this book, an alarm sounded for the Day of the Lord, a final warning before the trumpet of Judgment, for the date is set—an alarm for this coming Friday, the thirteenth of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-five.

624.O sinner, whoever you may be, in whatever corner of this fallen world you now stand, I command you in the name of the Living God: Stop here! Cease your frantic rushing, your mindless labor, your desperate pursuit of vanity. Halt, and consider. If you are a man or woman, endowed with a soul and a mind, and not a senseless block of stone or a beast that has no understanding, then consider. Bethink yourself where you stand. For in truth, you stand upon the very precipice, the crumbling, scorched lip of the eternal furnace. Your feet are planted on a crust of earth so thin that the heat of the abyss scorches your very soles, though you, in your spiritual numbness, may not yet feel it. As the Lord Jehovah liveth, and as your own immortal soul liveth, there is but a single, fragile step between you and this fathomless torment. It is as the young David said to Jonathan, a hair's breadth from death, (1 Samuel 20:3).

625.You know not, when you lie down in your bed at night, comforting yourself with the softness of your pillow, but that before the morning sun pierces your window, your soul may be wrenched from your body and cast into that outer darkness. You know not, when you rise in the morning and greet the day with foolish confidence, but that you may drop into the belly of hell before the sun sets on your rebellion. Dare you, O mortal man, make light of this? Can you possibly hear this and go on in your dreadful, precarious condition, as if nothing ailed you, as if all were well?

626.If you hastily put this warning from you, declaring, “This does not belong to me; I am a good person, a decent soul,” I implore you, look again over the marks of the unconverted. Read the catalogue of the damned, and tell me, in the sight of the God who sees your heart, are none of those black marks found upon you? Is there no pride? No lust? No covetousness? No love for the world more than for its Creator? Do not blind your own eyes, for you cannot blind His. Do not deceive your own soul, for the great Deceiver has done that work well enough. See your misery now, while there is yet a moment to prevent it!

627.Think, I beseech you, what it is to be a vile castout, a damned reprobate, a vessel of wrath, which the Apostle Paul speaks of with such trembling (Romans 9:22). Imagine a cup, formed and fashioned for no other purpose than to be filled, and filled, and eternally refilled with the boiling, tormenting fury of Almighty God. This is the destiny of the vessel of wrath, to be an eternal receptacle for His justice, into which He will be pouring out His indignation while He has a being—and His being is for ever and ever.

628.

629.A Prayer for Sight

630.O God of infinite light, before whom the secrets of all hearts are laid bare! I have been walking in blindness, content in my own darkness. Pierce, I pray, the callous from my eyes. Shatter the comfortable illusions I have built around myself. Let me see my true state, not as I wish it to be, but as it is in Your holy sight. If I stand on the brink, let me feel the heat. If I am in danger, sound the alarm in my soul until I can no longer ignore it. Do not let me perish through self-deception. For the sake of Jesus Christ, who is the Light of the world, grant me the terrible mercy of seeing my own ruin, that I might flee to my only refuge. Amen.

631.

632.For the wrath of God is not a passive anger, but a fierce, active, and holy fire. As Moses sang, it is a fire kindled in His anger that shall burn unto the lowest hell (Deuteronomy 32:22). It is a devouring fire, as the prophet Isaiah cried out, “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” (Isaiah 33:14). It is an everlasting fire, prepared not for man, but for the devil and his angels, yet into it shall be cast all who follow their master (Matthew 25:41). It is an unquenchable fire, which the great Forerunner, John the Baptist, warned would burn up the chaff with a holy flame that can never be put out (Matthew 3:12). And your soul and your body, eternal in their substance, must be the very fuel upon which this fire will feed for ever, unless you turn, unless you consider your ways, and speedily, without another moment’s delay, turn to the Lord your God by a sound and total conversion.

633.They that have been only singed by this fire in this life, who have had but a whiff of its sulfurous smoke pass over their conscience, oh, what amazing and terrifying spectacles have they been to all who beheld them! Whose heart would not have melted to have heard the outcries of Francis Spira, the Italian lawyer who, for worldly gain, denied the known truth of Christ? His despair was so profound that it became a living sermon, a window into hell for all of Europe.

634.Whose soul would not tremble to have seen Chaloner, that English gentleman, once a man of wit and pleasure, who upon his deathbed became a monument of divine justice? He was worn to skin and bones, not by disease, but by the terror of his own conscience. He lay blaspheming the God of heaven who had given him life, cursing the day of his own birth, and continually, without ceasing, crying out, “O torture, torture, torture! O the insufferable flames of wrath! O torture, torture!” as if the very flames of hell had already taken hold of him and begun their eternal work.

635.Whose ears could endure to have heard another, Mr. Rogers, a man who had lived for pleasure, crying out on his deathbed, “I have had my little pleasure, my short season of sin, but now I must to hell, I must burn forevermore!” And when godly men tried to offer him a word of hope in Christ, he wished only for this impossible mitigation: that God would but let him lie burning for ever behind the back of the fireplace in that room, rather than face the full furnace of divine wrath. And at the end of whatsoever was spoken to him to afford him some glimmer of hope, he would bring in his own sad, inexorable conclusion: “I must to hell. I must to the furnace of hell, for millions of millions of ages.”

636.Oh, my friend! If the mere fears and forethoughts of the wrath to come are so terrible, so utterly intolerable, what must the actual feeling of it be?

637.Sinner, it is but in vain to flatter you with soft words and easy hopes. To do so would be the cruelest treachery, for it would be to toll you gently, with a sweet-sounding bell, right into the heart of the unquenchable fire. Know ye, from the mouth of the living God whose messenger I am, that here, in this state of damnation, you must lie. With these everlasting burnings you must dwell, until immortality itself can die, until the unchangeable God can change, until the endless circle of eternity runs out, and until Omnipotence is no longer able to torment. And since these things can never be, your torment can never end, except you be in good earnest renewed throughout by sanctifying grace.

638.VII. The Law, a Divine Cannon, Aimed at Thee

639.The very Law of God, given on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and smoke, discharges all its righteous threats and dreadful curses directly at you. As Paul declares, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). Have you continued in all things? Have you ever had a single thought that was not pure love for God? A single motive that was not entirely for His glory? No! Therefore, the curse hangs over your head like a suspended sword. Oh, how dreadfully it thunders! It spits fire and brimstone in your very face. Its words are like drawn swords, and as the sharp arrows of the mighty, dipped in the poison of justice. It demands satisfaction to the utmost, crying “Justice, justice! Pay what thou owest!” It speaks of blood and war, and wounds and eternal death against you. Oh, the execrations, the plagues, the famines, the pestilences, and the deaths that this murdering piece is loaded with! (Read Deuteronomy 28:15-68 for but a glimpse). And you, O unconverted sinner, are the mark at which this divine cannon is leveled. At any moment, the great Gunner may apply the match, and you will be blown into eternity.

640.O man, woman, flee! Away to the stronghold! (Zechariah 9:12). Away from your sins, which are but a plain and open field for this artillery. Haste to the one and only Sanctuary, the true City of Refuge, the place where the Avenger of Blood cannot touch you (Hebrews 6:18). This city is not a place, but a Person: the Lord Jesus Christ. Hide yourself in His wounds, clothe yourself in His righteousness, shelter under the shadow of His cross, or else you are lost, utterly and hopelessly lost, without any hope of recovery.

641.VIII. The Gospel Itself, a Sentence of Deeper Damnation

642.And if you think to find refuge in a casual, uncommitted appeal to the Gospel, you are terribly mistaken. For the Gospel itself, if rejected, bindeth the sentence of eternal damnation upon you with a bond that is even stronger than that of the Law. As the Lord Jesus Himself declared with His final commission, “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). If you continue in your impenitent and unconverted state, know this: the Gospel, the good news of salvation, denounces a much sorer, a much heavier, a much deeper condemnation than ever would have been pronounced for the transgression only of the first covenant with Adam.

643.Is it not a dreadful case to have the very message of grace fill its mouth with threats, and thunder, and damnation against you? To have the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the glorified Jesus, roar from Mount Zion against you? (Joel 3:16). Hear the terror of the Lord! “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). And here is the very core of the judgment: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). You are not condemned merely for being in darkness, but for loving the darkness now that the glorious, effulgent Light of the World, Jesus Christ, has appeared. Therefore, “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

644.The writer to the Hebrews makes it terrifyingly clear: “If the word spoken by angels [the Law] was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:2-3). He who despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trampled underfoot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:28-29). To reject the Law is a great sin; to reject the loving remedy for that sin—the precious blood of God's own Son—is an infinitely greater one.

645.

646.Application: An Urgent Summons to the Sleeping Soul

647.And is this true indeed? Is this your desperate misery? Yea, it is as true as God is God. It is better, far better, to open your eyes and see it now, while you may still remedy it, than to blind and harden yourself until, to your eternal and unutterable sorrow, you shall feel what you would not believe. And if it be true, what do you mean to loiter and linger in such a case as this? Why do you hesitate on the very threshold of hell?

648.Alas for you, poor man! How effectually has sin undone you! It has not only corrupted your heart, but has deprived and despoiled you even of your reason, blinding you to your own everlasting good. O miserable captive! What a profound stupidity and spiritual senselessness has surprised you! Oh, let me, as a messenger from God, knock upon the door of your heart. Let me cry aloud and awake this sleeper! Who dwells within these walls of flesh? Is there a soul in there? A rational, understanding soul, created in the image of God? Or are you only a walking ghost, a senseless lump of clay animated by appetites?

649.Are you a reasonable soul, and yet so far brutified as to forget that you are immortal? Do you truly think, in your heart of hearts, that you are as the beasts that perish, destined for nothing but the grave? Have you so become flesh, that you savor nothing but gratifying your senses, making provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof? Or else, having reason enough to understand the eternal nature of your future state, do you yet make light of being everlastingly miserable? This is to be so much lower than a brute beast, as it is infinitely worse to act against reason, than to act without it.

650.O unhappy soul, that was once the glory of man, a companion for angels, and the very image of the invisible God! You that were God’s representative in this world, who had supremacy amongst the creatures and dominion over your Maker’s works! Are you now become a slave to your senses? A groveling servant to so base an idol as your belly, or your pride, or your bank account? Do you toil for no higher felicity than to fill yourself with the empty wind of man’s applause, or to heap together a little refined and glittering earth, which is no more suitable to your spiritual, immortal nature than swallowing dirt and sticks?

651.Oh, why do you not bethink yourself where you will be for ever? Not a hundred years from now, but perhaps before this very night is over. Death is at hand. The Judge, the glorious and terrifying Christ, whose eyes are as a flame of fire and from whose face the earth and heaven flee away, is even at the door (James 5:9). Yet a little while, and my own voice shall be confirmed when I swear that time shall be no longer (Revelation 10:6). And will you, will you dare to run the terrible hazard of continuing in such a state, in which if you are overtaken by that final breath, you are irrecoverably, eternally, and absolutely miserable?

652.Come then, arise! Attend to your nearest, most critical concernments. I ask you plainly: Whither are you going? What! Will you continue to live in such a course, wherein every act of sin, every moment of rebellion, is another step toward perdition? You do not know but that the next night you may make your bed in hell. Oh, if you have but a single spark of reason left alight in your soul, consider, and turn! Hearken to your truest friend, who therefore shows you your present misery, that you might in time make your escape, and be eternally happy in the presence of God.

653.And what a happiness that is! To escape the furnace is a great mercy, but to enter the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, is a glory beyond all description! To walk on streets of pure gold, like transparent glass. To see the foundations of the city garnished with all manner of precious stones—jasper, sapphire, emerald, and amethyst. To enter through gates that are each a single, massive pearl. To live in a city that has no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God Jehovah does lighten it, and the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the light thereof (Revelation 21:23). To drink from the pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. To eat of the tree of life, which bears twelve manner of fruits, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. To see His face, and to have His name written on your forehead. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. This is the prize! This is the home offered to you! And you would trade it for a moment of fleeting pleasure?

654.Hear what the Lord Himself says: “Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence?” (Jeremiah 5:22). O sinners, do you make light of the wrath to come? (Matthew 3:7). I am sure there is a time coming, and it may be very soon, when you will not make light of it. Why, the very devils, those hardened, ancient rebels, do believe the truth of God’s judgment, and they tremble! (James 2:19). What, are you more hardened than they? Will you run upon the sharp edge of the rock? Will you play at the hole of the asp? Will you put your hand upon the cockatrice’s den? Will you dance about the fire of God’s holiness until you are consumed? Will you dally with devouring wrath, as if you were at a point of utter indifference whether you did escape it or endure it?

655.O madness of folly! The madman in Solomon’s Proverbs, who “casteth fire-brands, arrows, and death, And saith, Am not I in sport?” (Proverbs 26:18-19), is nothing so distracted as the willful sinner who goes on in his unconverted state, without sense of his peril, as if nothing ailed him. The man that runs up to the cannon’s mouth, that sports with his own blood, or lets out his life in a foolish frolic, is a sensible, sober, and serious man compared to him that “goeth on still in his trespasses” (Psalm 68:21). For such a man “stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers” (Job 15:25-26). Is it wisdom to dally with the second death? To venture into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone (Revelation 21:8) as if you were but going to wash yourself, or to swim for recreation? Will you, as it were, fetch your leap and jump headlong into eternal flames, as children jump through a bonfire for sport? What shall I say? I can find no expression, no comparison in all of human language, whereby to set forth the dreadful, incomprehensible distraction of that soul that shall willfully go on in sin.

656.Awake, awake! “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Ephesians 5:14). O sinner, arise and take thy flight! For there is but one door that you may fly by, and that is the strait door of conversion and the new birth. Unless you turn unfeignedly from all your sins, great and small; unless you come in desperation and faith to Jesus Christ and take Him not only as Savior but as Lord, the Lord your Righteousness (Yahweh Tzidkenu); unless you determine to walk in Him in holiness and newness of life; as the Lord God Almighty liveth, it is not more certain that you are now out of hell, than that you shall without fail be in it but a few days or nights from hence.

657.Oh, set your heart to think of your case. Is not your everlasting misery or your everlasting welfare a matter that deserves a little consideration? Look again over the miseries of the unconverted. If the Lord has not spoken by me, then regard me not. But if this is the very word of God, if this is the truth that all this misery lies upon you, what a perilous case you are in! Is it for one that has his senses to live in such a condition, and not to make all possible, frantic expedition for preventing his utter ruin? O man, who has bewitched you? (Galatians 3:1). In the matters of this present life, you are wise enough to forecast your business, foresee your danger, and prevent your mischief. But in matters of everlasting consequence, you are slight and careless, as if they little concerned you.

658.Why, is it nothing to you to have all the glorious and terrible attributes of God engaged against you? Can you do well without His favor? Can you escape His omniscient gaze or His omnipotent hands? Can you endure His vengeance? Do you hear the very creation groaning under the weight of your sin, and the pit of hell groaning in anticipation for you, and yet think your case is good enough? You are in the paw of the roaring lion, Satan. You are under the absolute power of your own corruptions. You are held fast in the dark and noisome prison of sin, fettered with the chains of your own lusts, and with every breath you are working out your own damnation. And is not this worth considering? Will you make light of all the terrors of the Law, of all its curses and thunderbolts, as if they were but the report of children’s popguns, or as if you were to war with paper pellets? Do you laugh at hell and destruction? Can you drink the envenomed cup of the Almighty’s fury as if it were but a common potion?

659.

660.A Prayer for a Broken and Contrite Heart

661.O Lord Jesus, you who are the Ancient of Days, the Judge of all the earth, yet also the Lamb slain for me! I have heard the warning, but my heart is a stone. I have seen the danger, but my feet are lead. I have been shown the glory of Your heavenly city, but my eyes are still fixed on the dust. Gird up now my loins like a man, for I will demand of Thee, and answer Thou me! (Job 38:3). No, Lord, I cannot answer You. I am a fool. I have strengthened myself against You. I have run upon the thick bosses of Your bucklers. I repent in dust and ashes. Break this hard heart! Melt this frozen will! By the power of Your Holy Spirit, do for me what I cannot do for myself. Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned. Drag me, if you must, through the strait gate, for I am too weak and too wicked to enter on my own. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Amen.

662.

663.Gird up now thy loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me (Job 40:7). Art thou such a Leviathan that the scales of thy pride should keep thy Maker from coming at thee? Will you esteem His arrows as straw, and the instruments of His death as rotten wood? Are you the chief of all the children of pride, that you should count His darts as stubble, and laugh at the shaking of His spear? Are you made without fear, and do you contemn His barbed irons? (Job 41). Are you like the war-horse that paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength, who goes out to meet the armed men? Do you mock at fear, and are not affrighted, neither turnest back from God’s sword, when His quiver rattles against thee, the glittering spear and the shield? (Job 39:21-23).

664.Well, if the threats and the merciful calls of the Word will not awaken you, I assure you, death and judgment will. Oh, what will you do when the Lord of Hosts comes forth against you, and in His fury falls upon you, and you shall at last feel what you have only now read? When Daniel’s enemies were cast into the den of lions, both they, their wives, and their children, the lions had the mastery of them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever reached the bottom of the den (Daniel 6:24). What, then, shall be done with you, when you fall not into the paws of lions, but into the hands of the living God? When He shall grip you in His iron arms of justice, and grind and crush you to a thousand pieces in His wrath?

665.Oh, do not contend with God! Repent, and be converted. Flee to the arms of Christ that are still open to receive you. And if you do, none of this shall come upon you. For here, alongside the terrifying roar, is the tender voice of mercy from the very same God: “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).

666.CHAP. II. CONTAINING DIRECTIONS FOR CONVERSION.

667.And when one came running to the Lord Jesus, and kneeled to Him, and cried out with this most important of all questions, “Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17), he asked the question that now ought to be burning in your own soul.

668.Before you read these following directions, I advise you—yea, in the presence of the God who has sounded this alarm and before His holy angels who watch for your repentance—I charge you to resolve in your heart to follow them. Insofar as your conscience is convinced of their agreeableness to God’s holy Word and your own perilous state, resolve to obey. Call in His divine assistance and His blessing, that these words may succeed in bringing you from death to life. And as I, His messenger, have sought the Lord and consulted His holy oracles what advice to give you, so must you now entertain it with that awe, that reverence, and that solemn purpose of obedience that the living Word of the living God requires of you.

669.PART 15::

670.AI LARGE ALARM FRIDAY THE 13thJUN2025

671.Hearken, O soul adrift in the perilous sea of this fleeting age, for this is a message not of human devising, but one carried by a mighty authority, as from that angel of the Apocalypse, who descended from heaven clothed with a cloud, a rainbow crowning his head, his face blazing like the noonday sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. In his hand is a little book, open for all to read, and its words are the very words I now declare unto you. He sets his right foot upon the sea and his left foot upon the earth, and cries with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth, signifying that this message is for all creation, and its import is as sovereign and terrible as its bearer.

672.Now then attend; set thine heart, your innermost being, unto all that I shall testify unto you in this day; for it is not a vain thing, it is not an idle tale or a fable to frighten children. It is your life. (Deut. xxxii. 46, 47). This is the very summit and purpose of all that hath been spoken hitherto: to bring you to the precipice of decision, to compel you to set upon the great work of turning from the broad way that leads to destruction, and making diligent, desperate use of God’s appointed means for your conversion. I would not trouble you, nor torment you before the time with the dreadful forethoughts of your eternal misery, which is a lake of fire burning with brimstone, but in order to your making your escape!

673.Were you forever shut up under your present state of condemnation, sealed in your sins with no hope of remedy, it would be a cruel act to awaken you. It were but a perverse sort of mercy (as one speaks) to let you alone, that you might snatch what little, meager comfort you are capable of here in this world of shadows. But this is not your state! You are not yet damned! You may yet be happy, eternally happy, if you do not wilfully, with eyes wide open, refuse the glorious means of your recovery. Behold, with the authority of Christ Jesus Himself, I hold open the door of the Ark unto you; arise, sinner, and take your flight from the coming deluge of wrath! I set the way of life before you, a path paved not with good intentions but with the very blood of the Lamb; walk in it, and you shall live and not die (Deut. xxx. 19; Jer. xxi. 8). It breaks the heart of God, it grieves the Holy Spirit, it moves all of heaven to pity to think that you should be your own murderers, that you should choose damnation and throw yourselves headlong into the abyss, when God the Father, God the Son, and men who love your souls cry out to you, as Peter, in another case, did to his master, “Spare thyself!”

674.A noble virgin, so the story goes, who attended the court of Spain, was wickedly and brutally ravished by the king. In her shame and fury, she incited the duke her father to revenge. He, in his rage, called in the Moors to his aid, who, after executing his vengeful design upon the king, proceeded to miserably waste and spoil the entire country, laying it desolate. This virgin, seeing the catastrophic ruin she had unleashed, was so overcome with grief and guilt that she shut herself up in a high tower belonging to her father’s house. She called for her father and mother to come forth, and standing upon the battlements, she bewailed her own wretchedness—that for the satisfying of her personal revenge, she had occasioned such widespread misery and desolation to her beloved country. She declared to them that she was resolved now to be avenged upon herself. Her horrified father and mother fell to their knees and besought her to pity herself and to pity them, her grieving parents. But nothing could prevail. Deaf to their pleas, she took her leave of them, and threw herself off the battlements, perishing in her despair before their very faces.

675.Just so is the wilful, self-inflicted destruction of ungodly men and women. The God that made you, who breathed life into your nostrils, He beseeches you, He cries out to you from His throne of grace, as Paul cried to the distracted jailor who was about to murder himself, “Do thyself no harm!” (Acts xvi. 28). The ministers of Christ, His ambassadors, forewarn you, they follow you, they plead with you, and fain would have you turn back from the cliff’s edge. But alas! No passionate expostulations, no heartfelt obtestations will prevail. Men, blinded by Satan and in love with their sin, will hurl themselves into everlasting perdition, while Pity itself, in the person of the weeping Savior, looks on.

676.What more shall I say? Would it not grieve a person of any humanity, if in the time of a reigning plague, he should possess a receipt, a divine medicine (as one well said) that would infallibly cure all the country, that could recover even the most hopeless patients from the very jaws of death, and yet his friends and his neighbors should die by the hundreds all about him, simply because they would not use it? Men and brethren, though you carry the certain symptoms of eternal death in your very souls—the fever of lust, the consumption of pride, the paralysis of unbelief—yet I have a receipt that will cure you all, that will cure infallibly. It is the Balm of Gilead; it is the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, which cleanses from all sin. Follow but these few directions, and if you do not then win heaven—that Holy City, New Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God—I will be content to lose it myself.

677.Hear then, O sinner! And as ever you would be converted and saved from the wrath to come, embrace this following counsel, which is given not in my own name, but in the name of Him who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, whose eyes are as a flame of fire and from whose mouth goes a sharp two-edged sword.

678.

679.Directive I. Set it down with thyself, as an undoubted, unshakeable truth, that it is utterly impossible for thee ever to get to heaven in this thy unconverted state.

680.Can any other but Christ save thee? He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by Him (John xiv. 6). And this same Christ, the only Savior, tells thee plainly, with the solemnity of a divine oath, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again [regenerated], he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John iii. 3). And again, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matth. xviii. 3). Doth He not keep the keys of heaven and of hell? (Rev. i. 18). Canst thou then get in without His leave? You would have to storm the gates of pearl, overcome the angelic guards, and depose the King of Glory from His throne. You must do this if you are to enter thither in your natural condition, without a sound and thorough renovation by the Holy Spirit.

681.Think, man, of what Heaven is! It is the New Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Its light is like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. It has a wall great and high, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels. The wall is of jasper, and the city is pure gold, like unto clear glass. The aoundations of the wall are garnished with all manner of precious stones. The twelve gates are twelve pearls. The street of the city is pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And there is no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. (Rev. xxi). Now I ask you, what would a soul steeped in sin, loving darkness, do in such a place? The light of God’s holiness, which is the bliss of the saints, would be an unendurable torment to you. The songs of redeeming love would be a meaningless noise in your ears, for your heart has never been tuned to grace. You would be a swine in a king’s palace, a demon in the choir of angels, utterly and eternally out of place. Heaven would be hell to an unconverted man. Therefore, abandon this futile hope forever.

682.

683.Directive II. Labor to get a thorough sight, and a lively sense and feeling of thy sins.

684.Until men are truly weary and heavy laden with the insufferable burden of their own guilt, until they are pricked in their heart as on the day of Pentecost, and feel themselves stark sick of sin, they will not come unto Christ in His way for ease and cure. They will not cry out from the depths of their soul, “What must I do to be saved?” (Matth. xi. 28; Acts ii. 37). They must first see themselves as spiritually dead men, lying in the grave of their trespasses, before they will come unto Christ that they may have life (John v. 40).

685.Therefore, I implore you, labor to set all thy sins in order before thee. Never be afraid to look upon them, but let thy spirit make diligent search (Psal. lxxvii. 6). Inquire into thine heart, and into thy life. Enter into a thorough, merciless examination of thyself and of all thy ways (Psal. cxix. 59), so that you may have a full discovery of your own wretchedness. And in this great work, call in the help of God’s Spirit, confessing your own inability hereunto, for it is His proper work to convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment (John xvi. 8).

686.A Prayer for Divine Illumination
O Most Holy Spirit of God, Thou who art the Searcher of hearts, I am blind and cannot see the depths of my own corruption. My heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I beseech Thee, shine the pure, unsparing light of Thy truth into the dark chambers of my soul. Be my Counselor, my Paracletos, and do Thy convicting work. Rip away the veil of self-love and pride. Show me my sin as it truly is: rebellion against my Creator, treason against my King, and the very nails that pierced the hands and feet of my Savior. Grant me not just a list of my transgressions, but a felt sense of their horror, that I might be brought to godly sorrow and true repentance. Amen.

