Thank you, Pastor. Thank you. I'm at the age where I get a
little bit nostalgic, I guess maybe too much for some folks.
But it was 40 years ago, the first time I stood in this pulpit,
will be this fall. And God has given us a close attachment to
one another. over the years. A lot of you
men got grown children now, we used to take to camp. I'll tell
you stories about that sometime. We have had a good relationship
together. First time I was here, I preached
to you from 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Let's go back to that passage
of scripture tonight. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. It is so very, very, very good
to see you prospering together in the cause of our Redeemer
under your pastor's leadership ministry. So good to see your
faces again. Knowing therefore the terror
of the Lord, the Apostle says in verse 11, we persuade men. We persuade men. Some of you
here are yet without faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, living as rebels against
God, you fist shoved in God's face every day, fighting God
with every breath. I want to persuade you. I want
to persuade you. to lay down your weapons of warfare
against God. Raise up the white flag of surrender
in your soul and bow to King Jesus. Believe Him, receive Him,
live with Him. I want to persuade you. Many
of you, my brothers and sisters, have been a long time in the
way of grace and faith and life. How good God's been to us. How
gracious. How merciful. Oh, how He has
blessed our lives. But we have a terrible, terrible,
terrible tendency, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love. We come to a meeting like this,
hear a message like we just heard, and our hearts are just I sing
a mighty fortune so I can't ever sing it that good again. I just
love to sing it and walk out the door and forget everything. How quickly we are engulfed in
our own flesh and in the cares of this world and prone to neglect
God our Savior. I want to persuade you, my brothers
and sisters, old and young, You who are just entering the race
and you who are about to finish your race. God give us grace to utterly consecrate ourselves
anew to God our Savior. Do you realize, Pastor, that
God our Savior is utterly consecrated to us? In the totality of his being,
the triune God consecrated to me, to my everlasting good. How shall I find any excuse not
to give myself day by day in relentless, utter consecration
to Him. I want to persuade you again,
give yourself to the Savior. And I want to persuade you, my
brethren, who labor in the cause of Christ, that we too have our
difficulties. After a while, you get a little
discouraged. After a while, the work gets heavy. Oh, God, graciously
inspire my soul to renewed devotion. to the cause of Christ and the
interest of his kingdom, the saving of his elect, the glory
of his name. I want to persuade you, Bruce
Crabtree, and I pray God will persuade me to give ourselves
to this. Nothing else worth giving yourself
to. God is still saving his people. God is still raising up and calling
out and gifting to his church men to preach the gospel of his
free grace. Two weeks ago, I got a telephone
call from a 72-year-old man, Pentecostal preacher, been listening
to us on Free Grace Radio. God taught him the gospel, pulled
out of the denomination, and he called and chatted with me,
and he called back this week. I'm planning to go out just a
couple of weeks to preach for him for three days. I haven't
preached in a Pentecostal church since I was 18 years old. I think
this one will go better than that one did. This is out of
Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Brother Joe Heflin is his name. I'm excited to meet him. God
is still raising up men to preach the gospel. God is still building
his church and kingdom. He's still calling out his elect.
He's still establishing his throne in the hearts of men. Oh, God
use us for that purpose. Well, how can I do this? I recognize
that the persuasion is God's work. The task is too great for
me. I can't persuade any senator
to come to Christ. I can't persuade you or myself
to give ourselves anew to the Redeemer. I can't persuade myself
or you to give ourselves more fully to the blessed work of
the gospel. But God the Holy Ghost can. And
I pray that he will be pleased to speak by his word now and
persuade you, persuade me to our Savior. Preaching ought to
always move our hearts Godward, so that when the message is done,
our hearts are drawn near to God in repentance, in faith,
and in joy. Knowing, therefore, the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men. Let's look at this passage of
Scripture. You just hold your Bibles open at 2 Corinthians
5. And I'm going to give you several
reasons why you and I ought to give ourselves utterly to our
Redeemer. To you who do not know the Savior,
and to you who do, hear me, We are not brute beasts. God didn't create us for time. You and I are living souls. And we will spend eternity either
in the bliss of heavenly glory with God rejoicing over us as
we rejoice over Him in singing. are in the torments of the damned,
in something called the second death, something called hell,
the torments of which I cannot imagine and prefer not to think
about. But eternity is sure. In the
light of eternity, oh, how anxious you ought to be to know the eternal
God as your refuge. In the light of eternity, oh,
how anxious we ought to be to give ourselves to Him who loved
us and gave Himself for us. In the light of eternity, oh,
how we ought to devote ourselves to God our Savior and the service
of His kingdom. We are men and women given a
little time on this earth, but we live for eternity somewhere. either in everlasting life or
in everlasting death. And you know it. You know that
so. Look back up in chapter 4 verse
18. Chapter 4 verse 18. Paul has just told us that our
light affliction, our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While
we look not at things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Oh God give me grace to look upon everything in this
world as it really is, just temporary. Everything. Everything you possess,
everything you work so hard for, everything you set your mind
to have when you reach your retirement age, all that stuff is just temporary. All the relationships we have,
all of them. Talk about that boy, dear as
he is, just temporary. Little grandbaby, just temporary.
