“THE GOOD NEWS” by Jim Bomkamp

The following tract whose chapter titles spell the word “ HELP ” explains how a person may understand the message of the Bible and know the God of the Bible, and thus have eternal life.  The letters “HEL” contain attributes of God, and the last letter, “P” contains what man must do in relation to God. Holiness: The attribute of God that is most impressive and most typifies Him is “holiness.”  God has many attributes, however in the scriptures there is no other characteristic of God which is repeated for emphasis three times, except for holy.  In Isaiah 6:3 the angels who are called seraphim before the throne of God are declaring in worship, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,  The whole earth is full of His glory.”  Though also attributes of God, the scripture does not say “Mercy, mercy, mercy,” or “Love, love, love,” or “Power, power, power,” rather it is “Holy, holy, holy.”  Holiness is “a combination of moral purity, chasteness, and separateness from that which is common, evil, and profane.”  Everything that God does is a reflection of all of His attributes, and therefore is a reflection of holiness.  In the Old Testament, God called to Himself a people, the Jews, and since He chose to have them as His people He gave them His Laws.  His Laws define that which is holy and unholy behavior.  Here are the 10 most important and primary commandments God gave man: 10 Commandments: 1)  You shall have no other gods before Me. { Commandments 1-4are summed up in, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, might, and strength” - (Deut. 6:5).  Likewise, the rest of the commandments are summed up in, “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself” - (Lev. 19:18). } (2) You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. (3)  You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. (4)  Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. (5)  Honor your father and mother. (6)  You shall not murder. (7)  You shall not commit adultery. (8)  You shall not steal. (9)  You shall not bear false witness. (10) You shall not covet. Eternal JUSTICE: Every government that has ever existed on the face of the earth has by necessity created a “justice” system.  When a government’s established laws have been broken, justice must be and is executed.  The Laws of God, including the Ten Commandments, are not options, they are “commandments” which the Lord gave to us and to which He requires that we keep.  All of mankind have broken God’s Laws, beginning first with Adam and Eve, who were originally forced to leave the Garden of Eden for their transgression of God’s Law not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Sin is defined as “the Transgression of God’s Law,” as 1 John 3: 4 says, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”  When man first sinned, because of God’s attribute of “Justice,” He could not look the other way and excuse man’s sin as if it had never happened.  It is because of Adam’s and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden that all men eventually will die, as the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death...”  The apostle Paul wrote about the fact that at a future day of judgment God would reveal His wrath against sin in Rom. 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”  God is going to judge the world in wrath against those who are transgressors of His holy law, for our God is a consuming fire of the passion of holiness.  In the New Testament scriptures, Jesus talked more about hell than He did about heaven, for every person who does not “completely” satisfy God’s holiness shall one day be resurrected from the dead (if they are not still alive on earth at that time) and they shall be thrown into eternal hell if their name does not appear in God’s Book of Life, as John the Apostle recorded Jesus saying in Rev. 20:11-15, “And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.  And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Love: It is a good thing that God has another attribute, that of “love,” for otherwise He would have destroyed all of mankind in the Garden of Eden.  Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”  Even though God hates “sin,” He loved sinful men so much that He gave His Son Jesus Christ to be the sin sacrifice to atone for the sins of all mankind.  Jesus is God the Son from all eternity, the third person of the Trinity, or godhead, and thus He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and then after being crucified on a Roman cross, raised from the dead conquering all of man’s enemies:  sin, death, hell, and the grave.  Mankind no longer has to suffer the eternal consequences of God’s eternal justice and wrath because of what Jesus came and did for man.  We can see this truth by looking at the entire Romans 6:23 verse which we previously only looked at in part, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Pardon: This step involves what man must do in order to experience personally what God sent His Son to the earth to accomplish.  Jesus Christ is the ONLY WAY to come to God and to have eternal life, as Jesus Himself said in John 14:6, “Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”  Through Jesus Christ and what He accomplished on the cross of Calvary a person can receive the gift of eternal life so that he will spend eternity with God, as the scripture says in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Since salvation is a gift from God, by definition it cannot be earned.  It must simply be received by faith in God and the promise of His Word, as Eph. 2:8-9 says, “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”  In order to receive salvation, a person must place his faith in the completed work of Christ upon his behalf in paying his debt of sin, and not depend upon his good deeds and trying to keep God’s Laws in order to become acceptable to God.  Depending upon our good works for any part of our salvation is completely futile as Paul wrote in Romans 3:19-20, “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God;  because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight;  for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.”  Likewise, Paul wrote in Gal. 3:24, “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”  You must confess that you believe in Jesus as our Lord (master) and in His work on the cross for you, as Paul wrote in Romans 10:9, “...if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” In order to receive the pardon of your sins by Christ, you must yield your will to Him and be willing to do whatever He wants us to do in your life.  To yield one’s life to Christ as Lord is to repent of one’s life of sin, since to sin is to do something that is against God’s Laws and holiness.  In Acts 17:30-31, Paul preached to the people about the necessity of repentance from a life of sin, “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”  To repent means to turn around 180 degrees and go in the opposite direction in regard to a lifestyle of sin and begin to follow the Lord in obedience to His word. If you would like to come to know God as your Lord and Savior, and receive the gift of eternal life, and if you are willing to repent from your life of sin and allow Jesus to be your Lord and Master, you can do so by praying the following prayer, “Heavenly Father, I admit that I have violated your Laws and sinned against you.  I acknowledge that I deserve to be judged and spend eternity in hell.  However, I will believe that Jesus Christ has given me the gift of eternal life, that He will come into my life, and that He will forgive my sins.  I am willing to repent of my life of sin, and to allow you to be Lord and Master over my life. I thank you by faith, that you have forgiven me of my sins, come into my life, and given me eternal life.  Thank you Lord for the gift of eternal life which you are giving me this day.  Amen.” If you have prayed this prayer in an attitude of genuine repentance, and have believed that Christ has forgiven you and come now into your life and given you eternal life, then by the authority of God’s own Word, you can be sure that you have eternal life.  The apostle John wrote in 1 John 5:11-12 about the assurance of salvation that a believer in Christ has, “And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.”