Burden Of Proof

[Maverick]

On Sat, 27 Nov 2021 14:41:07 -0600, Bob Hoffman wrote in message:
<DJwoJ.20773$Vt1....@fx09.iad>:

>Bible Reading for November 29
>
>2 Corinthians 13
>
>[5] Examine yourselves, whether ye be
>in the faith; prove your own selves.
>Know ye not your own selves, how that
>Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be
>reprobates?


What must be the apostate professor's
doom when his naked soul appears
before God?

How will he bear that voice, "Depart,
ye cursed; thou hast rejected me, and
I reject thee; thou hast played the
harlot, and departed from me: I also
have banished thee forever from my
presence, and will not have mercy
upon thee."

What will be this wretch's shame at the
last great day when, before assembled
multitudes, the apostate shall be
unmasked?

See the profane, and sinners who never
professed religion, lifting themselves
up from their beds of fire to point at
him. "There he is," says one, "will he
preach the gospel in hell?"

"There he is," says another, "he rebuked
me for cursing, and was a hypocrite
himself!"

"Aha!" says another, "here comes a
psalm-singing Methodist--one who was
always at his meeting; he is the man
who boasted of his being sure of
everlasting life; and here he is!"

No greater eagerness will ever be seen
among Satanic tormentors, than in that
day when devils drag the hypocrite's
soul down to perdition.

Bunyan pictures this with massive but
awful grandeur of poetry when he speaks
of the back-way to hell.

Seven devils bound the wretch with nine
cords, and dragged him from the road to
heaven, in which he had professed to
walk, and thrust him through the back-
door into hell. Mind that back-way to
hell, professors!

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in
the faith" (2 Corinthians 13:5). Look
well to your state; see whether you be
in Christ or not.

It is the easiest thing in the world
to give a lenient verdict when oneself
is to be tried; but O, be just and
true here.

Be just to all, but be rigorous to
yourself. Remember if it be not a rock
on which you build, when the house shall
fall, great will be the fall of it.

O may the Lord give you sincerity,
constancy, and firmness; and in no
day, however evil, may you be led
to turn aside.

--C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
_Morning And Evening_ [1948];
"June 26, Morning"

--
Maverick

[Madhu]

* Maverick <4pf9qg90nnftpmjpcc1eg15nnv9cjuf527@ 4ax.com> :
Wrote on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 05:08:13 -0800:

"Death is now at work, cutting down the barren professor,
hewing both bark and heart asunder. The man groans, but
Death hears him not. He looks ghastly, careful,
dejectedly. He sighs, he sweats, he trembles. Death matters
not! And now, could the soul be annihilated, how happy it
would count itself. But it sees that this must not be. Stay
in the body it may not. Go out of the body, it dares
not. Life is going; the blood settles in the flesh, the
lungs being no more able to breathe through the nostrils. At
last, out goes the trembling soul, and is seized by the
devils that lay lurking for it in the chamber. Friends take
care of the body, wrap it up in the sheet or coffin; but the
soul is out of their reach." --Bunyan