Fire! Fire!--by J.C. Ryle

I have been waiting a while to decide when I should publish this post. I believe this is a good time to do so since the last few posts I have published dealt with explaining the gospel of mercy, hope and good news to sinners lost and on their way to eternal separation from God.

This is one of the most delicate topics to deal with. This is one of those truths that no one wants to talk about and many people simply deny. It is hard to bring up this topic because it hurts. It hurts to believe that people we know, we interact with each day, will be in eternal torment if they do not repent of their sins. It almost doesn't seem real in our cultural context to bring up these seldom discussed facts about hell. We see ourselves as "pretty good" when God says our righteousness is as filthy rages. There is nothing we can do to please God. We are eternally lost and hopeless without Him. His mercy for us is undeserved and He extends His mercy and grace to us only because He chooses to.

His holiness is so far above our ability to comprehend that anything short of His holiness is detestable to him. He requires nothing less than holiness from us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to achieve this. We cannot even come close. After we realize this truth and admit it to him, it is at that point that we may begin to receive His grace. He then imputes His righteousness to us. WOW! What a great and merciful God he is.

God wants us to realize that we are broken, pitiful, destroyed, weak, vile and worthless. Basically he wants us to agree with Him that this is our state and our condition---Mark 7:20-23 and Romans 3:9-20. We are this way because we have offended His holiness and violated His perfect standard of rightousness, not because anybody finds glee and pleasure in being weak, vile and worthless. Nobody wants to believe that this is the way we are. But this is how we are spiritually and until we understand this we will never really "get it".

God's "purpose" for us is to glorify Him. We cannot glorify this holy God when we are in a condition of defiance toward Him, which we all are in from our birth. We are to blame for this. I am to blame for my defiance toward God.

We need to see this truth and repent.

His grace is free and he offers it to all who see this truth.

Please read this article carefully and prayerfully. It is a difficult issue to come to terms with but it is vitally important that a person understands the fact of hell. It stands to demonstrate, by contrast how God's holiness cannot be compromised one iota. And that His grace and wrath were both displayed at the cross through the crucifixion for our redemption and salvation.

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Fire Fire! by J.C. Ryle

"When a house is on fire, what ought to be done first? We ought to give the alarm and wake the inhabitants. This is true love to our neighbor. this is true charity. Reader, I love your soul, and want it to be saved. I am therefore going to tell you something about hell. There is such a place as hell. Let no one deceive you with vain words. What men do not like, they try hard not to believe. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes to judge the world, he will punish all who are not his disciples with a fearful punishment. All who are found impenitent and unbelieving; all who have clung to sin, stuck to the world, and set their affections on things below; all who are without Christ; all such shall come to an awful end. Whosoever is not written in the book of life shall be "cast into the lake of fire." Rev 20:15...

...READ ENTIRE ARTICLE (it's not that long, and it could have eternal consequences).