“But, Sir, ‘Tis If I Endure.”

“HAVE you known the Lord many years?” we lately asked a well-known Christian lady. She replied, “If I know the Lord, I have known Him many years.” “Why do you say ‘if?’ Have you any doubt about your salvation?” “I hope I know Him,” she said; “and as to salvation, I hope I shall be saved; but, sir, ‘tis if I endure; for does not the Scripture say, that ‘he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved’?” We refer to this case because it is by no mean a singular one; and no marvel, when we hear of those whom we trust are servants of Christ preaching from this test to endeavor to persuade their hearers by it that no one can be quite sure of salvation, and that it is presumption to say that we are saved. It is really distressing to find so many whose ways and words make us hope that they are really born again of God’s Spirit, who are constantly doubting their security. They little think how greatly it dishonors Christ, and grieves the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption.
It is quite true that the Scripture does say, that “he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” (Matt. 24:13; Mark 13:13.) But the question is, Who are the persons here spoken of? Certainly we are not; for we know that we have everlasting life, and shall never perish, that we have passed from death unto life, that Christ is our life; for we are in Him who is true. But the Lord is here putting forth a prophetic discourse. He is speaking of what will take place after the Church is gone, before Christ appears with us in manifested glory at the end of the age. The people here spoken of are godly Jews, who will be inspired with hopes concerning Messiah and the kingdom, who refuse to bow down to the beast and his image, at the time when this wicked one shall be putting to death all those who do not receive his mark in their right hands or in their foreheads. Then we can easily see it will be a question of endurance; for such as do endure this fiery persecution will be saved in the flesh, as Noah was. Such will be brought through the fiery persecution, as he was through the flood, and enjoy Messiah’s presence in the kingdom when He reigns before His ancients gloriously. When the Lord repeats the same statement in Matthew 10:22, He evidently contemplates “the gospel of the kingdom” which He there commissions the twelve apostles to carry, as being resumed before the end when the Son of man cometh, which we now know will be taken up by the Jewish remnant after the Church is removed. The question then, I say, will be one of endurance. Now it is simply a question of being in Christ; for such have been quickened together, raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Instead, therefore, of looking forward to a questionable salvation at the end, we have eternal life at starting, we are born again of the Spirit, we have passed from death unto life, we are justified from all things, we shall not come into condemnation, we have died unto sin, we are alive unto God, through Christ Jesus, joined to the Lord, and already seated in Him in heavenly places, who is our life and righteousness, and who hath obtained eternal redemption for us. Nay more, we now know the heavens opened, the veil rent, that Jesus is ascended and gone in there by His own blood, time giving us title to enter now with boldness into God’s presence at all times. Instead, therefore, of its being a question of our faithfulness, or of our endurance, our hearts are taught by the Holy Ghost through the Scriptures to rest in God’s word God’s faithfulness, and the unchangeableness of Him who cannot lie, and who declares that Christ is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” (Heb. 7:25.) We therefore can glory in the Lord, and not in the flesh. Our joy is, that we are now brought into the result of an accomplished work of salvation, according to God’s eternal purpose and grave, and that nothing can change His perfect love to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. We can look up, therefore, and unfeignedly ring,
“Without one thought that’s good to plead,
O what could shield us from despair
But this, though we are vile indeed,
THE LORD OUR RIGHTOUSNESS IS THERE?”
Such, and much more, the gospel of the grace of God brings us; and this received into the heart is the source of all peace and rest of conscience, the ground of all worship and communion with the Father, and the spring also of devotedness and service to our Lord Jesus. If any fear whether such amazing love to such thoroughly unworthy ones would make them careless as to walk and testimony for the Lord, we would ask them, Have you tasted this goodness of God? have you revolved this unspeakable grace of God in Christ into your heart as eternal truth?
Dear reader, there is all the difference between the bare knowledge of the fact that Christ died for sinners, and receiving into your soul for your own blessing the marvelous grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. To know Him crucified as God’s way of saving you, to hold firmly the blessed fact, that when nothing else could cave you, and none else cared to save you, that God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up freely to die the death of the cross, that whosoever―you or anyone else―believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life―I say, to grasp such a fact in the deep consciousness of your hell-deserving state, can it fail to move the affections? Can it do otherwise than win the heart? Is it capable of less than moving the bowels and affections, and making us long to be wholly consecrated to Him who so loved us, and gave Himself for us? Be assured, my reader, that those who have known and believed this gospel of the grace of God, find the Lord Jesus to be an untiring object of delight, an inexhaustible fullness of eternal riches, a ceaseless cause for wonder and praise, and they have a constant longing to know Him more perfectly, and serve Him more faithfully. So vast and boundless is the blessing God has given us in Christ Jesus, and through His blood, that the soul sometimes cries out,

“What in thy love possess I not?
My star by night, my sun by day,
My spring of life when parched with drought;
My wine to cheer, my bread to stay,
My strength, my shield, my safe abode,
My righteousness before my God.”

Dear reader, before you lay down this paper, do ask yourself the plain question, “Have I eternal life?” Do not say, “I hope I shall,” for almost every person intends to have it, and thus allows the mere intentions to deceive and cheat them out of the reality. The point is, Have you eternal life now? Are your sins forgiven? ARE YOU justified from all things? Why not? Because you have not believed God’s testimony to the work of eternal redemption, which Christ accomplished on the cross for every one that believeth? O that I could persuade you now to look up to Jesus at God’s right hand in glory, and take Him as your Saviour! Why not now? O do think most seriously of this, for eternal consequences regarding yourself hang upon it. No longer refuse this sinner-loving Saviour, who delighteth in mercy, who came into the world to save sinners, “he died for the ungodly, and though now alive again from the dead, and at God’s right hand in heaven, still saves sinners; still welcomes all who come to Him; still says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”
Reader, are you going on to judgment, to receive “WAGES” for your works? or will you now receive eternal life as God’s free “GIFT” through Jesus? Hearken to God’s truth: “The WAGES of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23.)

