the Christian's life and death. This sermon was originally preached on August 16th in the year 1857 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The text for this morning comes from the book of Philippians, Philippians chapter one, verse 21. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. How threatening these words follow each other in the text, live, die. There is only a comma between them. And surely as it is in the words, so it is in reality. How brief the distance between life and death. In fact, there is none. Life is the porch to death. And our pilgrimage on earth is nothing but a journey to the grave. The pulse that preserves our life beats our death march. And the blood which circulates our body is flowing onward to the ocean of death. Today we see our friends in health. Tomorrow we hear of their death. We shook the hand of the strong man only yesterday, and today we prepare his funeral. We rode in the chariot of comfort only an hour ago, and in a few more hours, the last black chariot will transport us to the home of the dead. Oh, how closely is life linked to death, The lamb that plays in the field must soon feel the knife. The cow that moves in the pasture is fattening for the slaughter. Trees only grow so that they may be cut down. Yes, and greater things than these feel death. Empires rise and flourish. They flourish only to decay. They rise to fall. How often do we pick up a history book and read of the rise and fall of empires? We hear of the coronation and the death of kings. Death is the black servant who rides behind the chariot of life. See life and death is close behind it. Death reaches far throughout this world. and has stamped all earthly things with the mark of the grave. Stars die and astronomers have noted the funerals of other worlds. The decay of those mighty planets that we had imagined were set forever in sockets of silver to glisten as the lamps of eternity. But blessed be God, there is one place where death is not life's brother, where life and life alone reigns. There is a land where the bells of death are never rung, where grave clothes are never manufactured, and where graves are never dug. Blessed land beyond the skies, to reach it we must die. But if after death we obtain a glorious immortality, then our text is indeed true, to die is gain. If you want a good estimate of the happiness of any man, you must judge him in these two closely connected things, his life and his death. The heathen Solon said, call no man happy until he is dead. For you do not know what changes may pass on him in life. To estimate a man's condition, we must view it from the beginning to the end. We must not simply measure that one thread which reaches from the cradle to the coffin. No, we must go further. We must go from the coffin to the resurrection. and from the resurrection on throughout eternity. To know whether acts are profitable, I must not estimate their effects on me for the hour in which I live, but for the eternity in which I am to exist. I must not weigh matters in the scales of time. I must not calculate by the hours, minutes, and seconds of the clock. but I must count and value things by the ages of eternity. Come then, beloved, we have before us the picture of a man, the two sides of whose existence will both bear inspection. We have his life, we have his death. We have it set of his life to live as Christ and of his death, to die his gain. And if the same can be said of any of you, oh, you may rejoice. You are among that very happy number whom the Lord has loved and whom he delights to honor. We will now divide our text into these two very simple points, the Christian's life and the Christian's death. As to his life, we have that briefly described this way, for me to live is Christ. The believer did not always live to Christ. When he was first born into this world, he was a slave of sin and an heir of wrath, even like others. Though he may have afterwards become the greatest of saints, yet until divine grace has entered his heart, He is full of bitterness and a captive to sin. He only begins to live to Christ when God the Holy Spirit convinces him of his sin and of his desperate evil nature and when, by grace, he is brought to see the dying Savior as an atonement for his guilt. From that moment, when by faith he sees the slaughtered victim of Calvary and casts his whole life on Him to be saved, to be redeemed, to be preserved, and to be blessed by the virtue of Christ's atonement and the greatness of His grace, it is from that moment the man begins to live to Christ. And now let me tell you briefly as I can what living to Christ means. What living to Christ means. First, living to Christ means that the life of a Christian derives its parentage from Christ. The life of a Christian derives its parentage from Christ. For me to live is Christ The righteous man has two lives. He has one which he inherited from his parents. He looks back to an ancestral race of which he is the branch, and he traces his life to the stock of his parents. But he has a second life, a spiritual life, a life which is as much above mere mental life as mental life is above the life of an animal or the plant. And for the source of this spiritual life, he looks not to his earthly father or mother, nor to a priest, nor a man, nor to himself, but he looks to Christ. He says, O Lord