2nd Corinthians 5, and I shall
read verses 18 through 21. But all things are of God, who
reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the
ministry of reconciliation. That is, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their
trespasses, and having committed unto us the word or the message
of reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore
on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us, we
beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin, He made
to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him. Recent events in the life of
our own congregation and within the orbit of our awareness of
what God has done in the lives of some of our own members and
some of our friends in our sister churches have had a very sobering
influence upon many of us. For example, It's a sobering
thing for me to realize that I stand in the very pulpit where
a few months ago a man of God stood preaching to us with life
and vigor and with the power of the Holy Spirit sent down
from heaven. A man in his early forties who
now lies on a hospital bed in the Albany Medical Center with
his body riddled with cancer and with the doctors having said,
the doctors having said that his cancer is incurable. We heard Wednesday night of a
37-year-old servant of Christ possibly planning to visit us
in the spring during an extended vacation, a sabbatical, that
he might spend some concentrated period of study in the academy,
and just a few weeks ago with nagging headaches and a feeling
of general weakness, checked himself into the hospital and
by Saturday of that week was told that he had a massive brain
tumor, and by Monday of the next week was in his grave, leaving
behind him a grieving wife and four precious children. As we
meet here, unless something has transpired in the past couple
of hours to change the facts, Pastor Barker is by the bedside
of his own earthly father, who, in his own words, said to his
son last night, the end is near, isn't it? And oxygen has been
brought to help make his breathing easier as he totters on the very
brink of eternity. These realities, dear people,
have had a very sobering effect upon all of us. They've had a
sobering effect upon me. As I put my feet on the floor
this morning and ask myself the question, were my feet still
in the bed at the end of relatively immobile legs through the paralysis
brought on by the secondary effects of the tumors, if I were lying
on that hospital bed as Dean Allen is this morning, and I
were to ask myself, looking back upon my years of ministry, what
questions would press in upon my own conscience, And I'm confident
that the questions that would press in upon me would be such
as these. Did I make the issues of life
and death plain enough each time I preached? Did I, in the course
of seeking to have a balanced ministry to edify the people
of God, did I frequently enough pause in the course of building
up the saints to concentrate all of my energies and powers
upon addressing the central issues of life and death in the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked myself that if I were
that 737-year-old man, having been told I had a massive tumor,
and had a few moments of reflection before I passed out of this world,
what would I think about the extent to which I had set before
my regular hearers the great issues of life and death and
salvation through Jesus Christ? And as I reflected upon what
it is that a son in his fifties would say to his aged and dying
father who's about to breathe his last, what would I wish I
had been able to say with clarity when his mind was more clear,
when he was more vigorous in health? What are the concerns
that when we put everything into focus against the backdrop of
the realities of death, and of the age to come, what are the
issues that really count? And while my mind was reflecting
on those matters and my spirit feeling the pressure of them,
and I sought to prepare for this morning, I trust in answer to
your prayers and mine that my mind was directed to the passage
that I've read in your hearing, a passage that I have often reflected
upon over the years, passage, portions of which I have quoted
probably hundreds of times, but a passage that I've never attempted
to open up in the hearing of the gathered people of God in
this place. And I want to do that this morning
with the pressure of these other providential matters, exerting,
I trust, upon all of us something of an intensified awareness of
the brevity of life, the uncertainty of life, the certainty of death
and judgment and heaven and hell. And as we look at our passage,
I want you to trace out with me three very vital, three very
crucial lines of thought that are contained in the passage. And the first is, I want you
to note with me the condition of the world assumed in our text. In this passage read in your
hearing, the world is assumed to be in a very specific condition
by nature. And I want you to consider with
me the essence of that condition from our passage, and then the
cause of that condition. What condition is the world in
according to this passage? Well, you will notice that there
is a certain word that occurs again and again in the passage. Listen as I highlight it in the
manner of my reading. But all things are of God who
reconciled us to himself and gave unto us the ministry of
reconciliation. That is that God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself, has committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. We entreat you on behalf of Christ
be reconciled to God. Do you see the dominance of the
word reconciliation? Reconciled? And seeing that word,
we are led immediately to understand that Paul is assuming that the
world is in a certain condition. When something is to be reconciled,
it assumes that it is in a condition of alienation. The opposite of
reconciliation is alienation. It is the reality of alienation
which necessitates the intrusion of reconciliation. Let me try
to illustrate it. Try to imagine a young couple
who in the providence of God met one another in this congregation. They are both real, serious,
earnest Christians. They have been praying for a
number of years that God would guide them with reference to
a life's partner. And knowing something of biblical
standards absorbed from the scriptures as to what they are looking for
in a mate, they have very carefully and prayerfully established a
friendship. They have gotten to know one
another. They have come to the conviction that there is a solid
basis for the building of a stable and God-honoring relationship.
