Going to Jesus

Gospel Tracts

 Select a tract to read:

• Tracts 1-50

  1. How I Received the Holy Ghost 2. Jesus Is Coming Again 3. You Must Be Born Again 4. Stir Up the Gift of God 5. The World’s Most Dreaded Hour 6. What is Salvation? 7. Stand Still in Jordan 9. Grieved Hearts 10. The Second Death 11. The Father and the Son 12. Suffering and the Saints 13. Cancer Conquered 14. The Church? 15. How Shall They Preach, Except They Be Sent? 16. Have You Received the Holy Ghost Since You Believed? 17. Patience 18. Alone With God 19. Tithes and Offerings 20. Prayer 21. The True Sabbath 22. The Besetting Sin 23. The Cry of the Righteous 24. What Will the Harvest Be? 25. Marriage and Divorce 26. Taking the Name of the Lord 27. The Keys of the Kingdom 28. Works 29. Politics and Believers 30. Unequally Yoked in Marriage 31. Coming Out of Babylon 32. The Forgiven Woman 33. The New Earth 34. The Sin of Silence 35. Freedom 36. Gods of the Gentiles 37. Why Some Are Not Healed 38. The Seven Pillars 39. Life, More Abundantly 40. Fear 41. The Comforter’s Testimony 42. This is My Friend 43. Conversion 44. The Time Is Drawing Near? 45. Songs in the Night 46. The Master’s Net 47. Trials are Opportunities 48. Receiving the Messenger 49. Seven Messages to the Seven Pastors 50. Keep Yourself Pure

• Tracts 51-100

  51. The New Birth 52. John the Baptist and Jesus 53. Denying Jesus 54. Bruised Reeds 56. The Wise and the Foolish 57. Holiness 58. Is Jesus God? 59. Christ or Christianity 60. Have Faith In God 61. Worthy to Suffer 63. Four Kinds of Soil 64. Communion 65. The Fullness of Time 66. Baptism 68. No Room 69. Crucified With Christ 70. Homosexuality and the Bible 71. The Kingdom of God 72. The Gospel of Christ 74. Perseverance 75. The Resurrection 76. Salvation 77. Sanctification 78. New Commandments 79. The Sacrifice of Christ 81. The Sound of the Spirit 82. The Wrath of God 84. God’s Compass 85. Perfection 86. The Abomination of Desolation 87. Antichrist 88. The Way of Grace 90. Relationships 91. The Vineyard of God 93. Subdued 94. The Spirit of Christ 95. The Blood of Christ 96. Spirit of a Serpent, Spirit of a Dove 97. Gluttony 98. The Lost Lamb 99. Scripture Burners 100. Bleating and Lowing

 

It is well-known that the wicked, after death, are cast into the tormenting flames of Hell. However, the final destination of the wicked is far more fearful than that. Their eternal judgment is so horrible, so full of unimaginable terror and torment, that clear description of it eludes all human expression. In Revelation, John called it, “the Second Death”. This Second Death is not Hell; it is a place of such pain and terror that Hell itself will be cast into it (Rev. 20:11–15). Hell is now used by God as a holding place for the unrighteous dead until the Final Judgment. After that, all who are in Hell – and Hell itself – are cast into the “Lake of Fire”.  This Lake of Fire is the Second Death.

Of those condemned to suffer the Second Death, the Psalmist wrote, “They will never see light” (Ps. 49:19).  What a terrifying thought, to be bound forever in a sepulcher of pitch blackness! The Lake of Fire burns with a flame that gives no light! Jesus referred to this as “outer darkness” (Mt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30), adding, “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth in that place!” King Solomon called this miserable place “deep darkness” (Prov. 20:20). Jude and Peter both used the phrase, “blackness of eternal darkness” (Jude 13; 2Pet. 2:17). All these men were attempting to describe an indescribable, chilling fact of eternity with the inadequate tool of earthly language.

Another element of the Second Death was suggested by Jesus when he said that on Judgment Day, his command for each one he condemns will be that the angels “bind his feet and hands, and cast him into outer darkness!” (Mt. 22:13). From that, we are warned that in the Lake of Fire, there will be no liberty of choice, not so much as the liberty to lift up a hand. The damned will be tightly bound in utter blackness forever.

The most impressive testimony I have heard concerning this came from a sister who was taken in a night vision to this final abode of the damned. With deep emotion, she labored to describe the darkness. “The blackest darkness in this world,” she said, “has a grey tint in comparison to that darkness. It is an oppressive darkness in which the individual is overwhelmed with a sense of absolute hopelessness, the utter absence of choice.” Oh, the awesome wrath of God – an eternity of being bound in thick darkness and unrelenting pain, with no choice about anything.  Oh, my dear Friend, let us obey God, that we may be counted worthy to escape these things! The sister who tasted of the Second Death told of returning to consciousness with an awareness of someone in that horrid place screaming in terror, only to find, when she awoke, that the screams were her own.

But the Second Death is more than the thick, terrifying blackness, more than the eternal absence of all choice, and more than utter hopelessness. For in the Second Death, there is torment likened in the Scriptures to being burned alive.  It is a place of “everlasting punishment”  (Mt. 25:46) where “the fire is not quenched” (Mk. 9:44). Jesus told his followers that the torment of the damned would be so horrible that it would be worth cutting off parts of our bodies to avoid it (Mt. 18:8–9; Mk. 9:43–48).

After Christ’s millennial reign on the earth, the Devil will be cast into “the Lake of Fire and Sulfur, and will be tormented night and day forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). And then, following the Final Judgment, Hell itself and “anyone not found written in the Book of Life” will also be cast into the Lake of Fire, the Second Death.  We can scarcely imagine what it will be like.  There is nothing like it in this universe.

The Fear of God

Paul knew “the terror of the Lord” (2Cor. 5:11), and Jesus himself feared God (Heb. 5:7), but the wicked do not fear Him (Ps. 36:1; Rom. 3:18). It is true, as John said, that the love of God casts out all fear (1Jn. 4:17–18), but the fear it casts out is fear of everything except God. Jesus sternly warned his disciples to fear Him (Lk. 12:4–5).

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10).  The fear of God is clean (Ps. 19:9), for it causes those who feel it to hate evil (Prov. 8:13). The fear of God keeps us humble (Rom. 11:17–22), and it places us in a position to receive the blessings of God (Ps. 103:11–17). It motivates us to speak out against sin (Ps. 139:19–20) and to praise and worship Him who inhabits eternity (Rev. 14:7; 19:5). Noah was moved by the fear of God to build the ark (Heb. 11:7), and those of like faith today are moved by that same fear to prepare for the end of this age, for “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the elements, consumed with burning heat, will be destroyed, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2Pet. 3:10).

“Heaven and earth shall pass away,” said Jesus, “but my words shall never pass away.”  Yes, God will do away with the heavens and the earth which now exist and will create new heavens and a new earth for us who believe in His Son Jesus.  How thankful we are for Jesus!  God has made him our refuge from the approaching storm!  Jesus is the only hope for man, and he is the only hope man needs. Let us quickly and humbly go to him!  He will take us in and hide us from the coming wrath of God.

How thankful we are that the only one who can save us from the Second Death loves us with all his heart!  God’s offer of forgiveness through Christ Jesus is still being made.  The Spirit’s call, voiced by the prophet Isaiah, has not yet been withdrawn: “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the evil man forsake his way, and the wicked man his thoughts, and return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, even to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:6–7). Christ Jesus offers us hope of eternal life, hope of escaping the terrors of the damned. May God grant us grace to take advantage of this precious offer!

Are You Ready?