Just temporary. We live in a world in which everything
is temporary and rapidly coming to an end. We're going to a world
in which everything's eternal and never changes. A world of
eternity. Look at how the Apostle Paul
speaks in verses 1 through 9 in chapter 5. The apostle is writing
here by divine inspiration and shows us what our attitude as
believers ought to be toward life and death. And the issues
are warning to all who are yet without Christ. First, we live,
we ought to live in the expected hope of immortality. in the expected
hope of immortality, soon, soon, this mortal body shall go to
the dust and the days coming when this mortal flesh shall
be raised in immortality. Now you find somebody to explain
that. This natural body is gonna be sold in there and be raised
a spiritual body. But that's not just out yonder
in the distant future. As soon as we pass out of this
world, you and I who are gods pass in to the presence of God
our Savior in heaven. Look at verse 1. We know, we
know, we know. If you have to argue about it,
you don't know. We know. We know. We know that if our earthly house
of this tabernacle were dissolved, and soon it shall be, we have,
immediately, we have a building of God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens, As soon as the Spirit leaves
this body of flesh, we enter into a building of God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Now watch this.
For in this we grow. We grow. And this is not talking about
all the sorrows and pains and difficulties we have in life.
You know, we have trouble and we get to pitying ourselves and
say, well, I'd just like to die. That's not what we're talking
about. In this tabernacle of clay, we groan as the whole creation
groans in expectation of something better, because we're saved in
hope. We're saved in hope of something indescribably better
than eye has seen or ear heard or has ever entered into the
heart of man. We grow in this tabernacle. Watch what it says
here. In this tabernacle, we grow earnestly desiring to be
clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven. If so be
that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For in this
tabernacle we do groan, being burdened, being burdened, not
for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality
might be swallowed up of life. I am more sensible today, I believe,
than I have ever been of a horrible, horrible deadness about my being. A horrible, horrible deadness
in my soul. A horrible, horrible deadness
in my heart. I'm anxious for life. Life. Real life. Real life. Oh, how blessed I've
been in this life. God saved me by His grace. Give
me loving family, loving friends all over the world. But oh, to
live, to live as my Savior lives in His glory now. In this we
grow, hoping for life, expecting life, our faith in Christ. Believing on the Son of God,
we have confident expectation of this life, of this immortality. I don't know how to communicate
this to you who don't know God. You who do, you rejoice in this. I don't know how to explain this.
Folks ask about it and they question what was doubt or sincerity.
Oh, my soul. We have every reason to expect
everlasting glory. Trust in Christ. Trust in Christ. None in ourselves. None because
of what we do. None because of what we feel.
None because of our works. None because of any imaginary
righteousness of our own. All because we trust Him. We have reason to expect this
immortality. Look at verse 5. Now He that
hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God. I don't have any
idea how many dozens of times I preach from this passage of
scripture. And I'm still, every time I come to verse 5, I want
to read it wrong. Every time I come to it, I just
naturally want to read it wrong. I want to read it like this.