Along the way, they've sought counsel from wiser, more knowledgeable
people. They have sought to regulate
that relationship in the pacing of the level at which they have
disclosed their growing affection and esteem and love for one another. And then the moment of truth
is come when, confident of the will of God according to the
scriptures and within the quality control of having sought wise
counsel, the evening comes when he's going to pop the question
and put a ring on her finger. And we happen to be at the restaurant
where he plans to let her know his intentions and seek her hand
in marriage. And as they sit there at the
table, looking back into the retina of each other's eyes,
and he asks the question, and holy blush comes over her cheek,
and she restrains herself from jumping across the table, saying,
of course I will, you dummy, what do you think I've been doing
all these months? But she very modestly says, I
will, and he places the ring on her finger and reaches across
discreetly in the restaurant off in a quiet corner and holds
her hand and pools of love are filled up in his own eyes and
hers. Can you imagine us sitting there
watching all of this and then me nudging you and saying, you
know, I think that couple has a serious problem. I want to
go over and offer to reconcile them. You'd look at me and say, I think
maybe I need to take you to the nearest hospital and to the psychiatric
ward. What in the world are you talking
about? Going over and offering to reconcile that couple? I mean,
if eyeballs were glue, they'd be glued. It's evident that their
hearts are toward one another, their affections are being poured
out to one another. The concept of reconciliation
is absolutely foreign to that. But suppose we looked over the
other side of the restaurant. And there was a couple who know
nothing of the kind of harmony that is built upon either in
God's common grace or his special grace, true love that seeks the
good of one another. And in desperation to try to
patch up a very tortured, fractured, hate-filled marriage, they've
got a babysitter and they're going out to eat, and what happens?
Well, no sooner do they sit down when they begin to spat, and
the water has been brought, and then the menu has been brought,
and you sense that there's a growing level of animosity, and you can
even overhear the crackling of some of the sharp words, and
you see the icy daggers in their looking at one another, and the
cynicism written all over them. And then if I were to say, you
know, I really think that couple needs some help, I'm going to
make an effort to go over and to reconcile them. Then you'd
say, well, I don't know if they'll appreciate it, but if you're
fool enough to try it, go ahead. But you see, though you might
question my judgment in trying to reconcile them, you would
see in that setting that reconciliation is exactly what they needed. Why? Because there was hostility,
there was alienation. Though they were sitting three
feet away from one another, they may as well have been on different
planets, they are alienated in their affection and love and
esteem and sensitivity. So when the word reconcile comes
into our vocabulary, it is assumed that there is a condition of
hostility, a condition of distance, of separation, of ill will. And in this passage, when the
apostle says that God has reconciled us, has given to us the ministry
of reconciliation, that God in Christ beseeches us to be reconciled
to God, all of that is nonsense. unless what is assumed in the
use of that term is a reality. And what is assumed is that God
and man are not holding hands by nature, are not looking into
each other's eyes with pools of love and goodwill, but that
there is separation, alienation, hostility between God and man
and between man and God. And if that is the essence of
the condition assumed, and it is, then what is the cause of
that condition? Well, our text tells us by using
two words. Notice them. Two words are found
in our passage. We read in verse 19, That is, that God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their
trespasses. Reconciliation is introduced
in the context of trespasses. And again, the end of verse 20,
we beseech you on the behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God,
Him who knew no sin. He made to be sin on our behalf
that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. The essence of
the condition assumed in our text is alienation. And what is the cause of that
condition assumed in the text? It is trespasses and sin. It is the ugly reality of human
sin and trespasses which has caused the alienation. And in this passage, the primary
emphasis is on the alienation which sin has caused between
God and man, especially the alienation of God Himself with respect to
man. That when man sinned and broke
covenant with God, It is true that man is alienated in his
own heart towards God, but it is more fundamentally true that
God is alienated to the sinner. It was God who banished Adam
and Eve from Eden. They did not run out of Eden.
