This week in the providence of
the Lord, the Lord slowed me down a bit. I didn't leave the
house for a couple days, just felt bad, but it gave me a time
to think and reflect on this calling that the Lord has given
me. Turn with me to Jonah chapter 3 if you would first. I want
to talk to you about preaching and compelling sinners to come
to Christ. Jonah chapter 3. While you're
turning, let me say that the English dictionary defines the
word preach and preaching to be an act of delivering a sermon
or a religious address to an assembled group of people. Most
anyone can do that. The general definition for preaching
can be the delivering of a sermon or religious address from any
type or form of religion, whether it's Christianity or Judaism
or Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Confucianism, even atheism is
a religion. Religion is defined as the belief
in and worship of one with superhuman power or powers. And we live
in a world where some worship Mohammed Others Buddha, and some
Allah, and others a Jesus who doesn't even resemble the Christ
of the Scriptures in the least. And then there are some who believe
and worship and trust in themselves. You know, that's really all atheism
is. It's the worship itself. Atheists,
in essence, declare themselves to be their own God. I don't
believe in God. Man is in control of his own
destiny. You might as well just say man
is his own God. All religion except true religion
in the end reveals itself to be the worship of self. Men and
women imagine themselves to be their own God and determine their
own destiny. And the word preach can also
mean to earnestly advocate a belief and course of action that concludes
that a man is in good standing with his Creator. And every religion
does that. Every single one. Did you know,
I found this interesting, did you know that the religion of
Jehovah Witness is led by eight men in America who claim to be
the channel that Jesus Christ uses to communicate with mankind? Well, not according to the Scriptures. Not according to Hebrews chapter
1. In these last days, God speaks to us through His Son, the living
Word and the written Word. Not through eight men. And Catholicism
believes that the Pope can absolve and forgive sin because he himself
is infallible. Not according to the Scriptures.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If you confess
your sins to the Pope, you're just confessing them to another
sinner who can't do anything about them. Mormons believe that
a man can die. Now I heard this straight from
one's lip. That a man can die in his sin
without Christ and afterwards someone in the Mormon church
can be baptized for him in a certain pool that the Mormons have come
up with and by proxy he then go to heaven. I never heard such
a ridiculous thing. These are things that religion
preaches. But what is true preaching? What
is biblical preaching? Being a preacher, I want to know.
And I want to preach the truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's the declaring of God's grace
to wretched sinners in Christ. Those who are alienated and separated
from God by their sin. True preaching, biblical preaching
is to declare and proclaim the truth of God's Word. What does
this book teach? What does this book tell us?
The truth as to who God is, the truth as to who and what we are,
and the truth as to what Christ did for wretched sinners like
me and you. That's what true preaching is.
That's what this book is about from cover to cover. The truth
as to how God can in a way of justice, now this is so important,
in a way of justice can reconcile unholy and unrighteous sinners
to a perfectly holy and righteous God. The first and only time
the word preach and preaching is used in the Old Testament
is here in Jonah chapter 3. Look at verse 1. And the word
of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go
unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching
that I did thee. We all know what happened the
first time the word of the Lord came to Jonah. He went in the
opposite direction. The Lord sent a storm. They threw him into the waters. He was swallowed by a great fish,
a whale. It was spit upon dry ground. And remember what he said? Salvation
is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. And
now we see what happened the second time. You know, God has
a way of getting His messengers' attention. Verse 3, so Jonah
arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now
Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey and
Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey and he cried
and said, yet 40 days in Nineveh shall be overthrown. Now, I found
this very interesting. That word cried there in verse
four, is the same Hebrew word, it's pronounced Ka-rah, it's
the same Hebrew word as the word preach in verse 2. So, we see
that to preach is to cry out. It's to call out unto, to bid,
to publish, to proclaim. Jonah was a messenger from God.
Jonah was a servant of God. Jonah was a voice crying in Nineveh's
wilderness. And that's all that a preacher
is, just a voice. That's all that a preacher does,
he cries. He cries unto sinners to look
unto the Lord Jesus Christ and be ye saved, all ye ends of the
earth. Jonah's message was from God.
