We are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. We then, as workers together
with him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of
God in vain. For he saith, I have heard thee
in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored
thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation."
giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed,
but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God in much
patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in
stripes, in imprisonment, in tumults, in labors, in watchings,
in by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness,
by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the
power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand
and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and
good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet
well known, as dying, and behold, as chastened and not killed,
as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich,
as having nothing and yet possessing all things. O ye Corinthians,
our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. You are not
straightened in us. That is, you lack no room in
our hearts. There is plenty of room for you
in our but you are straightened in your own bowels, you lack
room in your affection for us. Now for a recompense in the same,
I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged or affectionate
toward us. Be ye not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness,
and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord
hath Christ with Baal or what part hath he that believeth with
an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple
of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the
living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk
in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith
the Lord. And touch not the unclean thing,
and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye
shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." My message this morning will
be on the subject, The Day of Salvation. And Paul said in 2
Corinthians 6, verse 2, in the last two lines, Now is
the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation. Now, David wrote of this day
of salvation in Psalms 118, and I want you to please everyone
who has a Bible to turn to Psalms 118. Now, we frequently quote
this verse, and it is true that whether it be raining, or whether
it be snowing, or whether it be a sunshiny day, it is the
day the Lord hath made. But that is not what David is
referring to in Psalm 118, verse 24. He says in Psalm 118, verse
24, This is the day which the Lord hath made. We'll rejoice
and be glad in it. But read the two verses preceding
this verse. What day is he talking about?
Verse 22, Psalm 118, says, "...the stone which the builders refused,"
that's Christ, and the builders are the religious leaders, "...is
become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It
is marvelous in our eyes." In other words, Christ came, and
though He was despised and rejected of men, crucified and slain,
It is the Lord's doing. God sent him down here to this
earth. He sent him to be the Savior. He sent him to be the
head of the corner. He sent him to be the stone upon
which the living temple is built. And though he was rejected, the
Lord has established him as being the triad stone, the sure cornerstone. And this is the day which the
Lord hath made, the day of salvation. the day of the exalting and establishing
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Mediator and the only Savior
of sinners. And that's the day he's talking
about there. Now, God, the King of Kings,
is the Creator of all days. He can make our days to be without
clouds, and He can make our days to be dark with gloom. He can
make it a day of salvation, or He can make it a day of condemnation. He can make it a day of blessings,
or He can make it a day of vengeance. The Scripture says, He declareth
the end from the beginning. None can stay His hand, or say
unto Him, What doest thou? This is the day the Lord hath
made. Now then, God has had His days
of wrath and His days of vengeance. They're written in His That dark
day, that day of gloom, when our parents were driven from
the Garden of Eden, was a day of wrath. It was a day of vengeance. It was a day of judgment. It
was the fulfillment of God's promise in the day you eat thereof,
you shall surely die. And God said, cast them out. That was not a day of salvation.
That was a day of wrath. That was a day of judgment. That
dreadful day when the rain first started falling upon this world,
and after that forty days when the rain fell in floods and torrents
upon this earth, that was certainly not a day of salvation. Not for
the world, that was a day of judgment. That was not a day
of grace, that was a day of wrath. Yes, Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord, but it was generally a day of wrath. a day
of judgment. And then that day that God delivered
Lot, righteous Lot, out of Sodom, and then hell fell out of heaven,
and consumed Sodom and Gomorrah in the flames of God's grace,
no sir, in the flames of God's wrath, in the flames of God's
judgment, that was a day of wrath. That was a day but the day the
Lord hath made. It was a day of vengeance. It
was His day. And then there's going to be
another fearful day. There's going to be a day even
more fearful than all of these, and that's the day when the heavens
and earth shall melt away with a fervent heat. But, blessed
be God, we are not living in a day of wrath. Our text declares
this is the day of salvation. It is the day the Lord has made.