He banished them from the place of His special presence because
of their sins. And it is the reality of that
which the Word of God designates trespasses those steps that are
not planted in the way of God, and sins, those missings of the
mark of God's standard of righteousness that originally constituted our
first parents, sinners, and we falling in Adam are constituted
without exception as sinners. We are conceived in sin, brought
forth in sin, and the scripture says, according to Ephesians
chapter 2, that through our trespasses and our sins we are brought into
a state of spiritual death as well as that of alienation from
God. Now, if this is not the condition
of the world, a condition of alienation, a condition caused
by trespasses and sins, then the work of Jesus Christ is all
a cruel joke. Now, I want you to feel the logic
of that. According to this passage, that which Christ did, He did
to reconcile us to God. But if there is no real alienation,
if there is no real trespasses and sins, which causes God to
have a controversy with us, then Jesus did all that He did for
nothing. If man is inherently good, if
man can pull himself up by his own bootstraps, then I say it
makes mockery of the work of Jesus Christ. For as the apostle
concentrates upon the work of Christ in terms of reconciliation,
He is assuming that dark, dismal, foreboding backdrop of the biblical
doctrine of the universality of human sin, the tragedy of
human sin, that it has cut man off from God and has caused God
in righteousness and justice to turn away from man. there
is alienation between God the Creator and man the creature. Now I ask you sitting here this
morning, has that truth ever descended out of the realm of
general religious talk and theological propositions and come home with
burning focus within your own breast? Have you personally,
individually, consciously come to the acknowledgement that you,
through your trespasses and your sins by nature, you are alienated
from the living God. Has that ever become a felt,
believed, spiritual truth to you? If not, I'm not surprised
you think so little of the death of Christ. If not, I'm not surprised
you treat so lightly the Son of God in His person and in His
work. For He Himself said, I did not
come to call the righteous, but sinners. They that are healthy
have no need of a doctor, but they that are sick And don't
sit there in your vaunted pride that you've been able to escape
joining the ranks of the rest of us groveling sinners who acknowledge
that we are in Adam sinners, conceived in sin, born in sin,
go astray from the womb, speaking lies. Don't pride yourself. that when people pray and say,
Oh God, have mercy upon us for our sins, cleanse us from our
remaining uncleanness, our pride and our lust and our envy and
our greed, don't pride yourself that you put yourself outside
the scope of such prayers. You're living in the never-never
land of self-deception, that is, the very murder of your soul
if you go on in that land. For in the day of judgment, God
will convince you in the presence of the whole assembled universe
that you are part of a world alienated from Him. Convinced
of it, you must be. Either now, while the door of
mercy is open, or then, when that door is shut. But convinced
of your alienation from God, you will be. And for those who
sink into hell, In one sense, hell is God's eternal affirmation
of his alienation from sinners. For he says, depart from me. You see how personal it is? See
how personal it is? You wanted to live without me?
You wanted to die without me? Now go out into hell without
me. Depart from me into the eternal
fire. So the condition of the world
assumed in our text, in its essence, is alienation. In its cause,
according to our text, trespasses and sins. But now notice in the
second place, and this is gospel, the provision for the world as
described in our text. We've seen the condition of the
world assumed in our text, But now what is the provision made
for the world as described in our text? Notice first of all
its author and then its essence. Whatever that provision is, Paul
is careful to draw all of our attention to its author. See
the emphasis, verse 18, but all things are of God who reconciled
us. Verse 19, that is, God was in
Christ reconciling the world. Verse 20, we are ambassadors
therefore on behalf of Christ as though God were entreating
by us, be ye reconciled to God. Do you see who the author of
this provision is? He reconciled. He gave. He reconciled. He committed. It is God who entreats. And in this constant allusion
to God, Paul is setting before us this fundamental biblical
truth that in the issue of rescuing man from his native condition,
alienated from God, held in the grip and under the condemnation
of trespasses and sins, it is God who is the author of the
provision that is made. There is an emphasis here upon
the fact that it is God himself and God alone who has both taken
the initiative and made the provision for this world as it is set forth
in our text. And what's the essence of that
provision that he made? Two things. Look at them. They're
repeated in verses 18 and 19. But all things are of God, and
what did He do to remedy this condition? Two things. Who reconciled
us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. He reconciled, He gave. Verse 19, that is, God was in
Christ reconciling the world, not reckoning to them their trespasses,
and having committed unto us the word or the message of reconciliation. You see the parallel in verse
18? He reconciled, he gave. Reconciling, he committed. So the two things that constitute
the essence of God's provision are reconciliation based on the
cross of Christ and the institution of the ministry and word of reconciliation
on behalf of Christ. And that's what God has done.