What was his message? Repent or be overthrown. Repent or be destroyed. Except
you repent, you shall all likewise perish. That's what the Lord
said. Turn from your evil ways or die. Turn ye, turn ye. Verse 5, So
the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and
put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of
them. For the word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose
from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and it covered
him with sackcloth, and he sat in ashes. And he caused it to
be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh, by the decree of the
king and his nobles, saying, let man nor beast, herd nor flock,
taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink,
but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily
unto God. Yea, let them turn everyone from
his evil way and from the balance that is in their hands. Now,
as you know, the putting on of sackcloth and ashes represents
repentance and mourning over sin. It was so with the king
of Nineveh, and because of that, he caused it to be proclaimed
and published throughout Nineveh. It was the king's decree. You
know, it's just amazing, isn't it? That the Lord saved the king
of Nineveh, and then he decreed that every man and woman to be
should fast, repent, and seek God to enable them to turn from
their wicked ways. This is not something we can
do on our own. This is something that God's
got to enable us to do. God's got to divinely intervene. God's got to divinely interrupt
in our lives and give us life and give us a new heart that
beats and pants after the Lord Jesus Christ. You talking about
a great awakening, this was one. And this was their attitude.
Look at verse nine. Who can tell if God will turn
and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish
not? You know, this is God's doing. This is at God's discretion.
Whenever God sends the gospel to a city, you can rest assured
that he's determined and purposed to save somebody. Verse 10, and
God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and
God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do
unto them, and he did it not. Now, here it says God repented,
not after the manner of man. God has no need to repent after
the manner of man. There is no sin in God. God didn't change His decree
here concerning the Ninevites. He purposed to save them. That's
why He sent Jonah there to begin with. And they were brought to
repentance and the wrath that He threatened was averted. There was not a change of God's
mind or will. This wasn't, no. But there was
a change of His outward dispensation or His dispersing of wrath to
them. God, the sovereign potter, declared
in Jeremiah chapter 18, you know the chapter well about the potter
and the clay. He said, at what instance shall
I speak concerning the nation and concerning the kingdom to
pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it? If that nation
against whom I have pronounced turned from their evil, I will
repent of the evil, and that word means calamity and misery
and sorrow and trouble, that I thought to do unto them. God
has the right. In Matthew 12, verse 20, the
Lord Jesus was speaking one day, and He said, for as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the
Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth. And then He said this, the men of Nineveh shall rise
in judgment with this generation and against this generation,
and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching
of Jonah. And behold, a greater than Jonah
is here." Friends, the purpose of preaching
is to save lost sinners. It's not to teach people how
to live. This is a faithful saying. You
see the doctrine of Christ coming into the world to save sinners
by the sacrifice of Himself? Well, it's the sum and the substance
of the Gospel. It's worthy of our acceptance,
for there is no other way to be saved. God's holiness, God's
justice, God's love, God's mercy is given to unworthy sinners
because of the faithfulness of Christ. God sent His Son into
the world for the purpose of saving sinners. That's why He
came. And Christ voluntarily came. Not against His will. With free consent, Christ came. He came to save sinners. And
not just the worst of sinners. The most
notorious sinners. The cheap of sinners. Let me
again remind you what's true of each of us here this morning. We all fell an Adam. We are all
notorious sinners by our fallen Adam and by birth and by practice. Our sin has provoked the anger
and the wrath of God. God is angry with the wicked
every day. God being a holy and just God
must punish sin. Our sin. Our sin's gotta be punished. He must because he's a God of
justice. He can by no means clear the
guilty. He's too just to just sweep sin
under a rug. It's got to be dealt with. He's
too just to excuse and clear sin. Sin must be punished. God's law and justice cannot
look the other way. The soul that sins, it shall
die. No way around it. And this is
the problem with man's thinking. Most don't believe, first and
foremost, that they really are sinners. Oh, they'll tell you,
you know, I'm not perfect, but I'm not all that bad. And secondly,
most don't believe that God will really punish sin. whitewashed into thinking that
God loves too much to punish sin. No, first and foremost,
God is holy and just and He must punish sin. And Solomon, the
wise man, he knew exactly why the Lord had to punish sin. Because
God must remain just. Solomon wrote, he that justifieth
the wicked And he that condemneth the just, even they both are
an abomination to the Lord. One that justifies, one that
clears, excuses, makes righteous a wicked sinner is an abomination
to the Lord. And one that condemns, troubles,
vexes, disturbs, violates, and punishes an innocent person is
no different, an abomination to the Lord. They are disgusting,
abhorring, repulsive, abominable to God. That's what the word
abomination means. Why? It's contrary to God's holy
justice. If you clear a guilty man, if
you condemn an innocent man, you're going to deal with God.
It's an abomination to Him. You know, the Jews, they desired
Barabbas. Why, he was a wicked murderer. They desired Him to be released
in Christ, the perfect, just One. They desired Him to be condemned. And I'm telling you, it was an
abomination. The Gospel is God transferring all the sin of all
His people throughout all time. I've said that several times
already this morning. Because it's important to know He transferred all that sin.