God has set and declared a day of salvation. from Calvary to
this present hour. It has not yet been suspended. The day of God's long-suffering
and God's mercy has not yet been suspended. It is lasting on,
and it shall last, he says, until he descends from heaven with
a shout with the voice of the archangel. This is the day that
the Lord hath made. It is the day of Christ, it is
the day of mercy, it is the day of grace, it is the day of salvation. Now, if you will, I want to read
the first verse of chapter 6, 2 Corinthians. Now look at it. Paul says, Read in, as workers
together with him, that is, with God, beseech you also that you
receive not the grace of God in vain. This day of salvation
is a great favor from God. Paul calls it the grace of God. He didn't have to give it. Grace
is unearned, unmerited favor. He didn't have to give it to
us, and what a tragedy it would be to live in the day of grace
and miss its blessings. What a tragedy it would be to
live in the day of mercy and die without mercy. What a tragedy
to live in the day of light and die in darkness. What a tragedy
to live in the day when God spoke. God spoke through His Son and
never hear His voice. The kingdom of God is around
you. Have you entered in? Paul said,
I beseech you that you receive not the grace of God in vain.
The grace of God is here. This is the accepted time. This
is the day of salvation. This is not a day of wrath, it
is a day of mercy. Don't die without mercy. Now,
in the day of judgment, all shall fall like in the flood. In the
day of vengeance, all shall be consumed like in Sodom. The Scripture
said, if God had not left us a rendement, we would be like
Sodom and Gomorrah, all shall be consumed in the day of God's
judgment, in the day of God's wrath, in the day of the visitation
of God's justice, all shall be consumed. But we're not in that
day right now. We're in a day of life, and yet
many walk in darkness. The kingdom of God is all about
us, and yet many have not entered in. The grace of God is showered
all around us, and yet many have not partaken thereof. Don't receive
the grace of God, Paul said, in vain. This is the accepted
time. This is the day of salvation. Now then, let's look at prayer
for things. First of all, the reason for
this day of salvation. Go back and read verse 20, which
I did a moment ago in our scripture reading. This division of chapters
is unnecessary. As I've said to you so many times,
the Bible was not originally written in chapters and verses,
but in paragraphs and books. And the division by chapters
and verses came later on. So really and clearly, verse
20 and 21 goes with verse 1 and 2. Why is this the Day of Salvation? What is the reason for this Day
of Salvation? Well, first of all, in verse
20 and 21, Paul said, We are ambassadors for Christ. The minister
of the gospel is an ambassador, like the United States sends
an ambassador to France or Spain or Italy or Australia or some
country. God has sent his ambassador. No man taketh this office upon
himself, but he that is appointed by God. God sends his servants,
God calls his servants, God anoints his servants, and God gives them
his message. God says over and over again
to men in the Bible whom he had sent, he said, you go and speak
to the people for me. You tell them, thus saith the
Lord. So Paul says, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did
beseech you by us. God is speaking by us. We pray
you in Christ's stead. be reconciled to God." Far! This is the Day of Salvation
far, or because God hath made Him, Christ, to be sin for us. That's how come it's the Day
of Salvation. That's why it's the Day of Salvation. That's the reason it's the Day
of Salvation, because Christ was made sin for us. There could
be no Day of Salvation if Christ had not come. There would be
no day of mercy if Christ had not come. There would be no day
of salvation if Jesus Christ had not visited this earth in
the likeness of sinful flesh. If Christ had not faced the law
and obeyed it, if Christ had not gone to the cross and shed
his blood, if Christ had not been buried, and if Christ had
not risen again, and if Christ had not ascended to the right
hand of the Father, there would be no day of salvation. So this
is the day of salvation for, or because, God hath made Christ,
who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, that we might
have the good news of the gospel, that we might have the offer
of mercy, that we might have the invitation to come. and find
rest, that we might have the invitation to come and find peace. Christ has come, and God has
proclaimed this as the day of salvation, because Jesus Christ
came into this world. Secondly, this is the day of
salvation because we may now be reconciled to God. There was
a day when you couldn't be reconciled to God. It says here, we beseech
you, be ye reconciled to God. It is now possible to be reconciled
to God, because Christ has died for our sin, and Christ hath
reconciled us unto the Father by his cross. The law couldn't
reconcile us to God. Scripture said what the law couldn't
do. The ceremonies couldn't reconcile us unto God. The blood of bulls
and goats cannot put away sin, the scriptures say. Good works
cannot reconcile us to God, for the scripture says, by the works
of the flesh shall no works of the Lord shall no flesh be justified. But Christ has come, and Christ
has died, and Christ has suffered, and now we can be reconciled
to God. The enemy can be the friend.