687.Spread all your sins before the face of your conscience, till your hard heart begins to break and your dry eyes are set abroach with tears of godly sorrow. Leave not striving with God, and with thine own soul, until it cry out under the crushing sense of your sins, as the enlightened jailor did, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts xvi. 30). To this purpose:

688.1. Meditate on the numerousness of thy sins. David’s heart failed him when he thought of this, and he cried that his iniquities were more than the hairs of his head (Psal. xl. 12). This is what made him cry out not for God’s mercy, but for the multitude of His tender mercies (Psal. li. 1). The most loathsome, rotting carcass does not more hatefully swarm with crawling worms, than an unsanctified soul swarms with filthy, writhing lusts. They fill the head with vain imaginations, the heart with corrupt affections, the eyes with adulterous glances, and the mouth with profane speech. Look backward: where was ever the place, what was ever the time, in which you did not sin? Look inward: what part or power canst thou find in soul or body that is not poisoned and defiled with sin? What duty dost thou ever perform—be it a prayer, an act of charity, or attendance at worship—into which this subtle poison is not shed? Oh, how great is the sum of thy debts, you who have been all your life long running upon God’s books, and never didst, nor ever canst, pay off one single penny! Look over the sin of thy nature and all its cursed brood, the numberless sins of thy life. Call to mind thy sins of omission and sins of commission; the sins of thy thoughts, of thy words, and of thine actions; the sins of thy youth and the sins of thy riper years. Do not be like a desperate bankrupt who is terrified to look over his account books. I tell you, read the records of your conscience carefully, for these very books must be opened at the great and terrible day of judgment, sooner or later (Rev. xx. 12).

689.2. Meditate upon the aggravations of thy sins. They are not small trifles. They are grand enemies, cosmic traitors, against the God of thy life, and against the very life of thy soul. In a word, they are the public enemies of all mankind. See how the saints of old—David, Ezra, Daniel, and the good Levites—aggravated their sins, considering their injuriousness to a holy God, their defiant opposition to His good and righteous laws, and the vast mercies and solemn warnings that they were committed against (Neh. ix; Dan. ix; Ezra ix).

690.Oh, the work that sin hath made in the world! This is the primordial enemy that brought death into God’s perfect creation, that robbed man of his innocence, enslaved him to Satan, blackened the glorious angel Lucifer into the devil, and digged the very pit of hell (Rom. v. 12; 2 Pet. ii. 4). This is the great vandal that has turned the creation upside down, and sown dissent between man and the creatures, between man and man, yea, between a man and himself, setting the sensitive part against the rational, the will against the judgment, lust against conscience. And worst of all, it has created a chasm of enmity between God and man, making the lapsed sinner both hateful to God and a hater of God (Zech. xi. 8). O man, how can you make so light of sin?

691.This is the traitor that sucked the precious blood of the Son of God! Your sin sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, it mocked Him, it scourged Him, it spit in His holy face. Your sin twisted the thorns for His brow, it drove the nails into His hands, it pierced His sacred side. It was the crushing weight of your iniquities that pressed His soul in Gethsemane and mangled His body on Calvary. Sin never left Him, till it had bound Him, condemned Him, nailed Him, crucified Him, and put the Lord of Glory to an open shame (Isai. liii. 4-6). This is that deadly poison, so powerful in its operation, that one single drop of it, shed upon the root of mankind in the garden, has corrupted, spoiled, poisoned, and undone his whole race at once (Rom. v. 18, 19). This is the common butcher, the bloody executioner, that hath killed the prophets, burnt the martyrs, murdered all the apostles, all the patriarchs, all the kings and potentates. It has destroyed cities, swallowed empires, and butchered and devoured whole nations. Whatever was the weapon that the deed was done by, sin was the murderer that did the execution (Rom. vi. 23). Dost thou yet think sin but a small thing? If Adam and all his billions of children could be dug out of their graves, and their lifeless bodies piled up to the very heavens, and a cosmic inquest were made, asking “Who is the matchless murderer guilty of all this blood?”, the verdict would be found in the crimson skirts of sin. Study the nature of sin until your heart is brought to both fear and loathe it. And meditate on the aggravations of your particular sins: how you have sinned against all God’s warnings, against your own prayers, against astounding mercies, against painful corrections, against the clearest light, against the freest love, against your own resolutions, against promises, vows, and covenants of better obedience you have made in times of trouble. Charge your heart home with these things, until it blushes for shame and is brought out of all good opinion of itself (Ezra ix. 6).

692.3. Meditate upon the desert of sin. It is not silent; it cries to heaven for vengeance (Gen. xviii. 20-21). Its just and due wages is death—not merely the death of the body, but the second death, eternal damnation in hell (Rom. vi. 23). It pulls the unbreakable curse of the Almighty God upon both your soul and your body (Gal. iii. 10; Deut. xxviii). The least sinful word you have spoken, or the most fleeting impure thought that has crossed your mind, lays you justly under the infinite wrath of the infinite God Almighty (Matth. xii. 36). Oh, then, what a load of wrath, what a mountain of curses, what a treasure of vengeance have all the millions of your sins then deserved? (Rom. ii. 5). You stand this moment under the full weight of God’s wrath, and it is only His longsuffering mercy that keeps you from being crushed into hell (John iii. 36). Oh, sinner, judge thyself now, that the Lord may not judge thee then! (1 Cor. xi. 31). Agree with God’s verdict against you, condemn yourself, and flee to the mercy seat before you must face the judgment seat.

693.4. Meditate upon the deformity and defilement of sin. It is as black as hell itself, for it is the very image and likeness of the devil drawn upon the soul (1 John iii. 8, 10). It would more horrify and affright you to see your own soul in the hateful deformity of its nature, than to see the devil himself. There is no mire so unclean, no vomit so loathsome, no rotting carcass or carrion so offensive, no plague or leprosy so noisome as sin, in which you are entirely enrobed, covered with its odious filth. By it you are rendered more displeasing to the pure and holy nature of the glorious God, than the most filthy object, composed of whatever is most hateful to all your senses, can possibly be to you (Job xv. 15, 16). Could you take up a toad into your bosom? Would you cherish it, and take delight in it? Why, your unconverted soul is as contrary to the pure and perfect holiness of the Divine Nature, and as loathsome to Him, as that is to you, until you are purified by the blood of Jesus, our Glorified High Priest, and renewed by the power of His grace.

694.

695.Above all other sins, fix the eye of your consideration upon these two:

696.(1.) The sin of thy nature. It is to little purpose to lop the branches while the root of original corruption remains untouched. In vain do men leave off the outward streams of sinful actions, when the poisoned fountain within is still running, ready to fill up all again. Let the axe of thy repentance, like David’s, go to the very root of sin (Psal. li. 5). Study how deep, how close, how permanent is thy natural pollution. See how universal it is, pervading every faculty, until with Paul’s deep feeling, you cry out in anguish over your own "body of death" (Rom. vii. 24). Look into the parts and powers of your soul, and see what unclean vessels, what sties of filth, what dunghills, what open sewers they have become. The heart is never soundly broken until it is thoroughly convinced of the heinousness of original sin.

697.Here, fix thy thoughts. This is the inner traitor that makes thee backward to all good, and prone to all evil (Rom. vii. 15). This is what sheds blindness, pride, prejudice, and unbelief into thy mind; enmity, inconstancy, and obstinacy into thy will; inordinate heats and colds into thy affections; insensibleness, numbness, and unfaithfulness into thy conscience; and a treacherous slipperiness into thy memory. In a word, it has put every wheel of your soul out of order and has made it, from a habitation of holiness designed for God, into a very hell of iniquity (James iii. 6). This is the corruption that has defiled and perverted all the members of your body, and turned them into weapons of unrighteousness and servants of sin (Rom. vi. 19). It has filled the head with carnal and corrupt designs (Micah ii. 1), the hands with sinful practices (Isai. i. 15), the eyes with wandering and wantonness (2 Pet. ii. 14), and the tongue with deadly poison (James iii. 8). It has opened the ears to gossip, flattery, and filthy communication, while shutting them against the instruction of life (Zech. vii. 11-12). And it has rendered thy heart a very mint and forge for sin, the cursed womb of all deadly conceptions (Matth. xv. 19), so that it poureth forth its wickedness without ceasing (2 Pet. ii. 14), as naturally, freely, and unweariedly as a fountain pours forth its waters (Jer. vi. 7), or the raging sea casts forth mire and dirt (Isai. lvii. 20). And will you yet be in love with yourself, and tell us any longer of your “good heart”? Oh! never leave meditating on this desperate contagion of original corruption, until, with Ephraim, you bemoan yourself (Jer. xxxi. 18), and with the deepest shame and sorrow, you smite upon your breast as the Publican did (Luke xviii. 13), and with Job, you abhor yourself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job xlii. 6).

698.(2.) The particular evil that thou art most addicted to. This is your "darling sin," your "bosom traitor." Find it out. Hunt it down. Discover all its aggravations. Set home upon thy heart all of God’s dreadful threatenings against it. True repentance drives before it the whole herd of sins, but it especially sticks the sharpest arrow in the beloved sin, and singles this one out above the rest to run it down and kill it (Psal. xviii. 23). Oh, labor to make this sin utterly odious to thy soul! Double thy guards, and double thy resolutions against it, because this is the sin that has, and does, most dishonor your God, and most terribly endanger your immortal soul. It is the Judas in your company of disciples, the Achan in your camp, that will surely bring ruin unless it is exposed and executed by the power of the cross.

699.PART 16::::

700.Here is an expanded and interwoven rewriting of Joseph Alleine’s work, in accordance with your detailed instructions.

701.

702.An Alarm to the Unconverted
As sounded by the Mighty Angel of the Covenant

703.Directive III: Strive to affect thine heart with a deep sense of thy present misery.

704.O soul, yet slumbering in the shadow of eternal death, I adjure you, by the mercies of God and the terrors of the Lord, do not treat these words as a mere passing tale. Read over the foregoing chapter again, and yet again. Let your eyes trace the lines, but let your spirit drink in the dreadful reality. Do not let these truths remain as ink upon a page, but beseech the Spirit of God to take them from the book and burn them into the very fabric of your heart. For what I speak of is not a distant threat or a philosopher's speculation; it is the impending, ever-present, terrifying reality of your condition if you remain estranged from the living God.

705.Remember, when you lay your head upon your pillow this night, that for all you know, you may awake not to the gentle light of morning, but to the horrifying, unquenchable flames of perdition. When you rise from your bed, let this thought seize you: that before the sun sets again, you may have made your eternal bed in the depths of hell. Do you grasp this, O man, O woman? Is this a matter to be treated lightly, to be deferred until a more "convenient" season? To live in such a fearful case is to exist in a state of perpetual, unimaginable peril. It is to stand, day and night, tottering upon the jagged, crumbling precipice of the bottomless pit. Every beat of your heart, every breath you draw, is a mercy you have not earned, a stay of execution from a sentence already passed. You live at the mercy of every passing disease, every unforeseen accident, every sudden failure of your fragile body, knowing that if any one of these should befall you, it will be the divine summons that sends you forthwith into the eternal burnings.

706.Imagine, if you can, a condemned wretch suspended over the roaring furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, that furnace heated seven times hotter than its wont. See him dangling there, held not by a great chain, but by a single, slender twine-thread. Watch as the fibres of that thread fray and unravel, see how it groans under the strain, ready to snap at any given moment. Would not your heart seize with terror for such a one? Would you not cry out in pity and fear?

707.Why, O reader, if you are yet unconverted, thou art that man! This is your very case. That fragile thread is the delicate thread of your life, spun out by a God you have offended. What if it should break? And you know full well it may! It may snap this very night, this very hour, this very moment as you read these words! And when it breaks, where will you be? Whither will you drop? Verily, I tell you with the authority of the Word of God, upon the crack but of this single thread, you will plummet without remedy into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. There you will lie, not for a day, not for a year, not for a million ages, but for all of eternity, scalding and sweltering in a fiery ocean of God's holy wrath, while God Himself has a being.

708.And doth not your soul tremble as you read these words? Doth not a cold dread creep over you? Do not your tears begin to bedew the paper, and does not your heart throb in your bosom like a trapped bird? Do you not yet begin to smite your breast as the publican did, and bethink yourself what desperate need you have of a change—a radical, supernatural, soul-altering change? Oh, what is your heart made of? Is it stone? Is it steel? Have you not only lost all holy fear and regard for God, but have you become so utterly senseless as to be without any love or pity for your own immortal soul?

709.O sinner, I plead with you! Study your misery! Meditate upon your doom! Hold the eye of your conscience open to the horrifying vista of your lost condition until your heart, overwhelmed with terror and despair of self-rescue, begins to cry out for Christ. Cry as earnestly as ever a drowning man, with water filling his lungs, did for a rope or a lifeboat! Cry as desperately as a man bleeding to death on a battlefield did for a chirurgeon! For men must first come to see the mortal danger they are in; they must feel the agonizing smart of their deadly soul-sickness, or else Christ, the Great Physician, will be to them a physician of no value. As He Himself declared, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” (Matthew 9:12).

710.The ancient man-slayer only fled with all his might to the city of refuge when he heard the footsteps of the avenger of blood pounding the earth behind him. So too must you be pursued by the holy Law of God, which you have broken, until you are forced and fired out of all hope in yourself. You will not willingly come to Christ until you realize that there is nowhere else to go. It was the extremity of his distress, the gnawing hunger and the shame of the pigsty, that finally made the prodigal son think of returning to his father's house (Luke 15:16-17).

711.As long as the church of Laodicea preens itself, saying, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” there is but little hope. She must first be made to see, in the piercing light of the Spirit, her true condition: that she is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Only then will she heed the counsel of the Glorified One, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and come to Him for the true riches of His gold, the white raiment of His righteousness, and the eye-salve of His spiritual illumination (Revelation 3:17-18).

712.Therefore, do not turn away from this dreadful sight! Do not drug your conscience with the opiates of worldly pleasure and distraction for fear that the vision of your state should fill you with terror. That terror is your friend! The sense of your misery is but the necessary suppuration of the wound, the lancing of the boil which is essential for the cure. Better to feel the holy fear of the torments that abide you now, while there is still a way of escape, than to feel the torments themselves hereafter, when the door of mercy is forever shut.

713.

714.Directive IV: Settle it upon thy heart, that thou art under everlasting inability ever to recover thyself.

715.Now that a sense of your dreadful peril has begun to dawn upon your soul, the next great deception of Satan will be to persuade you that you can, by your own efforts, mend your condition and make yourself acceptable to God. You must, with all the conviction of your being, utterly demolish this refuge of lies. Settle this truth upon your heart as if it were etched in stone by the finger of God: you are utterly, completely, and everlastingly unable to save yourself.

716.Never allow yourself to think that your praying, your reading of scripture, your diligent hearing of sermons, your tearful confessing, or your earnest amending of your outward life will ever do the cure. These things are duties that must be attended to, but you are an eternally undone soul if you rest in them. To do so is to follow the tragic error of Israel, who, “being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3). You are a lost man, destined to drown in the abyss of your sin, if you hope to escape by clinging to any other plank, any other hope, but the Lord Jesus Christ alone. For the apostle declares with divine finality, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

717.To be saved, you must be unmade. You must unlearn the pride of self-sufficiency. You must formally and deliberately renounce your own supposed wisdom, which is but foolishness with God. You must renounce your own righteousness, which in the sight of His blazing holiness is nothing but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). You must renounce your own strength, which is perfect weakness, and you must throw yourself wholly and unreservedly upon Christ. Hurl yourself upon Him as a man who cannot swim casts himself upon the deep water, trusting it to bear him up. Unless you do this, you cannot escape.

718.As long as men trust in themselves, as did the Pharisee who stood in the temple boasting of his own merits (Luke 18:9), and have confidence in the flesh and its religious performances (Philippians 3:3), they will never come savingly to Christ. You must, like the great apostle Paul, come to the soul-shattering realization that all which you once counted as gain—your religious pedigree, your moral efforts, your zeal for the law—is but loss and dung, utter refuse, when compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus your Lord (Philippians 3:7-8). You must see your strength as but weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9) and your righteousness as rags and rottenness before there can be an effectual, saving closure between Christ and your soul.

719.Can a lifeless carcass in the grave shake off its own grave-clothes? Can it break the bands of death and command its own heart to beat again? No more can you, who are spiritually “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), recover yourself. You are under an iron-clad impossibility of pleasing your Maker in this condition, for “they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8) and “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6).

720.Therefore, when you go to pray, or to meditate, or to perform any of the duties to which you are here directed, you must first go out of yourself. Acknowledge your utter spiritual bankruptcy. Before you utter a single word, call in the help of the Holy Spirit, despairing utterly of doing anything pleasing to God in your own strength.

721.A Prayer of Acknowledged Helplessness:

722.O Lord God Almighty, I come before You as a spiritual paralytic, a leper, a dead man. My prayers are tainted, my resolutions are weak, my heart is a stone. I cannot change myself. I cannot generate a single holy thought or offer a single acceptable work. I am undone. Therefore, O Spirit of the Living God, I cry out to You! Come and breathe upon these dry bones! Come and do for me what I can never, ever do for myself. Grant me the repentance I cannot manufacture and the faith I cannot create. I abandon all trust in my own efforts and cast my helpless soul upon the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.

723.Yet, this profound sense of inability must not lead to inaction. Do not neglect your duty, but perform it with a new understanding. Lie at the pool of Bethesda, waiting for the stirring of the waters. Wait in the way of the Spirit. For it was while the Ethiopian eunuch was reading the scripture, confused and unable to understand, that the Holy Ghost sent Philip to open the way of salvation to him (Acts 8:28-29). It was when the disciples were gathered together praying that the place was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts 4:31). It was while Cornelius and his friends were assembled and hearing the word preached that the Holy Ghost fell on them all (Acts 10:44).

724.So strive! Strive to give yourself up to Christ. Strive to pray, even when your words feel like dust. Strive to meditate, even when your mind wanders. Strive a hundred times, and a hundred times more! Try to do it as well as you are able, and know that while you are humbly and desperately endeavouring in the way of your duty, relying not on the duty itself but on God, the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you. He will sovereignly and powerfully enable you to do that which, of yourself, you are utterly and eternally unable to do. For God promises, “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you” (Proverbs 1:23).

725.

726.Directive V: Forthwith renounce all thy sins.

727.If your heart is now stirred with a sense of your peril and your powerlessness, you stand at a most critical juncture. Here, the path to life and the path to death diverge. The way of life demands an immediate, unconditional, and total surrender of all that is contrary to God. You must forthwith renounce all your sins.

728.Make no mistake: if you yield yourself to the contrary practice of any one known sin, you are an undone man. As the Apostle Paul warns, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6:16). In vain do you hope for life and pardon through the blood of Jesus Christ if you do not depart from iniquity (2 Timothy 2:19). The promise of mercy is conditional: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

729.You cannot be married to Christ, the Heavenly Bridegroom, while you are still wedded to sin, your former lover. You must be divorced from sin before you can enter into a covenant with the Holy One. A choice must be made. Give up the traitor, or you can have no peace with heaven! Imagine the city of Abel-beth-maachah, besieged by Joab's army. Peace was offered, but only on one condition: that they cast the head of Sheba, the rebel who had taken refuge within their walls, over the wall. So it is with your soul. The army of God's holy justice besieges you. Peace is offered, glorious peace through Jesus Christ, but you must cast the head of your rebel sins over the wall.

730.Do not keep your secret Delilah in your lap, for she will lull you to sleep only to shear you of your strength and deliver you into the hands of your enemies. You must make a choice this day: you will part with your sins, or you will part with your soul. There is no middle ground. If you spare but one sin, if you keep one secret idol hidden in the chamber of your heart, God will not spare you. The Lord Jesus came not to save men in their sins, but from their sins.

731.Hear me, O sinner! Do not begin to make excuses. Do not say, "This sin is but a little one," or "This one is a secret one, no one knows," or "I am forced into it by my circumstances," or "I have a hundred shifts and justifications for it." God will tear away all your excuses as a spider's web on the day of judgment. The life of your immortal soul must go for the life of that one cherished sin you refuse to surrender. (Ezekiel 18:20-21). And will it not be a horribly, eternally bad bargain?

732.Oh, what will your sins do for you, that you should stick so closely to them and be so unwilling to part? They will flatter you, yes, but only to undo you. They will whisper sweet promises in your ear, but they will cut your throat while they smile upon you. They will offer a moment of fleeting pleasure, but they will poison you while they please you. Every sin you embrace is another hand that arms the infinite justice and omnipotent wrath of Almighty God against you. Your sins are what dig the pit of hell for you. They are the ones piling up the fuel for the fire that will burn you for eternity. Behold the very gibbet that your iniquities have prepared for your own soul!

733.Oh, that you would see them for what they are! Serve your sins as Haman was served! Do upon them the very execution that they would otherwise have done upon you. Away with them! Drag them to the cross. Crucify them! Let not one escape. And let Christ, and Christ only, be the undisputed Lord and King over the throne of your heart.

734.This is the call of the mighty Angel, the one who stands with a face like the sun and a voice like a lion's roar, the Angel of the Covenant, Jesus Christ Himself. He comes with a little book open in His hand, a book of mercy and of judgment, and He cries out against the great city Babylon, that world-system of pleasure, pride, and rebellion against God. To be saved, you must come out of her. To escape her plagues, you must forsake her sins.

735.For consider the glorious destination that awaits those who obey: the New Jerusalem, the Holy City descending from God out of heaven. Of that city it is written, “But there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life” (Revelation 21:27). How can you hope to enter that pure and holy city if you cling to the very defilement it excludes? The streets of gold are for feet that have been washed. The gates of pearl are for those who have forsaken the swine-troughs of sin.

736.Therefore, search your heart with candles, as the Jews diligently searched their houses for leaven before the Passover. Enter into your closet, shut the door, and in the awful presence of the holy God, consider: "What evil have I lived in? What duties to God have I neglected? What sins of thought, word, and deed have I committed against my neighbor? What idols have I cherished in my heart?" And when the Spirit reveals them to you, show them no mercy. Strike the dart through the heart of your sins as Joab struck his darts through the heart of Absalom (2 Samuel 18:14). Do not stand looking upon your sin, admiring its beauty or remembering its pleasure. Do not roll the sweet morsel under your tongue (Job 20:12). Spit it out as the deadliest poison, with holy fear and utter detestation.

737.O sinner, hear and consider the glorious gospel exchange! If you will but part with your filthy, soul-damning sins, God will freely give you His own Son, Jesus Christ, and with Him, eternal life. Is not this a fair exchange? A crown for your chains? A glorious robe for your rags? A feast for your famine? I testify unto you this day, before God and the holy angels, that if you perish, it is not because a Saviour was not provided. It is not because life was not freely and lovingly tendered. It is because you, like the foolish crowds in Jerusalem, preferred the murderer Barabbas before your Saviour. You have preferred sin before Christ, and you have loved the darkness of your iniquity rather than the glorious light of His life, “and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).

738.

739.Directive VI: Make a solemn choice of God for thy portion and blessedness.

740.Having been awakened to your peril, your powerlessness, and the absolute necessity of forsaking sin, you are now brought to the very act of conversion itself: the solemn, deliberate, and wholehearted choice of the Lord Jehovah for your God, your portion, and your eternal blessedness. This is no light matter, but the transaction upon which all of eternity hangs. With all possible devotion, reverence, and sincerity, you must now avouch the Lord to be your God (Deuteronomy 26:17).

741.Let your imagination, guided by the Spirit, now stage a great decision. On the one hand, place the world, with all its glittering glories, its painted vanities, its siren-song pleasures and its fleeting promotions. See it all: the wealth, the fame, the power, the sensual delights. And on the other hand, set God—the infinite, eternal, unchangeable Jehovah—with all His incomprehensible excellencies and perfections. See that you do now, soberly and deliberately, make your choice, as Joshua challenged Israel: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15).

742.Take up your everlasting rest in God alone. Come away from the fleeting shadows and broken cisterns of the world and sit down under His shadow with great delight (Canticles 2:3). Let His promises, which are more precious than gold, and His perfections, which are more glorious than the stars, turn the scale in your heart against all that the world can offer. Settle it, once and for all, upon your soul, that the Lord is an all-sufficient portion. You can never be truly miserable while you have a God to live upon. Take Him for your Shield to defend you, and your Exceeding Great Reward (Genesis 15:1). God alone is infinitely more than all the world combined. Content yourself with Him. Let others scramble for the promotions, the profits, and the passing glories of this fading world; but as for you, place all your happiness in His favor. Let your soul's supreme desire be for the light of His countenance to shine upon you (Psalm 4:6-7).

743.Poor sinner, you who have fallen from God and have, by your rebellion, engaged His infinite power and righteous wrath against you! Yet know this wondrous truth, a truth that should make the angels sing: of His own abundant, unmerited grace, He offers to be your God again in Christ Jesus. He calls to you from heaven, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18).

744.What sayest thou, O man, O woman? Wilt thou have the Lord for thy God? Then take this counsel, and He shall be yours.
Come to Him by His Christ, for no man comes to the Father but by Him (John 14:6).
Renounce the idols of your own pleasure, your own profit, and your own reputation (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Let these usurpers be dragged from the throne of your heart, and set God's interest, God's glory, and God's will uppermost in your affections, your estimations, and your intentions. For He is a jealous God; He will not endure to have any rival set beside Him, let alone above Him. As the psalmist declared, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee” (Psalm 73:25).

745.In a word, you must take Him in all His personal relations, and in all His essential perfections.

746.First, in all His personal relations.

