Called to Salvation

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1 Thessalonians 5:9-10

For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,…

God is pleased to day to put up before your eyes the white flag of mercy, calling you to come to Jesus and live. But recollect, if you do not yield to it, He will put up the red flag of threatening, and then the black flag of execution will not be far off. Perhaps some of you have been suffering under bodily disease — take that as a warning. When our vessels of war would stop a suspicious vessel, they fire a shot athwart her bows as a warning. If she does not haul to, perhaps they give another; and if no notice is taken of this, the gunners go to their business in real earnest, and woe to the offender. Your affliction is the gospel's warning gun. Pause awhile, I beseech you; ask the Lord in mercy to look upon you, that you may be saved! As I think upon some of you here who are not saved, I feel some thing like the boy I read of yesterday in the newspapers: Last week there were two lads on the great rocks of Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel, looking for seagulls' eggs; one of them went far down the cliff, and lost his footing, and when his brother, hearing a faint voice, looked down, he saw him clinging to a jutting crag, and striving in vain to find a place for his feet. There stood the anxious brother, alarmed and paralyzed with dread, quite unable to help the younger one in so much peril below, who soon relaxed his hold and was dashed to pieces far beneath. I feel somewhat like that alarmed brother, only there is this happy difference: I can hope for you, and bid you hope for yourselves. You are clinging now, perhaps, to some false hope, and striving to find a rest where rest is not to be found; but the strong-winged Angel of the everlasting gospel is just underneath you this morning, crying, "Drop now; simply, drop into My arms; I will take you and bear you aloft in safety." That Angel as the Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ. You must be dashed to pieces forever unless you rest in Him; but cast yourself upon Him, I pray you, and then, as you are carried in safety far off from every fear, you will magnify the grace of God and extol the glorious gospel.

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