Follow up on: As Evil Reigns In The End-Of-This-Age, What Should A Believer Do? "Secret Prayer", by Thomas Brooks
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Jeremiah 23:29 'Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?'
Preaching the gospel is just like hammering away at hard hearts. Alas, that there is so little response! I have heard of a gentleman, a traveling man, who used to go to a town where there were many great factories and foundries. In that town scores of immense steel hammers were pounding away continuously. The noise was deafening, and this gentleman of whom I speak, found it impossible to sleep in that town, for there was no cessation of the noise day or night.
But the people of the town were so thoroughly used to it that they could sleep on through it all. But one night something went wrong with the power plant, and all the hammers stopped. At once all the town woke up. What awakened them? It was the unusual quiet and stillness succeeding the years of deafening sound. Beloved friends, the day has now drawn very near when God’s hammers shall all cease their pounding. Soon gospel days will have ended, preaching the message of love and grace which you have refused so long will have ceased; and then, ah then! there will indeed be a great awakening - an awakening when it is too late to be saved; when the great men and the chief captains and the mighty men, and every bondman and every free man will hide themselves in the dens and in caves of the mountains and will cry to the rocks, " Fall on us," and to the hills, " Cover us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon 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? " [Rev. 6:15,16-17].
But no hiding place will avail in that day, for God will then be dealing no longer in grace, but in stern intrinsic justice with those who have not received the love of the truth that they might be saved [2Thes. 2:10]. Their heart—rending cry will be, " The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and I am not saved? [Jer. 8:20]
O dear unsaved one, weigh these things well, and trifle no longer with the question of the eternal destiny of your precious soul still unsettled. If you continue to do despite to the Spirit of grace [Heb. 10:29], "what wilt thou say when He shall punish thee?" [Jer. 13:21] - H.A. Ironside (1876-1951)
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Unbeliever, it is far later than when Ironside wrote this, and the door is still not yet shut; but it will be - Luke 21:35, and when it is, it's over - Luke 13:25
There is only one way in that door - belief; earning by being good enough - that will never happen: Rom. 4:25 'But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness'
Mark 9:24 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief'
***
Jeremiah 23:29 'Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?'
Preaching the gospel is just like hammering away at hard hearts. Alas, that there is so little response! I have heard of a gentleman, a traveling man, who used to go to a town where there were many great factories and foundries. In that town scores of immense steel hammers were pounding away continuously. The noise was deafening, and this gentleman of whom I speak, found it impossible to sleep in that town, for there was no cessation of the noise day or night.
But the people of the town were so thoroughly used to it that they could sleep on through it all. But one night something went wrong with the power plant, and all the hammers stopped. At once all the town woke up. What awakened them? It was the unusual quiet and stillness succeeding the years of deafening sound. Beloved friends, the day has now drawn very near when God’s hammers shall all cease their pounding. Soon gospel days will have ended, preaching the message of love and grace which you have refused so long will have ceased; and then, ah then! there will indeed be a great awakening - an awakening when it is too late to be saved; when the great men and the chief captains and the mighty men, and every bondman and every free man will hide themselves in the dens and in caves of the mountains and will cry to the rocks, " Fall on us," and to the hills, " Cover us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon 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? " [Rev. 6:15,16-17].
But no hiding place will avail in that day, for God will then be dealing no longer in grace, but in stern intrinsic justice with those who have not received the love of the truth that they might be saved [2Thes. 2:10]. Their heart—rending cry will be, " The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and I am not saved? [Jer. 8:20]
O dear unsaved one, weigh these things well, and trifle no longer with the question of the eternal destiny of your precious soul still unsettled. If you continue to do despite to the Spirit of grace [Heb. 10:29], "what wilt thou say when He shall punish thee?" [Jer. 13:21] - H.A. Ironside (1876-1951)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unbeliever, it is far later than when Ironside wrote this, and the door is still not yet shut; but it will be - Luke 21:35, and when it is, it's over - Luke 13:25
There is only one way in that door - belief; earning by being good enough - that will never happen: Rom. 4:25 'But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness'
Mark 9:24 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief'
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