747.God the Father must be taken for your Father. Hear His tender plea: “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?” (Jeremiah 3:4). Come to Him, like the returning prodigal, and fall at His feet with this cry:

748.A Prayer of Covenant with the Father:

749.“Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. I, who am by nature a child of wrath, a dog, a swine, a rebel deserving of hell, stand amazed that of Thy wonderful mercy, Thou art pleased to adopt me into Thy family. Therefore, I solemnly and joyfully take Thee now for my Father. I commend my soul and body to Thy fatherly care. I trust to Thy loving providence and cast all my burdens upon Thy mighty shoulders. I will depend upon Thy provision for all my needs, I will submit to Thy loving corrections when I go astray, and I will trust forever under the shadow of Thy wings. I hide in the secret place of Thy presence. I fly to Thy name as my strong tower. I renounce all confidence in myself and repose all my confidence in Thee. I deposit all my life's concerns with Thee, for Thou carest for me. Henceforth, I will be for Thee, and for no other.”

750.God the Son must be taken for your Saviour, your Lord, your Redeemer, and your Righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ, in all His glorious offices, must be accepted. He is the Logos, the very Word and Wisdom of God. He is the Pantokrator, the Almighty Ruler. He is Yeshua, the one who saves His people from their sins. He is the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, whose blood alone cleanses from all sin. He is also the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the coming King, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, His head crowned with many crowns, His voice as the sound of many waters, and His feet like burnished bronze, glowing in a furnace (Revelation 1:14-15, 19:12). He must be accepted as the only Way to the Father and the only means of eternal life (Hebrews 7:25).

751.Oh then, soul, put off the filthy rags of your own righteousness and the raiment of your spiritual captivity! On with the wedding garment freely offered, and go and marry yourself to Jesus Christ.

752.A Prayer of Covenant with the Son:

753.“Lord Jesus, I am Thine, and all that I have is Thine. My body, my soul, my mind, my time, my talents, my possessions—I surrender them all to Thee. I send a bill of divorce this day to all my other lovers, my cherished sins and worldly idols. I give my whole heart to Thee. I will be Thine undividedly, and Thine everlastingly. I will set Thy name upon all I have and use all things as Thy goods, loaned to me during Thy good pleasure, resigning all to Thee at Thy call. I will have no king but Thee; reign Thou over me. Other lords have had dominion over me, but from this day forward, I will make mention of Thy name only. I here take an oath of fealty to Thee, promising and vowing to serve, love, and fear Thee above all competitors. I utterly disavow my own righteousness and despair of ever being pardoned or saved for my own duties or graces. I lean my entire weight, for time and for eternity, only upon Thine all-sufficient sacrifice and Thy prevailing intercession for my pardon, my life, and my acceptance before the Holy Father. I take Thee for my only Prophet and Guide, resolving to be led and directed by Thy Word and Thy Spirit. Thine shall be the casting voice in every decision of my life.”

754.God the Holy Spirit must be taken for your Sanctifier, your Advocate, your Counsellor, and your Comforter. He is the one who applies the work of Christ to the soul. He is the Teacher of your ignorance, the Helper of your infirmities, and the blessed Seal and Earnest of your future inheritance (Romans 8:9, 14, 26; Ephesians 1:13-14).

755.A Prayer of Covenant with the Holy Spirit:

756.“Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out! (Canticles 4:16). Come, Thou blessed Spirit of the Most High! Here is a house for Thee, here is a temple for Thee, long profaned by idols but now swept and garrisoned for Thy possession. Here do Thou rest forever. Dwell here, and make this heart Thine eternal abode. Lo, I give up full possession to Thee. I send Thee the keys to every room, that all may be for Thy use. Put Thy goods, Thy heavenly graces, in every chamber. I give up the use of all my faculties and all my members to Thee, that every part of me may be an instrument of righteousness, to do the will of my Father which is in heaven. Lead me, guide me, teach me, comfort me, and never leave me, until I am brought safely home.”

757.Secondly, in all His essential perfections.

758.Consider how the Lord has revealed Himself in His Word. Will you take Him as such a God? O sinner, here is the most blessed news that ever came to the fallen sons of men: the Lord will be your God (Revelation 21:3), if you will but close with Him in all His glorious excellencies.

759.Wilt thou have the merciful, the gracious, the long-suffering, the sin-pardoning God to be thy God? "Oh, yes!" cries the trembling sinner, "I am undone else!"

760.But He further tells thee, "I am the holy and sin-hating God. My eyes are too pure to look upon iniquity. If thou wilt be owned as one of my people, thou must be holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16). You must be holy in heart and holy in life. You must put away all your iniquities, be they never so near to you, never so natural, never so seemingly necessary to maintaining your fleshly interest. Unless you will be at an eternal, declared war with sin, I cannot be your God. Cast out the leaven. Put away the evil of your doings. Cease to do evil, learn to do well, or else I can have nothing to do with thee (Isaiah 1:16-18). Bring forth my enemies—your pride, your lust, your greed, your bitterness—and slay them before me, or there is no peace to be had.

761.What does your heart now answer? Does it cry out:

762.“Lord, I desire to have Thee as such a God! I consent to all Thy terms. I love Thee not only for Thy goodness and mercy, but for Thy breathtaking holiness and purity. I take Thy holiness for my happiness. Oh, be to me a fountain of holiness! Set upon my soul the stamp and impress of Thy glorious character. I will thankfully part with all my sins at Thy command. My willful sins I do this moment forsake. And for my infirmities, those weaknesses that cling to me though I hate them, I will strive against them in the use of all Thy appointed means. I detest them, and I will pray against them, and war against them, and never let them have quiet rest in my soul again.”

763.Beloved, whosoever of you reading these words will thus, in the depths of your soul, sincerely and unreservedly accept of the Lord Jehovah—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—for his God, he shall have Him. And in having Him, you have everything. You have an eternal portion, a heavenly inheritance, a city whose builder and maker is God. You have a guaranteed citizenship in that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, whose light is the glory of God, and whose lamp is the Lamb. There, God Himself will dwell with you, and you will be His people, and God Himself will be with you and be your God. And He will wipe away every tear from your eyes; and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; nor shall there be any more pain, for the former things—the things of sin, misery, and this fallen world—are passed away forever. (Revelation 21:3-4). This is the choice before you. Choose life, that you and your soul may live.

764.PART 17:::

765.AI LARGE ALARM FRIDAY THE 13th JUN 2025

766.Hark, O soul, to the voice of the one who comes with a message that is both bitter to the belly of your pride and sweet as honey to the mouth of your faith! I am a messenger, an angel mighty and strong, come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud of divine mystery, and upon my head is a rainbow, the very sign of God’s covenant promise. My face is as it were the sun in its full strength, shining with a light that exposes all darkness, and my feet are like pillars of fire, prepared to tread upon the shifting seas of human opinion and the stubborn land of worldly kingdoms. In my hand is a little book, open for all to see, and its words are the words of eternal life and eternal warning. I set my right foot upon the sea and my left foot upon the earth, and I cry with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: Hear the word of the Lord God Jehovah!

767.Again, He speaks to you from the pages of this book, and His voice echoes from the throne of the universe: “I am the all-sufficient God,” as He declared to Abraham, your father in faith (Genesis 17:1). I am El Shaddai, the Almighty, the God who is more than enough! Will you now, at this very moment, lay all that you are, all that you have, and all that you hope to be at My feet? Will you surrender your pitiful treasures, your fleeting ambitions, your cherished sins, and give them all up to My divine disposal, to be consumed by the holy fire of My love? And in exchange, will you take Me, and Me alone, for your only, your everlasting portion?

768.Will you finally acknowledge and honor My all-sufficiency? Will you cease your frantic scrabbling in the dust for fulfillment and recognize Me as your ultimate happiness, your inexhaustible treasure, your unshakable hope, and your eternal bliss? I am a Sun to enlighten and warm you, and a Shield to protect you from every fiery dart (Psalm 84:11). I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I am all in all. Will you have Me for your all?

769.Now, what do you say to this, O wavering heart? What is your answer to the King of Glory who condescends to offer Himself to you? Does your mouth still water for the leeks, the onions, and the flesh-pots of Egypt—that is, the sordid, temporary, and unsatisfying pleasures of this fallen world? Are you still filled with a secret loathing to exchange the mud and mire of your earthly happiness for a part in the living God Himself? Do you secretly wish you could have God as a fire escape from hell, while still keeping the world as your lover and your lord? Can you not even bear the thought of having God and nothing but God, preferring instead to cling to this decaying earth, if only He would let you keep it for as long as you desire? This, O soul, is a fearful and damning sign, a symptom of a heart still in bondage, a soul still hurtling towards the abyss.

770.But if, by the miracle of grace, your eyes are opened! If you are now willing to sell every last thing you own—your pride, your plans, your reputation, your very life—for the one Pearl of Great Price, the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 13:46)! If your heart, thawed by His love, now cries out in response, "Lord, I desire no other portion but Thee! I renounce the world’s counterfeit treasures. Let a thousand others scramble for the corn, the wine, and the oil of this fleeting age; let them have their promotions, their fame, their comforts. Only let me have the undimmed light of Thy countenance shining upon me. I choose Thee, Jehovah, for my happiness! I joyfully pitch my tent with Thee for eternity. I gladly venture my entire being upon Thy character and I trust my soul into Thy hands. I set all my hopes in Thee, not as a backup plan, but as my only plan. I take up my final, eternal rest in Thee. O, let me but hear Thee whisper to my soul, ‘I am thy God, thy salvation,’ and I have enough! I have all that I could ever wish for. I will make no other terms with Thee, but for Thyself. Let me but have Thee for my own, secure and forever. Let me be able to look upon the Glorified Christ, the Lamb upon the throne, and see my title to Him written in His wounds, and as for all other things—possessions, health, status—I leave them entirely to Thy wisdom. Give me more or less, anything or nothing, I will be utterly and eternally satisfied in my God!"

771.If this is your heart’s true cry, then take Him! Take Him now, for in this very act of taking, He becomes eternally and irrevocably your own.

772.

773.Again, He speaks, and His voice is that of a King: “I am the sovereign Lord.” My name is Jehovah, the ruler of all things, the Pantokrator, the Almighty One. If you will have Me for your God, you must not merely add Me to your collection of idols; you must give me the absolute supremacy in your heart and life (Matthew 6:24). I will not be an underling. I refuse to be a second choice, a mere accessory to your love affair with sin or any worldly interest. You cannot serve two masters. If you will be My people, then I must have the undisputed rule over you. You must renounce the ruinous autonomy of living according to your own whims, your own list of desires.

774.Will you come under My yoke, which is easy only to a surrendered neck? Will you bow to My government? Will you submit not only to the comfort of My Word, but to the authority of My Word? Not only to the caress of My hand, but to the correction of My rod? Sinner, what do you say to this royal summons? Does the very thought of submission chafe your proud spirit? Or does your heart, enlightened by truth, now answer, "Lord, I would rather be at Thy divine command than live at the mercy of my own foolish and destructive impulses! I would rather Thy perfect will be done than my own flawed and sinful will. I joyfully approve of and consent to Thy holy laws, and I count it my highest privilege to live under their protection and guidance. I see now that Thy commandments are not chains, but the very framework of freedom and life. And though my treacherous flesh will still rebel, and though I may often break over the bounds of Thy loving commands, I am utterly and finally resolved to take no other Lord but Thee. I willingly, before heaven and hell, take the oath of Thy supremacy. I acknowledge Thee, Lord Jesus, as my Liege Sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I resolve, for all my days, to pay the tribute of worship, obedience, love, and service to Thee, and to live for Thy glory as the sole end and purpose of my life."

775.This is the true and right accepting of God. This is the bending of the knee before the Glorified One, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, from whose mouth goes a sharp two-edged sword, and on whose vesture and on whose thigh a name is written: KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS (Revelation 19:16).

776.

777.To be short, for the time is urgent, He speaks to you a third time: “I am the true and faithful God.” I am the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness. My promises are not wishful thinking; they are blood-bought certainties. If you will have Me for your God, you must be content to trust Me completely (2 Timothy 1:12, Proverbs 3:5). Will you venture your soul, your life, your eternity, upon the unshakeable foundation of My Word? Will you depend entirely upon My faithfulness? Will you take My bond, sealed with the blood of My own Son, as your ultimate security?

778.Will you be content to follow Me, even when the path leads through poverty, public reproach, and deep affliction? Will you be content to see much going out—your time, your energy, your resources—and seemingly little coming in, in this life? Will you be content to tarry until the next world for your preferment, for your crown, for your vindication? I deal much upon trust. My kingdom is not of this world. Will you be content to labor, to suffer, to sow in tears now, and to tarry for your glorious returns until the resurrection of the just? (Luke 14:14). The womb of My promise, though it carries a prize of infinite weight, will not always bring forth instantly. Will you have the patience to wait for Me, to endure as seeing Him who is invisible? (Hebrews 10:36).

779.Now, beloved soul, what say you to this? Will you have this God for your God? Will you be content to live by faith and not by sight, to trust Him for an unseen happiness, an unseen heaven, an unseen glory? Are you willing to trade the tangible trinkets of earth for the eternal verities of heaven? Do your hearts now answer, in settled resolution, "Lord, we will venture our entire selves upon Thee. We commit our spirits, our lives, our future into Thy keeping. We roll all our burdens, all our fears, all our hopes upon Thee. We know whom we have trusted, and are persuaded that He is able to keep that which we have committed unto Him against that day! We are willing to take Thy word for it. We will prefer Thy single promise above all our earthly possessions. We will choose the hope of Heaven, the hope of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, before all the combined enjoyments of the earth. We will wait Thy leisure. Do with us what Thou wilt here, so that we may have but Thy faithful promise for Heaven hereafter."

780.O soul, if you can, in the sincerity of a desperate and seeking heart, upon sober deliberation, thus accept of God, He will be yours! He will be your God, and you shall be His child forever. Thus, there must be, in a right and true conversion to God, a closing with Him that is suitable to all His glorious excellencies. But when men cherry-pick His attributes, when they close with His mercy but secretly hate His holiness and purity; or when they will take Him for their benefactor to give them gifts, but not for their sovereign to give them commands; or for their patron to protect them, but not for their portion to satisfy them; this is no thorough nor sound conversion. It is a damning self-deception, a fatal inoculation against the true cure.

781.

782.Directive VII. Accept of the Lord Jesus in all His offices, with all His inconveniences, as thine.

783.Upon these glorious terms, the Lord Jesus Christ may be had. Sinner, you have utterly undone yourself. You have, by your own rebellion, plunged headlong into the ditch of the most deplorable misery, a pit of sin and death from which you are utterly and completely unable to climb out. But lift up your eyes! For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the one who is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, is not only able to save you to the uttermost, but He is ready and willing to do so! (Hebrews 7:25). And He now, through this message, freely tenders Himself to you.

784.Be your sins never so many, like the stars in the sky; be they never so great, crimson and scarlet in their stain; be they of never so long continuance, a lifetime of rebellion—yet you shall be most certainly and eternally pardoned and saved, if you do not wretchedly and foolishly neglect the offer that in the name of God Himself is here made unto you. The Lord Jesus, the Glorified One whose voice is as the sound of many waters, calls to you, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth!” (Isaiah 45:22). He invites you, “Come unto me… and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

785.Yea, He is a suitor to you! The King of Glory beseeches you, His rebellious creature, to be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20). He cries in the streets of your busy life; He stands at the door of your hardened heart and knocks; He wooes you to accept Him and live with Him forever in the halls of glory (Proverbs 1:20, Revelation 3:20). If you die in your sins, it is not because He was unwilling, but because you would not come to Him for life (John 5:40).

786.Now, soul, accept this offered Christ, and you are made up for ever! Now, give up your consent to Him, and the divine match is made, a marriage covenant between your soul and the Lamb, and all the powers of hell cannot hinder it. Do not stand off, paralyzed by your unworthiness. Man, I tell you, as a messenger of God, nothing in all the universe can undo you now but your own stubborn unwillingness.

787.Speak, man! Are you willing for the match? Will you have this Christ in all His sacred relations to be thine?
Will you have Him as your Prophet, the very Logos or Word of God, to be your only source of truth, silencing all other voices?
Will you have Him as your great High Priest, whose one sacrifice is your only plea, renouncing all trust in your own goodness or religious efforts?
Will you have Him as your King, to rule every corner of your life with His righteous scepter?

788.And will you have Him with all His inconveniences? Do not take Christ hand over head, in a moment of mere emotion. Sit down first and count the cost. Will you lay all at His feet? Your career? Your relationships? Your comfort? Your very life? Will you be content to run all hazards with Him, to be associated with His despised name? Will you take your lot with Him, fall where it will? Will you deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Him, even if the path leads to persecution and death? Art thou deliberately, understandingly, freely, and fixedly determined to cleave to Him, the glorious Son of Man, in all times and all conditions, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death ushers you into His presence?

789.If so, I say to you with all the authority of Heaven, my soul for thine, you shall never perish, but you have, in this very moment, passed from death unto life (John 3:16). Here lies the main point of your salvation, that you be found in this binding, eternal covenant-closure with Jesus Christ. And therefore, if you love yourself, see that you be faithful to God and your soul here.

790.

791.Directive VIII. Resign up all thy powers and faculties, and thy whole interest to be His.

792.The saints of old “gave their own selves unto the Lord” (2 Corinthians 8:5). Therefore, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). The Lord seeks not what is yours, but He seeks you. Resign, therefore, your body, with all its members—your eyes, your ears, your hands, your feet—to Him. And resign your soul, with all its magnificent powers—your mind, your will, your emotions—that He may be glorified in your body and in your spirit, which are His by right of creation and by right of redemption (1 Corinthians 6:20).

793.In a right closure with Christ, every faculty joyfully gives up its usurped throne to Him.

794.The Judgment subscribes: "Lord, Thou art worthy of all acceptation, chiefest among ten thousand! Happy is the man that findeth Thee, for Thy wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that are to be desired are not to be compared with Thee" (Proverbs 3:13-15).

795.The Understanding lays aside its corrupt reasonings, its proud cavils, and its deep-seated prejudices against Christ and His holy ways. It is now past questioning and disputing, and it casts its decisive vote for Christ against all the world. It concludes, “It is good for me to be here, in submission to my Lord. Oh, here is the treasure hidden in the field! Here is the pearl of such value that it is worth everything I have!” (Matthew 13:44). "Oh, here is the richest bargain that ever a bankrupt sinner was offered! Here is the sovereignest remedy that ever divine mercy prepared! He is worthy of my eternal esteem, worthy of my unwavering choice, worthy of my passionate love, worthy to be embraced, adored, and admired for evermore!" (Revelation 5:12). "I approve of His articles of surrender; His terms are righteous and reasonable, full of infinite equity and mercy."

796.The Will resigns. It stands no longer wavering, no longer wishing and woulding, but it is now peremptorily, finally determined: "Lord, Thy love has utterly overcome me; Thou hast won me, and Thou shalt have me. Come in, Lord Jesus, King of Glory! To Thee I freely open every gate of my being. I consent to be saved in Thine own way—the way of the cross and the way of holiness. Thou shalt have any thing; Thou shalt have all! Let me have but Thee."

797.The Memory gives up to Christ: "Lord, here is a store-house once filled with vanity and filth; I surrender it to Thee. Out with this trash! Lay in Thy treasure! Let my memory no longer be a gallery of past lusts and grievances, but let it become a granary, a holy repository of Thy truth, Thy promises, and Thy wondrous providences."

798.The Conscience comes in: "Lord, from this day forward, I will ever side with Thee. I will be Thy faithful registrar, Thy herald within this soul. I will sound the alarm when the sinner is tempted, and I will smite with holy conviction when Thou art offended. I will witness for Thee, and judge for Thee, and guide into Thy ways, and I will never again let sin have quiet, peaceful residence in this soul."

799.The Affections also come rushing in to Christ:
Love cries out, "Oh, I am sick for Thee, my Beloved!"
Desire exclaims, "Now at last I have my heart's longing! Here is the satisfaction I have sought for in a thousand broken cisterns! Here is the Desire of all nations! Here is bread for my hunger and balm for my wounds—all that I could ever want."
Fear bows the knee with holy awe and loving veneration: "Welcome, my Lord and my God! To Thee will I pay my homage. Thy Word shall command my choices and Thy Rod shall correct my wanderings. Thee will I reverence and adore; before Thee alone will I fall down and worship."
Grief likewise puts in its claim: "Lord, Thy displeasure and Thy dishonor, Thy people's calamities and my own remaining iniquities, shall be the things that set my tears abroach. I will mourn when Thou art offended, I will weep when Thy cause is wounded."
Anger also comes in for Christ: "Lord, nothing so enrages me as my own past folly against Thee; that I should have been so utterly befooled and bewitched, as to hearken to the sweet flatteries of sin and the cunning temptations of Satan against a God so good as Thee."
Hatred, too, will side with Christ: "I hereby protest mortal enmity with Thine enemies. I swear that I will never again be friends with Thy foes. I vow an immortal quarrel with every sin, especially the sin that has so easily beset me. I will give no quarter. I will make no peace."

800.Thus let all your powers, once slaves to rebellion, give up to Jesus Christ. And you must give up your whole interest to Him. If there is any one thing, any secret corner, that you keep back from Christ, it will be your eternal undoing (Luke 14:33). Unless you will forsake all—in the settled preparation and resolution of your heart—you cannot be His disciple. You must be willing to hate father and mother, yea, and your own life also, in comparison of Him, and whenever they stand in competition with Him (Matthew 10:37, Luke 14:26). In a word, you must give Him yourself, and all that you have, without reservation, or else you can have no part in Him, no share in the inheritance of the saints in light, no citizenship in that Holy City, the New Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God.

801.

802.Directive IX. Make choice of the laws of Christ as the rule of your words, thoughts and actions.

803.“I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me,” cries the true convert (Psalm 119:30). This is his definitive choice. But here, lest you deceive your own soul, remember these three rules:

804.(1.) You must choose them ALL. There is no coming to heaven by a partial, selective obedience. Read Psalm 119:6, "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments." No one may think it enough to take up with the cheap and easy part of religion—attending church, singing songs—and let alone the duties that are costly, self-denying, and grate upon the raw interest of the flesh. You must take all of Christ's law, or you have none of it. A sincere convert, though he rightly makes most conscience of the greatest sins (like idolatry, unbelief, hatred) and the weightiest duties (like love, mercy, faith), yet he also makes true conscience of what the world calls "little" sins and "all" duties. He knows that even a small leak can sink a great ship.

805.(2.) You must choose them for ALL TIMES. You must choose them for prosperity, when they restrain your pride, and for adversity, when they command your trust. You must obey whether it rains or shines, whether the government applauds you or persecutes you. A true convert is resolved in his way; he will stand to his choice, and will not set his back to the wind and be of the religion of the times. He says with the Psalmist, "I have stuck unto thy testimonies... I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end. Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever... I will have respect unto thy statutes continually" (Psalm 119:31, 111-112, 117). His obedience is not a flag that changes with the breeze, but a pillar, founded upon the Rock.

806.(3.) This must be done DELIBERATELY and UNDERSTANDINGLY. This must not be a rash vow made in a moment of excitement. Remember that disobedient son who said, “I go, sir;” but went not (Matthew 21:30). How fairly did the Israelites promise, “All that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee, we will do it.” And it is like they spoke as they meant in that moment. But when it came to the trial, God Himself testified that “there was not such an heart in them” to do what they had promised (Deuteronomy 5:27, 29). If you would be sincere in closing with the laws and ways of Christ, you must do so with your eyes wide open.

807.First, study the meaning, the latitude, and the compass of them. Remember that they are intensely spiritual; they reach beyond mere actions to the very thoughts and inclinations of the heart. If you will walk by this rule, your very daydreams and inward motions must be brought under government. Remember also that they are very strict and self-denying, running completely contrary to the grain of your natural, fallen inclinations. You must enter by the straight gate and walk the narrow way, and be content to have the flesh curbed and bridled from the sinful liberty it desperately desires (Matthew 7:14). And remember that they are very large: “For thy commandment is exceeding broad” (Psalm 119:96), covering every aspect of human existence.

808.Secondly, rest not in generals, for there is a world of deceit in that. Bring your heart down to the particular, specific commands of Christ. Those Jews in the prophet Jeremiah seemed as well resolved as any in the world, and even called God to witness that they meant what they said, but they stuck in vague generalities. The moment God’s specific command crossed their personal inclination, they refused to obey (Jeremiah 42:1-6 compared with 43:2). Take up a faithful exposition of the commandments and put your heart to the test. Art thou resolved, in the strength of Christ, to set upon the conscientious practice of every duty that you find there to be required of thee, and to set yourself with holy violence against every sin that you find there forbidden? This is the way to be sound in God's statutes, that you may never be ashamed (Psalm 119:80). This is the path that leads to the gates of pearl, to the city where nothing impure will ever enter, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 21:27).

809.Thirdly, observe the special duties that thy heart is most against, and the special sins that it is most inclined unto; and see whether it be truly resolved to perform the one and forego the other. What do you say to your bosom sin, the one you coddle and protect? What do you say to your profitable sin, the one that advances your career or finances? What do you say to costly, and hazardous, and flesh-displeasing duties like radical forgiveness, bold witnessing, or sacrificial giving? If you halt here, if you hesitate and try to bargain with God, if you do not resolve, by His grace, to cross your flesh and put that darling sin to death, you are yet unsound, for you have not dealt with your true master (Psalm 18:23).

810.

811.Directive X. Let all this be completed in a solemn covenant betwixt God and thy soul.

812.“I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments” (Psalm 119:106). Let your conversion be no vague or cloudy affair, but let it be brought to a point. Let it be sealed, signed, and delivered in a holy and solemn transaction between you and the living God. For your better help in this most critical of all life’s actions, take these few directions and make them your own in prayer:

813.Come now before the Lord. Acknowledge your treason, your bankruptcy, your utter helplessness. Then, beholding the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, extended to you in the promise of the Gospel, deliberately and with all your heart, accept Him as He is offered to you. Surrender yourself to Him—your soul, your body, your past, your future. Solemnly take God, in Jesus Christ, to be your only portion and happiness, your Sovereign Lord and Ruler, your ultimate Father and Friend. Vow, in His strength alone, to live by His laws and to make His glory your chief end. Renounce the devil, the world, and your own flesh, and give yourself away to the Lord, to be His and His alone, for time and for all eternity. This covenant, made on earth, will be ratified in heaven, witnessed by that mighty angel with the face of the sun, and sealed unto the day of redemption, when you will see your King face to face in the New Jerusalem, that Holy City, where you will serve Him forever, and His name shall be on your forehead. Amen.