Every sin that's ever been committed or that will be committed, God
transferred to His beloved Son, His innocent Son, and He justly
punished the Son of God for our sin. All of it. But there was no miscarriage
of justice. And the debt of our sin was paid in full by another. Our sin wasn't excused. It was
paid in full by Christ. God could then justly charge
Christ's perfect righteousness to those whom He died for. God
made a way that He could have mercy upon the sinner without
infringing upon His honor and His justice. And that's the gospel
that we preach. Ours is the only case, now listen,
where the innocent was condemned, and the guilty was made free,
and yet it was considered to be just and right. Isn't that amazing? Sin was paid
for. Christ paid it. We were given
His perfect righteousness. We didn't deserve it. We didn't
earn it. Well, that's the greatest transaction that's ever happened
in the eternity of time. I want you to turn with me to
Luke chapter 14. This will be my text. And in verse 16, the Lord here
gives us a parable. Luke chapter 14, verse 16. And in this parable, verse 16
says, Then He, the Lord Jesus, said unto them, A certain man
made a great supper and bade many, and sent his servant at
suppertime to say to them that were bidding come, for all things
are now ready. And they all with one consent
began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I bought
a piece of ground, I must need to go and see it, I pray thee
have me excused. And another said, I bought five
yoke of oxen and I go to prove them, I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I've married
a wife and therefore I cannot come. He didn't even offer her
much of an excuse other than just blaming on his wife. I can't
come, I'm married a wife. So that servant came, and he
showed his lord these things. Then the master of the house,
being angry, said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets
and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed,
and the haught, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it
is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is And the Lord
said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges,
and compel them, compel them to come in, that my house may
be filled. Now first let me say this Great
Supper, this Great Feast here, is not talking about the Lord's
Supper. It hadn't yet been instituted. And it's not referring to the
Supper of the Lamb, which would be at the end of the world. This
is referring to the Gospel dispensation, that Great Gospel Supper, that
Great Gospel Feast, consisting of the most delightful, fat things. that the gospel message provides. This supper refers to the feast
of the gospel, the preaching of the good news to sinners. And it's free to its guests.
It's provided at the expense of the maker. The feast giver
bade, he called many to come. And our Lord said in another
place, many are called, that's not speaking of an effectual
call, but the general call given under the gospel for all sinners
to come. And He said, but few are chosen. There's a specific number that
no man can number. You take all the chosen of God
throughout all time, and boy, that's a number that we couldn't
count. a multitude of believers which
are few compared to the number of all that have lived throughout
time. And these are the ones that God chose to be conformed
to Christ from the foundation of the world. And all of them
will come. Every one. But there will be
many who will make sad and pathetic excuses as to why they cannot
and will not come. People's excuses today are no
less sad and pathetic as the ones we just read. Who buys land
without looking at it first? Who buys a car without driving
it first? Whosoever comes to Christ, he
will in those wise cast out. God is able to save them, His
people to the uttermost, who come unto God by Him. So why
won't they come? It's difficult to understand
how this glorious proclamation of the Gospel doesn't receive
a unanimous consent from every sinner that hears it. It really
is. When you think about what God
has done for sinners, we ought to all fall on our faces and
say, Lord, give me Christ. Enable me to come to Him. Why
don't we? To those who believe, they'll
find this gospel is a comfort and encouragement. But my message
this morning is to you who will not believe. and who will not
come to this great supper and feast. Now the Lord mentioned
here in Luke 14 in both verses 12 and 21 who they were that
were bid to come to this gospel feast. Who are they? The poor,
those with nothing to pay. The maimed, those who are wounded
and sick. Those who are crippled are lame.
The blind, those who cannot see. These physical deformities that
our Lord healed vividly picture the spiritual deformities that
we all have. I've said that many times. I
am the man with the withered hand. I am the impotent man at
the pool of Bethesda. I have no man to do anything
for me but the God man. We are the woman with the issue
of blood. We have a disease, a blood disease. On and on and on. We're blind.