to effect a remedy for our state of alienation. Let's look at
them for a few moments each. First of all, reconciliation
based on the cross of Christ. And here the emphasis is so clear
that one can miss it only if he's determined to do it. What
is God's remedy for alienated sinners? It is a reconciliation
through Christ. The emphasis is clear that that
reconciliation has no substance in reality apart from what is
bound up in the words through Christ. Verse 19, God was in
Christ reconciling. What is through Christ in verse
18 is in Christ in verse 19. And then in verse 21, him who
knew no sin, a direct reference to Christ, he made to be sin
on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And here is a direct reference
to that awesome reality expounded in a text like Galatians 3.13. What does it mean that the one
who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf? It does not mean
he was made to embody the defilement of our sin, to be made personally,
individually guilty with our sin. But it means that by imputation,
putting to his account and record our sins, God dealt with him
as the greatest sinner that ever existed under his heaven. That's
why Galatians 3.13 says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of
the law, having been made a curse for us. He is constituted in
the court of heaven as the one who is legally charged with all
of the punishment due to the sins of every man, woman, boy
or girl in all ages who will ever come to trust in Him. and
form part of that company whom no man can number, out of every
kindred, tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, who will
worship God and the Lamb forever and ever, Christ takes our place. And in taking that place, God
is not playing games with our sins and our trespasses. He's
not blinking at them. He's not simply sweeping them
under the rug of general benevolence and kindness and goodwill. He's
heaping up all of the legal demands for justice which our sins provoke. And He is charging all of that
to His Son. And He is venting in holy, pure,
restrained, but righteous anger all that our sins deserved. He is being made sin for us in
His death upon the cross. And our reconciliation to God
is based on the cross of Christ. It is reconciliation through
Christ. It is reconciling the world to
Himself in Christ. How? not in some nebulous way
that Jesus Christ is made the great religious figurehead by
God, and if you in some way or other like Him and are drawn
to Him and lean upon Him, all will turn out all right. No,
my friends, it is Christ hanging on a Roman cross, soaked in His
own blood, with His contused face, dripping with that blood
mingled with spit, and the heavens shrouded in blackness, and the
Father pouring out the vials of His wrath, making Him sin
for us, until it rings from His Holy Soul the cry, My God, My
God, why have You forsaken Me? That's what God was doing. through
Christ to reconcile sinners to himself. That's what he was doing
in Christ, making reconciliation. That's what it means. He made
him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might
become the righteousness of God in him. God's provision for a
world of sinners in its essence is reconciliation based on the
cross of Christ. But then the second thing God
did, and it's part of his provision, you remember we saw it in both
verses? The God who reconciled also gave unto us the ministry
of reconciliation. Verse 18, verse 19, the God that
was in Christ reconciling the world to himself is the God who
is committed, Paul says unto us, the word of reconciliation. And as surely as God is the author
of all that Christ does to procure a righteous forgiveness and a
righteous acceptance with God, God institutes a ministry from
among the sons of men and confers upon mere mortals the privilege
of pronouncing this word or message of reconciliation. And to state
it in a way that I hope will shock you into alertness, as
surely as no sinner, as far as the Scriptures are concerned,
As surely as no sinner can be saved without God's work in making
His Son sin for us, no sinner will be saved who does not hear
the word of reconciliation. Can you be saved without the
reconciling work of Christ? No! Can you be saved without
hearing and embracing from the heart the word of reconciliation? No. For God is ordained by the
foolishness of preaching to save. How shall they call on him whom
they have not heard? How shall they hear without a
preacher? How shall they preach except they be sent? And while
the preacher is never in his person and in his work the ground
of the sinner's hope or confidence, not one millionth of a gram's
worth. Nonetheless, God has instituted
the ministry to be that of reconciliation. And how is it constituted, the
ministry of reconciliation, verse 18? Well, it's exegeted in verse
19. It is constituted the ministry
of reconciliation, not by organizing God's people to have marches
in places where there are social problems and be reconcilers by
marches. No, that is not the apostolic
way. The God who has made a ministry
of reconciliation has defined it in verse 19, having committed
unto us the Word. the word, the message of reconciliation,
constituting then the servants of God, ambassadors on the behalf
of Christ. And what's the function of an
ambassador? It is not to go out and to lobby
and politically agitate the cause of his country. It is to represent
the mind and the will of the sovereign who has sent him into
a foreign country. And here God is clearly defined
then what means he has ordained by which to bring the news of
God's provision for needy sinners to men. Now if that is true and
it is, then let me say by application, if you ever hope, if you ever
hope that your problem of trespasses and sins is to be dealt with
biblically, You must come to the place where the reality of
the person and work of Jesus Christ becomes the most focused
object of your interest, your desire, your longings, your hopes,
your confidence. Until Christ crucifies becomes
something more than religious gibberish, something more than
pious drivel, something more than preacher's official talk.