Jesus, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, you are my spiritual parent, Unless your spirit had breathed into my nostrils the breath of a new, holy and spiritual life, I would have been to this day dead, dead in trespasses and sins. I owe my third principle, my spirit, to the implanting of your grace. I received a body and a soul by my parents. I have received a third principle. the Spirit from you. And in you I live and move and have my being. My new, my best, my highest, my most heavenly life is wholly derived from you. To you I ascribe it. My life is hid with Christ in God. It is no longer I that live. but Christ that lives in me. And so the Christian says, for me to live is Christ. Because for me to live is to live a life whose parentage is not of human origin, but of divine, even of Christ himself. Again, When the Apostle says, to live is Christ, he means that Christ was the sustenance of his life, the food his newborn spirit fed upon. The believer has three parts to be sustained, the body, which must have its proper nourishment, the soul which must have knowledge and thought to supply it, and the spirit which must feed on Christ. Without bread, I will, in time, be reduced to nothing but a skeleton, and finally I will die. Without thought, my mind becomes dwarfed, and dwindles itself until I become an idiot, an idiot with a soul that has just life but little more. And without Christ, my newborn spirit must become a vague, shadowy emptiness. It cannot live unless it feeds on that heavenly manna which came down from heaven. Now the Christian can say, the life that I live is Christ, because Christ is the food on which he feeds and the sustenance of his newborn spirit. The apostle also means that the example of his life was Christ. That the example of his life was Christ. I suppose that every man living has a model by which he endeavors to shape his life. When we start in life, we generally select some person or persons whose combined virtues will be to us the mirror of perfection. Now, says Paul, if you ask me after what example I mold my life and what is the model by which I would sculpture my being, I tell you it is Christ. I have no other example. no form, no model by which to shape my being except the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the true Christian, if he is a righteous man, can say the same. Understand, however, what I mean by the word righteous. A righteous man means a man that does not cringe and bow, or seek favor or attention of other men by flattery, a man that does not lean for help on other men, but just stands with his head heavenward in all the dignity of his independence, leaning nowhere, nowhere except on the arm of the omnipotent. Such a man will take Christ alone to be his model and his pattern. This is the very age of conformity. Today, people do not dare to do anything unless everybody else does the same thing. They seldom say, is a thing right? Mostly they say, does so-and-so do it? They have some great dignitary in their family connection who is looked on as being the very standard of all propriety. And if he does it, then they think they also may safely do it. And oh, what an outcry there is against a man who dares to be singular. A man who simply believes that some of your conformities are shackles and chains and kicks them all off and says, I am free, I am free. The world comes at him in a minute. with all their hatred and slander because he says, I will not follow your model. I will vindicate the honor of my master and not take your great masters to be my pattern. Oh, I pray to God that every statesman, that every minister, that every Christian were free to hold that is only model. and his only example for imitation must be the character of Christ. I pray that we would scorn all superstitious attachments to the ancient errors of our ancestors, and while some would forever be looking on age and on ancient times with veneration, I pray that we have the courage, the courage to look on a thing, not according to its age, but according to its rightness. And so weigh everything, not by its novelty or by its antiquity, but by its conformity, its conformity to Christ Jesus and his holy gospel. Rejecting that which is not, though it be age old, and believing that which is, even though it is only the creature of the day, and saying in all sincerity, for me to live is not to imitate this man or the other, but for me to live is Christ. I think, however, that the very center of Paul's idea would be this. The end of his life is Christ. The end of his life is Christ. Imagine that you see Paul land on the shores of Philippi. There by the riverside were gathered ships and many merchant men. There you would see the merchant busy with his ledger and looking over his cargo. And he paused and put his hand on his brow and said as he gripped his money bag, for me to live is gold. And there you see his humble clerk, employed in some simpler work, toiling for his master, and he perspiring with work mutters between his teeth, for me to live is to gain a bear's subsistence. And there stands for a moment to listen to him, one with a studious face and full of the mysterious characters of wisdom, Young man, he says, for me to live is learning. Ah, ah, says a soldier who stands by clothed in armor with a helmet on his head. I scorn your modes of life. For me to live is glory.

