Please STOP! LOOK! LISTEN! To the Scripture Just for a Moment! The Apostle Paul Exhorts, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith . . .”!

Jesus reaches down His hand to accept us!

A Devotional Thought for Friday May 23

“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith . . .”

2 Corinthians 13: 5a.

My first word shall be to the open profane. Poor sinner, you who read here that but a few will be saved; that many that expect heaven will go without heaven. What do you say to this, poor sinner? Let me say it over again. There are but [a] few to be saved, but very few. Let me add, but few professors—but few eminent professors. What do you say now, sinner? If judgment begins at the house of God, what will the end of them be that obey not the gospel of God? This is Peter’s question. Can you answer it, sinner? Yea, I say again, if judgment must begin at them, will it not make you think. What shall become of me? And I add, when thou shalt see the stars of heaven tumble down to hell, can you think that such a muckheap [dung] of sin as you shall be lifted up to heaven? Peter asks you another question, to wit, “If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Peter 4: 18). Can you answer this question, sinner? Stand among the righteous you may not: “The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.” (Psalm 1: 5) Stand among the wicked you then will not dare to do. Where will you appear, sinner? To stand among the hypocrites will avail you of nothing. The hypocrite “shall not come before him,” that is, with acceptance, but shall perish (Job 13:16). Because it concerns thee much, let me over with it again! When thou shalt see less sinners than thou art, bound up by angels in bundles, to burn them, where wilt thou appear, sinner?

[1] That is, applications for the whole book of THE STRAIT GATE; OR, GREAT DIFFICULTY OF GOING TO HEAVEN: PLAINLY PROVING, BY THE SCRIPTURES, THAT NOT ONLY THE RUDE AND PROFANE, BUT MANY GREAT PROFESSORS, WILL COME SHORT OF THAT KINGDOM.