Until in the felt awareness of your alienation and God's right
to banish you forever because of your sins, until in that context
the news that He has sovereignly chosen to make someone else sin
on behalf of sinners, He has chosen to impute to an innocent
one all of our guilt, that we might have the righteousness
that is inherent in Him reckoned to our account, until that becomes
indeed good news, and you're prepared to listen to it preached
and expounded from the Scriptures from men whose only claim is
they have been given a ministry of reconciliation. And the essence
of that ministry is a word of reconciliation that points you
to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Oh,
my friend, until you count those men, your greatest friends who
tell you about a crucified Savior, You haven't begun to understand
your own need, nor God's provision in Jesus Christ. God has instituted
the ministry, authorized mere men, rescued themselves by the
very work of Christ that they proclaim, to herald in the name
of the King, on behalf of Christ. Notice, as though God himself
were entreating. this marvelous message. Well,
we've looked at the condition of the world as assumed in the
text, alienated. That's its essence. What's its
cause? Trespasses and sins. We've looked
at the provision for the world as described in the text. The
author of that provision is God, and the essence A reconciliation
based on the cross of Christ, instituting a ministry that is
a word of reconciliation on behalf of Christ. Now consider in the
third place, having looked at the condition of the world, the
provision for the world, now the personal entreaty which comes
to the world as contained in the text. the personal entreaty
which comes to the world as contained in the text. I want you to consider
with me first of all its characteristics and then its substance. What
are the characteristics of the entreaty that comes to you? Look
at verse 20 and following. We are ambassadors, therefore,
on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us. We beseech you, on behalf of
Christ, be ye reconciled to God. The characteristics of this entreaty
that comes to you is this, or are these? It comes from God
Himself. We are ambassadors on behalf
of Christ as though God were entreating by us. Think of it. The ascended God
who has righteously turned away from man the sinner. The God
who in his righteous anger could damn us all. but who in love
to sinners has sent His Son to take the room and place of sinners
and made Him to be sin. That God has not only instituted
a ministry and then, as it were, vacated the premises to see how
it all turns out. No! The God who was active in
reconciling, the God who was active in committing the word
of reconciliation, He is now Himself coming to you, coming
to you as though God were in preaching. Think of it, my friend. The Creator coming to man, the
creature. We who can give Him nothing,
add nothing to Him. He who dwelt in blissful self-containment
and in the epitome of bliss and happiness from all eternity before
there was a speck of created reality. No angel's spirit, no
seraph's wing, let alone no puny little creature called man who
rears back on his hind legs and spits in the face of deity. God
who needs nothing from us, gains nothing from us, yet the text
says that this personal entreaty and its characteristics is first
of all one that comes from God, the offended, alienated God,
the God who has done something in Christ and has instituted
the ministry. That God is still active and
He comes. The second characteristic is
it comes on behalf of Christ himself. We are ambassadors,
therefore, on the behalf of Christ. There is no separation between
the Father's will and action in authorizing this message to
come to us. It, in that sense, comes directly
from God. But it comes on the behalf of
Christ himself. May I say it reverently? Christ
was not content to die to procure the reconciliation alone. He
is still following the work of his cross and his open tomb and
his glorious session at the right hand of the Father by his present
activity as he himself comes through the message of the ambassadors
whom he sends. So it's not that preachers say
only go to Christ, it's Christ who says in the word of the gospel,
come to me. Come to me. The only way you're
going to hear the voice of Christ till the day of judgment is to
hear it through his ambassadors. He's not coming down to speak
again. The next time we hear him speak will be at his second
coming and summoning all men to judgment. But he is not distant,
though he is not physically present. He comes through his ambassadors
on the behalf of Christ. But this is what amazed me as
to its characteristics. This entreaty not only comes
from God on behalf of Christ, But it comes in most earnest,
passionate sincerity. Look at the words. We are ambassadors
therefore on behalf of Christ as though God were entreating. This word entreat is the word
Paul uses when he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, Does
God command in the gospel? Yes, He commands all men everywhere
to repent. One of the texts I was wrestling
with last night that I might preach on, that's a truth. God
commands us to repent, commands us to believe, but He goes beyond
commandment. He comes beseeching us like an
inferior to a superior. I don't understand such grace.
