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

 

God cast the heathen out of the land of Canaan and planted there instead His vineyard, the Israelites.  After rescuing them from Egyptian slavery, He fed them “the bread of angels” in the wilderness (Ps. 78:25) and gave them His law to guide them in the way of righteousness.  He cherished them and shielded them from those who sought to do them harm.  He answered their prayers for wisdom and strength.  Said Moses, “What great nation has God so close to it as the Lord our God is in all that we call upon Him?  And what great nation has righteous statutes and judgments as this law which I am setting before you today?” (Dt. 4:7–8).

Unfortunately, not everyone in Israel shared Moses’ exuberance and gratitude for God’s grace, and the immorality which idolatry breeds ruined Israel.  God chose Isaiah to sing for Him a parable to Israel concerning His vineyard: “I will now sing for my Beloved my Beloved’s song concerning His vineyard: My Beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.  And he dug all around it, and cleared it of stones, and planted it with a choice vine.  And he built a tower in the midst of it, and he also hewed out a wine-vat in it.  And then he waited for it to yield grapes.  But it produced wild grapes!”  Then, Isaiah explained the parable to his listeners: “The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah, His very delightful plant.  And He looked for justice, but behold, murder!  For righteousness, but behold, a cry!” (Isa. 5:1–2, 7).  God grieved as a husband would grieve over an unfaithful wife: “You took your beautiful objects made from my gold and from my silver which I had given you, and you made for yourself male images, and you committed whoredom with them. . . .  Come back, O wayward children, says the Lord, for I am married to you!” (Ezek. 16:17; Jer. 3:14).  Finally, after centuries of pleading with Israel through many prophets, who were all rejected and abused for their efforts, God made the heart-rending decision to put away His beloved Israel, the “apple of his eye” (Dt. 32:10; Zech. 2:8).

When Jesus came, he warned the leaders of Israel with an easily understood parable that the time had come for Israel’s rejection by God (Mt. 21:33–45): “There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard, and he hedged it all around, and dug a wine-press in it, and built a watchtower, and leased it to vine-dressers, and then went on a journey.  Now, when the season for the fruit was at hand, he sent his servants to the tenants to receive his fruit.  And the vine-dressers seized his servants; one they beat, and one they killed, and one they stoned.  Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they treated them the same way.  Then, finally, he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’  But the vine-dressers, seeing the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir.  Come on!  Let’s kill him and seize his inheritance!’  And they seized him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him.  So now, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?  They said to him, ‘He will brutally destroy those wicked men, and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.’  Jesus then asked them, ‘Have you never read in the Scriptures, “The stone that the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner.  This is from the Lord, and it is astonishing in our eyes”?  Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and be given to a nation that will yield its fruit.  And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but whoever it falls on, it will crush him.’  And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was talking about them.”

Jesus told his disciples that he was the vine and that those who were in him would be spared the wrath of God: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.  He takes away every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, and He prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it might bear more fruit. . . .  I am the vine; you are the branches.  He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit.  Without me, you can do nothing.  Unless a man abides in me, he is thrown away like a branch, and it withers, and they gather them up and throw them into a fire, and it is burned” (Jn. 15:1–2, 5–6).

In order for the Jews to continue to be in God’s vineyard after He sent His Son to them, they had to believe that He was the one God sent.  It is with this understanding that Jesus prayed to his Father, “They were yours, and you have given them to me” (Jn. 17:6).  Some Jews believed in Jesus and remained in God’s vineyard, but those who did not believe were cut off and rejected by God.  Those Jews who believed were a special group, for they remained in the vineyard of God all the way from the cradle to the grave.  They were not cut off when the vineyard was pruned following the day of Pentecost, when Jesus sent the Spirit from heaven, nor did they need to be “grafted in”, as the Gentiles later were (Rom. 11:17–24).  They were chosen people of God throughout their lives.

The Vineyard Now

In time, Jews who recognized Jesus as Israel’s Messiah were cast out by their Israelite kinsman and were forced to go live as believers in the Gentile world.  But the Old Testament came to an end, and the New Testament took its place, open to all who would believe in Christ, the True Vine of God.  God turned His beloved Israel over to her own ways and called the Gentiles instead.

God’s judgment upon Israel, Paul said, served as an example to the Gentiles of God’s righteous judgment, and when taken rightly, it inspires fear of God rather than boasting. “[Do not say,] ‘The branches [the Jews] were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’  True; they were broken off because of unbelief – but you stand by faith.  Do not be high-minded, but fear, for if God did not spare the natural branches, He might not spare you, either.  Behold, therefore, the goodness and the severity of God; toward those who have fallen, severity, but toward you, goodness – if you continue in goodness.  Otherwise, you, too, shall be cut off ” (Rom. 11:19–22).

Paul’s point is clear.  God will cast out of His vineyard now all who do not “continue in his goodness”, just as He cast out disobedient souls from His Old Testament vineyard.  And isn’t that what Jesus was also teaching when he said, “He who endures to the end, the same shall be saved” (Mt. 24:12–13)?

Yes, my Friend, salvation is God’s sure promise to His obedient children.  On the other hand, God’s disobedient children will be cast out of His vineyard and have their names blotted out of God’s Book of Life (Rev. 3:5), and then be cast into the horrific Lake of Fire, to be “tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10, 15).  Let us live so that we escape that awful place, and be granted a place among the saints who will live in peace with Christ forever.