We can't see. We're deaf. We can't hear. We're
lame. We can't walk. Well, the first one mentioned
is they're poor. Poor in spirit. They have filthy
rags for righteousness. They have nothing to pay. They're
destitute of the bread from heaven. They're poor. But good news for
the poor. Unto you is the word of salvation
sent. Blessed are the poor, for they
have the gospel preached unto them. That's what the Lord told
the disciples of John. You go tell John that the blind
see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and the gospel is preached
unto the poor. Why, you have no faith, you have
no virtue, you have no good work, you have no grace, you have no
hope, you're poor! That's what makes this gospel
so wonderful. If you are thirsty, you can come
to the waters of life, and you can without money, and buy, and
you can eat without price. And let him that is a thirst
come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. No cost. Oh, it costs the maker. It costs the one who prepared
this gospel feast. But it's free to you. Secondly,
those who were bid, bade to come, that word means appealed to,
appealed to come to this gospel feast, they're not only poor,
but they're maimed. There was a time when I thought
that I could work out my own salvation, but then the Lord
showed me I was maimed. I was severely wounded, even
dead in sin. No hands, no arms, no feet, no
legs. Maimed! Spiritually deformed. Well, there was a time you thought
you could walk the road of faith. But you can't. You thought you
could provide with your hands what God would accept. But you
can't. You thought you could offer up
your heart to God, but it's wounded and disabled and deformed, and
you can't. You can't believe. You can't
repent. You can't obey. You're utterly undone, powerless
and maimed. You can't do anything to be accepted
of God. Thirdly, you're not only poor
and maimed, but you're hot. You're crippled and lame, spiritually
so. And some of you are halting between
two opinions. And any progress that you make
in spiritual things is just a limp. That's all it is. If the Lord
be God, follow Him. But if Baal or some other god
be your master, then follow them. That's what Elijah said. No man
or woman can serve two masters. You can't love two the most. To try to do so is to love one
and hate the other. You're haunted, you're crippled,
you're lame, you're without strength. That's what God says. But the
gospel is still available to you. To you who are limping without
strength, the word of salvation has been sent. And God has crossed
your path with this gospel faith. Will you come? Will you come? Or will you continue to make
excuses? Our Lord said in verse 24 here, He said, none of those
men which were bidden, those who didn't come, shall taste
of my supper. Well, that ought to be motivation
enough, shouldn't it? But sadly, it's not. Friends, the door of the ark
is still open. It's still open. But with thee
will I establish my covenant, and thou shalt come into the
ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with
thee." Friends, the door of the house on the wall of Jericho
that cannot fall, that house with the scarlet cord in the
window, it's still open. The door is still unlocked. Get
in the house and stay in the house. Joshua said, only Rahab
the harlot shall live out of all Jericho. Only Rahab the harlot
shall live. She and all that are with her
in the house. Christ is that shelter. Christ
is that ark. Christ is that house. Go into
the harlot's house and bring out thence the woman and all
that she hath as ye swear unto her. That's what God promises. All that are in Christ. shall
be saved. The wrath of God's judgment falls
upon all in the ark, but those in the ark are safe. It all fell
upon the ark. I love to think about that. This
is what your heavenly Joshua is saying to you. How long will
you halt between life and death? And then fourthly, you're blind. You cannot see yourself. You
cannot see God. Well, you think yourself to be
good. Everything's good. Everything's with me and God
is okay. I've got a good thing going with
God. You can't see. You can't see clearly. You can't
see the light. So you love your darkness. And
that's your condemnation. You love darkness rather than
light. And the reason is your deeds
are evil. You cannot see your lost estate. You cannot see Christ the Savior. You cannot see His beauty that
you would desire Him. You find no delight in being
His child. But Christ came into the world
to save sinners. And that's what qualifies us
for salvation. Now there is something that I
finally qualify for, Chris. I'm a sinner. And that's who
Christ came to save. I certainly qualified being a
sinner and so do you. And we can't deny it if we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and truth's not in us. Look at verse 23. And the Lord
said unto the servant, go into the highways and the
hedges and compel them. to come in, that my house may
be filled. You know, it's hard for me to
believe that now it's been almost 15 years that I've been a pastor. I just can't. And so many things
that Brother Montgomery said to me years ago have come to
roost. Brother Henry, Brother Don, Brother
Jack, Shanks, They all said to me things 30 years ago that now
make perfect sense to me. They didn't at the time. You
know, God's servants compel sinners to come to Christ, who is our
gospel feast. It's a divine command. Compel
them to come in. The word compel, that's a strong,
strong word. It means to constrain. to drive
in if you can, to press and to push through the door. But no
servant can do that. We can only compel, we can only
urge you to do so. We plant and we water, but God
has to give the increase. So let me say in closing that
which is burning within me, Some of you are yet unconverted, unreconciled,
unregenerate men and women. And as God's servant, I compel
you to come to Christ. That word compel means to necessitate. I necessitate you to come. It's necessary for you to do
so in order to have life. There's life in no other. the
Christ. You must come to Him. Week after
week I endeavor to proclaim the good news to you. Why will you
continue to turn away? Your excuses like those in our
text are pitiful and sad. Is this gospel feast nothing
to you? Is Christ's death nothing to
you? Is salvation, being reconciled to a holy God, nothing to you?