The stranger can be the servant. Turn to Isaiah chapter 53. I want you to do something from
it. And if you will, I want you actually to do this. In Isaiah
53, I don't very often ask people to do any participation like
saying things from the congregation and raising your hand and things
like that. I believe in just preaching the gospel and asking
the Holy Spirit. But take your Bible and take
a ballpoint pen. If you can't do it right now,
do it later. But I want you to do this. I
did it in a Bible I had one time. I have a friend who has it in
his Bible the same way. Come down to verse 5 of Isaiah
53, or verse 4. Verse 4 of Isaiah 53. And everywhere
you see the word, our, I want you just to draw a line through
it and put, my. Everywhere you see the word,
our, just draw a line through it and write, my. Look here at
verse 4 of Isaiah 53. Surely he hath borne my griefs. and carried my sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted, but he was wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised for my iniquities. The chastisement of my peace
was upon him, and with his stripes I am healed." Don't ever forget
that. That's your confidence, that's
your assurance, that's your hope, that's your redemption, that's
your life, that's your reconciliation. This is the day of salvation
because Christ was wounded from my transgression. Without that,
I'd be God's greatest enemy. Without that, I'd be God's greatest
enemy. I'd be a stranger, I'd be an
alien, I'd be separated, alienated from a holy God, and without
any possibility of ever being reconciled to God. This is the
day of salvation because, as Paul said, you can now be reconciled
to God. And then thirdly, this is the
day of salvation because he set it. I don't have the authority to
set a day of salvation. I don't have the authority to
set a day of reconciliation. The Church may get together somewhere
and vote to have a day of reconciliation, but that won't make it a day
of reconciliation. I can't change a day of wrath
into a day of salvation, but I know who can. Look here, if
you will, at our text again, verse 2 of 2 Corinthians 6. This
is a day of salvation because he set it, for he said, I have
heard thee." Who said it? He said it. He said it. Now, this is a quotation. Paul
is quoting God. Where did he get it? Isaiah 49. You want to turn over there?
That's where this came from. Isaiah 49. That's the Old Testament. These foolish churches and denominations
and preachers that want to discount the Old Testament, they're revealing
their utter ignorance of God, their ignorance of the Gospel,
and their ignorance of the Bible. Paul is quoting here in 2 Corinthians
6 when he says, as a worker together with God, I beseech you that
you receive not the grace of God in vain, for he said, God
said this is the day of salvation. God decreed this day. God established
this day, God promised this day, God perfected this day, God purposed
this day, God predestinated this day. Isaiah 49 tells us that
it's His prophecy. Isaiah 49 and 5, listen to it.
And now saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be His servant. This is talking about Christ.
To bring Jacob again to Him. Though Israel be not gathered,
yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God
shall be my strength. And he said, It is a right thing
that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the preserve of Israel. I will also give thee
for a life to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto
the end of the earth. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer
of Israel, and His Holy One, Jesus Christ, to Him whom man
despiseth, to Him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers
kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of
the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and He
shall choose thee. Thus saith the Lord, In an accepted
time have I heard thee, in a day of salvation have I helped thee,
and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the
people, to establish the earth, because to inherit the desolate
heritages." This is God's day. He said it. He said it. This is the Messiah. When you
see it, mark it, God said in Isaiah 49. That will be the day
of salvation. Then, it is a day of salvation,
first of all, because Christ has died. It is the day of salvation,
secondly, because we can now be reconciled to God. It is a
day of salvation, thirdly, because God set it. God predestined it. God purposed it. And thirdly,
fourthly, it is a day of salvation because God says it's an accepted
time. It's the accepted time. It has
come now, or it's come not at all. Turn to Luke chapter 13. Now then, Almighty God has set
this day, and He said, this is the accepted time, this is the
day of salvation. Come now, come now. And Luke 13 says, or you'll come
not at all. Luke 13, verse 24, "...strive
to enter in at the straight gate. For many, I say unto you, will
seek to enter in, and shall not be able, when once the master
of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and you
begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord,
Lord, open to us. And he shall answer and say unto
you, I know you not, whence you are." This is the day. Come now. Come now, that's what the Scripture
says, come now and let us reason together, though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Come now, for
this is the day of salvation. Now then, I want to speak of
the day itself. Would you go back to Isaiah 49,
to the prophecy which Paul is quoting, and let's look at that
for just a moment. This is the day of salvation.