But there walks one, a humble tent maker, called Paul. He steps into the middle of them all and says, For me to live is Christ. Oh, how they smile with contempt on him and how they scoff at him for having chosen such an object. For me to live is Christ, and what did he mean? The educated man stopped and said, Who is he? Is he that foolish, mad fellow of whom I have heard who was executed on Calvary for being a troublemaker? The meek reply is, it is he who died, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. What, says the Roman soldier, and do you live for a man who died a slave's death? What glory will you get by fighting his battles? What profit is there in your preaching, chimes in the trader. Ah, even the merchant's clerk thought that Paul was crazy, for he said, how can he feed his family? How will he supply his needs if all he lives for is to honor this Christ?

Yes, but Paul knew what he was doing. He was the wiser man of them all. He knew the right way to heaven and which way would end best. But right or wrong, his soul was wholly possessed with the idea, for me to live is Christ.

Brothers and sisters, can you say, as professing Christians, that you live up to the idea of the Apostle Paul Can you honestly say that for you to live is Christ? I will tell you my opinion of many of you. You join our churches. You are highly respectable persons. You are accepted among us as true and real Christians. But in all honesty and truth, I do not believe that for you to live is Christ. I see many of you whose thoughts are engrossed with the things of the earth. The mere getting of money, the amassing of wealth, seems to be your only object. I do not deny that you are liberal in your giving. I will not dare to say that you are not generous and that you spend some of your money for holy purposes, but I dare to say, after all, that you cannot in all honesty say that you live wholly for Christ.

You know that when you go to your shop or you go to your warehouse and you conduct your business that you are not doing it for Christ. You do not dare to be such a hypocrite to say that you do. You must admit that you do it for selfish reasons and for family advantage. Well, says one, Is that a bad reason? By no means, not for you, if you are bad enough to ask that question, but for the Christian it is. He professes to live for Christ. Then how is it he dares to profess to live for his Master and yet does not do so, but lives for mere worldly gain?

Let me speak to the many ladies here this morning. You would be shocked if I would deny your Christianity. You move in the highest circles of life and you would be astonished if I would presume to question your goodness, especially after your many generous donations to religious causes, but I dare to do so.

You, what do you do? You rise late in the day. You then go and call on your friends. You go to a party in the evening. You talk nonsense. And you come home and go to bed. And that is your life from the beginning of the year to the end. It is just one regular circle of pleasure. There comes the dinner or the ball and the conclusion of the day. And then, amen, so be it forever and ever.

Now you, you don't live for Christ either. I know you go to church regularly and attend some evangelical service, all well and good. I will not deny your faithfulness according to the common usage of the term, but I deny that you are anywhere close anywhere close to where Paul was when he said, for me to live is Christ.

My brethren, I know that with much earnest seeking, I have failed to realize the fullness of entire devotion to the Lord Jesus. Every minister must sometimes chase in himself and say, Am I not sometimes a little warped in my words? Didn't I in some sermon plan to bring out a great truth instead of stating the obvious? Haven't I kept back some warning that I ought to have spoken because I feared the face of man? Don't we all have good reason to chasten ourselves because we must say that we have not lived for Christ as we should have done?

And yet, yet there are, I trust, a noble few, the elite of God's elect, a few chosen men and women on whose heads there is the crown of dedication, who can truly say, I have nothing in this world I cannot give to Christ. I have said it and mean what I have said.

Take my soul and body's powers
All my goods and all my hours,
all I have and all I am.
Take me, Lord, and take me forever.

These are the men who make up our missionaries. These are the women who make up our nurses for the sick. These are they that would dare to die for Christ. These are they who would give their all to his cause. These are they who would spend and be spent, who would bear humiliation and scorn and shame if they could but advance their master's interest.

How many of this kind do we have here this morning? Would I have to count many of these pews before I could find 10? There are many who, in a limited way, carry out this principle, but who among us Who among us is there that can dare to say that he has lived wholly for Christ as the Apostle did? I am sure he does not stand here in this pulpit. And yet, till there are more Pauls and more men and women dedicated to Christ, we will never see God's kingdom come, nor will we hope to see His will done on earth, even as it is done in heaven.

Now this is the true life of a Christian, its source, its nourishment, its example, and its end, all gathered up in two words, Christ Jesus. And I must add, its happiness and its glory is all in Christ.