He that hath wrought for us the selfsame thing is God. But that's
not what the text says. He that hath wrought us for this
glorious inheritance, this glorious immortality, this glorious life,
God has wrought us for eternity. He's wrought in us this hope
of everlasting glory. who also hath given us the earnest,
the pledge, the down payment of the Spirit. This is the first
fruits. This is that thing which is the
pledge of the full harvest. Verse 6, therefore we're always
confident. I just finished this morning
reading a biography of John Newton. And he wrote to a friend of his
and said to him as a young man, he said, don't be afraid to die,
you're about to enter into life. Don't be afraid to die. You're
about to enter into life. We're confident. We're confident
knowing that while we're at home in the body, we're absent from
the Lord. Oh, thank God He's in the midst
of us. Thank God He walks with us, rejoicing the Lord all the
way. Again, I say rejoice. Let your moderation be known
to all men. The Lord's at hand. Thank God He's at hand. All the
time at hand. The Lord is near to you who are
His. We're absent from Him. Absent
from Him. Absent from Him. While we live
in this body. For we walk by faith, not by
sight. We're confident, I say, and willing,
rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the
Lord. Now that's the confidence God
gives to faith in Christ. And yet, Our faith and confidence
doesn't cause presumption. Look at verse 9. Wherefore we
labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of
him. We struggle so much. We struggle
so much with unbelief. And we struggle so much with
the horrible tendencies of our flesh to trust in ourselves,
to pride in self-righteousness. And we have this continual struggle. Getting rid of confidence in
the flesh and resting our souls on Christ. We labor that whether
present or absent, we may be accepted of Him. What's that
talking about? Hold your hands here and turn
to chapter 3 of the book of Philippians. Philippians chapter 3. Here's
the Apostle Paul, same man writing here. Writing by the same divine
inspiration. And Paul has been preaching for
a long time now. He's written a lot of the New
Testament already. And listen to how he speaks in
Philippians chapter 3 verse 8. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord. But Paul, don't you know the Lord? Yeah, but I want
to know Him. I count all things but loss that I may know Him,
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count
them but dumb, that I may win Christ and be found in Him. Not
having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of
God, which is by faith. I want to be utterly shed of
every thought of self-worth and self-righteousness, and have
Christ alone my righteousness. Now look at verse 5. That I may
know Him. Oh, I want to know Him. Soon shall we not be married
forty-seven years, Isn't an amazing woman put up with me that long?
47 years. You don't have to say amen, that's
alright. 47 years. And I know her pretty
good. I know her pretty good. And the
longer we live together, and work together every day, travel
together, the more I want to know her. The more I want to
know her. Want to know her. But I may know him. Know Him. Know Him. Oh, Savior, make Yourself
known to me afresh, that I may know Him and the power of His
resurrection. I want to know the blessedness
of absolute righteousness, complete forgiveness, free justification
as the result of Christ risen from the dead, justified in the
Spirit. I want to know the power of new
life in Christ, in the fellowship of his sufferings. The more I meditate on and study
the subject of our Redeemer's agony and death, the more I want to enter into
the sense of my own real participation in that. So that when He died,
I died. When He took the cup of justice
and drank damnation dry, I took the cup of justice. When God
slew His Son, He slew me. Oh, I want to know that blessed
reality more fully today than ever. Read on. Being made conformable unto His
death. Utterly, utterly consecrated
to God. If by any means I might attain
to the resurrection of the dead. Alright, let's go back to our
text. There are multitudes, as soon
as they die, who must forever perish under the wrath of God.
And many of those who perish under the wrath of God presume
that everything is well with their souls, though they know
nothing of God and His grace. Don't be so foolish. Don't die
without Christ. Don't die without Christ. If
you die without Christ, you'll die forever. You'll be cast into
hell. I appeal to you then, as an eternally
bound sinner with an immortal soul, come to Christ. Believe
on the Son of God. Second, I make my appeal upon
the basis of the certainty and strictness of divine judgment. I know there's a great white
throne judgment to come. I am fully aware of that. But
don't think of judgment as you naturally do and as you are taught
by the whole religious world to do. Judgment day will not
be a day when everything's examined to see whether or not you're
fit to enter into heaven. No, sir. It will be a day in
which God declares to all in heaven, earth and hell, all rational
creatures, men and angels and devils, the basis of divine wrath
and the basis of divine salvation. The basis upon which men are
cast into hell and the basis upon which they're brought into
heaven's glory. But this judgment is not something
you'll wait for for another thousand years. As soon as we leave this
world, we'll meet God in judgment. Look at verse 10. Now watch what
the scripture says. And don't make of it any less
than what it says. For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the
things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether
it be good or bad. Revelation 20 says, judged out
of the books according to your works. Well, this is talking
about the judgment of believers, you know. This is whether or
not we get a lot of crowns or whether we don't have any crowns
in our head. No, no. Look at the next line. Knowing
therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. Now, let's talk
about judgment. We're going to meet God in judgment
and you and I will receive from God exactly what we really deserve. Exactly what we really deserve. Judge according to our works,
good or bad. If you dare meet God in judgment,
without a mediator, without the substitute, without the Savior,
without Christ, you'll meet God in judgment. on the basis of
your own worth. Your own works. And whatever
you think of them, God says they're filthy rags. And God will send
you to hell for it. If you come to Christ. if when you leave this world
you're found in Christ. If you believe on the Son of
God, if right now, if right now God gives you faith in Christ,
if right now, if right now God gives you faith in Christ, and
right now He takes you to glory, you'll stand before the judgment
seat of Christ, before the bar of God, in perfect righteousness,
with perfect obedience, with no sin, holy, sanctified, and
righteous, having fully obeyed all the law and justice of God
in Christ the substitute, for you're really and truly one with
Him. We shall be rewarded, my brothers.