God said it. Christ hath reconciled us to
the Father. Christ has died for our sins,
and the offer is extended, the free offer of the gospel, the
blessed invitation to sinners. Come, all that are weary and
heavy laden, God said, this is the day of salvation. The kingdom
of God is around you. The gospel is on your lips. People
are being redeemed all about you. Don't perish in the day
of salvation. But now let's speak of the day
itself. First of all, it is the day when prayer will be heard.
You say, but God always hears prayer. No, God doesn't always
hear prayer. There are times when God will
hear prayer, there are times when men pray in vain. God says
in Isaiah 49, verse 8, listen to it, Thus saith the Lord in
an acceptable time, I have heard thee. God says this is the day,
I'll hear you now. I'll hear you now. I'll hear
you. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. I'll hear you when you call now.
This is a day when I'll hear you. This is a day of mercy.
This is a day of grace. This is a day of the Lord. I'll
hear you now." He said, Well, give me an illustration from
the Bible when men prayed and God wouldn't hear them. All right,
turn to Proverbs 1. I read one a moment ago. Of course,
you remember it. He said, when the Lord hath risen
to and shut the door, and you stand without and say, Lord,
open to us, he says, I will not open, I will not answer, I will
not hear. Now listen to Proverbs 124. I
have called, that is, in the day of the Lord, in the day of
grace, in the day of salvation, and you refused. I stretched
out my hand and no man regarded it. You said it not on my counsel,
you wouldn't listen to my reproofs. Now then, I will laugh at your
calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh."
It's coming, fear is coming. "'When your fear cometh as desolation,
and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and
anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon I will not
answer. They shall seek me, and they
shall not find me." This is the day. It is the day because God
says, I'll hear you now. It's the day of salvation because
I'll hear you now. God may not hear you tomorrow.
The Scripture tells us about a big prayer meeting at the end
of the world when men prayed, not believers, unbelievers. not
to God, to the rocks and mountains, not for salvation, but for death. Then shall they cry unto the
rocks and mountains, Fall on us, and hide us from the face
of him that sitteth on the throne." God doesn't always hear prayer.
God hears prayer in the accepted time. God hears prayer in the
day of salvation. He says, this is the accepted
time. I'll hear you now. I'll hear
you. And not only that, verse 8, Isaiah
49, he says, I'll help you. I'll help you. He says, I'll
heal you, and in a day of salvation, I'll help you. Are you helpless? God says, I'll
help you. Are you without strength? When
we're weak, then are we strong. Are you weary? Come to me. Are
you heavy laden? Call on me. Byron Bartimaeus,
sitting by the roadside, said, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy! God heard him! Christ turned
and said, What do you want? Make me whole! I will. I will. I will. Jesus, thou Son of David, have
mercy. You know, we're proud people.
There is a sense in which I admire pride. I admire the man who rejects
charity and wants to make his own way. I admire, I take my
hat off to that man or woman who rejects the welfare from
the government and rejects charity when he's got a strong back and
able legs and strong arms which God has given him. He wants to
make his own way. I admire that very much. But
I do not admire that pride when it touches the soul. And when
a man knows that he's helpless and without hope and without
God, and yet he won't bow as a sinner at the throne of mercy
and cry, Lord, save me or I perish. Lord, have mercy upon me. Keep
your pride, and keep your own initiative in the things of the
flesh and material things. Pride of workmanship is great,
but pride of soul is rotten. Pride of workmanship and pride
of appearance is wonderful. People ought to pay attention
to how they look and how they act and how they dress and how
they conduct themselves and how they work. That's great. Just
turn out the best you can and nothing short of that. But when
it comes to God Almighty, be as the humble beggar in the dust
and sue for mercy. God says, I'll help you. I'll
help you. And then this is a day of salvation
because sinners will be accepted. He says it's a day of what? Salvation. Thou shalt call his name Jesus.
