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

 

Samuel’s question was indignantly asked King Saul after Saul had testified falsely concerning his obedience to the commandment that God had given him.  Saul’s orders from the Lord had been to “strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have.”  This holy judgment was to be executed in reprisal for the Amalekites’ previous cruelty toward Israel.  “I remember”, said the Lord, “what Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt.”

King Saul utterly destroyed the people of Amalek, but not Agag, their king – the greatest potential enemy of all.  Too, we find that Saul spared “the best of the sheep, and the cattle, and the seconds, and the lambs, and all that was good.”  Thus, he failed to “slay both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and ass,” as God had commanded him.  In spite of this, Saul, like many today, testified of his faith and obedience, for he emphatically declared to Samuel, “I have performed the commandment of the Lord.”  What a picture of believers who fail to destroy their chief sin (King Agag), and the “little foxes” (sheep, oxen, etc.) that so easily “spoil the vine”.

God, my dear Reader, still has His prophet and His sheep and oxen; His prophet to inform us of our obligations to Him and His sheep and oxen to bleat and low when we fail in these obligations.  Moses, you may remember, once proclaimed to the children of Israel: “A prophet like me will the Lord your God raise up for you from among your brothers.  You must obey him in whatsoever things he says to you” (Acts 3:22).  This was a prophecy about Jesus, and now, we either live in obedience to God, or Jesus will reprimand us when he hears the bleating and lowing of our conscience.  It will not always be sheep and oxen that bleat and low against our testimonies, but it will always be God’s disapproving voice.

When Peter denied knowing the Lord, he was reproved by the crowing of a rooster.  And a thousand years before that, God used a dumb ass to rebuke the prophet Balaam.  How many ways God uses to reprove His erring children!  Yes, my Reader, God has many avenues through which He cries out against those who fail to live clean and holy lives.  In spite of their Saul-like testimony, “I have performed the commandment of the Lord,” Jesus hears the bleating of their sheep and the lowing of their cattle.

If you have failed, like King Saul, to perform the commandments of God, let me earnestly plead with you to be honest with yourself, and with God, and listen for the censuring of the holy Spirit.  Perhaps there is a still small voice, right now, bleating or lowing concerning that unforgiving spirit you have, something that should have been destroyed long ago.  Or, it might be your failing to love and respect all God’s children, especially those who do not know God as well as you think you do.  Or, can it be you’re trying to hide under a cloud of pretense that dagger of hate which you are holding toward someone, possibly someone who has wronged you?  It could be selfish ambition, a very deadly poison, or stubbornness.  Whatever it is, it must be slain before you can have God’s approval.  Otherwise, the bleating and lowing in your heart will continue.

There is a blessing which comes through obedience which keeps one free and happy, for it prevents the bleating of every reproving sheep and the lowing of every denouncing ox.  This peace is found by those who do the will of God.  The Psalmist gave us a splendid description of such a person when he said, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of scorners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and he meditates on His law day and night” (Ps. 1:1–2).

Everyone who is born again is required to obey the Master’s imperative: “Be perfect, just as your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (Mt. 5:48).  As long as such holiness remains in our life, we will not be condemned by any bleating or lowing.  The lamb and the lion, so far as we are concerned, may lie down together.  The bear and the ox may eat their straw without any interruption.  We are free.  We are happy.  We are ready for the Lord’s return.

May God help us to be able to say, along with that dear old apostle, “Our boast is this: the testimony of our conscience” (2Cor. 1:12).  A testimony from a clear conscience brings an end to all bleating, lowing, braying, or crowing because every commandment will have truly been performed from the heart.  Amen.