We shall be rewarded, my sisters, for all that we have done in
perfect holiness. in perfect obedience, in perfect
compliance with the will of God, in perfect devotion to God. But brother Don, nobody knows
anything about that. Oh yes we do. Christ is mine
and I'm His. And I am one with Him. Really
and truly one with Him. So that His obedience is our
obedience. His death is our death. His reward
is our reward. And the Lord God looks on us
in that day and says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. That's just almost more than
I can get said. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. All right, go back to our text. I urge you to come to Christ. I urge you to believe on the
Son of God. But I know that judgment won't
cause you to do so. I know judgment won't do it.
When I first went to Danville 35 years ago, the first year
I was there, I think it was, they had a movie. And all the churches in town,
all of them in the county got together. And they tried their
best to get me involved in it. I wouldn't have anything to do
with it. They were showing a movie out at the high school called
The Burning Hail. and tried to scare the hell out
of everybody. And it just won't work. It just won't work. You can't persuade folks to believe
on Christ because of judgment. The fear of wrath will never
persuade you to believe on Christ. The fear of judgment will never
persuade you to believe on Christ. But the goodness of God leads
to repentance. Now look at this. I appeal to
you on the basis of the great love of God our Savior. I claim
your attention and hearing. Not because of anything in me,
but because of the gospel I preach. And with that I commend myself
to you. And the message I preach I commend to you. Look at verse
11. We are made manifest unto God and I trust also may manifest
in your consciences For we commend not ourselves again to you But
give you occasion to glory on our behalf that you may have
somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance and not in
heart For whether we be beside ourselves It is to God or whether
we be sober it is for your cause. You know that you know that now
look at the next line verse 14 for the love of Christ constraineth
us The love of Christ, like a mighty, irresistible power
from heaven, pulls our hearts to God. The love of Christ compels
us with irresistible force. The love of Christ constraineth
us because we thus judge. This is why the love of Christ
has such overwhelming force on our hearts and our lives. If
one died for all, then we're all dead. If Christ died for you, you died
when he died. If Christ died for me, I died
when He died. Now watch the next line. And
that He died for all, all those for whom He died, all those who
died in Him, that they which live should not henceforth live
unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose
again. You're not your own. John, you've
been bought with a price. The precious blood of Christ.
So glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
He died for us that we should not live to ourselves. That's
where I was with the family, living to myself. That's where
you were when He called you by His grace, living to yourself.
But He died for us that we might live to Him who died for us and
rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we
no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after
the flesh. We don't know Him as a mere historic figure any
longer. We don't know Him just because we've come to the end
of Romans road and now made a decision. We don't know Him by mere human
logic. We don't know Him just because
we've been rightly instructed in doctrine. We know Him by the
sweet, compelling revelation of His grace in us. The love
of God shed abroad in our hearts, drawing us affectionately to
Him. We used to know Him by the flesh. Used to know Him in a
carnal way. Now we know Him by this sweet
revelation of God's grace in Him. It's revealed in His sacrifice. Revealed in the substitutionary
nature of that sacrifice on our behalf. And now we know Him by
this overwhelming revelation of that love. Overwhelming revelation of that
love. But there's even more. Even more. Paul next speaks of the blessedness
of God's salvation. Look at verse 17. Therefore, since Christ died
for us, Since Christ redeemed us. Since Christ brought us with
his precious blood. Since God saved us by his grace.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. He's a new
creature. Old things are passed away. Brother
David stated it a little bit ago. Our sin, the Savior took
them. And he blotted them out. He purged
them with His own blood. He cast them behind His back. He threw them into the depths
of the sea. He removed them from us as far as the east is from
the west. So that the Lord God says in the last day, He'll look
in the book for our sins and He says they'll not be found.