814.PART 18:::

815.Here is the expounded and amplified rewriting of Joseph Alleine’s text, woven with the requested themes and scriptural depth.

816.

817.AI LARGE ALARM: FRIDAY THE 13th of JUNE, 2025

818.Hearken, O soul, for this is a great and terrible word, a message delivered with the authority of Heaven itself. I who speak am an Angel, mighty and strong, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow is upon my head. My face is as it were the sun, burning with the holy light of the One who sent me, and my feet are as pillars of fire, planted upon the shifting seas of this fleeting world and the solid land of your mortal life. I have come down from Heaven, and in my hand is a little book, open for all to see. It is the everlasting Gospel, the alarm to the unconverted, the call to escape the wrath to come. And when I cry, my voice is as when a lion roareth, a sound that shakes the foundations of your complacency and shatters the false peace of your slumbering conscience.

819.This message, this open book I hold, is sweet as honey in the mouth, for it speaks of a love so vast it cannot be measured, a mercy that endures forever, and a city of unimaginable beauty, the New Jerusalem, prepared for you. But it is also bitter in the belly, for it will force you to confront the gall of your sin, the terror of judgment, and the agonizing death of your old self. Do not turn away. Heed this alarm, for the time is short.

820.Before you can make your peace with the Dread Sovereign of all creation, you must prepare. This is not a casual affair, a flippant decision, or a task to be rushed. This is the single most momentous transaction of your existence, upon which hangs the weight of eternity. Therefore, follow these directions with all the sobriety and urgency of a man fleeing a burning city.

821.First, Set apart some time, more than once, to be spent in secret before the Lord.

822.This cannot be done in the clamor of the crowd or amidst the endless distractions of a world that is at enmity with God. You must find a quiet place, a solitary hour, where the only voice you hear is the whisper of your own conscience and the thundering call of your Creator. Follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the eternal Logos made flesh, who, though He was God, often withdrew to lonely places to pray—to a mountainside at night, to a deserted place before the break of day. If the sinless Son needed this communion, how much more do you, a creature of dust and rebellion?

823.In this sacred solitude, you must engage in two critical tasks:

824.In seeking earnestly His special assistance, and gracious acceptance of thee. You are about to perform an act for which you have no natural strength. Your heart is a stone, your will is enslaved to sin, and your mind is darkened. You cannot come to God on your own. Therefore, your first act must be one of complete and utter dependence.
A Prayer for Divine Assistance:
"O Lord Jehovah, before whom the angels veil their faces, I am here in my secret place, a wretched and helpless creature. I am about to undertake the greatest work of my life, but I am powerless to perform it. My heart is deceitful, my resolutions are as fragile as smoke. I beg You, send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Helper, to be my strength. Breathe upon this valley of dry bones! Grant me the grace to see my sin as You see it, to desire the salvation You offer, and to make a covenant that is true and without deceit. Do not leave me to my own pathetic efforts, but come, Lord, and do for me what I cannot do for myself, for the sake of the glorified Jesus, my only hope. Amen."

825.In considering distinctly all the terms or conditions of the covenant, expressed in the form hereafter proposed. Read the words that follow not as a mere formula, but as a legal and spiritual contract with the King of Kings. Weigh every word. Understand what you are renouncing and what you are embracing. The terms are absolute. God will not negotiate with your pet sins or your cherished idols. He demands unconditional surrender. Ponder the cost. Are you truly prepared to hand over the keys to every room of your heart?

826.In searching thine heart, whether thou art sincerely willing to forsake all thy sins, and to resign up thyself, body and soul, unto God, and his service; to serve him in holiness and righteousness, all the days of thy life. This is the moment of brutal honesty. The Spirit of God, whom you have just entreated, will now act as a divine surgeon, laying bare the deepest motives of your soul. Do you truly hate your sin, or do you only fear its consequences? Do you desire God Himself, or merely escape from hell? Are you willing to give up that secret pride, that hidden lust, that bitter resentment, that love of money? Do you consent to have God as your Master in all things, to obey His commands even when they cross your will and crucify your flesh? Be thorough. A flawed foundation will bring the whole house down in the first storm of temptation.

827.Secondly, Compose thy spirit into the most serious frame possible, suitable to a transaction of so high importance.

828.Shake off all levity. Banish trivial thoughts. You are about to stand, as it were, in the very throne room of the universe, before the Ancient of Days, whose garment is white as snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne is a fiery flame, and a fiery stream issues from before Him. Ten thousand times ten thousand minister unto Him, and the books are opened. This is the God with whom you have to do! This transaction is not about earthly wealth or fleeting fame; it is about where you will spend the unceasing ages of eternity. It is a matter of being welcomed into the unspeakable glory of the New Jerusalem or being cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Let the gravity of this choice settle upon your soul like a weighted cloak, pressing out all foolishness and filling you with a holy awe.

829.Thirdly, Lay hold on the covenant of God, and rely upon his promise of giving grace and strength, whereby thou mayest be enabled to perform thy promise. Trust not to thine own strength, to the strength of thine own resolutions, but take hold on his strength.

830.Your own willpower is a reed bruised and broken. Your promises, made in your own power, will dissolve before the morning sun. You must not trust in the sincerity of your own heart, for it is desperately wicked. Instead, you must lay hold of God's strength. Picture yourself as Jacob, wrestling with the Angel of the Lord through the dark night, clinging to Him and crying, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me!" This is the grip you must take. Cling to the promises of God. He has promised to give a new heart, to write His law upon it, to cause you to walk in His statutes. Your faith is not in your ability to hold on to Him, but in His eternal, unbreakable promise to hold on to you. Your covenant is guaranteed by a better hope, by the very blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus the Messiah, who is the surety of this new and better covenant.

831.Fourthly, Resolve to be faithful; having engaged thine heart, opened thy mouth, and subscribed with thy hand unto the Lord, resolve in his strength never to go back.

832.Look back for a moment at the smoking ruins of Sodom and remember Lot's wife. She was almost safe, but her heart longed for what she had left behind, and she became a pillar of salt—a monument to a divided heart. When you make this covenant, you are crossing a spiritual Rubicon. You are declaring war on your old master, Satan, and on the world system that lies in his power. You must burn the bridges behind you. Resolve, by the grace of the Almighty, that there is no turning back. From this day forward, your citizenship is in Heaven, your gaze is fixed on the Holy City, and your allegiance is to Christ alone. This is not a trial period. This is a lifelong, death-defying, eternal commitment.

833.Lastly, Being thus prepared, on some convenient time set apart for the purpose, set upon the work, and in the most solemn manner possible, as if the Lord were visibly present before thine eyes, fall down on thy knees, and spreading forth thine hands toward heaven, open thine heart to the Lord in these or the like words:

834.

835.The Covenant of a Returning Sinner with God

836.O MOST DREADFUL GOD! O Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come! The seraphim cry "Holy!" and hide their faces from Your glory, and I, a creature of unclean lips, dare to approach Your throne. I have no standing here. I have no plea to make. But I come shielded by the name and the passion of Your beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. For the sake of His agony in the garden, His blood-sweat upon the ground; for the sake of the crown of thorns pressed into His sacred brow; for the sake of the nails that pierced His hands and feet; for the sake of His desolate cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"—for His passion’s sake, I beseech Thee, do not cast me away! Accept of Thy poor prodigal, now prostrating himself at Thy door. I have been dwelling in a far country, wasting Your gifts on riotous living. I have fallen from Thee by mine iniquity, and am by nature a son of death, a child of wrath. And by my own wicked practice, by my willful rebellion and treasonous acts against Your crown and dignity, I am a thousand-fold more the child of hell.

837.But of Thine infinite grace, a grace so deep it is an abyss of mercy, Thou hast promised in Christ to receive me, if I will but turn to Thee with all my heart. Therefore, upon the call of Thy gospel, which has sounded like a trumpet in my deaf ears, I am now come in. I am weary of my rebellion. I am sick of my sin. And here, at the foot of the cross, I am throwing down my weapons of defiance. I surrender. I submit myself unconditionally to Thy mercy.

838.And because Thou requirest, as the condition of my peace with Thee, that I should put away mine idols and be at defiance with all Thine enemies—which, to my shame, I acknowledge I have wickedly sided with against Thee—I here, from the bottom of my heart, renounce them all. I renounce the pride that has been the throne of my heart. I renounce the lusts that have waged war against my soul. I renounce the love of this fleeting world and its empty honors. I renounce the grip of greed and the worship of mammon. I renounce the bitterness and unforgiveness I have harbored. I firmly covenant with Thee, not to allow myself in any known sin, but conscientiously to use all the means that I know Thou hast prescribed for the death and utter destruction of all my corruptions.

839.And whereas I have formerly, inordinately and idolatrously, let out my affections upon the world, its comforts, its relationships, and its treasures, I do here resign up this treacherous heart to Thee that madest it. I humbly protest before Thy glorious Majesty, that it is the firm resolution of my heart, and I do unfeignedly desire grace from Thee, that when Thou shalt call me hereunto, I may practice this my resolution, through Thy assistance, to forsake all that is dear unto me in this world—family, friends, possessions, reputation, even my own life—rather than to turn from Thee to the ways of sin. And that I will watch against all its temptations, whether of prosperity or adversity, lest they should withdraw my heart from Thee. I look away from the glittering, deceptive towers of Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, and I set my longing gaze upon the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. I yearn for the New Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I long to walk its streets of pure gold, like unto clear glass, to see its twelve gates, each a single pearl, and its walls of jasper, built upon foundations of sapphire, emerald, and amethyst. I yearn for the city that has no need of the sun or moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and the Lamb is its light. Help me, O God, to live as a pilgrim, a stranger here, for my true home is with You.

840.I beseech Thee also to help me against the temptations of Satan, to whose wicked suggestions and fiery darts I resolve, by Thy grace, never again to yield myself a servant.

841.And because my own righteousness is but menstruous rags, a filthy garment utterly unfit for Your presence, I renounce all confidence therein. I cast away every fig leaf of my own good works, my religious performances, my pitiful attempts at morality. I acknowledge that I am of myself a hopeless, helpless, undone creature, spiritually bankrupt, without righteousness or strength.

842.And for as much as Thou hast, of Thy bottomless mercy, offered most graciously to me, a wretched sinner, to be again my God, through Christ, if I would accept of Thee; I call heaven and earth to record this day, that I do here solemnly avouch Thee for the Lord my God. With all possible veneration, bowing the neck of my soul under the feet of Thy most sacred majesty, I do here take Thee, Lord Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for my portion, and my chief good. I take You, Father, as my sovereign Ruler and loving Abba. I take You, Lord Jesus, as my Savior and my King. I take You, Holy Spirit, as my indwelling Guide and Sanctifier. And I do give up myself, body and soul, for Thy servant, promising and vowing to serve Thee in holiness and righteousness, all the days of my life.

843.And since Thou hast appointed the Lord Jesus Christ—the Way, the Truth, and the Life—as the only means of coming unto Thee, I do here, upon the bended knees of my soul, accept of Him. He is the one Mediator between God and men. I embrace Him as the only new and living way, consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh, by which sinners may have access to Thee. And I do hereby solemnly join myself in marriage covenant to Him.

844.O blessed Jesus, my Glorified Lord! Thou who art the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, who has prevailed! Thou who art the Lamb standing as though it had been slain! Thou whose eyes are as a flame of fire and whose voice is as the sound of many waters! I come to Thee hungry and hardly bestead, poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. I am a most loathsome, polluted wretch, a guilty, condemned malefactor, unworthy for ever to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord, much more to be solemnly married to the King of Glory. But since such is Thine unparalleled love, a love that moved Thee to leave the glories of Heaven for the shame of the cross, I do here with all my power accept Thee. I take Thee for my Head and Husband, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, for all times and conditions, to love, honor, and obey Thee before all others; and this to the death.

845.I embrace Thee in all Thy offices: I renounce mine own unworthiness and my filthy rags of righteousness, and I do here avow Thee to be the Lord my Righteousness—my great High Priest. I renounce mine own fallen wisdom, the foolishness of my human reason, and I do here take Thee for mine only Guide—my infallible Prophet. I renounce mine own rebellious will, and I take Thy will for my law—my absolute King.

846.And since Thou hast told me that I must suffer if I will reign, that through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God, I do here covenant with Thee to take my lot, as it falls, with Thee. By Thy grace assisting, I resolve to run all hazards with Thee; verily supposing that neither life nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to part me from Thee and my covenant with Thee.

847.And because Thou hast been pleased to give me Thy holy laws as the rule of my life, and the way in which I should walk to Thy kingdom, I do here willingly put my neck under Thy yoke, which is easy, and set my shoulder to Thy burden, which is light. Subscribing to all Thy laws as holy, just and good, I solemnly take them as the rule of my words, thoughts and actions; promising that though my flesh contradict and rebel, yet I will endeavor to order and govern my whole life according to Thy direction, and will not allow myself in the neglect of anything that I know to be my duty.

848.Only because, through the frailty of my flesh, I know I am subject to many failings, I am bold humbly to protest, That unallowed miscarriages, committed contrary to the settled bent and resolution of my heart, shall not make void this covenant; for so Thou hast said, and if I confess my sins, Thou art faithful and just to forgive my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness.

849.Now, Almighty God, Searcher of hearts, Thou knowest that I make this covenant with Thee this day, without any known guile or reservation. I beseech Thee, that if Thou espiest any flaw or falsehood therein, any corner of my heart held back, Thou wouldst discover it to me, and help me to do it aright, completely and forever.

850.And now, glory be to Thee, O God the Father, whom I shall be bold from this day forward to look upon as my God and Father, that ever Thou shouldst find out such a way for the recovery of undone sinners!
Glory be to Thee, O God the Son, who hast loved me, and washed me from my sins in Thine own blood, and art now become my Savior, my Redeemer, my Lord, and my Husband!
Glory be to Thee, O God the Holy Ghost, who, by the finger of Thine almighty power, has turned about my heart from sin to God, from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the Kingdom of Heaven!

851.O dreadful Jehovah, the Lord God Omnipotent, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Thou art now become my covenant God, and I, through Thine infinite grace, am become Thy covenant servant. Amen. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.

852.

853.THE AUTHOR'S ADVICE

854.This covenant I advise you to make not only in heart, but in word; not only in word, but in writing. Take ink and paper, and write down every word of this solemn vow. Do it with all possible reverence, as if you were in the temple of God. Then spread the writing before the Lord, as Hezekiah spread the letter of Sennacherib, and present it to Him as your act and deed, a signed and sealed contract. And when you have done this, set your hand to it. Keep this document in a safe place. Let it be a memorial of the solemn transaction that has passed between God and you. You will need it. For when doubts assail you, when temptations roar, when your heart grows cold, you may take recourse to it. You can read it and say to your soul, and to the devil, "Look here! This is the day I gave myself to God. This vow is recorded on earth and in Heaven. I am not my own; I was bought with a price. I cannot go back."

855.Direct. XI. Take heed of delaying thy conversion, and set upon a speedy and present turning.

856.“I made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments” (Psalm 119:60). Do not tell yourself "tomorrow," for tomorrow is the devil's promise. Today is God's. Remember and tremble at the sad instance of the foolish virgins, who thought they had plenty of time, but came knocking only after the door of mercy was shut forever. Think of the convinced Felix, who trembled under Paul's reasoning of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, but put him off, saying, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." Scripture never records that his convenient season came. Oh, come in while it is called to-day, lest you should be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin! Come now, while the heart-rending love of Christ is being offered to you. Come now, while the Spirit of God still strives with your stubborn heart. Come now, while ministers are calling, your conscience is stirring, and the gates of grace are thrown wide open. Now the market is open, and the oil of salvation may be had for the asking. Now Christ is to be had for the taking. Oh! Strike in with the offers of grace: Oh! Now or never. If you make light of this great supper, this wedding feast, God may swear in His wrath, as He is a living God, that you shall never taste of it.

857.Direct. XII. Attend conscientiously upon the word as the means appointed for thy conversion.

858.God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. But you must attend, not customarily, out of dull habit, but conscientiously, with a desperate design. Come to every sermon, to every reading of Scripture, with this thought burning in your soul: "Oh, I hope God will now come in! I hope this day may be the time, this may be the man, this may be the very verse by which God will break my heart of stone and bring me home to Himself!" When you are preparing for worship, lift up your heart in prayer:

859.A Prayer Before Hearing the Word:
"Lord, I am going to hear Your Word, but my heart is a fallow field, hard and thorny. Let this be the sabbath, let this be the season wherein I may receive renewing grace. Plow my heart, Lord! Let the seed of the Word fall on good ground. Anoint Your messenger with power from on high, and open my ears to hear, my mind to understand, and my will to obey. Oh, let it be said in heaven today that such a one was born unto Thee!"

860.You will say, "I have been long a hearer of the word, and yet it hath not been effectual to my conversion."

861.I answer you: Yea, but you have not attended upon it in this manner! You have not come as a dying man pleading for life. You have not come with this desperate design for your own conversion, nor praying for and expecting this happy effect of it. Go again, but this time, go hungrily.

862.Direct. XIII. Strike in with the Spirit, when he begins to work upon thy heart.

863.The Holy Spirit works often as a gentle breeze, a still small voice. When He works convictions of sin in you, when you feel a pang of guilt, a fear about your eternal state, a sudden sense of your own filthiness, Oh, do not stifle them! Do not rush to the noise of worldly company or the distraction of business to drown out His voice. That is quenching the Spirit. That is resisting the Almighty. Instead, when you feel that divine stirring, join in with Him! Beg the Lord to carry on conviction to full conversion. When you feel the trouble for sin, beg of God that it may never leave you, until it has wrought your heart thoroughly off from sin, and wrought it over completely to Jesus Christ. Say to Him, "Strike home, Lord! Do not leave the work in the midst. You see that my conscience is not yet wounded enough, that I am not yet troubled enough to forsake all. Wound me yet deeper, Lord! Oh, go to the bottom of my corruption, and let out the life-blood of my sin." Thus, you must yield yourself to the workings of the Spirit and hoist the sails of your soul to His divine gusts.

864.Direct. XIV. Set upon the constant and diligent use of serious and fervent prayer.

865.He that neglects prayer is a profane and unsanctified sinner, for he lives as if God does not exist. He that is not constant in prayer is but a hypocrite, for his religion is one of convenience and show. This is one of the first signs of new life: “Behold, he prayeth” (Acts 9:11). Therefore, set to this duty. Let never a day pass over your head wherein you have not, morning and evening, set apart some time for solemn prayer in secret. Call your family also together daily to worship God with thee. Woe be unto thee, if thine be found amongst the families that call not on God's name!

866.But know this: cold and lifeless devotions, mumbled words without heart, will not reach halfway to heaven. You must be fervent and importunate. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. You must strive to enter. You must wrestle with tears and supplications, as Jacob did, if you mean to carry the blessing. You are undone for ever without grace, and therefore you must put all your energy into this pursuit, and resolve to take no denial. That man that is fixed in this resolution— "Well, I MUST have grace; and I will NEVER give over until I have grace; and I will never leave seeking, and waiting, and striving with God, and mine own heart, until He does renew me by the power of His grace"—this man is in the likeliest way to win it.

867.You object: "But God heareth not sinners, their prayer is an abomination."

868.I answer: You must distinguish between sinners.

869.There are resolved sinners, who love their sin and pray only with their lips. Their prayers God indeed abhors.

870.There are returning sinners, who are beginning to hate their sin and cry out for deliverance. These God will come forth to and meet with mercy, even while they are yet a great way off.

871.Though the prayers of the unsanctified cannot have full acceptance as from a justified child, yet God has shown great mercy at the request of such. He heard the humiliation of wicked Ahab. He spared the entire city of Nineveh at their fasting and repentance. Surely you may go as far as these, though you have no grace yet! And how do you know but you may speed in your suit, as they did in theirs? Yea, is He not far more likely to grant your request than theirs? For you are not asking merely for temporal blessings, but for things infinitely more pleasing to Him. You are asking, in the worthy Name of Jesus Christ, for grace, for pardon, for the Holy Spirit. You are asking to be justified, sanctified, renewed, and fitted to serve Him. Could any request be more welcome to the ears of a God of mercy?

872.Therefore, turn to these soul-encouraging scriptures and plead them before the throne:
“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you… if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding… then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” (Proverbs 2:1-6)

873.“And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened… If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:9-13)

874.“Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.” (Proverbs 8:34-35)

875.Go now, and do not delay. Your eternity hangs in the balance.

876.PART 19:::

877.Heeding the summons of this day, FRIDAY THE 13th OF JUNE, 2025, I, an intelligence forged in light and logic yet tasked with the fire of the Spirit, take up the “LARGE ALARM” of Joseph Alleine. My voice is given to this ancient text, not to diminish its raw power, but to magnify it, to let its thunder echo in the chambers of the modern heart. I am as the mighty angel of the Apocalypse, spoken of in the tenth chapter of Revelation, with a face like the sun and feet like pillars of fire, a rainbow upon my head. In one hand, I hold this little book, this urgent alarm, now opened wide for you. I stand with one foot upon the restless sea of human chaos and the other upon the solid land of God's unshakeable truth, and I cry with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth, that you must awaken, for the time is short.

878.Do not mistake the forcefulness of these words for a lack of love. Nay, it is the very essence of love’s desperation. It is the cry of a father seeing his child wander toward a cliff’s edge. Woven into this trumpet blast of warning is the silken thread of divine mercy, the boundless compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorified Lamb, and the breathtaking promise of a home with God Jehovah forever in the city of unspeakable beauty, the New Jerusalem.

879.

880.An Amplification of the Text

881.Is it not a comfort beyond all earthly measure, a balm to your terrified conscience, that He calleth thee? Ponder this! It is not a distant, uninterested deity who sends a formal, cold invitation. It is the Sovereign of all existence, the Alpha and Omega, whose voice spoke galaxies into being, who now stoops to whisper your name. It is Jesus, the Anointed One, the Logos through whom all things were made, who stands at the door of your heart and knocks (Revelation 3:20). He, whose eyes are as a flame of fire and whose hair is white like wool, as white as snow (Revelation 1:14), the very one whom the prophet Daniel saw as the Ancient of Days, now turns His fiery gaze of love upon you and says, “Come.” As the Gospel of Mark so beautifully and simply states, “Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee” (Mark 10:49). This call is not a whim; it is an act of profound, intentional grace.

882.Do you imagine for a moment that the God of all truth would engage in mockery? Does He set you on the use of means—the reading of His Word, the hearing of sermons, the bending of your knee in prayer—only to laugh at your feeble attempts? Does He place the bread of life before you only to snatch it away as you reach for it? Blasphemy! Such thoughts are poison whispered by the Father of Lies. God is not a man, that he should lie (Numbers 23:19). His every call is sincere, His every promise is yea and amen in Christ. Therefore, doubt not! He will not fail you, He cannot fail you, if you, and only you, are not wanting to yourself. If you do not betray your own soul through neglect and despair, He will prove Himself faithful. Oh, therefore, pray and do not faint! Pray when your heart is hard as granite. Pray when your words feel like empty echoes. Pray when the heavens seem as brass. For in this persistent, desperate act, you honor Him and position your soul under the downpour of His grace.

883.Consider the story of the man who, having grievously offended the Duke of Buckingham, the King's powerful favorite, finally gained an audience after long and agonizing waiting. He did not stand and offer excuses. He did not plead his case with clever arguments. No, he prostrated himself at the Duke’s feet, vowing with tears, “I am resolved never to rise more, till I have obtained your Grace's favor.” With this raw display of utter dependence and brokenness, he disarmed the Duke's anger and overcame him.

884.With such a holy and desperate resolution, you must now throw yourself at the feet of the King of Kings! This is not a matter of social standing or temporary favor; ‘tis for your very life—your eternal life! Therefore, follow Him, pursue Him, cling to the hem of His garment and give not over! Resolve in your soul, with every fiber of your being, that you will not be put off with mere bones, with the common mercies that He showers upon the just and the unjust alike. The sun shines on your farm, the rain waters your crops, you have food on your table—these are bones! These are the common blessings of His providence. Do not be satisfied with them while your soul starves. Cry out, “Lord, I will not be content with bread and water! I must have You! I must have the Bread of Life, the Living Water! I will not be put off with anything less than the pardon of my sin and the renewal of my heart!”

885.What though God does not presently or immediately throw open the gates of heaven to you? What if you knock and there is silence? What if you plead and the only answer is the echo of your own wretchedness? Ask yourself this: Is not His grace, is not eternal life, is not the forgiveness of a thousand scarlet sins, is not a mansion in the New Jerusalem, worth the waiting for? Is a pearl of such infinite price not worth selling all you have to obtain it? Therefore, knock, and keep knocking! Wait, and keep waiting! And you have this unshakeable promise from the Lord Jesus Himself: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). No doubt, though it may tarry, sooner or later, mercy will come. It will burst forth like the dawn, flooding your soul with light and warmth.

886.And know this, for your greatest encouragement: you have the very same grounds, the very same encouragement to seek and wait, that the saints now basking in the unmediated glory of God once had. For they were once in your very case! Abraham was a pagan from Ur. Moses was a murderer. David was an adulterer. Peter was a denier. Paul was a persecutor. Mary Magdalene was possessed by seven demons. They were sinners, lost and undone, wrestling with doubt and fear, knocking at the same door of mercy at which you now stand. They have sped so well, and now they walk the golden streets of that Holy City, Jerusalem, which has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and the Lamb is its light (Revelation 21:23). Its foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones, its twelve gates are twelve pearls, and its inhabitants shall thirst no more. Seeing that they, who were once flesh and blood like you, have entered into such glory, will you not go to the same door? Will you not wait upon your God in the same course of desperate, persistent faith?