He shall save his people from their sins. This is a faithful
saying. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. The Son of Man has come to seek
and to save the lost. It's a day of salvation. And
then notice another thing here in this verse 8 of Isaiah 49. He says, This day, it's a day
I'll heal you, it's a day I'll help you. Now look at this next
line, And it's a day I'll preserve you, I'll preserve you, I'll
keep you, I will not let you fall, I will not let you perish. I'll make a covenant with you,
and you'll be my people, and I'll be your God, and I'll write
my law and statutes in your hearts, and I'll never let you go. John 10, verse 27, Christ said,
My sheep hear my voice, I know them, they follow me, I give
them eternal life, and they shall never perish, I'll preserve them. The gates of hell shall not prevail
against them, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and nobody
can pluck them out of God the Father's hand. This is a day
when I'll heal you, it's a day when I'll help you, it's a day
when I'll save you, and it's a day when I'll keep you and
preserve you and never let you go. What a day! What a day! It's a day of light. You going
to die in darkness? It's the day of grace. Are you
going to perish in wrath? It's the day of mercy. Are you
going to let it slip away? Receive not the grace of God,
Paul said, in vain. I beseech you, now is the accepted
time. Behold, today is the day of salvation,
for one day that day will end. Now that's so. One day it will
end. You can be sure if the Lord calls
it a day, that he has limited that day. You can be sure that if God calls
it a day, that he has limited that day. Right now, the kingdom
of God is about you. Right now, the kingdom of God
is near you. Right now, the gospel of God
is, Paul said, on your lips. Every time you use the name Jesus
Christ, you're using the name of the gospel. The grace of God is all about
you. One day, one day, you'll spend
your last hour in church. One day, you'll hear your last
verse of scripture read. One day, you'll hear your last
sermon preached. One day, you'll hear your last
call. And then God will say, leave
him alone. Turn to Matthew chapter 11. In
the 11th chapter of Matthew, he says in verse 20, he began
to upbraid the cities, Matthew 11, wherein his mighty works
were done. The kingdom of God was among
them. The grace of God was upon them. The day of salvation was
revealed to them. And yet they repented not, and
he said, Chorazin, woe unto thee, Bethsaida, woe unto thee, if
the mighty works which are done in you, if the gospel which was
preached to you had been preached in the wicked cities of Tyre
and Sidon, they would have repented. But I say unto you, it's going
to be easier for the wicked cities of Tyre and Sidon in the day
of judgment than for you. And Capernaum, God exalted you
to heaven. You heard the gospel. Jesus Christ
was preached to you. The works of God was done in
you and among you and around you. And yet you refuse to repent. You shall be brought down to
hell. If the mighty works, if the gospel preached to you had
been preached in Sodom, it would have been right here on this
earth right now, Christ said. But I say unto you, you say those
wicked people of Sodom are going to have a hard time in the judgment.
Not as hard as you, God said. For if the mighty works which
are done in you had been done in Sodom, they would have repented,
and it will be easier for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment
than it will be for you in whom the works of God have been performed. I dreamed that the great judgment
morning had dawned and the trumpet had blown. I dreamed that the
nations had gathered to judgment before God's great throne. And from the throne came a bright
shining angel, and he stood on the land and the sea, and he
swore with his hand raised to heaven that time was no longer
to be. The day of salvation has ended. The day of mercy has ended. The day of grace is over. The moral man stood at the judgment,
but his self-righteous rags would not do. For the men who had crucified
the Lord Jesus, they had passed off as moral men too. The rich
man was there, but his money had melted and vanished away. A pauper, he stood at the judgment
and his debts were too heavy to pay. The man who had put off
salvation, not tonight, I'll get saved by and by. No time
now to think of religion. At last, he'd found time to die. And oh, what a weeping and a
wailing as the lost were told of their fate. They cried for
the rocks and the mountains, they prayed, but their prayers
were too late. Paul said, My friends, I beseech
you as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, be you reconciled to
God, for this is the day of salvation. He hath made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin. He hath reconciled us to God. This is a day, God said, when
I'll heal you. This is a day when I'll help
you. This is a day when I'll save you. This is a day when
I'll redeem you. This is a day when I'll preserve
you. But it's a day, and a day has an end. A day has a sunrise,
and a day has a noon, and a day has a sunset, and a day is over. and darkness is coming. Christ
said, I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is
day. The night is coming. The night
is coming. The night is coming. And for
some of you, the night is a whole lot nearer than you think. The
night is coming when no man is going to work. Well, what shall
we do that we might work the works of God? They said, This
is the work of that you believe on him whom God hath sent. Our
Father, warn us, warn us in the voice of the Holy Spirit, warn
us in an effectual way, warn us, O God, in a way that will
break our hearts and our stubborn wills and make us willing to
receive Christ and to kiss the sun and to bow as beggars at
the throne of mercy, and through the blood of Jesus Christ, to
approach Thee in faith. In His name we pray, Amen.