The future you can safely leave with the Lord, who ever liveth and never changeth. The past is now in your Saviour's hand, and you shall never be condemned for it, whatever it may have been, for the Lord has cast your iniquities into the midst of the sea. Believe at this moment in your present privileges. YOU ARE SAVED. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have passed from death unto life, and YOU ARE SAVED. In the old slave days a lady brought her black servant on board an English ship, and she laughingly said to the Captain, "I suppose if I and Aunt Chloe were to go to England she would be free?" "Madam," said the Captain, "she is _now_ free. The moment she came on board a British vessel she was free." When the negro woman knew this, she did not leave the ship--not she. It was not _the hope of liberty_ that made her bold, but _the fact of liberty_. So you are not now merely hoping for eternal life, but "_He that believeth in him hath everlasting life_." Accept this as a fact revealed in the sacred Word, and begin to rejoice accordingly. Do not reason about it, or call it in question; believe it, and leap for joy. I want my reader, upon believing in the Lord Jesus, to believe for _eternal_ salvation. Do not be content with the notion that you can receive a new birth which will die out, a heavenly life which will expire, a pardon which will be recalled. The Lord Jesus gives to his sheep _eternal_ life, and do not be at rest until you have it. Now, if it be eternal, how can it die out? Be saved out and out, for eternity. There is "a living and incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth for ever"; do not be put off with a temporary change, a sort of grace which will only bloom to fade. You are now starting on the railway of grace--_take a ticket all the way through_. I have no commission to preach to you salvation for a time: the gospel I am bidden to set before you is, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." He shall be saved from sin, from going back to sin, from turning aside to the broad road. May the Holy Spirit lead you to believe for nothing less than that. "Do you mean," says one, "that I am to believe if I once trust Christ I shall be saved whatever sin I may choose to commit?" I have never said anything of the kind. I have described true salvation as a thorough change of heart of so radical a kind that it will alter your tastes and desires; and I say that if you have such a change wrought in you by the Holy Spirit, it will be permanent; for the Lord's work is not like the cheap work of the present day, which soon goes to pieces. Trust the Lord to keep you, however long you may live, and however much you may be tempted; and "according to your faith, so be it unto you." Believe in Jesus for _everlasting_ life.