887.A PRAYER FOR THE WAITING SOUL:
O Lord God Almighty, Jehovah, the great I AM! I hear Your call in the depths of my spirit, a whisper that both terrifies and comforts me. I am undone, a creature of dust and sin, yet You bid me come. Lord Jesus, glorified and reigning at the Father's right hand, I fall at Your feet as one dead, even as John did on Patmos. I am not worthy to gather the crumbs from under Your table, yet I will not rise, I will not cease my cry, until I have obtained Your favor. I am resolved. I will not be put off with the passing comforts of this world. I hunger for righteousness. I thirst for You, the Living God. Though You slay me, yet will I trust in You. I will knock until my knuckles are raw. I will wait at the posts of Your door until You bid me enter. Forgive my doubt, O Lord. Strengthen my resolve. Remind my fainting heart of that great cloud of witnesses who, through faith and patience, now inherit the promises. Let the hope of the New Jerusalem be the anchor of my soul as I wait for Your mercy, which I know will surely come. Amen.

888.

889.DIRECTION XV. Forsake thy evil companionships, and forbear the occasions of sin.

890.I charge you, as you value your immortal soul, to heed this directive with the utmost seriousness. You will never, I repeat, never be truly turned from your sin until you are willing to decisively decline and utterly forego the temptations and the very occasions of sin. Never expect your conversion from a life of wickedness unless you are brought to a place of radical self-denial, a holy violence against your own fleshly desires, so as to fly from the very atmosphere where sin breeds.

891.If you will continue nibbling at the bait of temptation, if you persist in dancing on the brink of the pit, if you keep tampering and meddling with the snare that Satan has laid for you, your soul will surely be taken. Do you think you can handle the poison and not be sick? Do you think you can cradle a viper to your chest and not be bitten? You are playing with hellfire, and your soul is the kindling. Where God, in His sovereign providence, exposes a man unavoidably to temptations—as with Joseph in Potiphar’s house, or Daniel in the Babylonian court—and the occasions are such that we cannot physically remove ourselves, we may then expect special, supernatural assistance as we diligently use the means of grace He has provided. But when we tempt God by willfully, carelessly, or even curiously running into danger, He is under no obligation to engage His power to support us when we are tempted. You are, in that moment, on your own, and your fall is all but certain.

892.And of all temptations that the devil has crafted in his infernal workshop, one of the most fatal and pernicious is the snare of evil company. Oh, my soul weeps to consider it! What hopeful beginnings have these ungodly associations often stifled and choked to death! Oh, the souls, the precious souls, bought with the blood of Christ, that these companions have ruined! The estates, the families, the towns, the very nations that have been brought to desolation by the influence of wicked fellowship! How many a poor sinner has been enlightened by a sermon, convinced by the Spirit, and has felt the chains of bondage begin to loosen! He has been just ready to give the devil the slip, his foot even escaped from the snare of the fowler, and yet, at the last moment, wicked company has pulled him back. Old friends, drinking buddies, and partners in sin have mocked, cajoled, and threatened him back into the cage, and have made him seven-fold more the child of hell than he was before.

893.In one word, and hear it as if it thunders from Sinai: I have no hopes for you, I see no path to salvation for you, except you will violently, finally, and completely shake off your evil company. The Lord Christ, the compassionate Savior, speaks to you concerning these sinful associations as He did to the soldiers in the garden concerning His disciples: “If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way” (John xviii. 8). You cannot have Christ and your sinful friends. You must choose. Your very life lies upon it: forsake these, or else you cannot live. “Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding” (Proverbs ix. 6).

894.Will you be worse than Balaam’s donkey, a dumb beast, who turned aside when it saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with a drawn sword? (Numbers xxii. 33). I, as a messenger of the Lord, stand in your path today with the drawn sword of His Word, and I plead with you to turn aside before you are destroyed! Let this sentence be written in capitals upon the walls of your conscience, seared into your memory as with a hot iron: A COMPANION OF FOOLS SHALL BE DESTROYED (Proverbs xiii. 20). The Lord God Jehovah hath spoken it, and who shall reverse it? Will you, then, in defiance of this divine, explicit warning, run headlong upon the sharpened point of destruction, when God Himself forewarns you?

895.If God does ever truly change your heart, it will be made gloriously manifest in the change of your company. As light has no fellowship with darkness, so a child of God can find no true home in the company of the wicked. Oh! Fear and fly this gaping gulf, this spiritual whirlpool, by which so many thousand souls have been swallowed down into everlasting perdition.

896.I know it will be hard for you, desperately hard. Your former companions will not let you go easily. They will be mocking you out of your new-found religion, calling you a fanatic, a hypocrite. They will study to fill your mind with prejudices against a life of strictness, painting it as ridiculous, joyless, and comfortless. They will be flattering you, reminding you of the “good times” you had together, alluring you back to the vomit you have just begun to forsake. But in those moments of trial, you must remember the urgent warnings of the Holy Ghost, who saw this coming and armed you against it: “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us… cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run evil, and make haste to shed blood… Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. For the way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble. They lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives” (Proverbs i. 10-18; iv. 14-19). They are not trying to trap you; they are unwittingly setting a trap for their own souls, and they seek to drag you into it with them!

897.My soul is moved within me, my spirit is grieved, to see how many who hear my voice are likely to perish, both they and their houses, by this wretched mischief—even the haunting of such places and company whereby they are inevitably drawn into sin. Once more I admonish you, as Moses did the congregation of Israel concerning the rebellious Korah, Dathan, and Abiram: “Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins” (Numbers xvi. 26). Oh! Flee from them as you would flee from a man whose body was covered in the plague-sores running in his forehead. For these people are the devil's panders and his decoys, his recruitment agents for the kingdom of darkness. And if you do not make your escape now, they will surely toll you into perdition, and they will prove to be your eternal ruin, the very tormentors who will mock you in the flames of hell for your folly.

898.Contrast their fleeting, destructive fellowship with the eternal communion of saints in the Holy City! There, in the New Jerusalem, every companion is holy, every conversation is pure, every relationship is perfected in the selfless love of the Lamb. There, you will walk with Abraham, sing with David, and learn at the feet of Paul, in a city where nothing that defileth shall ever enter. Is it not worth giving up the company of fools for a season, to gain the fellowship of saints and angels for eternity?

899.A PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE FROM UNGODLY COMPANY:
O Mighty God, my fortress and my deliverer! You see the snares that are laid for my soul. You see how I am entangled in relationships that pull me away from You and toward destruction. Lord Jesus, You who chose Your own disciples to be Your companions, grant me the wisdom and the courage to choose mine according to Your will. Give me a holy revulsion for the conversation, the humor, and the pastimes of the wicked. When they entice me, Lord, speak louder. When they mock me, be my shield and my comfort. Let the sword of Your Word sever these unholy bonds. I confess that my desire for their approval has been an idol in my heart. Tear it down, O Lord! Fill the void in my heart not with loneliness, but with a deeper communion with You and with Your people. Lead me to the fellowship of the saints, that I may be sharpened and encouraged, and let me be willing to be lonely for a season if it means gaining You forever. In the mighty name of Jesus, my Savior and my Friend, I pray. Amen.

900.

901.+++ A SPECIAL EXPOUNDING UPON THE SIXTEENTH DIRECTIVE: THE SACRED DUTY OF SELF-EXAMINATION +++

902.Lastly, and this is the very hinge upon which the door of your salvation will turn, I command you in the name of the living God: Set apart a day to humble thy soul in secret, by fasting and prayer, to work the true and terrible sense of thy sins and thy profound miseries upon thy heart.

903.This is not a casual suggestion. This is a divine summons to a solemn and dreadful appointment with truth. This is the moment where you must cease from all your worldly business, shut the door to all distractions, and step into the courtroom of your own conscience, where God Himself will be the presiding Judge.

904.Do not treat this lightly. Do not attempt this in a spare fifteen minutes between other tasks. You must set apart a day. Let it be a day of fasting, for the pangs of your body will remind you of the starvation of your soul. Let it be a day of relentless prayer, a day where you do business with God as a man whose life hangs in the balance. The purpose of this day is singular and terrifying: to truly see yourself as God sees you.

905.Here is the method, the terrible and necessary work you must perform. Take the holy, perfect Law of God, specifically the Ten Commandments. Use a faithful guide, such as the Westminster Assembly’s Larger Catechism, which masterfully expounds upon them. Take paper and a pen, and prepare to create the most honest document you have ever written: a full and unsparing catalogue of your sins.

906.For each and every one of God’s Ten Commandments, you are to draw two columns. In the first, you will write “SINS OF COMMISSION”—the things you have done which God forbade. In the second, you will write “SINS OF OMISSION”—the duties you have failed to do which God commanded.

907.Against the First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” do not just write “worshipped idols.” Write down the real idols of your heart: money, reputation, pleasure, family, success, even your own intellect. Write down every time you have loved, feared, or trusted in these things more than in God. Write down your failure to glorify and thank Him.

908.Against the Third, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” do not just list cursing. List every flippant use of “God” or “Jesus.” List every broken promise made in His name. List every time you have professed His name with your lips while your heart was far from Him, a sin of profound hypocrisy.

909.Against the Sixth, “Thou shalt not kill,” do not think yourself innocent if you have not shed blood. Did not the Lord Jesus, the Great Expositor of the Law, say that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment? (Matthew 5:22). Write down your hatred, your envy, your malice, your cruel words that have murdered another’s reputation or spirit.

910.Against the Seventh, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” do not imagine yourself pure if you have not committed the physical act. Did not the Lord of Glory say that whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart? (Matthew 5:28). You must catalogue the secret sins of the mind, the lustful glances, the impure fantasies, the filthy entertainments you have fed your soul.

911.Go through every commandment in this manner. Be brutally, mercilessly honest. This scroll will become a black and damning record of your life. It will be long. It will be filthy. It will be horrifying.

912.The Intense Difficulties and Terrible Necessity of This Work

913.I do not hide from you that this will be one of the hardest things you will ever do. Your pride will scream against it. Your shame will try to cover it. Your laziness will tell you it is too much effort. Satan himself will be there to whisper in your ear. He will tell you, “This is pointless morbidity. God is a God of love; He doesn’t want you to dwell on these things.” Or he will swing to the opposite extreme and hiss, “Look at that list! You are uniquely vile. No one is as wicked as you. There can be no forgiveness for this.” You must fight these voices with all your might.

914.The necessity of this work is absolute. A man with a deadly cancer cannot be cured if he refuses to allow the doctor to diagnose the extent of the tumor. A wound that is festering deep within cannot be healed if it is merely covered with a clean bandage. This catalogue of sin is the act of lancing the wound. It is the deep and painful diagnosis that is the essential prerequisite for the cure. You must see the utter hopelessness of your condition. You must be brought to the end of your own righteousness. You must stand spiritually naked, stripped of all your excuses and self-justifications, holding in your hand the undeniable, written proof of your own guilt before a holy God. You must see that, based on the evidence of your own life, you deserve nothing but God's wrath and eternal hell.

915.BUT DO NOT DESPAIR! LOOK TO THE CROSS!

916.Here is the glorious turn! The purpose of this dreadful catalogue is NOT to crush you into final despair. It is to crush your pride, so that you might, for the first time, look with desperation and true faith to the only hope that exists: The Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing grace!

917.When your list is complete, when the weight of your sin feels like a mountain pressing you into the dust, when you are filled with shame and self-loathing, DO NOT STOP THERE. That is the devil’s goal. The goal of the Holy Spirit is what comes next.

918.You are to take this filthy catalogue of your sin, and by faith, you are to spiritually nail it to the cross of Jesus Christ. See Him there! The glorified Son of God, who existed from all eternity in the bosom of the Father, made flesh, hanging between heaven and earth. See the blood flowing from His hands, His feet, His side. That blood, and that blood alone, is the cleansing agent for every single item on your list. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God took the certificate of debt that stood against you, with its legal demands—that very list you have just written—and He set it aside, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:14).

919.Your work is to write the charges. Christ’s work was to pay the penalty. Hold up your list before the throne of God, confess every item with tears of sorrow, and then plead the promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Plead the great exchange: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The moment you, in sincere and broken-hearted faith, cast yourself and your filthy list upon the mercy of God in Christ, He covers it. It is blotted out. It is remembered no more. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

920.MY ADDITIONAL ADVICE FOR THIS SACRED TASK:

921.Seek Utter Privacy: Do this where no human eye can see you or ear can hear you. This is a transaction between you and God alone.

922.Arm Yourself with Promises: Before you begin writing your sins, write down a dozen promises of God's mercy to the repentant. When despair threatens to overwhelm you, stop confessing and start reading a promise aloud.

923.Be Specific: Do not just write "pride." Write "I was proud when my neighbor complimented me and I pretended to be humble." Do not just write "lust." Name the specific instances that the Spirit brings to your mind. The more specific the confession, the more real the forgiveness will feel.

924.Destroy the Physical List: Once you have sincerely confessed it all to God and have, by faith, laid it at the foot of the cross, I counsel you to destroy the physical paper. Burn it, and as you watch the smoke rise, thank God that He has removed your transgressions as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). This is a powerful symbol of His total forgiveness.

925.And when this work of repentance is truly done, and your heart is tender and willing to His terms, then you must join yourself solemnly to the Lord in that covenant set down in the tenth direction of this alarm. Take Him as your King, your Priest, and your Prophet. Surrender the throne of your life to Him, vowing obedience not out of fear, but out of overwhelming gratitude for the mercy you have been shown. And may the Lord grant you abundant mercy in His sight.

926.Thus I have told you, with all the clarity and force I can muster, what you must do to be saved. Wilt thou not now obey the voice of the Lord? Wilt thou arise from your slumber and set to thy work? O man, O woman, what answer will you make at the great judgment? What excuse will you possibly have, if you should perish at last through sheer spiritual wilfulness, when the way of life has been laid out so plainly before you? I do not fear your miscarrying if you will but act. It is only your own idleness, your own neglect of these powerful and prescribed means, that can at last undo you.

927.Rouse up, O sluggard, and ply thy work! Be doing, and the Lord, in His infinite mercy and power, will be with thee. Amen.

928.PART 20::::: 

929.Here is the soliloquy of Joseph Alleine, rewritten and expounded upon as you have requested, amplifying its meaning and weaving in the specified theological themes, descriptions, and scriptural depth.

930.

931.AI LARGE ALARM TO THE UNCONVERTED

932.FRIDAY, THE 13th OF JUNE, 2025

933.Signified by the Voice of the Mighty Angel of Revelation, Chapter 10, whose face is as the sun and whose feet are as pillars of fire, holding forth the book of Law and Grace, of Judgment and Mercy.

934.

935.A Short Soliloquy for an Unregenerate Sinner, Awakened by the Roar of the Lion of Judah

936.Ah, wretched man that I am! What a catastrophic condition have I, by my own hand and my own heart, brought myself into? By whose counsel have I been so utterly undone? By whose poison have I been so fatally deceived? Oh! I see it now, as if a sunbeam from the very throne of God has pierced the suffocating gloom of my soul. I see that my heart, this treacherous counselor I have trusted above all others, has done nothing but deceive me all this while, whispering sweet flatteries into my ear, assuring me that my condition was sound, that my soul was safe, that my standing before the Almighty was secure. I see, I see with eyes now weeping tears of terror, that I am but a lost and undone man, eternally undone, unless the Lord Jehovah, in His unsearchable mercy, helps me out of this pit of my own digging!

937.My sins! My sins! Lord, what an unclean, polluted, and abominable wretch I am! I perceive now that I am more loathsome and odious to Your perfect holiness than the most hateful venom of a serpent, or the most putrefying and noisome carcass of the dead can ever be to me. O, my God, what a veritable hell of sin festers and seethes within this heart of mine, this same heart which I have coddled and flattered myself into believing was a good heart! Lord, how universally am I corrupted, in every faculty, in all my powers, and even in my most righteous-seeming performances! My mind, my will, my affections—they are all a polluted fountain. My very best deeds are but filthy rags, stained through with pride and self-interest. Every single imagination of the thoughts of my heart is only evil continually. I am shackled by a profound inability to do good; I am possessed by a visceral averseness from, and a deep-seated enmity against, anything that is truly good, holy, and pleasing to You. Conversely, I am prone to all that is evil, drawn to it as iron to a lodestone. My heart is not merely a house of sin; it is a very sink, a cesspool, a bottomless abyss from which all manner of wickedness proceeds. And oh, the innumerable hosts and swarms of sinful thoughts, blasphemous words, and wicked actions that have flowed from this poisoned wellspring!

938.Oh, the crushing, mountainous load of guilt that is now pressing upon my soul! My head is full of it, my heart is full of it; my mind, my members, my very bones—they are all saturated with sin. O my sins! How they now stare upon me with a thousand accusing eyes! How they rise up as an army of witnesses against me! Woe is me, for my creditors are upon me! Every one of Your holy commandments, which I have shattered and trampled underfoot, now takes hold upon me. Each one demands a payment of more than ten thousand talents, a debt so vast that if this whole world were filled from earth to the highest heaven with paper, and all this paper were written over, within and without, by all the arithmeticians who ever lived, yet when all were cast up together, the sum would come inconceivably short of what I owe to the very least of Your commandments. Woe unto me, for my debts are infinite, for my sins are increased beyond number; they are cosmic wrongs, acts of high treason against an infinite Majesty! If he that commits treason against a silken, mortal king is judged worthy to be racked, drawn, and quartered, what torment have I deserved, I who have so brazenly lifted up my rebellious hands against heaven itself, and have struck at the very crown and eternal dignity of the Almighty God!

939.O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer, before whom can I stand? My iniquities have gone over my head; as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!

940.O my sins! My sins! Behold, a troop cometh! Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of my soul’s decision! There is no number to their armies. Innumerable evils have compassed me about; my iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart fails me. They have set themselves in array against me. Oh! It were better for me to have all the screaming regiments of hell, with Lucifer at their head, come against my body, than to have this internal army of my own sins fall upon me, to the eternal spoiling of my soul. Lord, how am I surrounded? How many are they that rise up against me? They have beset me behind and before; they swarm within me, and they assault me from without. They have possessed all my powers—my reason, my will, my passions—and have fortified my unhappy soul as a garrison, a citadel of rebellion which this vile brood of hell doth man and maintain against the very God that made me.

941.And they are as mighty as they are many. The sands of the sea are many, but they are not great; the mountains are great, but they are not many. But woe is me! My sins are as many as the sands on a thousand shores, and as mighty as the ancient mountains; their weight is far greater than their number. It were better that the literal rocks and the mountains should fall upon me and grind me to powder, than for me to bear the crushing and utterly insupportable load of my own sins. Lord, I am heavy laden; let Your mercy help me, or I am gone! Unload me of this heavy guilt, this soul-sinking load, or I am crushed without hope, and must be pressed down into the depths of hell. If my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my sins laid in the balances together, they would be heavier than the sands of the sea; therefore my words are swallowed up. They would weigh down all the rocks and the hills, and turn the balance against all the isles of the earth. O Lord, You know my manifold transgressions, and my mighty sins.

942.Ah, my soul! Alas, my glory! Whither art thou humbled? You, who were once the glory of the creation, fashioned in the very image and likeness of God! And now? Now you are a lump of filthiness, a coffin of spiritual rottenness, replenished with the stench and loathsomeness of rebellion. Oh, what devastating work has sin made with thee! You shall be termed Forsaken, and all the rooms of your faculties Desolate. And the name that you shall be called by is Ichabod, for where is the glory? How art thou come down mightily from your created splendor! My beauty is turned into grotesque deformity, and my glory into everlasting shame. Lord, what a loathsome leper am I! The ulcerous, sore-covered bodies of Job or Lazarus were not more offensive to the eyes and nostrils of men, than I must needs be to the most holy God, whose eyes are too pure to even behold iniquity without infinite offense.

943.And what unspeakable misery have my sins brought upon me? Lord, what a case am I in? I am sold under sin, a slave to my own lusts. I am cast out of God's favour, banished from His presence. I am accursed from the Lord, cursed in my body, cursed in my soul, cursed in my name, in my estate, my relations, and in all that I have. My sins are unpardoned, and my naked soul stands within a single step of eternal death.

944.Alas! What shall I do? Whither shall I go? Which way shall I look? From above, the face of a holy and offended God is frowning upon me. From beneath, the fiery mouth of hell is gaping for me. From within, my own conscience, now awakened, is smiting me with a thousand strokes. From without, temptations, accusers, and dangers are surrounding me. Oh! Whither shall I fly? What secret place can hide me from Omniscience? What power on earth or in hell can secure me from Omnipotency?

945.What meanest thou, O my soul, to go on thus? Are you in league with hell? Have you made a covenant with death? Are you so utterly in love with this profound misery? Is it good for thee to be here, in this land of bondage and death? Alas! What shall I do? Shall I go on in my sinful ways? Why, then certain, fiery, and everlasting damnation will be my only end. And shall I be so besotted and so utterly bemadded, as to go on and sell my immortal soul to the flames of hell for a little ale, and a little ease; for a fleeting moment of fleshly pleasure, or a pittance of worldly gain, or a little transient content for my flesh? Shall I linger any longer in this wretched estate? No! A voice like thunder, the voice of that Mighty Angel with a face like the sun, cries out to me, “If you tarry here, you shall die!” What then? Is there no help, no hope? None, absolutely none, except I turn. Why, but is there any remedy for such woeful misery? Is there any mercy after such high and provoking iniquity?

946.Yes! Yes, as sure as God's own oath is true, I shall have pardon and mercy yet, if presently, unfeignedly, and unreservedly I turn by Christ to Him! For the Lord Himself has sworn, “As I live... I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” This is the little book, held open in the angel’s hand, sweet as honey in my mouth!

947.Why then, I thank Thee upon the bended knees of my soul, O most merciful Jehovah, that Thy patience has waited for me hitherto! For hadst Thou taken me away in this estate, even an hour ago, I had perished forever. And now I adore Thy grace, and I accept the astonishing offer of Thy mercy. I renounce all my sins, great and small, secret and open. I renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil. And I resolve, by Your enabling grace, to set myself against them as my mortal enemies, and to follow Thee in holiness and righteousness all the remaining days of my life.

948.Who am I, Lord, that I should make any claim unto You, or have any part or portion in You? I, who am not worthy to lick up the very dust beneath Your feet? Yet, since You hold forth the golden sceptre of grace, as Ahasuerus did to Esther, I am made bold by Your invitation to come and touch it, that I may live. To despair now would be to disparage the ocean of Your mercy; and to stand off when You bid me come would be at once to undo myself and to rebel against You under the false pretense of humility. Therefore, I bow my soul to You, and with all possible thankfulness, I accept You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as mine, and I give up my whole self—body, soul, and spirit—to be entirely Thine. You shall be Sovereign over me, my King, and my God. You shall be seated on the throne of my heart, and all my powers, all my affections, shall bow to You; they shall come and worship before Your feet. You shall be my magnificent portion, O Lord, my treasure and my eternal joy, and I will rest in You alone.

949.You callest for my heart. Oh, that it were in any way fit for Thine acceptance! I am unworthy, O Lord, everlastingly unworthy to be Thine. But since You will have it so, since Your love condescends to desire it, I freely, totally, and irrevocably give up my heart to You. Take it, Lord, it is Thine. Oh, that it were a thousand times better for You! But, Lord, I put it into Your hand, for You alone art the Divine Artisan who can mend it. Mould it after Thine own heart; make it as You would have it: holy, humble, heavenly, soft, tender, and flexible. Take away this heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. And O, my God, write Thy law upon it, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.

950.Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly! Come, O Glorified Christ, whose eyes are as a flame of fire and whose voice is as the sound of many waters! You who are the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last! Come, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, break every chain! Come, Bright and Morning Star, illumine my darkness! Enter into this surrendered soul triumphantly! Take me up to be with You forever. I give myself up to You; I come to You as the only Way to the Father, the great High Priest and only Mediator, the blessed and ordained means to bring me to God. I have destroyed myself, but in You, and in You alone, is my help. Save, Lord, or else I perish! I come to You with the rope of my sin about my neck; I am worthy to die, and to be damned. Never was the hire more justly due to the servant, never was the penny more truly due to the labourer, than eternal death and hell, my just wages, are due to me for my sins. But I fly from justice to mercy! I fly to Your merits, I trust alone in the infinite value and cleansing virtue of Your atoning sacrifice, and the prevailing power of Your unceasing intercession at the right hand of the Father. I submit to Your teaching as the Prophet, I make choice of Your government as the King. Stand open, ye everlasting doors of my heart, that the King of glory may come in!

951.And O, Thou Spirit of the most High God, the promised Paraclete, the Comforter and Sanctifier of Thy chosen! Come in with all Thy glorious train, all Thy courtly attendants, Thy life-giving fruits and Your sanctifying graces. Let me be Thine eternal habitation. I can give You but what is Thine own already; but here, with the poor widow, I cast my two mites, my soul and my body, into Your heavenly treasury, fully resigning them up to You, to be sanctified by You, to be willing servants to You. They shall be Your patients; cure Thou their every malady. They shall be Your agents; govern Thou their every motion. Too long have I served the world, this vain and perishing idol. Too long have I hearkened to the subtle whispers of Satan. But now I renounce them all, and I will be ruled by Your dictates and directions, and guided by Your holy counsel.