That was the question of our Lord. Is it nothing to you, all
you that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. That
fierce anger was meant for me. It was meant for you. but it's
inflicted upon Christ in our room instead that we might be
made free. God has commissioned reproach. God has commissioned to preach
the gospel, excuse me, to every creature. And God has promised
in his word that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
Now, let me just for a minute address that. I've often told
you that water baptism is not salvation. And I've said that
because many folks wind up trusting in their baptism as their salvation,
and it's wrong to do so. I can't tell you how many times
I've been to a funeral when, you know, in order to portray the one that's passed
from life unto death as saved, they'll say, He was baptized,
or she was baptized, such and such a date, and all they're
doing is making that person's act of baptism their salvation. That's wrong. But I do feel as
though maybe I've discouraged some of you from doing so by
saying that. You know, after Philip preached
to the eunuch, they came to a water. And that eunuch said, And Philip didn't bring it up,
the eunuch brought it up. And he said, see, water, what
doth hinder me from being baptized? Philip didn't do like preachers
do today, where you need to come down the aisle, you need to give
your heart to Jesus, then you need to get baptized, and then
you need to join the church, and then you need to start tithing.
No, he just preached unto him Christ. And the eunuch said,
what hinders me from being baptized? I want to be baptized. What's
hindering me? There's the water right there.
And Philip said, oh, if you believe with all your heart. Believe
what? The eunuch said, I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. That's what you have to believe.
that Christ Jesus did for you what you couldn't do for yourself.
He kept the law perfectly for you. He satisfied God's holy
justice on your behalf. And all you have to believe that
is Christ did that. The salvations of the Lord. There's
no salvation apart from Him. And the Scripture says, and they
both went down to the water. Both Philip and the eunuch. And
Philip baptized Him. Now listen to me carefully. Every
man and woman that bows to Christ as their only means of salvation
will be baptized. What about the thief on the cross?
Well, he was hindered. He was greatly hindered. His
feet were nailed to a cross. Or he would have been. But you're
not hindered. When a sinner sees that all that
God has done for them in Christ, they'll confess Christ publicly
in baptism. You won't be able to keep them
from it. So if you're trusting in Christ and haven't been baptized,
I compel you to do so. The words of our Lord are quite
plain. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. We're
commanded to believe and we're commanded to be baptized. And
some of you were baptized under a false gospel. Should you be
baptized again? Well, let me answer that with
a question. How could you have confessed a Savior that you didn't
know? Are you ashamed of the One who
loved you and gave Himself for you? He that despised Moses'
law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how
much sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy
who hath trodden under the foot of the Son of God, and hath counted
the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing,
and hath despised unto the Spirit of grace? My speech is simple. I compel you to flee to Christ,
and I compel you to publicly profess Him in baptism. This
is the God of heaven. Are we better off without Him? Are you better off to be His
enemy? Will you go about to establish your own righteousness? which
is nothing but filthy rags? Will not the blind man permit
another to lead them to this gospel feast? Will not the maimed
man put his hand on my shoulder to assist him to this banquet?
There's no charge or cost that would discourage the poor man
from coming. So I compel you that are poor
and maimed and haught and blind to come. There's no charge. I look around this room this
morning and there are several faces that I saw for years that
I don't see anymore. Where have they gone? Did they
ever really inwardly come? If you will not come, you'll
be without excuse. Where have they gone? I don't
know. Do you know what you're rejecting?
Do you know who you're rejecting? You're rejecting Christ, your
only Savior. If you will not come, you will
not come. Other foundation can no man lay,
neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none
other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be
saved. Are you hearing me? We'll soon
pass from the seen to the unseen, from mortality to immortality,
from time to eternity. I compel you to hear me on this.
It'll be a hard, hard thing to die without Christ. It's appointed unto men once
to die after this the judgment. And I compel you not to be one
to whom the Lord says, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting
fire. What keeps you from coming? Do
you feel too guilty? Christ died for the chief of
sinners. Are you too vile? Christ came into the world to
save vile sinners. I had someone tell me once, I
don't think I can believe. Well, you'll never believe if
you look to your believing. You're not commanded to come
to faith, you're commanded to come to Christ. The sight of
Christ will enable you to believe. If you can see Christ, then life
has been given, sight has been given. Well, I've done my best
to compel you, but it's all in the Master's hand. He's the master
of the heart. But I do ask you, will you be
a willing captive to the all-conquering Christ? There's no better place
to be than a bond slave to Him, a willing slave, a willing servant. May God be pleased to make it
so for His glory in our group and for Christ's sake.