He'll look again and they'll not be found because there are
none. Because I know whom I pardon. The Lord Jesus here tells us,
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. A new creature.
God's created a holy man in you. In righteousness and in true
holiness. A new man. And old things are passed away. All our transgressions, all our
iniquities, all our sins, all our past, gone. I can't forget it. God can't
remember it. Gone. Gone. He's taken it all
away. Read on. Behold, all things are
become new. Oh, come to Christ now and go
home a new creature. God had him wipe the slate clean.
having made you altogether new, gives you a new name, a new heart,
a new nature, a new record. A new name, a new heart, a new
nature, a new record that you can never defile. Become new. This is his work. Now, look at the next slide. The Apostle says, all things
are of God. That is salvations of the Lord.
Here's a reason. Here's a reason to believe on
the Son of God. Christ has finished this work. Christ has finished this. It's
done. It's done. This is not something
that he does his part and you do your part. This is not something
where he contributes his work and you contribute yours. Oh
no, no, no. If anything depended on you, you're going to judge
it. But it doesn't depend on you. All things are of God who
hath reconciled us. Look at that. Who hath reconciled
us. God was in Christ, we'll read
it in just a minute, reconciling us in the sacrifice of His Son.
And God came in the power of His omnipotent grace and reconciled
us to Himself. He graciously, irresistibly causes
sinners to be reconciled to Him through the revelation of Christ
in them. So that you're sitting there tonight and you came in
here determined to go out just like you came in. I'm not going
to pay attention to that preacher. I'm not going to pay attention
to that preacher no matter what they say. I'll go my way. And
now you find yourself delighted to believe the Son
of God. Who did that? God did that. He
turned you. He reconciled us. Look at this.
He's reconciling us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given
to us the ministry, this service of reconciliation. To wit, God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. and hath committed to us the
word of reconciliation." Now, that doesn't mean that God was
in Christ reconciling everybody in the world to himself. Anybody
who speaks that kind of nonsense doesn't think real clearly, because
the whole world is not reconciled to him. But He was in Christ,
reconciling His elect wherever they're found, anywhere in the
world, through all the ages of time to Himself. And He sent
us. We've come here this weekend, myself and these other preachers,
sent of God, I hope, I believe, I believe, sent of God, for one
reason, to tell you The work's all done. Redemption's accomplished. Salvation's finished. It's the
gift of God. It's the gift of God to declare
to you. Redemption accomplished. Righteousness
finished. Salvation free. Now, look at
verse 20, 21. Here's the message of the gospel
God has sent us to declare. We're ambassadors for Christ.
As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's
name, be you reconciled to God. Four. Four. He hath made him sin for us who knew no sin. He who alone, the only man ever
to have been, ever to be, who really knew what sin is. Brother Mike, you and I just
move around the edges. We don't really have any real
concept of how God sees sin. This man did. For this man is
God. was made sin. Made sin. Better that we sit down or fall
on our knees or fall on our faces and meditate with thanksgiving
on that fact than argue about it. He was wondrously, mysteriously,
unexplainably made sin. All that that entails, He willingly
became. And being made sin would make
a curse for us, so that the God of glory turned His back on His
darling son. And the Savior cried, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he gives us the answer
right here. Let me tell you why he was made
saint. That we might be made really and truly
made, wondrously made, the righteousness of God in him. How real is that? How real is
that? More real than anything you can
imagine in this temporary state of existence. As he was really
made sin and justly rewarded for sin when he was made sin,
he, by his grace, takes sinners like you and me, every sinner,
every sinner, who believes Him. Every sinner who trusts Him.
Every sinner who surrenders to Him. Every sinner who bows to
Him and makes you the righteousness of God. Really and truly the
righteousness of God in Him. And then rewards you justly with
everlasting life in Heaven. So real is this marvelous work
of God that our Savior's name is called Jehovah Sidkenu, the
Lord our righteousness. You know what He calls you? You
can read it in Jeremiah 33 verse 16. This is the name He gave
you, Jehovah Sidkenu. The Lord, our righteousness. And God never pretends. That's
the way it really is. Look here, look here, look here. Here stands Jehovah Zedkinya. Look back over here. Yonder sits
Jehovah Zedkinya. really and truly one with Christ. Oh God, make that yours for Christ's
sake. Amen.