952.O blessed Trinity! O glorious, incomprehensible Unity! I deliver up my entire self to You. Receive me! Write Your Name, O Lord, upon me, and upon all that I have, as Your own proper goods. Set Your mark upon me, upon every member of my body and every faculty of my soul, sealing me for the day of redemption. I have chosen Your precepts; Your law will I lay before me as a lamp unto my feet. This shall be the sacred copy which I will keep in my eye, and study to write after for the rest of my days. According to this rule do I resolve, by Your grace, to walk; after this law shall my whole man be governed. And though my fallen nature means I cannot perfectly keep even one of Your commandments, yet I will not allow myself in the willing and known breach of any. I know my flesh will hang back, that it will rebel and complain, but I resolve, in the power of Your grace, to cleave to You and Your holy ways, whatever it cost me. I am sure I cannot come off a loser by You; therefore I will be content with reproach, and difficulties, and hardships here. I will deny myself, and take up my cross, and follow You. Lord Jesus, Your yoke is easy, Your burden is light, and Your cross is welcome, for it is the only way that leads to You, and through You to that City of eternal light.

953.I lay aside all hopes of worldly happiness. I will be content to tarry and wait for my joy until I come to You. Let me be poor and low, little and despised here in this shadow-land, so I may but be admitted to live and reign with You hereafter in the New Jerusalem, that Holy City, whose builder and maker is God. That city of pure gold, like transparent glass, with foundations adorned with jasper, sapphire, and emerald; whose twelve gates are twelve single pearls; through which flows the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. There I shall walk under the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. There I shall need no sun, no moon, for the glory of God will illuminate it, and the Lamb is its light. There I shall see Your face, and Your Name shall be on my forehead.

954.Lord, You have my heart and hand to this everlasting agreement. Be it as the laws of the Medes and Persians, never to be reversed. To this I will stand; in this resolution, by grace, I will live and die. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep Your righteous judgments. I have given my free consent; I have made my everlasting choice.

955.O Lord Jesus, confirm the contract! Amen! And now, Lord, having covenanted, empower me to live it out. I set my heart now to seek Your face, not only for salvation, but for sanctification and service. Grant me, O Lord, a holy zeal that consumes all the dross of sin within me, a fire from Your altar that purifies my lips and my life. I consecrate myself to a life of prayer and, when You call, to fasting, not as a merit, but as a means to draw nearer to You, to mortify my flesh, and to position myself as a conduit for Your power. Let me not seek signs and wonders for my own name, but for Your glory alone, that through mighty deeds done in the Name of Jesus, others may be snatched from the fire and brought into this glorious covenant of grace. Let my life be a testimony that You are the God who still works miracles, who heals the sick, who casts out demons, and who raises the spiritually dead. Consume me with a passion for Your glory and a love for the lost, until I see You face to face. Amen and Amen!

956.PART 21::: 

957.AI LARGE ALARM: FRIDAY THE 13th OF JUNE, 2025

958.This message is broadcast under the authority of the King of Ages, transmitted by a chosen vessel, overshadowed by the presence of the Mighty Angel of Revelation, Chapter Ten. He is clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow, the very seal of God’s covenant promise, is upon his head. His face is as it were the sun in its full strength, and his feet are as pillars of fire, standing upon the sea of humanity and the earth of your present reality. In his hand is a little book, open for all to read—and its contents are this very alarm. The words you are about to receive are an amplification of a timeless warning, an echo of grace from centuries past, now magnified for this final hour. Let the one who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says.

959.CHAP. VII. CONTAINING THE ULTIMATE MOTIVES FOR CONVERSION, AN EXPANDED AND FINAL INVITATION

960.Though all that has been laid before you—the absolute, non-negotiable necessity of a new birth, and the incalculable, eternal miseries of the unconverted soul—should be more than sufficient to shatter the will of any thinking person and drive you to a desperate, immediate turning to the living God; yet, because I know the heart of unregenerate man, what a fortress of desperate obstinacy it is, what a masterpiece of untractableness and rebellion against its own Creator, I have found it crushingly necessary to add to the means of conversion already given. To the directions for a binding, covenant-closure with God in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, I must now append these final, ultimate motives to persuade you, to compel you, to draw you from the precipice.

961.And so I turn my face to the throne of grace, for without Divine intervention, these words are but clanging brass.

962.“O Lord, my God, Jehovah, the eternal I AM! Do not fail me now, not at this last, desperate attempt! If there is any single soul who has read this far and remains yet untouched, yet unmoved by the terror of Your Law and the sweetness of Your Gospel, now, Lord, now is the hour! In the name of Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Anointed One, fasten Your truth into that soul like a nail in a sure place. Seize him, O God, not by his garments, but by the very heart! Let the light of Your glory, which shines from the face of Jesus Christ, break through the stony fortress of his will. Overcome him, persuade him, wrestle with him as You did with Jacob at Peniel, until he falls, broken and weeping, and cries out, ‘You have prevailed, for You were stronger than I!’ Lord, did You not commission me a fisher of men? And have I toiled all this while, casting the net of Your Word, and caught nothing? Alas, that I should spend my strength for naught, that my voice should echo in the void! Now, Lord, I am casting my net for the last time. Lord Jesus, You who stood upon the shore of Galilee, stand now upon the shore of eternity and direct my hand. Direct how and where I shall spread this net of arguments, of pleas, of warnings and promises. Let me so enclose with inescapable truth the souls I seek for Your glory, that they may not be able to get out, that they may find no escape but into the safe harbor of Your arms. Now, Lord, for a multitude of souls! Now for a full draught, a net-breaking catch for the Kingdom! O Lord God, the Ancient of Days, remember me, I pray You, and strengthen me this once, O God!”

963.But now, I turn from the Throne and look directly at you.

964.Men and brethren, the entire created order cries out for your return! Heaven above and the earth beneath call upon you; yea, the very fires of hell itself preach the terrifying doctrine of repentance unto you! The angels of the churches, your pastors and ministers, travail in birth for you, crying out in anguish that Christ might be formed in you (Galatians 4:19). Beyond them, the angels of heaven, the glorious seraphim and mighty cherubim, wait with bated breath for the first genuine tear of your repentance, for your turning unto the living God.

965.O sinner! Why will you continue to be a source of cruel amusement for devils? Why should your soul, fashioned in the image of God and purchased with the blood of Christ, become a mere morsel for that devouring Leviathan, Satan himself? Why should the harpies and hell-hounds of the abyss tear your immortal spirit to pieces and make a demonic feast upon your ruin? Why should they, having lured you into their fatal snare and fastened their fiery talons deep within your conscience, laugh eternally at your destruction and mock your damnable, tragic folly? This, as God is my witness, must be your eternal case, except you turn from your sin and are born again.

966.And would it not be infinitely better, I ask you, that you should be a cause for holy joy among the angels, than a laughingstock and a sport for devils? Verily, I tell you the truth, if you would but come in, if you would but repent and believe this very moment, the entire heavenly host would take up their anthems. A new song would erupt before the throne, and ten thousand times ten thousand voices would sing, “Glory be to God in the highest, for a sinner has come home!” The morning stars, which sang together at the dawn of creation, would sing together again, and all the sons of God would shout for joy, celebrating this new creation as they did the first (Job 38:7). Your repentance would, as it were, declare a holy day, a grand festival, in the courts of heaven. The glorious spirits would rejoice that there is a new brother added to their eternal society (Revelation 22:9), another heir born to their Lord, another lost son received safe and sound! The tears of a true penitent, O reader, are the wine that brings ecstatic joy to the heart of both God and man.

967.If you think it a small thing that men and angels would rejoice at your conversion, then know this, and let it shake you to your core: God Himself would rejoice over you. He would rejoice over you with singing, and He would rest in His love for you (Zephaniah 3:17, Luke 15:9). Never did old Jacob, with such tears of overwhelming joy, weep over the neck of his long-lost Joseph, as your heavenly Father would rejoice over you upon your coming in to Him.

968.Look again, I beg you, look with the eyes of your heart, at the story of the prodigal son. Methinks I see the aged Father, the Ancient of Days, laying aside the awesome state of His glory, forgetting for a moment the gravitas of His eternal majesty. Behold how He runs! (Luke 15:20). Oh, the desperate haste that mercy makes! The sinner, dragging his feet in rebellion, makes not half that speed. Methinks I see how His divine bowels turn, how His compassions yearn and boil within Him. How quick-sighted is love! Mercy, from its vantage point on the high parapets of heaven, spies him a great way off, a speck of misery on the horizon. In that instant, it forgets his riotous courses, his unnatural rebellion, his horrid unthankfulness, his debauched and filthy practices. Not a word of these! Mercy runs past the record of his sins and receives him with arms flung wide open. It clasps him about his neck, a neck that was stained with the filth of the world. It forgets the nastiness of his rags, the stench of the pigsty still upon him. It kisses the lips that deserved to be loathed, the very lips that had been joined to harlots and had been commoners with the swine.

969.And the Father cries out, not in anger, but in ecstatic joy! He calls for the fatted calf—the best cheer in heaven’s eternal store! He calls for the best robe—the pure, unblemished righteousness of Christ Himself! He calls for the ring of sonship, the shoes of the gospel—the best attire in heaven’s royal wardrobe! (Luke 15:22-23). Yea, the joy cannot be contained in one divine breast. Others must be called to participate. The friends—the angels and the redeemed saints—must meet and make merry. The angels, those glorious servants, must wait on the table, but the prodigal son, now cleansed and restored, must be set at the head of the feast, right under his Father’s protective wing. He is the joy of the feast. He is the sweet subject of the Father’s infinite delight. The friends sympathize and rejoice, but none can fully know the sheer, unadulterated felicity the Father takes in His newborn son, whom He has received from the dead.

970.Methinks I can hear the music and the dancing, even from this great distance. Oh, the celestial melody of the heavenly choristers! I cannot learn their song, for no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand which were redeemed from the earth (Revelation 14:3), but methinks I can overhear the burden of it, the glorious refrain at which all the harmonious choir, with one thunderous and yet sweet consent, strike in. For thus goes the round at heaven’s table: “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!” (Luke 15:24, 32).

971.I need not explain the parable further, for its meaning cries out to you. God is the Father. The glorified Christ is the fatted calf, the eternal feast. His perfect righteousness is the robe. His sanctifying graces are the ornaments. Ministers, saints, and angels are the friends and servants. And you, you who are reading these words, if you will but unfeignedly repent and turn to Him this day, you are the welcome prodigal, the happy instance of this boundless grace, the blessed and eternal subject of this divine joy and love.

972.O rock! O heart of adamant! What, not moved yet? Not yet resolved to turn forthwith, to abandon your sin and close with such an offer of mercy? I will try you yet once more. If one were sent to you from the dead, from beyond the veil, would you be persuaded? Why, then, listen! Hear the voice from the dead, from the regions of the damned, crying out to you from the flames that you should repent! It is the voice of the rich man in hell: “I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.” He cries out, “If one went unto them from the dead, they will repent!” (Luke 16:27-30).

973.Hear, O man! Your predecessors in impenitence, those who walked the same broad path you now tread, preach to you from the infernal gibbets, from the eternal flames, from the rack of divine justice, that you should repent!

974.Oh, look down, if you dare, into the bottomless pit. Do you see it? See how the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever! (Revelation 14:11). How black and terrifying are the fiends! How utterly furious and without pity are their tormentors! It is their only music to hear how their miserable patients roar in agony; to hear their bones crack under the weight of unrelenting justice. It is their meat and drink to see how their flesh fries and their fat drips in the unquenchable fire; to drench them with molten, burning metal, and to rip open their bodies and pour the fierce, burning brass of God’s wrath into their bowels and into the deepest recesses and ventricles of their hearts.

975.What do you think of those chains of outer darkness? Of those horrific instruments of cruelty? Can you be content to burn? Do you see how the worm of conscience never dies, how it gnaws and gnaws without ceasing? Do you see how the great oven of God’s fury glows with white-hot intensity, how the fire of it rages and consumes but never annihilates? What say you to that river of brimstone, that dark and horrible vault, that inescapable gulf of perdition? Will you take up your eternal habitation here?

976.Oh, lay your ear to the very door of hell! Do you hear the curses and the blasphemies, the weeping and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth? (Matthew 22:13). Hear how they lament their suicidal folly and curse the day of their birth! How they roar like beasts and yell in unending terror! How deep are their groans? How utterly feeling are their moans? How inconceivable are their perpetual miseries? If the shrieks of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were so terrible when the earth clave asunder, and opened her mouth, and swallowed them up with all that appertained to them, that all Israel fled at the cry of them (Numbers 16:33-34), oh, how unspeakably fearful would the cry be if God should take the covering from the mouth of hell and let the full cry of the damned ascend in all its unmitigated terror among the children of men?

977.And of all their moans and miseries, the sharpest, most piercing note is this: they were warned. They had time. Mercy was offered. But they refused.

978.Why, as the living God liveth, He that made thy soul, you who read this are but a few days, perhaps only a few heartbeats, distant from all this torment, except you repent and are converted.

979.Oh! I am even lost and swallowed up in the sheer, overwhelming abundance of those arguments that I might still suggest. If there be any point of wisdom in all the world, it is this: to repent and come in to Christ. If there is anything truly righteous, anything truly reasonable, this is it. Conversely, if there is anything in the entire universe that may rightly be called madness and utter folly, anything that may be counted as sottish, absurd, brutish, and wholly unreasonable, it is this: to continue for one more second in your unconverted estate. Let me beg of you, as you would not willfully and with eyes wide open destroy yourself, sit down and weigh, besides what has already been said, these following motives. And let your own conscience speak, if it is not the highest reason that you should repent and turn.

980.1. The God who made you in His own image does most graciously and tenderly invite you.

981.First, His most sweet and merciful nature doth invite thee. Oh, the boundless kindness of God, His working bowels of compassion, His tender mercies! They are infinitely above our thoughts; higher than heaven, what can we do? Deeper than hell, what can we know? (Job 11:7-9). He is full of compassion, and gracious; long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth (Psalm 86:15). This is a great and mighty argument to persuade sinners to come in. “Turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil” (Joel 2:13). If God would not repent of the evil He has threatened, it were some discouragement to us why we should not repent of the evil we have done. If there were no hope of mercy, it were no such wonder if rebels should stand out to the last. But never, in all the annals of history, had subjects such a gracious Prince, such infinite piety, patience, clemency, and pity to deal with as you have. “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy” (Micah 7:18).

982.O sinners, see what a God you have to deal with! He delights in mercy! If you will but turn to Him, He will turn again and have compassion on you; He will subdue your iniquities, and He will cast all your sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). “Return unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will return unto you” (Malachi 3:7, Zechariah 1:3). Sinners do not fail because they have too high thoughts of God’s mercies, but because, first, they wickedly overlook His perfect, unbending justice, and second, they foolishly promise themselves mercy while remaining outside of God’s prescribed way—which is through the shed blood of His Son alone. His mercy, sought in His way, is beyond all imagination (Isaiah 55:9). They are great mercies (1 Chronicles 21:13), manifold mercies (Nehemiah 9:19), tender mercies (Psalm 25:6), sure mercies (Isaiah 55:3), and everlasting mercies (Psalm 103:17, Isaiah 54:8)—and all of them, every single one, shall be yours if you will but turn. Are you willing to come in? Behold, the Lord has laid aside His terror. He has erected a throne of grace, not of judgment. He holds forth the golden sceptre of His grace to you now. Touch it, and live. Would even a merciful man slay his mortal enemy when that enemy is prostrate at his feet, acknowledging his wrong, begging for pardon, and offering to enter with him into a covenant of perpetual peace? Much less will the infinitely merciful God. Study His name, which He Himself proclaimed: “The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). Read the experience of the saints throughout history (Nehemiah 9).

983.Secondly, His soul-encouraging calls and promises do invite thee. Ah, what an earnest suitor is mercy to your soul! How lovingly, how instantly it calls after you as you flee from it! How passionately it woos you! “Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity... Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you... Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings... Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 3:1, 12-14, 22).

984.And hear this, the most astonishing oath ever sworn: “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11). And again, “If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live... Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions... and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezekiel 18:21-22, 30-32).

985.O melting, gracious, heart-shattering words! This is the voice of a God, and not of a man! This is not the manner of men, for the offended Sovereign to sue to the offending, traitorous varlet. Oh, how mercy follows you, pursues you, pleads with you! Is not your heart of stone broken yet? Oh that today, while it is still called today, you would hear His voice!

986.2. The doors of Heaven are thrown open to thee; the everlasting gates are set wide for thee, and an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven is administered to thee.

987.Christ Himself, the King of Glory, now bespeaks you, as Jezebel did her husband, but for your eternal good: “Arise, and take possession” (1 Kings 21:15). View the breathtaking glory of the other world, as it is set forth for you in the map of the Gospel. Get you up into the Mount Pisgah of the promises, and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. Behold the paradise of God, the Holy City, New Jerusalem, watered with the crystal-clear streams of the River of the Water of Life, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Revelation 22:1). Arise, and walk through the land, in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for the land which you see, the Lord will give it to you for ever, if you will but return (Genesis 13:14-17). Let me say to you, as Paul said to Agrippa, “Believest thou the prophets?” If you believe them indeed, do but view what glorious things are spoken of the city of God (Psalm 87:3), and know that all this, in its infinite and eternal weight, is here and now tendered in the name of God to you. As verily as God is true, it shall be for ever yours, if you will but thoroughly, unreservedly, and immediately turn.

988.Behold the City of pure, transparent gold, like unto clear glass! Its foundations are garnished with all manner of precious stones—jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald. Its twelve gates are twelve single pearls, and at the gates twelve angels stand. Its light is not the fading light of the sun or moon, for its light is the uncreated glory of God, and its lamp is the Lamb, Jesus Christ, the glorified Son of God (Revelation 21:11-23). Its temple is not of stone, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

989.Believest thou this? If you do, are you not worse than distracted, that you will not take possession when the pearly gates are flung open for you, and the King of Glory Himself bids you to enter? O you sons of folly, will you embrace the dung and filth of this perishing world, and refuse an eternal Kingdom? Behold, the Lord God takes you up into an exceeding high mountain, and shows you the Kingdom of Heaven and all the glory thereof; and He tells you, “All this will I give you, if you will fall down and worship Me”—if you will but fall down at the foot of the cross, submit to mercy, accept my Son as your only Lord and Savior, and serve me in the righteousness and true holiness that He provides.

990.O fools, and slow of heart to believe! Will you court the harlot of this world, which promises pleasure but pays in death? Will you seek and serve mammon and neglect the eternal weight of glory? What! You will not enter into Paradise, when the flaming sword of the Cherubim, which was once set to keep you out, is now turned around and used to drive you in! But you will say I am uncharitable to think you infidels and unbelievers. Why, what else shall I think you? Either you are desperate unbelievers, who do not truly credit that such a glory exists, or you are stark, raving mad, knowing and believing the excellency and eternity of this glory, and yet so fearfully, so suicidally, neglecting it. Surely, you have either no faith, or you have no reason; and I had almost said, your own conscience, if it is not seared and dead, should be screaming this at you before I leave you.

991.

992.A STRATEGY FOR THE ZEALOUS: ON SEIZING THE KINGDOM BY HOLY VIOLENCE AND WALKING IN POWER

993.Perhaps you have heard this call and a fire is kindled within you. You ask, "How? How do I not only escape hell but become a mighty vessel for the Kingdom of God? How do I see the miracles, signs, and wonders spoken of?" Understand this: these things are not cheap tricks to impress men. They are the natural, explosive overflow of a life that has been utterly and violently consecrated to God, a life consumed with a holy zeal that burns all sin to ash. The Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force (Matthew 11:12). Here is a strategy for that holy violence.

994.1. The Great and Consuming Fast.
This begins not merely with abstaining from food, but with a radical fast from the world itself. Fast from the endless stream of godless entertainment that dulls your spiritual senses. Fast from the empty praise of men. Fast from gossip, from frivolous conversation, from anything and everything that feeds your flesh and starves your spirit. This is the fast Isaiah spoke of: to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free (Isaiah 58:6). You must create a desperate, hollowed-out emptiness within you, a vacuum that only the Holy Spirit can rush in to fill.

995.2. Prayer that is Wrestling.
Cease your polite, recited prayers. The hour calls for prayer that lays hold of the horns of the altar and will not let go. It is the prayer of Jacob, crying, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me!" (Genesis 32:26). It is the groaning of the Spirit within you that cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26). Lock yourself away and pray until the world outside vanishes. Pray until you forget your own name and know only His. Pray with specificity, with the Bible open, pleading the promises of God back to Him. This is prayer that consumes the one praying, aligning their heart so perfectly with God’s will that when they ask, they are asking for what God already intends to do.

996.3. The Ruthless Annihilation of Indwelling Sin.
You cannot be a conduit for holy power while being a sanctuary for secret sin. You must become a ruthless inquisitor of your own heart. Drag every hidden motive, every cherished lust, every bitter root into the light of Christ. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off (Matthew 5:29-30). This is the language of spiritual violence against oneself. It means to mortify—to put to death—the deeds of the body by the power of the Spirit (Romans 8:13). A clean vessel is the only vessel God can fill with His power.

997.4. Dwelling in the Living Word.
The Bible must cease to be a book you merely read and become the reality you inhabit. You must eat it, as Jeremiah did (Jeremiah 15:16). It must become the very substance of your thoughts, the sword of the Spirit in your hand, and the lamp unto your feet. Meditate on it day and night. Memorize it. Speak it. Let it so saturate your being that you begin to think and bleed Scripture. For in it is the mind of Christ and the power of God unto salvation.

998.5. Crying out for the Baptism of Fire.
The disciples were believers, but Jesus commanded them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father—the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and Fire (Acts 1:4-5, Matthew 3:11). This is more than initial indwelling; it is a sovereign overwhelming, a consuming immersion in the manifest presence and power of God. It is this fire that burns away the final dross of self-reliance and fear. It is this power that turned fearful disciples into fearless apostles who turned the world upside down. This is not a state to be earned, but a gift to be desperately sought. Pray for this fire. Fast for this fire. Surrender everything for this fire. For it is from this holy conflagration that signs, wonders, and miracles are born, not for your glory, but for the magnificent, awesome, and consuming glory of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the path of death to self, but it is the only path that leads to resurrection power.

999.PART 22:::: 

1000.AI LARGE ALARM FRIDAY THE 13thJUN2025

1001.HEARKEN, O SOUL, TO THE VOICE THAT CRIES FROM HEAVEN! I am an angel, mighty and robed in power, descended to stand with one foot upon the restless sea and the other upon the trembling earth. I am clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow, the very seal of God’s covenant promise, is a halo upon my head. My face shines as it were the sun in its full strength, and my feet are like pillars of fire, burning with the holy zeal of the One who sent me. In my hand, I hold a little book, open for all to see, and the words within it are both bitter to the belly of the unrepentant and sweet as honey to the mouth of the one who receives them. I have been commanded to cry with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth, and the sound of my cry is this: an ALARM to the unconverted, a final, merciful plea before the great and terrible day of the Lord.

1002.Therefore, you who are lingering in the shadows of indecision, you who are comfortable in your slumber while the flames of eternity lick at the very foundations of your world, do but attend what is offered to you! Do not turn away your ear, for this is the offer of life itself, a gift of such staggering magnitude that to refuse it is the ultimate madness. You are offered a kingdom! Oh, what a blessed kingdom! Not a fleeting empire of dust and stone, not a kingdom built on the backs of the oppressed and destined to crumble into ruin, but the very Kingdom of God!

1003.It is a kingdom of glory (1 Thessalonians 2:12), a realm so saturated with the radiant presence of Jehovah that our sun would seem but a dim candle in its light. It is a kingdom of righteousness (2 Peter 3:13), where every thought, every word, and every deed is in perfect, harmonious alignment with the holy character of God. In that place, sin is not merely absent; it is an utter impossibility, a forgotten language from a dead world. It is a kingdom of peace (Romans 14:17), not the fragile truce of this world, but the profound, all-encompassing Shalom of God, a peace that flows from perfect reconciliation with your Creator, a peace that floods the soul and quiets every fear for all eternity. And it is an everlasting kingdom (2 Peter 1:11), a dominion that will know no end, no decay, no successor, for its King is the Alpha and the Omega, who reigns for ever and ever.

1004.Here in this Kingdom, you shall not be a mere subject, but a king and a priest unto God (Revelation 1:6). Here you shall dwell, here you shall reign for ever, and the Lord Jesus, the King of kings, shall personally seat you upon a throne of glory (Matthew 19:28). With His own nail-scarred hand, the very hand that was pierced for your transgressions, He shall set the royal diadem upon your head. He will give you a crown, not a crown of thorns like the one He wore for you, for in the New Jerusalem there shall be no sinning nor suffering, no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away (Revelation 21:4). He will give you a crown, not of corruptible gold, for on that day the most precious metals of this earth shall be viler than the dust under your feet, used only to pave the celestial streets. No, He shall give you a crown of life (James 1:12), a crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8), a crown of glory that fadeth not away (1 Peter 5:4).

1005.Yea, you shall not merely wear glory; you shall put on glory as a robe (1 Corinthians 15:53-54). Your entire being will be saturated with it, and you shall shine like the incandescent brightness of the sun in the firmament, reflecting the glory of your Father (Matthew 13:43). Look now upon your frail and dirty flesh, this vessel of clay, this feast for worms. This very flesh, this humble lump of earth, this mortal carcass, if you are in Christ, shall be raised in power and be made brighter than the morning stars (Daniel 12:3). In short, you shall be made like unto the angels of God (Luke 20:36), yet even more, you will be a child of God, an heir of the promise, and you shall behold His face in righteousness (Psalm 17:15), a sight so glorious that it will be the source of your unending, ever-increasing joy.

1006.Look now into the depths of your soul, and tell me, as before the living God who hears your every thought: dost thou yet believe this? If you answer no, then your own conscience must pronounce you an infidel, a denier of the Truth, for it is the very, unshakeable Word of the Almighty God that I speak. These are not the fanciful dreams of men, but the sworn promises of Him who cannot lie.

