The Word of God makes plain that “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the Rewarder of all them that diligently seek Him.” Yet man by nature does not possess the knowledge of God and has no trust in Him. This is the sad condition to which our fall in Adam has brought us. We lost the knowledge of the living and true God and have become sinful, corrupt and defiled. We are estranged from God, the infinitely holy and infinitely glorious One. We have forsaken the Fountain of living waters, the Fountain of life, and have hewn out for ourselves broken cisterns, which can hold no water. Our situation is awful in the extreme, for we have exposed ourselves to the wrath and curse of God, both in this life and in that which is to come. The result is that we are on the way to everlasting destruction to receive the due reward of our sins and of our apostasy from our God. Men do not lay this to heart, yet the Word of God leaves us in no doubt of it. “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” This does not mean only physical and spiritual death but ultimately eternal death in hell fire for ever. This is the place reserved for the devil and for his angels, and the place to which all impenitent sinners shall be consigned for ever and ever. From that place of woe there is no escape. It was said to the rich man: “Beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from hence.” There is no highway from hell to heaven. “These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal,” the Saviour declared.
What hope is there, therefore, for the soul that lies in sin? There is no hope in man, no hope in himself. Such a hope is vain, though many cleave to it to the very end, believing that it will save them. But it is not believing
in a vain hope that will save any sinner but believing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not believing in any man that will establish the soul of the sinner in a well-grounded hope, but believing in the Man Christ Jesus. “That is something very different, and something that saves the soul from everlasting death.” It is a living faith that proves soul-saving. Such a faith is of the operation of the Spirit of God working secretly in the depths of the soul. Bound up with a soul being brought to trust in and rest upon Christ alone for eternity, is the soul being brought to know its need of Him as a Saviour. It is sinners Christ came to seek and to save and it is as needy sinners, ready to perish, that souls are brought to look to Him, and to Him alone for salvation. Not only is the soul brought to see its need of salvation, but also to see in Christ the One who alone can meet the soul’s needs. It is in His Saviourship that the sinner finds Christ to be all its salvation and all its desire. Had Christ ever remained in His exalted glory and never came near to sinners in His humiliation, there would be no Saviour for them. But He has come near in His coming into this world, in taking their nature, and in His suffering and dying on Calvary. It is in a Saviour who was dead, and who is alive, and is alive for evermore that the soul trusts for eternity. In His death He made an end of sin and brought in an everlasting righteousness, so that “none perish that Him trust.”
One look to Christ would suffice to save your soul forever. No matter how tried you may be about your soul’s salvation, no matter how many fears you may have that you will perish one day by the hand of Saul, still the Word of God stands sure, “None perish that Him trust.” He will not lose His glory for any for whom He has laid down His life. He will bring every one of them at last to glory.