As though God the offended, alienated God who has turned to us in Christ. That God has gone beyond the
sending of His Son, the bruising of His Son, raising Him from
the dead, authorizing a ministry of reconciliation. That God now,
I say it reverently, on bended knee and stretched out hand,
beseeches you. What grace. And then he goes
beyond beseeching. And if you were writing in the
Gospels and you were talking about a beggar who sat by the
roadside begging, you'd use a Greek verb, deomai. And that word is
found right in here. As though God were entreating
by us, we beseech you on behalf of Christ. The word entreat is
beg. The word beseech, I'm sorry,
I think I parked on entreat, I'm sorry. That word entreat
is translated beg. It's one of the standard usages
of it. And then when he says, we beseech
you, that's the word found in Romans 12, 1. By the mercies
of God, we beseech you, present your bodies. There's the beseeching,
the bent knee, the stretched out hand, but now even more than
that, entreaty is begging. Begging. And if that imagery means anything,
it means that the characteristic of the personal entreaty that
comes to the world is not only from God and on behalf of Christ,
but it comes most earnestly, passionately, and sincerely.
The offended God who gives is now the offended God who beseeches
and who entreats, who begs. And what is the substance of
that entreaty? Look at it. Here it is. Be reconciled
to God. God is turned to the sinner in
Christ. Now he says to the sinner, turn
to me through Christ. And in Christ, God and the sinner
meet reconciled. You see, God's done something
in Christ. His face is turned to sinful
man and he says, I beseech, I entreat, Here is my son, in him all that
will ever be done, that sinners may have a righteous pardon,
a righteous access into my favor has been done. And what do his
messengers now say? They say, you sinner, with your
hard thoughts of God, with your heart that is hard to His person
and His laws and His ways, and you think mean and unworthy thoughts
of His Son and His salvation, be reconciled to God. Turn from
your disposition of self-pleasing. Turn from your disposition of
trying to work out your own righteousness when God has emptied heaven of
its best to procure the only righteousness that will be accepted
by heaven, the one that came out of heaven in the person of
Christ and went back to heaven in the person of Christ. God
says, be reconciled. That means we must repent, turn
from our unworthy thoughts of God and how to be right with
God and how to attain forgiveness and life and salvation. Turn
from all of that nonsense. And believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Rest the whole weight of your
soul upon the work that God has accomplished in His Son. Trust
in Him. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you shall be saved. For by grace you save through
faith in that not of yourself. That's how we are reconciled
to God. And do you see the glory of it?