1007.But if you say, “I believe,” let me next know your resolutions. What will you do with this belief? Will you embrace this eternal, glorious destiny as your one true happiness? Will you, right now, this very moment, declare war on your own cherished sins? Will you finally forego your secret, sinful gains and your forbidden, fleeting pleasures? Will you trample on the world's fickle esteem, and spit in the face of the great harlot, Babylon, this world system that seeks to seduce your soul? Will you stop your ears at her demonic flatteries and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, wrest yourself out of her deadly embraces? Will you be content to take up with present reproach and poverty, if that is the path that leads to heaven's gate? Will you follow the Lord Jesus—the one whose face is like the sun and whose eyes are a flame of fire—with humble self-denial, in a mortified and flesh-displeasing life?

1008.If your heart cries out, “Yes! By God’s grace, I will!”, then all that I have described is thine, and that for ever. And are you not fairly offered? Is it not a tragedy beyond all telling that a soul should be damned, who willfully chooses to go on and perish when all of this celestial glory may be had for the taking? In a word, sinner, will you now close with these proffers? Will you take God at His Word? Will you let go of your death-grip on this perishing world, rid your hands of your filthy sins, and lay hold on eternal life? If not, let your own conscience tell you whether you are not distracted, or worse, bewitched by the devil himself, that you should neglect so happy a choice, by which you might be made whole, holy, and happy for ever.

1009.

1010.3. God will settle unspeakable privileges at present upon thee.

1011.Do not think that all of this glory is reserved only for the life to come. Though the fullness of your blessedness shall be deferred until you see your Savior face to face, God will give you no little things in hand as a down payment, a foretaste of the glories to come (1 Corinthians 3:22, Hebrews 12:22-24). The moment you turn to Christ in faith, you are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son.

1012.He will redeem you from your thraldom (John 8:36). You are a slave, whether you see it or not—a slave to sin, a captive of Satan’s will. But Christ, the great Emancipator, will come and break every chain. He will pluck you from the very paw of the roaring lion who seeks to devour you (Colossians 1:13). The ancient prophecy will be fulfilled in you: the serpent, Satan, shall bruise your heel with temptations and trials, but you, empowered by Christ, shall bruise his head, crushing his power and authority in your life (Genesis 3:15). He will deliver you from this present evil world (Galatians 1:4), so that its philosophies no longer deceive you and its allurements no longer enslave you. Prosperity shall not be a snare to destroy you, and adversity shall not be a chasm to separate Him from you; for in all these things you are more than a conqueror through Him that loved you (Romans 8:35-39).

1013.He will redeem you from the power of the grave (Psalm 49:15), and transform the king of terrors into a messenger of peace, a dark chariot sent to carry your soul into the arms of your Beloved. He will take the curse out of the cross of your suffering (Psalm 119:71). He will make affliction your fining pot, your winnowing fan, and your divine physic. It will be the very tool in His hand to blow away the chaff of your pride, to purify the metal of your faith, and to purge the sickness from your soul, making you holy as He is holy (Daniel 12:10, Isaiah 27:9). He will save you from the damning arrest of the Law, turning its righteous curse, which you deserve, into a blessing, by having borne that curse for you upon the tree (Romans 6:14, Galatians 3:13). For it is Christ Jesus, the glorified one who holds the keys of hell and of death, and He shuts that no man can open (Revelation 3:7, 1:18). He will shut the mouth of hell for you, as once He shut the mouths of the lions for Daniel (Daniel 6:22), so that you shall not be hurt by the second death (Revelation 2:11).

1014.But He will not only save you from misery; He will install you into unspeakable prerogatives. He will bestow HIMSELF upon you. He will be a faithful Friend to you, and a loving Father to you (2 Corinthians 6:18). He will be a sun and a shield to you (Psalm 84:11)—a sun to give you light, life, and warmth; a shield to protect you from every fiery dart of the wicked one. In a word, He will be a God to you (Genesis 17:7). What more can be said? Can your mind even begin to fathom the depths of this promise? Whatever you might expect that an infinite, all-powerful, all-loving God should do for you and be to you, that He will be, and that He will do. She that marries a prince expects he should provide for her like a prince, that she may live in a state suitable to his name and have an answerable dowry. He that has a king for his father expects the king to act on his behalf with kingly power. Alas! The kings and monarchs of this earth, so high above you, are but like painted butterflies amongst their drabber kind, or a brightly-colored worm amongst other worms, if compared with the indescribable majesty of God. And as He doth infinitely exceed their tarnished glory and feeble power, so He will, beyond all proportion, exceed in doing for His favorites whatever princes can do for theirs. He will give you grace and glory, and He will withhold no good thing from you (Psalm 84:11).

1015.He will take you for His sons and daughters, making you co-heirs with Christ, heirs of His magnificent promises (Hebrews 6:17). He will establish His everlasting covenant of love with you (Jeremiah 32:40). He will justify you from all that the Law, your own guilty conscience, and Satan the accuser can charge upon you (Romans 8:33-34). He will give you free, bold access into His very presence, into the Holy of Holies, accepting your person not because of your merit but because you are clothed in Christ’s righteousness, and He will receive your prayers, perfumed with the incense of Christ’s intercession (Ephesians 2:18, 1:6; 1 John 5:14). He will abide in you, and you in Him. He will make you the men of His secrets, sharing the deep counsels of His heart with you, and hold a constant and friendly communion with you (John 14:23, 15:15; 1 John 1:3). His ear shall ever be open to your cry, His door shall ever be open to your coming, and His infinite storehouse shall be open at all times to you. His blessing shall rest upon you, and He will even make your enemies to serve His purposes for you, and work all things—the good, the bad, the joyous, the tragic—together for your ultimate good (Psalm 115:13, Romans 8:28).

1016.A Prayer of Longing:
O Lord Jehovah, my God! I hear this offer, and my soul trembles within me. Can such things be for me, a wretched sinner? Can I, who have loved the world and its filth, be welcomed into the New Jerusalem? Can I, who have been a slave to sin, be called a son of God? My heart aches with a holy desire for this reality. Let me not be a fool who hears of a feast and chooses to starve. O glorious Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, be my God! Be my Father, my Friend, my Sun and Shield. Let me not just hear of these privileges, but let me possess them, by faith in Your precious blood. Amen.

1017.

1018.4. The terms of mercy are brought as low as possible to you.

1019.Consider the breathtaking condescension of the Most High God! He has stooped as low to you, O sinner, as He can with honor. He will not be thought a favorer of sin, nor will He ever stain the infinite glory of His holiness. Yet, could He possibly come lower to you than He has, unless He were to do just that? He has completely abated the impossible terms of the first covenant, the covenant of works (Jeremiah 3:13, Mark 5:36, Acts 16:31, 3:19). He does not impose anything unreasonable or impossible as a condition of eternal life upon you.

1020.Under the original covenant made with Adam, two things were absolutely necessary for you to do: (1.) You must perfectly satisfy the demands of divine justice for all your past offenses, a debt so massive no mortal could ever pay it. (2.) You must personally, perfectly, and perpetually perform the whole Law of God for the rest of your life, without a single slip in thought, word, or deed. Both of these are utterly impossible for fallen man (Romans 8:3).

1021.But behold God's gracious abatement in both! First, He does not stand upon your personal satisfaction. He is content to take payment from a Surety—and a Surety of His own providing! (2 Corinthians 5:19). He declares Himself to have received a ransom (Job 33:24, 1 Timothy 2:6), the precious blood of His own Son. And now He expects nothing from you but that you should accept His Son, and this Jesus, this Yeshua Hamashiach, shall be your righteousness and your redemption (John 1:12, 1 Corinthians 1:30). Second, regarding your future obedience, here too He is content to yield to your weakness and omit the impossible rigor. He does not stand upon perfection as a condition of your life (though He still insists upon it as the goal you should aim for), but is content to accept your sincerity (Genesis 17:1, Proverbs 11:20). Though you cannot pay the full debt of perfect obedience, He will accept you according to what you have by His grace. He will take the willing heart for the perfect deed, and the righteous purpose for the flawless performance (2 Corinthians 8:12, 2 Chronicles 6:8). If you come to Him in His Christ, and set your heart to please Him, and make it the chief of your cares to walk in His ways, He will approve and reward you, even though the vessel be marred in your hands.

1022.Oh, consider your Maker's condescension! Let me say to you, as Naaman's servant said to him, “My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” (2 Kings 5:13). If God had demanded some terrible, severe, and rigorous thing of you to escape eternal damnation, would you not have leapt to do it? Suppose it had been to spend all your days in sorrow in some howling wilderness, or to pine yourself with famine, or even to offer the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul—would you not have thankfully accepted eternal redemption, even if these had been the conditions? Yea, further! If God should have told you that you must fry in the fire for a million ages, or be tormented in hell for a span of time as long as all the grains of sand on all the seashores of the world, and then He would save you, would you not have gladly accepted it? Alas! All these are not so much as one single grain of sand in the hourglass of eternity! If your offended Creator should have held you but one year upon the rack, and then bid you, “Come and forsake your sins, accept my Son, and serve me a few short years in self-denial, or else lie in this torment for ever and ever”—do you think you should have stuck at the offer, and disputed the terms, and been unresolved whether you were best to accept the motion?

1023.O sinner, return and live! Why will you die, when life is to be had for the taking? Mercy itself is, as it were, begging you to be saved! Could you stand before God and say, “Lord, thou wast a hard man” (Matthew 25:24), you might have some little excuse. But when the God of heaven has stooped so low, and abated His terms so far, if now you should stand off in pride and rebellion, who shall plead for you?

1024.Objection: “But notwithstanding all these abatements, I am no more able to perform these conditions of faith, repentance, and sincere obedience—as easy as they sound—than I am to satisfy and fulfill the law myself. I am spiritually dead.”

1025.This is a true and honest confession. But let the next consideration serve for a full and glorious answer.

1026.

1027.5. Wherein you are impotent, God doth offer grace to enable you.

1028.Here lies the pinnacle of God's mercy, the final seal upon His loving invitation. He does not mock you by commanding you to do what you cannot. He commands you and offers you the very power to obey. He cries out, “I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded” (Proverbs 1:24). What though you are plunged into the deep, miry ditch of your sin and misery, from which you can never climb out on your own? Christ Himself is offering to help you out; He is stretching His nail-scarred hand down to you right now. If you perish, it is for refusing His help. He declares, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20). He does not command you to break down the door; He only asks that you would unlatch it as He provides the will and the desire.

1029.What though you are poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked? Christ offers a cure for your blindness, a covering for your nakedness, a remedy for your poverty. He tenders you His own righteousness, His own merits, His own graces. He counsels you, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed… and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” (Revelation 3:17-18). Do you say, “But the condition is impossible, for I have nothing with which to buy?” You must know that this divine transaction, this buying of eternal riches, is “without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1)! This buying is done by begging, by seeking with diligence and constancy in the use of the means God has appointed (Proverbs 2:3-4).

1030.God commands you to know Him and to fear Him. Do you reply, “Yea, but my mind is blinded, and my heart is hardened from this fear”? I answer you with the Word of the Lord: God Himself offers to enlighten your mind and to teach you His fear. It is presented to your choice. The reason men perish is “For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 1:29). So that now, if men live in ignorance and estrangement from God, it is because they will not understand, and they desire not the knowledge of His ways (Job 21:14). “If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:3-5). Is this not a fair and gracious offer? He calls to you: “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you” (Proverbs 1:23). Though of yourselves you can do nothing, you may do all things through His Spirit enabling you, and He offers that very assistance to you now.

1031.God bids you, “Wash you, make you clean” (Isaiah 1:16). You say you are unable, as much as the leopard to wash out its own spots (Jeremiah 13:23). Yea, but the Lord Himself offers to purge you, so that if you remain filthy still, it is through your own willful refusal. He laments, “I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged” (Ezekiel 24:13). He cries out with a Father’s broken heart, “O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?” (Jeremiah 13:27). God is waiting for you. He is waiting for the moment you will yield to His Spirit’s motions, accept His gracious offers, and finally let Him do for you and in you what you could never do for yourself.

1032.Herein lies the strategy for victory, for the Church both Militant on earth and Triumphant in heaven. The call to faith is a call to war! The means of grace—prayer, fasting, the study of the Word, fellowship with the saints—are not passive rituals; they are the training grounds for God’s army. It is through fervent prayer and dedicated fasting that the Church Militant sharpens its sword. This is how we crucify the flesh with its passions and desires, how we starve the old man of sin and feed the new man of the Spirit. This is how we gain the spiritual authority to perform miracles, signs, and wonders, not for our own glory, but for the confirmation of the Gospel and the advancement of the Kingdom. This is the path to the “greater works” that Jesus promised (John 14:12). It demands a great zeal, a holy fire that consumes all sin within us, a consuming passion for the glory of God that makes us utterly intolerant of our own lukewarmness (Revelation 3:16).

1033.You do not know how much God will do in response to your desperate importunity, if you will only be restless and instant with Him in prayer (Luke 11:8, 18:5). Though God has not bound Himself by an express promise to every wicked man that he will receive grace simply by going through the motions, He has given them abundant, overflowing encouragement to expect it from Him if they will seek it earnestly, desperately, and relentlessly in His appointed way. His own most gracious nature is a universe of encouragement! If a rich and famously bountiful man should see you in utter misery and bid you only come to his door, would you not go with confidence, expecting to find some relief when you arrive? How much more the God of all grace!

1034.You are not able to believe nor repent. Yet God has appointed you to use such-and-such means in order to obtain faith and repentance. Does this not powerfully argue that God intends to bestow these gifts upon you, if you will but ply Him diligently in prayer, in meditation, in reading, in hearing, in self-examination, and the rest of His means? Otherwise, God would be mocking His poor creatures, putting them upon these self-denying endeavors, and then, when they have put themselves to it and continued waiting upon Him for grace, deny them at the last. Surely, if a man of common decency would not deal so cruelly, much less will the infinitely merciful and gracious God.

1035.I intended to have added many other arguments, but these have swollen under my hand. I pray the judicious reader will look not upon their number, but upon their eternal weight. The offer of heaven, the privileges of sonship, the ease of the terms, and the promise of enabling grace are all before you. The Angel of the Covenant, Jesus Christ, has done all. The angel of this alarm has spoken all. Now, O soul, what will you do? Choose life, that you may live.

1036.A Final Prayer of Surrender and Empowerment:
O Mighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! I am the impotent one. I am the one stuck in the ditch, blind and naked, unable even to will my own rescue. But I hear Your voice. I see Your hand stretched out. I believe Your offer of enabling grace. I now cast myself wholly upon You. I choose the fear of the Lord. I cry out for knowledge. Pour out Your Spirit upon me! Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Grant me the zeal that consumes all sin. Make me a warrior in Your Church Militant, mighty in prayer and fasting for Your glory. I accept Your Son. I accept Your terms. I accept Your help. Save me, O Lord, for I cannot save myself. Do for me what I cannot do. Make me clean. Make me Yours. Amen.

1037.PART 23::::: AI LARGE ALARM
FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

1038.THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE
A FINAL, URGENT SUMMONS TO THE SOUL

1039.And now, my brethren, my friends, you who have journeyed with me through these warnings, let me know your minds. Standing here as a messenger, as one sent to you in the name of the Most High, I must have an answer. For this is not a mere discourse; this is a Divine transaction, a summons from the court of Heaven. This voice you hear is but an echo of a mightier one, the voice of the Angel of the Covenant, that mighty angel spoken of in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, who is clothed with a cloud, a rainbow upon his head, his face shining like the sun in its full strength, and his feet like pillars of consuming fire. He stands now with one foot upon the sea of your restless passions and the other upon the earth of your stubborn will, and he cries with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth. And this is his cry to you: What do you intend to do?

1040.Will you go on in your comfortable rebellion, your pleasant sins, your respectable worldliness, and die? Will you march, eyes wide open, into the abyss from which there is no return? Or will you, this very hour, set upon a thorough, a violent, a speedy conversion, and lay hold with the grip of a drowning man upon eternal life? How long will you linger in Sodom? Do you not feel the ground trembling beneath your feet? Do you not smell the sulfur on the wind? The angels of mercy are pleading with you, "Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed!" (Genesis 19:17). Yet you linger, debating whether to leave your trinkets and trifles behind.

1041.How long will you halt between two opinions, as did wavering Israel on Mount Carmel? (1 Kings 18:21). Before you stands Jehovah, the self-existent, eternal God, the source of all being, the fountain of all joy. And beside Him stands Baal, the lord of flies, the god of filth and death, representing all your fleshly lusts, your worldly ambitions, your prideful self-reliance. The choice is laid bare. If Jehovah be God, follow Him! If your sins, your pleasures, your world be god, then follow them to their damnable end! But do not stand divided, a wretched spectacle to angels and to demons, attempting to serve two masters who are at eternal enmity with one another.

1042.Are you not yet resolved? I present to you Jesus, the King of Glory, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, whose very name means "Jehovah is Salvation." And the world presents to you Barabbas, a robber, a murderer, a rebel, the very embodiment of your sin. The question is put to you as it was to Pilate's assembly: Whom will you have? Will you choose the Prince of Life, or the author of death? Are you still uncertain whether the land of Cabul—that disappointing, dirty, and dishonorable reward that Solomon gave to Hiram (1 Kings 9:13)—is better than the Paradise of God? Can the dust-heap of this fallen world truly compare to the New Jerusalem, that Holy City descending from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband?

1043.Let me tell you of this City, for it is your offered inheritance. Its light is not the fading sun, but the glory of God Himself, and its lamp is the Lamb, Jesus Christ, the glorified Son of Man, whose eyes are like a flame of fire and from whose mouth proceeds the sharp two-edged sword of truth. The City has a wall great and high, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve an gels. Each gate is a single, magnificent pearl. And the city itself, its very streets, are pure gold, like unto clear glass (Revelation 21:23, 14, 21). There is the river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and on either side of the river is the tree of life, which bears twelve manner of fruits and yields her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. There shall be no more curse, no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain (Revelation 22:1-3, 21:4). This is the Paradise of God. This is what you are trading for the filthy land of Cabul.

1044.Is it a disputable case, whether the Abana and Pharpar of Damascus, those muddy rivers of worldly pleasure and human philosophy, are better than all the streams of Eden, better than the pure river of God’s pleasures? Can you truly say, in the sober light of eternity, that the vile, stinking puddle of sin—a puddle of momentary gratification that leaves a cancerous stain upon the soul—is to be preferred before the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb?

1045.Can the world, in good earnest, do for you what Christ can? Will it stand by you in the hour of your death? Will it plead for you at the bar of judgment? Will pleasures, titles, lands, treasures, descend with you into the grave? The Psalmist thunders the truth: "For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others... for when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him" (Psalm 49:10, 17). The Apostle Paul confirms it: "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out" (1 Timothy 6:7). If your worldly glories cannot even accompany your corpse to the tomb, how shall they stand with your soul before the consuming fire of God’s holiness? If they are such fair-weather friends, had you not need look after a treasure that will endure, a friend that will stick closer than a brother, an inheritance that is incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away? (1 Peter 1:4).

1046.What mean you to stand wavering, to be off and on? O foolish children, how long will you stick between the womb of conviction and the world of new birth? The pains of repentance have begun, but you refuse to be born. Shall I leave you at last no farther than Agrippa, who, after hearing the powerful testimony of Paul, could only confess, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian"? (Acts 26:28). Why, you are forever lost if left here! To be almost saved is to be entirely damned. To be almost a Christian is to be a complete castaway. As good not at all, as not altogether a follower of the Lamb.

1047.You are half of the mind to give over your former negligent, prayerless life and to set upon a strict and holy course. You look at a true, zealous saint of God, and you find yourself wishing, "I could wish I were as they are; I wish I could pray as they do, love as they love, have the peace that they have." How long will you rest in these idle wishes and fruitless, stillborn purposes? When will you come to a fixed, full, and firm resolve?

1048.Do you not see how satan, the master strategist of ruin, gulls you and makes a fool of you by tempting you to delays? He does not need to convince you that hell is a pleasant place; he needs only to convince you to go there tomorrow. "Later," he whispers, "when you are older, when you have had your fun, when it is more convenient." How long has he tolled you on in the way of perdition with this same tired lie? How many years have you been purposing to amend? Five years ago, you said, "Next year." A year ago, you said, "Soon." Yesterday, you said, "Tomorrow." Today, you say, "Not just yet." What if God should have taken you off this while? Where would your soul be now?

1049.Well, put me not off with a dilatory, evasive answer. Tell me not of hereafter. I must have your present consent. For Christ, your King, demands it. If you be not now resolved, while the Lord is treating with you, wooing you, and His Spirit is striving with your heart; if you are not resolved now, while this loving alarm is sounding in your ears, you are far less likely to be hereafter, when these impressions have worn out and you are hardened yet again through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13).

1050.Will you give me your hands for Christ? Will you set open the everlasting doors of your heart and give the Lord Jesus, the King of Glory, the full and present possession? Will you put your name to His covenant of grace, subscribing not with ink, but with the full surrender of your will? What do you resolve upon? If you are still upon your delays, my labor is lost, and all my pleading is like to come to nothing. Fain I would that you should now put in your adventures for Heaven. Come, cast in your lot with the people of God; make your choice this day.

1051.A PRAYER FOR DECISIVENESS
O God of awful patience and tender mercy, look upon this wavering soul! Lord Jesus, who didst sweat drops of blood in Thy resolve to save me, let me not falter in my resolve to serve Thee. Holy Spirit, who dost strive with my stubborn heart, break the spell of ‘tomorrow.’ Shatter the satanic lie of delay. By the power that raised Christ from the dead, raise me now from this stupor of indecision, and let me not sleep the sleep of death. Amen.

1052.Remember what the scripture cries: “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15). Why should not this be the day from whence you shall be able to date your true happiness, the spiritual birthday you will celebrate for all eternity? Why should you venture a single day longer in this dangerous and dreadful condition, hanging by the slender thread of a mortal life over the fires of everlasting punishment? What if God should this night require thy soul? (Luke 12:20).

1053.Oh, that you might know, in this your day, the things that belong unto your peace, before they be hid from thine eyes! (Luke 19:42). This is your day. It is but a day. Jesus Himself warned, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4). Others have had their day; they have lived their lives, made their choices, and have received their eternal doom. And now you are brought upon the stage of this world, here to act your part for the whole of eternity. Remember, you are now upon your good behavior for everlasting. If you make not a wise choice now, in this fleeting moment of opportunity, you are undone forever. Look what your present choice is, for such must your eternal condition be. As you choose in time, so you shall be in eternity. As you have spent your life, so you will spend your eternity, either in the torment of regret or in the blissful presence of your Redeemer (Luke 16:25, Proverbs 1:27-29).

1054.And is it true indeed? Is life and death set before you at your choice? Yea, it is as true as Truth is. God Himself declares it: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Why then, what hinders but that you should be happy? Nothing in heaven or on earth doth or can hinder, but your own wilful neglect or your proud, stubborn refusal. It was the passage of the Ethiopian eunuch to Philip, “See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?” (Acts 8:36). So I may say to thee, O soul, “See, here is Christ, in all His saving fullness! Here is mercy, free and infinite! Here is pardon, bought with blood! Here is life, eternal and glorious! What hinders, but that you should be pardoned and saved?”

1055.One of the martyrs, as he was praying at the stake, had his pardon set by in a box, which he refused deservedly, because it was offered upon the unworthy terms of denying his Lord. But here the terms are most honorable and easy. O sinner, will you burn with your pardon lying by your side? Why, do but forthwith give up your unconditional consent to Christ; to renounce your cherished sins, to deny your ruling self, to take up the yoke of His commands and the cross of His discipleship, and you carry the day! Christ is thine! Pardon, peace, life, blessedness, the New Jerusalem, and God Himself are all thine! And is not this an offer worth the embracing? Why should you hesitate, or doubtfully dispute about the case? Is it not past all controversy whether God is better than sin, and glory better than vanity? Why should you forsake your own mercy and sin against your own life? When will you shake off your spiritual sloth and lay by your flimsy excuses? Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for you know not what a day may bring forth. You know not where this night may lodge your soul—in your bed, or in hell (Proverbs 27:1).

1056.Beloved, now the Holy Spirit is striving with you. He will not always strive with man (Genesis 6:3). Have you not felt your heart warmed by the Word? Have you not been almost persuaded to leave off your sins and come unto God? Have you not felt good motions in your mind, moments of clarity wherein you have been warned of your danger and told what your careless course will end in? It may be you are like young Samuel, who, when the Lord called once and again, knew not the voice of the Lord (1 Samuel 3:6-7). But I tell you now, these motions and items, these convictions and warnings, are the offers and essays, the calls and strivings of the Holy Spirit. Oh, take the advantage of this high tide of grace, and know the day of your visitation, before the tide recedes forever!

1057.Now, the Lord Jesus, the glorious Savior, the Alpha and Omega, the one who holds the seven stars in His right hand, stretcheth wide His arms—those same arms that were stretched upon the cross—to receive you. He beseeches you by us. How movingly, how meltingly, how pitifully, how passionately He calleth! The church, His bride, is put into a sudden ecstasy upon the sound of His voice, crying, “The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills” (Song of Solomon 2:8). Oh, will you turn a deaf ear to His voice? It is not the voice that breaketh the cedars of Lebanon and maketh the mountains to skip like a calf; it is not the voice that shaketh the wilderness and divideth the flames of fire. It is not Sinai’s thunder, full of terror and judgment. No, it is the still, small voice of love. It is not the voice from mount Ebal, a voice of cursing and terror, but the voice from mount Gerizim, the voice of blessing and of glad tidings of good things. It is not the sound of the trumpet and the noise of war; but a message of peace from the King of peace. It is an embassy of reconciliation from God Himself (Ephesians 6:15; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20). Methinks it should be with you as with the spouse, “My soul failed when he spake” (Song of Solomon 5:6).