I must now go to the second point, the Christian's death.

the Christian's death. It is sad, very sad, that the good should die. Sad that the righteous should fall. Death, why don't you chop down the deadly eupus tree that yields a deadly poison? Why don't you destroy the poisonous hemlock plant? Why do you touch the tree which has lush spreading branches that provide shade and rest for the weary? Why do you touch the flower whose perfume has delighted the earth? Death, why do you snatch away the excellent of the earth in whom we delight? If you must use your axe, use it on the trees that draw nourishment but provide no fruit. For this we would thank you. But why do you cut down the cedars? Why will you chop down the good trees of Lebanon? Oh death, why don't you spare the church? Why must the pulpit be hung in black? Why must the missionary station be filled with weeping? Why must the holy and faithful family lose its spiritual leader? O death, what are you doing? Do not touch earth's holy things. Your hands are not fit to pollute the Israel of God. Why do you put your hand on the hearts of the elect? O stop, stop, spare the righteous death and take the evil.

But no, it must not be. Death comes and kills the holiest of us all, the most generous, the most prayerful, the most holy, the most devoted must die.

Weep, weep, O church, for you have lost your martyrs. Weep, O church, for you have lost your holy Christians. Your holy men and women have fallen. Wail, for the cedar has fallen. The godly fail and the righteous are cut off.

But stay a while, I hear another voice. Say to the daughter of Judah, spare your weeping. Say to the Lord's flock, cease, cease your sorrow. Your martyrs are dead, but they are glorified. Your ministers are gone. but they have ascended up to your father and to their father. Your brothers and sisters are buried in the grave, but the archangel's trumpet will awaken them, and their spirits are even now with God.

" Listen to the words of the text by way of consolation. To die is gain. Not the kind of gain that you wish for, you son of the miser. Not the kind of gain that you are hunting for, you man of covetousness and self-love. No, a higher and a better gain is that which death brings to a Christian.

My dear friends, when I discussed the first part of the verse, it was all very clear. No proof was needed. You believed it. For you saw it clearly, to live is Christ, has no paradox in it. But to die is gain, is one of the riddles of the gospel, which only the Christian can truly understand.

To die is not gain, if I look only on the visible. To die is loss, it is not gain. Hasn't the dead man lost all of his wealth? Though he had piles and piles of riches, can he take anything with him? Hasn't it been said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart? Dust you are, and to dust you will return. And which of all your goods can you take with you?

The man had a fine estate, and a grand mansion. He has lost all of that. He can no more walk down those painted halls, nor walk across those lush lawns. He had an abundance of fame and honor. He has lost that, so far as his own sense of it is concerned, though still the harp strings tremble out his name on the earth. He has lost his wealth, and though he is buried in a costly tomb, yet he is as poor as the beggar who looked on him in the street in envy.

That is not gain, it is loss, and he has lost his friends. He has left behind him a grief-stricken wife and children, fatherless, without his guardian care. He has lost his intimate friend that he used to hold in his arms, the companion of his youth. Friends are there to weep over him, but they cannot cross the river with him. They drop a few tears into his tomb, but with him they must not and cannot go.