Remarks on Matthew 24, 25.
No. 3.
THEY must beware of being deceived by man. Our Lord therefore forewarns them. A false Christ will be the great exhibition of the power of Satan. We know this will characterize the seventieth week. However much these principles have been, and still are, at work, their full accomplishment cannot be looked for till after the Church is gone. Then the false Christ will come upon the scene, and many will be deceived. True it is that the name of Christ is already associated with much that is evil, but it is only tending towards the culminating point of this masterpiece of iniquity. However lamb-like he will appear, he will really be a dragon, and energized by Satan. He will not, like Jesus, come in his Father’s name, but come in his own name, and deceive many. Our Lord thus, in replying to the disciples’ questions, seems to look beyond the present time of the calling out of the Church, but takes up Israel’s history, after the Church is gone, and gives the sign of His coming and of the end of the age. Thus we have a series of events characterizing the time of the end, which terminates in the Lord’s coming again to earth, (for His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives,) when Israel shall say, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” It may be well to notice that this record of events corresponds with the opening of the seals in the Apocalypse, which we know does not come into action until the heavenly saints are actually seated on thrones in the heavens. Our Lord, therefore, recognizing the disciples who had asked these questions as representative of the Jews who will come upon the scene after the Church is gone, inspired with hope of the kingdom, begins by saying, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” He also told them that there would be wars and rumors of wars, and they were not to be troubled; but the end, that is, the end of the age, is not yet. There would also be famines and pestilences, but these things will be only introductory to the deep and unparalleled sorrows which will follow. Now observe, that when these judgments shall have been put forth according to the order of the first four seals of the Revelation, then what the fifth seal tells us is next brought out; for those who shall then be the bearers of God’s testimony, the publishers of “the gospel of the kingdom,” will be put to death, as represented in Rev. 6:9, 10 by the souls under the altar. “They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.” Observe, too, that this will be a time when iniquity shall abound, and false prophets will deceive many. Then comes in the promise of salvation in the end to those who endure; a salvation of people bodily out of the great tribulation which will then come upon the earth, a salvation which those who yield to the deceiving’s of the beast will lose, while those who endure in patient faith will be brought through the fire, and into the promised blessing. But there is another thing; “this gospel of the kingdom,” (mark, “this gospel of the kingdom!”) which was preached by our Lord and the twelve, must then be taken up again, and published throughout all the nations; not to the κοσμος, the world in its largest sense, but the οικουμενη, the civilized world,―the same word that is used for the Roman earth when it is said, “all the world shall be taxed,”―and then shall the end come. Thus it is clear, that before the end of the age can come, the glad tidings of the kingdom must be thus published. Now we preach not “the gospel of the kingdom,” but “the gospel of the grace of God.” While we truly declare that all things were made by Christ and for Christ, and that all things are yet to be put in subjection under Him, we do preach that He that believeth God’s testimony, as to Jesus crucified and risen, is delivered from the wrath to come, has passed from death unto life, and has union with Christ in the heavenlies by the power of the Holy Ghost. But the gospel of the kingdom will be very different. It will announce the coming of the King to set up His kingdom, and bring in that blessing on the earth which prophets have long spoken of, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,”(Isa. 11: 9,) when all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, (Num. 14:21,) and when it shall be truly said, “O Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”(Psa. 8:9.) It is important, then, to distinguish between the two testimonies,” the gospel of the kingdom “and” the gospel of the grace of God.” The gospel of the kingdom, when published by the twelve apostles, was limited to the cities of Israel (Matt. 5:5, 23); but it will yet be carried to the nations, before the end of the age comes, and connected with suffering and martyrdom to those who preach it. It was always supposed to be connected with suffering to those who bore the message, and by and by, as we see, it will be associated with betrayal, hatred, affliction, and death.
It may be that some will have difficulty in considering that the disciples are here addressed by our Lord as representative of the faithful Jews who shall come upon the scene after the calling out of the Church. But how otherwise could we understand expressions which we afterward get; such as, “When ye shall see the abomination of desolation… Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day;” for, as a matter of fact, the disciples whom our Lord addressed actually fell asleep well-nigh 2,000 years ago, and the abomination spoken of by Daniel the prophet has not yet been set up. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus was certainly not that. Besides, this chapter tells us, that the Lord will be revealed from heaven immediately after the tribulation of those days. Moreover, as we have seen, the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet is clearly set forth in connection with the man of sin, who has not yet come forth; nor do the Scriptures lead us to expect he will come till the Church is gone, however much the mystery of iniquity and the principles of lawlessness have been and still are at work, and rapidly preparing the way for him.
But further. Such language as, “If any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or lo, there,” can hardly be conceived to be our Lord’s instruction to us, who are set in the posture of waiting for Him from heaven, and expect to be caught up to meet Him in the air. It surely would be no temptation to us to be told that Christ was in this place or that. The soul that waits for the Lord Himself to descend from heaven refuses the thought; but to a Jew, who is taught by the prophets to expect the Messiah on earth, we can easily understand how the report that He had come, and was either in the desert, or in a secret place, might deceive. Another reason why they were not to be deceived by such a report is, that there would be the sign of His coming, the sign of the Son of man in heaven, introducing His advent to Israel, when, as we have observed, they will say, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!”