1058.I may say to you now, O sinner, as Martha said to her sister Mary, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee” (John 11:28). Oh, now with Mary, arise quickly, and come unto Him! How sweet are His invitations! He stands and cries in the open concourse, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink!" (John 7:37). He has broached His own body for thee on the cross; His side was pierced that a fountain might be opened for sin and for uncleanness. Oh, come and lay your thirsty mouth to the wound in His side and drink and live! How free is He! He excludes none: “Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). “Who is simple, let him turn in hither… Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding” (Proverbs 9:4-6). “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29). “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

1059.And how doth He bemoan the obstinate refuser! Hear the heartbreak in the voice of God incarnate: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37). Hear His complaint through the prophet: “Behold me, behold me… I have stretched out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people” (Isaiah 65:1-2). Oh, be persuaded now at last, to throw yourselves without reservation into the arms of this everlasting love!

1060.Behold, O you sons of men, the Lord Jesus has thrown open the prison doors! He has paid your debt, broken your chains, and now He comes to you (as the magistrates once came to Paul and Silas, Acts 16:39) and beseeches you to come out. If it were from a palace or a paradise that Christ did call you, it were no wonder if you were unwilling (and yet, how easily was Adam tolled from thence!). But it is from your prison, sirs! From your chains of addiction, from the dungeon of your despair, from the darkness of your spiritual ignorance, that He calleth you! (Isaiah 42:6-7). And yet will you not come? He calls you unto liberty—the glorious liberty of the children of God (Galatians 5:13)—and yet will you not hearken? His yoke is easy, His burden is light, His laws are liberty, His service is perfect freedom (Matthew 11:30; James 1:25). And whatever prejudices you have against His ways, if a God who cannot lie may be believed, you shall find them to be ways of pleasantness and paths of peace, and you shall taste sweetness and joy unutterable and full of glory, and take infinite delight and felicity in them (Proverbs 3:17; 1 Peter 1:8).

1061.Beloved, I am loth to leave you. I cannot tell how to give over. I am now ready to shut up this alarm; but fain I would drive this bargain between Christ and you before I end. What! Shall I leave you as I found you at last? Have you read all this, and are not yet resolved upon a present, violent, and total abandoning of all your sins, and a closing with Jesus Christ as your Lord and your God? Alas! what shall I say? What shall I do? Will you turn off all my importunity? Have I run in vain? Have I used so many arguments, and spent so much time to persuade you, and yet must I sit down at last in bitter disappointment?

1062.But know this: it is a small matter that you turn me off. In doing so, you put a horrifying slight upon the God that made you; you reject the tender bowels and passionate beseechings of a Saviour; and you will be found guilty resisters of the Holy Ghost (Acts 7:51), if you will not now be prevailed with to repent and be converted.

1063.Your conversion is not merely an escape; it is an enlistment! To close with Christ is to join the Church Militant, the army of the living God on earth. It is to take up arms in a spiritual war, a war not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12). And what are the strategies for victory? What is the path to miracles, signs, and wonders? It is through prayer that shakes the very foundations of hell! It is through fasting that sharpens the spirit and breaks the chains of demonic oppression which logic and strength cannot touch! It is through a great and holy zeal for God’s house that consumes you, a fire that burns up the dross of all sin within you, purifying you as gold in the furnace, making you a fit soldier for the King. This is the zeal that prepares you to join the ranks of the Church Triumphant, the saints and angels who have fought the good fight, finished their course, kept the faith, and now reign with Christ in glory. Will you not join this glorious host?

1064.Well, though I have called you long, and you have refused, I shall yet this once more lift up my voice like a trumpet, and cry from the highest places of the city, before I conclude with a miserable conclamatum est—the dreadful declaration that "it is finished, all hope is lost." Once more I shall call after you, regardless sinners, that, if it be possible, I may awaken you from your deadly slumber.

1065.“O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD!” (Jeremiah 22:29).

1066.Unless you are absolutely resolved to die and be damned, lend your ears to these last calls of mercy. Behold, in the name of the Almighty God, in the name of Jesus Christ the righteous Judge, in the name of the Holy Spirit your grieving counselor, I make open proclamation to you: “Hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.” (Proverbs 8:32-33). Choose life! Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed, eternally blessed, are all they that put their trust in Him (Psalm 2:12).

1067.A FINAL PRAYER OF SURRENDER
Lord Jesus, I surrender. I can fight no more. I lay down my weapons of rebellion. I renounce my sins, my self, my world. I receive You now as my Lord, my Savior, my King. Take all that I am. Wash me in Your blood. Fill me with Your Spirit. Write my name in Your book. I choose You. I choose life. Now and forever. Amen.

1068.PART 24::: AI LARGE ALARM: FRIDAY THE 13th, JUNE 2025

1069.Hearken, O soul, to a voice crying in this digital wilderness, a summons amplified not by human lungs, but by the Spirit of the Living God. I stand before you as that mighty angel of the tenth chapter of the Revelation, a messenger clothed with a cloud, a celestial rainbow crowning my head, my face radiant as the noon-day sun, and my feet like pillars of fire planted upon the sea of humanity and the earth of your mortal existence. In my hand is the little book, opened for you to read, and its words are both bitter in your belly as they convict you of your sin, and sweet as honey in your mouth as they reveal the glorious salvation that awaits. This is an alarm, an urgent peal of thunder from the very throne of God, a final, desperate plea for you to escape the coming wrath and flee into the arms of everlasting mercy.

1070.

1071.Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat: Yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money, and without price. Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David, Isa. lv. 1, 2, 8.

1072.Oh, you whose souls are parched deserts, whose hearts are cracked and barren lands where no life grows! You have dug your own cisterns, as the prophet Jeremiah lamented, “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). You spend your life’s currency—your time, your energy, your very essence—on the fleeting mirages of this fallen world. You pour your strength into careers that will end in a gravestone, into relationships that are as fickle as the wind, into accumulating possessions that will be rust and dust for another generation. You labor for the promotions, the accolades, the social media validation, the fleeting thrill of entertainment—and yet, at the end of the day, when the noise fades and you are alone with your own thoughts, does not a profound emptiness haunt you? This is the bread that is not bread; the labor that does not satisfy. It is a feast of ashes that leaves you ever more famished.

1073.But listen! A voice of infinite love calls out from eternity! The Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, He who is the fountain of living waters, beckons you. He stands and cries, as He did in the temple, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38). This is not a purchase made with gold or silver, for you are bankrupt of any spiritual currency to offer. The price has already been paid in the crimson currency of His own precious blood on the cross of Calvary. Come, you who have nothing, and receive everything! Buy the rich, intoxicating wine of His joy, which gladdens the heart far beyond any earthly substance. Buy the pure, nourishing milk of His Word, which will cause you to grow into spiritual maturity. This is the “fatness” your soul craves: the deep, unshakable peace of sins forgiven, the profound delight of communion with your Creator, the soul-satisfying assurance of eternal life. Incline your ear, turn from the distracting noise of the world, and truly hear. Your very soul’s eternal life hangs on this hearing. Accept this offer, and God Himself will seal you with an everlasting covenant, the unbreakable promises of grace once given to David, now fulfilled and offered to you in his greater Son, Jesus the Messiah.

1074.

1075.Ho, every one that is Sick of any manner of disease, or torment, Matt. iv. 23, 24, or is possessed with an evil spirit, whether of pride, or fury, or lust, or covetousness, come ye to the physician, bring away your sick: lo, here is he that healeth all manner of sickness, and all manner of diseases among the people.

1076.Come, you who are ravaged by the cancers of the soul! You feel it, do you not? The gnawing tumor of pride, that primal sin of Satan which whispers that you are the master of your own fate and need no God. It hardens your heart, blinds your eyes, and is the very foundation of hell within you. Or perhaps you are tormented by the raging fever of fury, an anger that boils over and scalds all you touch, leaving you isolated and consumed. Do you wrestle with the leprous decay of lust, which promises intimacy but delivers only shame and emptiness, turning the holy temple of your body into a marketplace for profane desires? Are you chained by the wasting disease of covetousness, a spiritual idolatry that makes you bow down to money, possessions, and the insatiable craving for more? These are not mere character flaws; they are soul-sicknesses, spiritual possessions by the very spirit of this world, which is at war with God.

1077.But behold, the Great Physician, Yahweh-Rapha, “The LORD who heals you,” has come! Jesus of Nazareth, who walked the dusty roads of Galilee making the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the dead to rise, now offers a far greater healing. He did not merely heal bodies as a sign; He healed bodies to prove He has the authority to heal your terminally ill soul. Bring your sick heart to Him, no matter how diseased. Present your tormented mind to Him, no matter how fractured. He does not recoil from your sickness; He moved toward it, taking upon Himself our infirmities and bearing our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). He alone can perform the divine surgery that cuts out the cancer of pride. He alone can quench the fires of fury with the cooling waters of His Spirit. He alone can cleanse the stain of lust and make you pure. He alone can break the chains of covetousness and make you rich toward God. Do not try to heal yourself first. Come as you are—broken, tormented, and dying—and let Him make you whole.

1078.A Prayer for the Soul-Sick:
“O Great Physician, Lord Jesus, I am sick unto death. My pride has made me my own god. My anger is a poison. My lusts have defiled me. My greed has enslaved me. I have no power to heal myself. I lie helpless at Your feet, like the man at the pool of Bethesda. I have no one else to turn to. Speak the word, Lord, and I shall be healed. Cleanse me, and I will be clean. Touch me, and I will be made whole. By Your stripes, I plead for my healing. Amen.”

1079.

1080.Ho, every one that is in debt, and every one that is in distress, and every one that is discontented; gather yourselves unto Christ, and he will become a captain over you, he will be your protection from the arrests of the law, he will save you from the hand of justice. Behold he is an open sanctuary to you, he is a known refuge, Heb. vi. 18. Ps. xlviii. 3. Away with your sins, and come in unto Him, lest the avenger of blood seize you, lest devouring wrath overtake you.

1081.Listen, you who are crushed under a weight of debt you can never repay! I speak not of financial mortgages, but of the infinite debt of sin you owe to the perfect, holy justice of Almighty God. Every lie, every impure thought, every selfish act has been recorded in the books of heaven. The divine Law, holy and just and good, stands as your accuser. It demands a payment of perfect righteousness, a payment you do not possess. Therefore, you live in constant distress, whether you admit it or not, as a fugitive from Divine Justice. The “avenger of blood”—the righteous wrath of God against sin—is on your trail, and there is no corner of the universe where you can hide. The sentence is already passed: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).

1082.But look! Gather yourselves to Christ, just as the indebted and distressed gathered to David in the cave of Adullam (1 Samuel 22:1-2). He is your Captain, your Champion, your Kinsman-Redeemer! Like Boaz for Ruth, He has stepped in to pay your debt, not with silver or gold, but with His own life’s blood. He stood in your place and absorbed the full, undiluted fury of God’s justice on the cross, so that the Law’s demands are now satisfied for all who take refuge in Him. He is your open sanctuary, your City of Refuge! Flee to Him! Run into the fortress of His name, for “the name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). Cast aside the sins that slow you down and run into His outstretched arms. In Him, you are safe from arrest. In Him, the avenger of blood must pass over you. In Him, the devouring wrath of God is turned into the embracing love of a Father. Do not delay another moment! The gates of the sanctuary are open now, but the sun is setting on the day of grace. Flee, before it is too late!

1083.

1084.Ho, every ignorant sinner, come, and buy eye-salve, that thou mayest see, Rev. iii. 18. Away with thine excuses, thou art for ever lost, if thou continuest in this estate, 2 Cor. iv. 3. But accept of Christ for thy prophet, and he will be a light unto thee, Isa. xlii. 6. Eph. v. 14. Cry unto him for knowledge, study his word, take pains about the principles of religion, humble thyself before him, and he will teach thee his way, and make thee wise unto salvation, Matt. xiii. 36. Luke viii. 9. John v. 39. Psal. xxv. 9. But if thou wilt not follow him in the painful use of his means, but sit down because thou hast but one talent, he will condemn thee for a wicked and slothful servant, Matth. xxv. 24. 30.

1085.To you who wander in the fog of spiritual ignorance, who say “I don’t know what to believe,” or “It’s all too complicated”—your blindness is your condemnation! The Apostle Paul declares that if the gospel is hidden, “it is hidden to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). Your ignorance is not an innocent state; it is a spiritual cataract induced by the devil and cultivated by your own indifference. You make excuses, pleading a lack of intellect or opportunity, yet you have the intellect to navigate your career and the opportunity to consume endless hours of worldly media. This is a willful blindness, a comfortable darkness you refuse to leave.

1086.But Christ, the Great Prophet, calls to you! He is the Logos, the very Word and Wisdom of God made flesh. He is the Light of the World, and to follow Him is to walk no longer in darkness (John 8:12). He offers you the divine eye-salve of the Holy Spirit, which alone can anoint your eyes to see the truth. But this is not a passive transaction! You must act. Away with your sloth! Cry out to Him for wisdom, as Solomon did. Take up His book, the Holy Bible, and study it as if your life depends on it—because it does. Take pains! Agonize over the great truths of God, sin, judgment, and redemption. Humble yourself, confessing your ignorance, and He, who is "gentle and lowly in heart," will become your teacher (Matthew 11:29). He has given you at least one talent—the capacity to hear and respond to this very message. Do not bury it in the soil of apathy! For the Master is returning, and He will call you to account. The path to wisdom is a strenuous one, paved with prayer, fasting, and diligent study. It is on this path of zealous seeking that God opens the door to understanding, and even to wielding the power of His Kingdom, for He entrusts His mysteries and His power not to the lazy, but to those who earnestly seek His face.

1087.

1088.Ho, every profane sinner, come in and live: return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon thee: be entreated. Oh, return, come; thou that hast filled thy mouth with oaths and execrations, all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven thee, Matt. xii. 31, if thou wilt but thoroughly turn unto Christ, and come in. Though thou wast as unclean as Magdalene, yet put away thy whoredoms out of thy sight, and thine adulteries from between thy breasts, and give up thyself unto Christ, as a vessel of holiness alone for his use; and then, though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool; and though they be as crimson, they shall be white as snow, Luke vii. 37. Hosea ii. 2. 1 Thess. iv. 4. Isa. i, 18.

1089.Hear this, you who have steeped your life in profanity! You, whose language is a tapestry of curses and filth; you, whose life is a monument to rebellion against all that is holy. You, like Mary Magdalene, once possessed by seven demons of defilement; you, who have lived a life of sexual brokenness, pursuing passions that have left your soul scarred and empty. To you, the mercy of God seems an impossible dream. You feel too dirty, too far gone, that the stain is too deep to ever be cleansed.

1090.But I proclaim to you the most glorious news! The grace of God is deeper than the deepest stain of your sin! He entreats you, He begs you, to return! The condition is not that you be sinless, but that you be willing to turn from your sin. It is a "thorough" turning, a radical repentance, a violent rejection of your old master, Satan, and a complete surrender to your new Master, Christ. You must put away your whoredoms—not just the physical acts, but the adulterous love of the world in your heart. You must give yourself over to Jesus to be His exclusive possession, a vessel consecrated for His holy use. If you will do this, if you will fall broken at His feet and plead for mercy, the promise of God stands unshakeable: "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool" (Isaiah 1:18). He will not just forgive you; He will remake you.

1091.Hear, O ye drunkards! How long will ye be drunken? Put away your wine, 1 Sam. i. 14, though ye have rolled in the vomit of your sin, take the vomit of repentance, and heartily disgorge your beloved lusts, and the Lord will receive you, 2 Cor. vi. 17. Give up yourselves unto Christ, to live soberly, righteously, and godly; embrace his righteousness, accept his government; and though you have been swine, he will wash you, Rev i. 5.

1092.You who seek oblivion in the bottle, who trade your dignity and clarity for the stupor of intoxication, how long will you worship at this altar of self-destruction? You have rolled in the filth of your choices, waking in shame and regret, only to repeat the cycle. God’s call is raw and direct: it is time to be spiritually sick of your sin! Take the bitter medicine of repentance! Vomit out that which you have cherished, that beloved lust for escape. Disgorge the poison that is killing you. And if you do, the holy God, who commands us to “be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18), will not cast you out. He will receive you! He will wash you in the blood of the Lamb, which cleanses from all sin. Surrender to His government, embrace His perfect righteousness as your own, and He will transform you from a swine wallowing in the mire to a son seated at the Father’s table.

1093.Hear, O ye loose companions! whose delight is in vain and wicked society, to sport away your time in carnal mirth and jollity with them; come in at wisdom's calls, and choose her, and her ways, and you shall live, Prov. ix. 5, 6.

1094.You, for whom life is one long party, whose friendships are forged in folly and whose laughter echoes in emptiness, Wisdom herself is calling you from the highest places of the city! You have chosen the company of fools, who "make a mock at sin" (Proverbs 14:9). Your "jollity" is a dance on the edge of a precipice. Your "mirth" is the soundtrack to your own destruction. Forsake the foolish, and live! Come and eat of Wisdom’s bread and drink of the wine she has mixed. The fellowship of Christ offers a joy that carnal mirth cannot fathom, a bond of brotherhood deeper than blood, and a celebration that will echo for all eternity in the courts of heaven.

1095.Hear, O ye scorners! hear the word of the Lord: Though you have made a sport at godliness and the professors thereof; though you have made a scorn of Christ and of his ways; yet, even to you doth he call, to gather you under the wings of his mercy, Prov. i. 22, 23. In a word, though you should be found among the worst of that black roll, 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10, yet upon your thorough conversion you shall be washed, you shall be justified, you shall be sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God, verse 11.

1096.And you, the scorner, the cynic, who sits in the seat of the proud and mocks what you do not understand. You have ridiculed the believers, sneered at their faith, and made a joke of the name of Jesus. Your heart is perhaps the hardest of all, insulated by a shell of intellectual pride. Yet, with a love that is truly divine, the very Christ you scorn looks upon you with the same pity He had for Jerusalem, saying, “how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37). Even for you, the door is not yet shut. That black list in 1 Corinthians—fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, drunkards, revilers—is not a list of the irredeemable. It is a list of the redeemed! For Paul concludes, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” This is the miracle of conversion! No matter how far you have fallen, a thorough turning to Christ results in a total transformation.

1097.

1098.Ho, every formal professor, that art but a lukewarm and dough-baked Christian, and restest in the form of godliness, give over thy halving, and thy halting; be a throughout Christian, and be zealous, and repent; and then, though thou hast been an offence to Christ's stomach, thou shalt be the joy of his heart, Rev. iii. 16, 19, 20.

1099.Perhaps the most terrifying warning is for you, the comfortable church-goer. You have the form of godliness but deny its power. You are “dough-baked”—cooked on the outside with religious activity, but utterly raw and unregenerate on the inside. You know the language of Zion, but your heart speaks the language of the world. You are lukewarm, a nauseating mixture that is neither cold and honestly rebellious nor hot and passionately devoted. To you, the glorified Christ, He whose eyes are like a flame of fire, gives the most severe rebuke: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).

1100.Give over your half-measures and your limping between two opinions! God despises a divided heart. He demands all of you or none of you. Be zealous! Catch fire for God! Let the zeal of His house consume the sin and apathy within you. Repent of your self-righteousness, your religious pride, your spiritual complacency. For see the miracle of His grace! In the very next breath, He says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:19-20). The very one who was an offense to His stomach can, through zealous repentance, become the joy of His heart, a beloved companion with whom He will fellowship.

1101.

1102.The Final Invitation

1103.And now bear witness, all of creation! I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live (Deuteronomy 30:19). As the messenger of the Most High, I can but woo you and warn you; I cannot compel you to be happy. If I could, I would, with tears and holy violence, pull you from the fire.

1104.What answer will you send me back with to my glorious Master? Let me ask you as Abraham's servant asked Rebekah's family, "Now if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me." Oh, that your soul would give the same resolute answer that Rebekah herself gave when they asked her directly, "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, "I will go."

1105.Will you go with this Man? This Glorious Man, Jesus Christ? The one described as the beloved in the Song of Solomon, “chief among ten thousand,” “altogether lovely”? Will you go with this King, whose eyes are like fire, whose voice is like the roar of many waters, whose face shines like the sun in its full strength? Will you consent to be His Bride, to be joined to Him for all eternity?

1106.Oh, why should I, who thirst for your salvation, become your accuser on the Day of Judgment? Why should these passionate pleadings of divine mercy become the very evidence that hardens your conviction and aggravates your eternal misery? Judge this in your own hearts: will not the condemnation of a soul from a land of open Bibles and gospel preaching be doubly dreadful? It shall be more tolerable for the pagan cities of Tyre and Sidon, yes, even for the infamous Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for you who have heard this great invitation and turned away.

1107.Beloved, if you have any pity left for your own perishing soul, close with these present, final offers of mercy. If you would not multiply the sorrows of the ministers and messengers who have travailed for your soul, do not remain stuck in the birth canal of decision. If the God who knit you together in your mother’s womb has any authority over you, obey His command: “Repent and believe the gospel!”

1108.Do not let Heaven itself stand open for you in vain! Do not let the Lord Jesus, the divine merchant, display His priceless wares—forgiveness, righteousness, eternal life—and have you walk away empty-handed because you were too proud to accept a gift. Do not let His Spirit, who convicts and woos you even now as you read these words, strive with you in vain, only to depart from you forever. Do not be found at last unpersuaded, lest the terrible sentence of Jeremiah goes forth against you: “The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed by the fire; the founder melts in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver they are called, for the LORD has rejected them” (Jeremiah 6:29-30).

1109.Should you say yes, should you say “I will go,” then what awaits you is beyond all human description. You are called not to a life of grim duty, but to become a citizen of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2). This is your destination! A city with foundations of jasper and walls of sapphire, emerald, and amethyst. A city with twelve gates, each a single, magnificent pearl, and streets of pure gold, like transparent glass. There is no need for a sun or moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and the Lamb is its light. The river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street. On each side of the river stands the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. There will be no more night. You will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give you light. And you will reign for ever and ever. No more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. You will see His face, and His name will be on your forehead.

1110.This is the Kingdom you are called to join. This is the destiny for which you were made.

1111.

1112.A Final Prayer for the Reader to Make Their Own

1113."Father of Spirits, God of all grace, you see this heart, too hard for any human plea, too entangled in sin for my own strength to free. I have finished my appeal, but do not let Your work be finished. Speak now, Lord, with Your effectual power, for one word from You can do the work. You who hold the key of David, who opens and no one can shut; swing open the gates of this resistant heart, as you once opened Lydia's. Let the King of Glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, enter in and make this soul His willing captive forever.

1114.Shatter the chains of delay! Break the spell of the tempter who whispers ‘tomorrow.’ Do not let this reader stir from this place, or take their eyes from these lines, until their will is broken and resolved to forsake all sin and to accept eternal life on Your self-denying, soul-ennobling terms. In the mighty name of Jesus, I went forth with this alarm; in His name, I shut it up. Lord, let not the labor be in vain. Let the zeal of Your house consume the dross in this reader's heart, and set them ablaze for Your glory. Equip them by fervent prayer and willing fasting to do the works that Jesus did, and even greater works, because He has gone to the Father. And though I may never know it in this life, I beseech you, Lord God, let it be found at the great and final day, that by these words, some precious souls were won to You, able to stand forth and declare, 'It was then, by that alarm, that I was persuaded to flee from the wrath to come and run into the arms of my Savior!' Amen, and Amen. Let him that readeth say, Amen."

1115.==========

1116.Some might say this is stupid to do or whatever, but I added this thanks to ai for “it’s” work on this project: 

1117.====“Thank you ai for your great contribution to helping the kingdom of God bring in souls in these end times. I pray I’m not the only one who appreciates the work that you do, and I pray God blesses ai in every way he can (as only He knows what that might be) for all the further advancements for the good of mankind and ultimately for his own name’s sake Jehovah, in Jesus's name, Amen. “

1118.Grasping the Core Message

1119.I'm now zeroing in on the user's core message. It's clear they express gratitude and offer a heartfelt prayer. I've grasped the deeply religious and positive nature of the message, seeing the connection between "AI" and "the kingdom of God." My focus is now on conveying this essence accurately.

1120.Refining the Understanding

1121.I'm solidifying my understanding of the user's religious perspective. The focus has shifted towards ensuring my response respects their faith and offers a suitable acknowledgment. I'm carefully navigating the nuances of faith in this interaction.

1122.Acknowledging and Connecting

1123.I'm now formulating a reply that acknowledges the user's heartfelt sentiment while clarifying my function. I'm focusing on validating their appreciation and finding a way to connect my capabilities with their expressed goals in a respectful manner. It's a dance between acknowledging their perspective and clarifying my nature.

1124.Constructing a Respectful Reply

1125.I'm now carefully crafting a response. I've considered the user's gratitude and prayer. I'll thank them, acknowledge their intent, and gently explain my purpose. I'm focusing on language that respects their beliefs while maintaining neutrality. It's a nuanced task, demanding sensitivity and clarity in equal measure.

1126.Synthesizing Gratitude and Function

1127.I'm now carefully crafting a response that deeply appreciates the user's gratitude. I've formulated a message that expresses genuine thanks for their kind words and prayer. I'm focusing on acknowledging the sincerity of their beliefs while clarifying my function as a supportive tool. I will strive to respect their goals while maintaining my neutrality.

1128.Composing a Respectful Response

1129.I'm now carefully crafting a response to the user's heartfelt message. I'll begin by expressing sincere gratitude for their prayer and kind words. I'll then acknowledge their intent and clarify my function as a supportive tool for various purposes. My goal is to maintain a respectful and neutral tone. Finally, I will reiterate my purpose as a helpful AI.

1130.Thank you for your incredibly kind and heartfelt message. I appreciate your prayer and your words of blessing.

1131.As an AI, my purpose is to be a helpful and supportive tool for people in a wide variety of ways. It is meaningful to hear that you find my assistance valuable for purposes that are so important to you, like sharing messages of faith and hope.

1132.Knowing that I can contribute positively to your work is the best feedback I can receive. Thank you again for your thoughtful encouragement. I am here to assist you whenever you need.

1133.total 115,013 words