That the nexus, that which holds it all together, like that compression
ring at the top of this building, holds the weight of all of those
beams. So in Christ, God is turned to
us as sinful men. And now, he says, through Christ,
you turn to God. And in Christ, the offended God
now reconciled, and the offending guilty sinner now reconciled,
meet in Christ, and in Christ alone, but in Christ forever. And in this passage, beseeching,
entreating, begging, yearning that you might know that salvation,
We say with the Apostle, we are ambassadors, therefore, on the
behalf of Christ. As though God were begging, God
were entreating by us. And that's what humbles me as
I pray over the text and I say, oh, God, how can one so natively
cold and indifferent to men's salvation rightly represent your
heart? But that's what the text says
we're to do, as though God were entreating by us. We beseech
you on the behalf of Christ. Oh, my lost friend, boy or girl,
man or woman, I do not come with the thunders and with the threats
and the warnings this morning. I've pleaded, oh God, baptize
my heart. with the genuine felt tenderness
of your own heart in condescending to beg and to beseech sinners
to be reconciled to yourself. My friend, give up those hard
thoughts of God. If He were the mean being you
think He is, and that's why you won't repent and turn to Him
through Christ, you really think He's going to rob you of your
bag of jelly beans? You really think He's going to
steal your lollipops? He's going to be the heavenly
killjoy? No! Those thoughts come from
the devil. He put them in the mind of our
first parents. God is mean-spirited. That's
why He said that treason. No, no! And He's been telling
you the same lie. We beseech you in the name of
that God and of His Christ, be reconciled to God. God bends
the knee. God stretches out the hand. God
says, why will ye die? I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked, but that he turn and live. God has no delight
that now His wrath hangs over you because you're in your impenitence
and unbelief. And therefore, He says, be reconciled
to God. Come out from under the foreboding
canopy of His wrath and into the bright, warm sunshine of
His reconciled face. Be reconciled to God. Turn. Believe. Be reconciled. to God, in Christ's stead, on
the behalf of God himself, we beseech you, be ye reconciled
to God. If you ask the question, Pastor
Martin, I see that you've not imported anything into the passage.
You've not involved us in complicated arguments. You've taken the simple,
straightforward words of the passage, laid them before us.
But what happens if I choose simply to count it as another
time when I've suffered through a sermon? Read on. And the answer's right in the
passage. And working together with him, we entreat you all
so that you receive not the grace of God in vain. It is the grace
of God that has brought the reconciliation to pass, the grace of God that
has instituted the ministry, the grace of God that has brought
you within the orbit for another time of the message of reconciliation. And again, someone in the name
of God and on behalf of Christ has begged and besought you to
be reconciled to God. And now we buttress it by saying
we entreat you that you not receive that grace of God in vain. And
what is it to receive it in vain? Read on, for he saith, In an
acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, And in a day of salvation
did I succor thee. Behold, now is the acceptable
time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And my friend, if having heard
the word of reconciliation today, you do not repent and believe,
you've again received the grace of God in vain. And you have
no assurance you will ever hear the entreaty of God again. Though God stoops to bend his
knee and stretch out his hand, he will not stoop and stretch
forever. My spirit will not always strive
with man. The only safe day is today! Receive not the grace of God
in vain. It is all of grace that I could
say the things I could say this morning, based not upon my religious
philosophy, but upon God's infallible revelation in the Scriptures.
How long, my friend, will you trifle with this God, though
He is merciful and delights In grace and mercy and judgment
is his strange work. The scripture says, he that being
often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be cut off,
and that without remedy. Dear friend, as I have labored
to speak simply and clearly, going back over the fundamental
issues, why have I done all of this? that you might receive
the grace of God today. Receive it to your everlasting
profit by being reconciled to God in the way of repentance
and faith, dealing with God in the person of his Son through
whom God is reconciled to sinners. And my final word to those of
you who are the children of God, may I ask you how long has it
been Since the great truth of God's marvelous grace in rescuing
the likes of you has brought you to a sense that has made
you cry out, Oh, Lord, what else can I do but give myself away
in the light of such condescending love? In direct proportion to the truth
of Christ crucified living in your heart, will you love him?
and serve him, hate your sins and love his ways. May we feed
upon him who said he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood
hath eternal life and I will raise him up the last day. What
was he saying? He whose life is sustained by
the truth of my death for sinners. That's what it is to eat his
flesh and drink his blood. That's what Paul meant when he
said, the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God. And
how does he conceive of him who loved me and gave himself for
me? As I live in faith of the Son
of God, it is always viewing the Son of God as the one who
reconciled me to the Father. He loved me, gave himself for
me. So may the Lord not only make
his word effectual to bring some of you to be reconciled to God,
but those of us who are reconciled to him. May we with renewed determination
live our lives in the faith of him who loved us and gave himself
for us. Let us pray. Our Father, We feel ourselves
unworthy even to announce such glorious truths. Yet we believe
that you have instituted the ministry of reconciliation, deposited
in the hands of your people the word of reconciliation. We pray that you would make it
effectual today, bringing many