September 25

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)

Note that the difference between a believer and unbeliever is right here. An unbeliever is living in his day, and he has nothing but a long dark eternal night to look forward to; a Christian is now living in his night, and he has a grand morning that he is looking forward to.

The day is ahead, the glory is ahead, the best of life is ahead; it is not behind. That is the teaching of Scripture. For a man whose life is hid with Christ in God, judgment is already passed; he will not come into judgment. Christ was judged for me, and judgment is behind me, not before me.

May 3

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24)

I would a thousand times rather stand on that verse than all the frames and feelings I ever had. I took my stand there twenty years ago. Since then the dark waves of hell have come dashing up against me; the waves of persecution have broken all around me; doubts, fears, and unbelief in turn have assailed me; but I have been able to stand firm on this short word of God. It is a sure footing for eternity.

April 17

He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me. . . shall not come into judgment. (John 5:24)

In a prairie fire, when the wind is strong, the wall of flame often rolls along twenty feet high, destroying man and beast in its onward rush. The frontiersmen know they cannot run as fast as that fire. Not the fleetest horse can escape it. But they just take a match, and light the grass before them. These flames sweep a space, and men follow and take their stand in the burned district, and are safe.

Over the place where they stand the fire has already passed, and there is nothing left to burn. So there is one spot on earth that the judgment of God has swept over. Eighteen hundred years ago the storm burst on Calvary; and the Son of God endured it: and now, if we take our stand by the Cross, we are safe for time and for eternity.

April 14

He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. (John 5:24)

A man once prayed for me that I might obtain eternal life at last. I could not have said “Amen” to that. I obtained eternal life over forty years ago, when I was converted. What is the “gift of God,” if it is not eternal life? And what makes the gospel such good news? Is it not that it offers eternal life to every poor sinner who will take it?

March 13

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)

In my native village in New England it used to be customary, as a funeral procession left the church, for the bell to toll as many times as the deceased was years old. How anxiously I would count those strokes of the bell to see how long I might reckon on living! Sometimes there would be seventy or eighty tolls, and I would give a sigh of relief to think I had so many years to live.

But at other times there would he only a few years tolled, and then a horror would seize me as I thought that I too might soon be claimed as a victim by that dread monster, Death. Death and judgment were a constant source of fear to me till I realized the fact that neither shall ever have any hold on a child of God.

December 23

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24)

Salvation is instantaneous. I admit that a man may be converted so that he cannot tell when he crossed the line between death and life, but I also believe a man may be a thief one moment and a saint the next. I believe a man may be as vile as hell itself one moment, and be saved the next.

Christian growth is gradual, just as physical growth is; but a man passes from death unto everlasting life quick as an act of the will—“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.”