And he has lost all of his learning. Though he has toiled ever so much to fill his brain with knowledge, What is he now above the lowliest servant, though he has acquired all knowledge of earthly things? Is it not said, their memory and their love are lost, alike unknowing and unknown? Surely death is loss. Hasn't he lost the songs of the church and the prayers of the righteous? Hasn't he lost the solemn assembly and the great gathering of the people. No longer will the promises of scripture captivate his ear. No longer will the good news of the gospel cause his soul to sing. He sleeps in the dust. The Sunday morning church bells no longer toll for him. Their bread and wine are spread on the Lord's table, but not for him. is gone to his grave. He does not know anything of that which will take place after him. There is neither work nor tools in the grave to which we are all rushing towards. Surely death is loss. When I look on you, you clay, cold corpse, and see you just preparing to be the palace of corruption, and the carnival for worms, I cannot think that you have gained. When I see that your eye has lost its light, and your lip has lost its speech, and your ears have lost hearing, and your feet have lost motion, and your heart has lost its joy, and no sounds of drums and harps can wake up your joys, O clay-cold corpse, you have lost and lost immeasurably. And yet, yet my text tells me it is not true. It says to die is gain. It looks as if it could not be like this. And certainly it is not so far as I can see. But now put your eye to the telescope of faith. Take that magic glass which pierces through the veil that parts us from the unseen. Anoint your eyes with eye salve and make them so bright that they can pierce through the heavens and see the unknown worlds. Come, bathe yourself in this sea of light and live in holy revelation and belief. And then look and oh, how the scene has changed. Here is the corpse, but there is his spirit. Here is the clay, but there is the soul. Here is the carcass, but there is the seraph. He is supremely blessed. His death is gain. Come now, what did he lose? I will show that in everything he lost, he gained far more. He lost his friends, did he? His wife and his children? His brothers and sisters in church fellowship? All those who are here now weeping over his loss? Yes, he lost them. But, my brethren, what did he gain? He gained more friends than he ever lost. He had lost many friends in his lifetime, but he meets them all again. Parents, brothers and sisters who had died in youth or in old age and passed over the river before him, they all salute him on the far shore. There the mother meets her infant and there the father meets his children again. There their venerable patriarch greets his family to the third and fourth generation. There brother hugs brother in his arms and husband again meets with his wife. No more to be married or given in marriage, but to live together like the angels of God. Some of us have more friends in heaven than we do on earth. We have more dear relatives in glory than we have here. It is not true with all of us, but with some it is true. More have crossed the river than are left behind. But if it is not true, yet what friends we have to meet us there. Oh, I imagine on the day of death that we have the wonderful hope of seeing the bright spirits that are now before the throne, to grasp the hand of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to look into the face of Paul the apostle and to grasp the hand of Peter, to sit in flowery fields with Moses and David, to bask in the sunlight of bliss with the Apostle John and Mary Magdalene. Oh, how blessed! The company of poor imperfect saints on earth is good, but how much better is the society of the redeemed. Death is no loss to us by way of friends, We leave a few, a little group below, and say to them, fear not, little flock. And we ascend and meet the armies of the living God, the host of his redeemed. To die is gain. Poor corpse, you have lost your friends on earth. No, bright spirit, you have received a hundredfold in heaven. What else did we say he lost? We said he lost all of his property, all of his material goods, and all of his wealth. Yes, but he has gained infinitely more. Even if he was the richest man on earth, yet he would most willingly give up his earthly wealth for that which he has attained. If on earth he wore rings of pearls on each finger, Can we now say that he has lost their brilliancy? The pearly gates of heaven glisten far brighter. Did he have gold in his bank? Note that the streets of heaven are paved with gold and he is far richer. The home of the redeemed is far brighter a dwelling place than the homes of the richest here below. But it is not so with many of you. You are not rich, you are poor. What can you lose by death? You are poor here, you will be rich there. Here you suffer toil, there you will rest forever. Here you earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, but there, no toil. Here, exhausted, you lay down on your bed at the end of the week and long for Sunday, the day of rest, But there the day of rest has no end. Here you go to church, but you are distracted with worldly cares and thoughts of suffering. But there, there are no groans to mingle with the songs that sing out from immortal tongues. Death will be gained to you in reference to riches and substance. And as for the means of grace which we leave behind, What are they when compared with what we will have in the hereafter? Oh, if I would die at this hour, I think I would say something like this, farewell Sundays, I am going to the eternal Sunday of the redeemed. Farewell, minister, I will no longer need the light you shed from the word, neither the light of the sun. when the Lord God will give me light and be my life forever and ever. Farewell, you songs and sonnets of the blessed. Farewell, I will not need your melodious burst. I will hear the eternal and unceasing hallelujahs of the glorified. Farewell, you prayers of God's people. My spirit will hear forever the intercessions of my Lord, and join with a noble army of martyrs in crying, how long, O Lord, how long? Farewell, O Zion. Farewell, house of my love, home of my life. Farewell, you temples where God's people sing and pray. Farewell, you tents of Jacob, where they daily burn their offering. I am going to a better Zion than you, to a brighter Jerusalem, to a temple that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Oh, my dear friends, when we think such thoughts as these, don't we, some of us, feel as if we could die? Even now, by faith, we join our hands with those that went before. and greet the blood-sprinkled bands on the eternal shore. One army of the living God, at his command we bow. Part of the host have crossed the flood, and part are crossing now. We have not yet come to the outskirts of heaven, but we will be there soon. We all expect to die soon. And again, my friends, one more thought. We said that when men die, they lost their knowledge. We correct ourselves. Oh, no. For when the righteous die, they know infinitely more than they could have known on earth. There will I see and hear and know all I desire to wish below. And every power finds sweet employ in that eternal world of joy. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. There, what no eye has seen and no ear has heard will be fully manifest to us. There, riddles will be unraveled, mysteries made plain, difficult texts enlightened, hard to understand providences made to appear wise, The lowliest soul in heaven knows more of God than the greatest saint on earth. The greatest saint on earth may have said of him, He who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Not one of our great theologians can understand as much of theology as the lambs of the flock of glory. Not even the greatest masterminds on earth could understand one millionth of the knowledge which has been discovered by souls emancipated from clay. Yes, brethren, to die is gain. Take away, take away that hearse. Remove that shroud. Come, put white plumes on the horses' heads and let golden trimmings hang around them. There, take away that fife, that shrill sounding music of the death march. Lend me the trumpet and the drum. Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Why do we weep because the saints went to heaven? Why do we need to mourn? They are not dead. They have simply gone ahead of us. Stop! Stop that mourning! Refrain your tears! Clap your hands! Clap your hands! They are supremely blessed. They are done with care and sin and woe, and with their Savior rests. What? Weep? Weep for heads that are crowned with wreaths of heaven? Weep? Weep for hands that grasp the harps of gold? What, weep for eyes that see the Redeemer? What, weep for hearts that are washed from sin and are throbbing with eternal bliss? What, weep for men that are in the Savior's arms? No, weep for yourselves that you are here. Weep that the mandate has not come which commands you to die. Weep that you must tarry, but do not weep for them. I see them turning back on you with loving wonder, and they exclaim, Why do you weep? What, weep for poverty that is clothed in riches? What, weep for sickness that it has inherited eternal health? What, weep for shame that it is glorified? and weep for sinful mortality that it has become immaculate? Oh, do not weep, but rejoice. If you knew what it was that I have said to you and where I have gone, you would rejoice with a joy that no man could take from you. To die is gain. Ah, this makes the Christian long to die. makes him say, O that the word were given, O Lord of hosts, divide the waters and land us all in heaven. And now, dear friends, does this belong to all of you? Can you claim an interest in it? Are you living to Christ? Does Christ live in you? For if not, Your death will not be gained. Are you a believer in the Savior? Has your heart been renewed and your conscience washed in the blood of Jesus? If not, my friend, I weep for you. I will save my tears for my lost friends and not shed them for my best beloved that will die if those tears could only save you. Oh, when you die, unbeliever, what a day it will be. If the whole world were draped in black cloth, it could not express the grief that you would feel. You die. Oh, death, oh, death, how hideous are you to men that are not in Christ. And yet, my listener, you will soon die. I don't want to hear the shrieks from your deathbed. I don't want to see your look of exasperation. I don't want to hear your words of bitterness. Oh, that you could be saved from the coming dread. Oh, the wrath to come, the wrath to come, the wrath to come. Who is he that can preach of it? Horrors strike the guilty soul. It quivers on the verge of death. No, on the verge of hell, it looks over the edge, clutching hard to life, and it hears there the sullen groans, the hollow moans, and the shrieks of tortured spirits, which come from the bottomless pit, and it clutches tightly to life. It grabs onto the physician and holds tightly, lest he should fall into the pit that burns. and the spirit looks down and sees all the fiends of everlasting punishment and recoils back, but it must die. It would trade all it has to delay an hour, but no, the fiend has got its grip and down it must plunge. And who can express the hideous shriek of a lost soul? The sound of the shriek cannot reach heaven, But if it could, it might well be imagined that it would suspend the songs of angels, might even make God's redeemed weep if they could hear the wailings of a damned soul. Ah, you men and women, you have wept, but if you die unregenerate, there will be no weeping like that. There will be no shriek like that, no wail like that. May God spare us from ever hearing it or uttering it ourselves. Oh, how the grim caverns of hell startle and how the darkness of night becomes frightening when the wail of a lost soul comes up from the ascending flames while it is descending into the pit. Turn! Turn! Why will you die, O house of Israel? Christ is preached to you. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Believe on him and live, you guilty, vile, perishing. Believe and live. But know this, if you reject my message and despise my master, in that day, when he will judge the world in righteousness by that man, Jesus Christ, I must be a swift witness against you. I have told you that if you reject it, then your soul must perish. Receive my message and you are saved. Reject it and then you bear the responsibility on your own head. Behold, I am innocent of your blood. If you are damned, It is not because you were not warned. Oh, may God grant that you may not perish. Amen.