God Beseeching Sinners by His Ministers

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JULY 27, 1873,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus
Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit,
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word
of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though
God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be you
reconciled to God. For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no
sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2
Corinthians 5:18-21.

MAN became God's enemy wantonly, without the slightest offense given on
God's part. But man did not make advances towards reconciliation, or
express regret because peace was broken. The first overtures for peace
are not made by man, the offender, but by our aggrieved and offended
God. Therefore our text begins with the declaration, "All things are of
God." Reconciliation of man to his Maker is never achieved by man, but
is the work of God from first to last, and to God must be all the
glory. The text enforces this Truth by giving us a brief summary. The
Lord first finds the messengers of reconciliation by reconciling some
men to Himself. He chooses His ministers, having called them into a
state of reconciliation.

Read the verse–"All things are of God, who has reconciled us to
Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of
reconciliation." The ambassador is sent, not from man to God, but from
God to man. Then the matter of the ambassador's message is altogether
of God, for it is God who has "reconciled the world unto Himself
through Jesus Christ." He gave His Son to be the atoning Sacrifice by
the ordained method of substitution–thus it is He, alone, who has made
a way of access between fallen man and Himself. Furthermore, the method
by which this Atonement is applied to the reconciling of men is also of
God. It is not man who beseeches God, but God who beseeches man to be
reconciled.

It is not man who cries to Christ, but Christ prays man, through His
ministers whom He places in His stead, to be reconciled to God. So that
from the first thought of reconciliation, right on through the
provision of the Atonement, to the conclusion of the solemn league and
Covenant between the heart and God, all things are of God. I am glad to
commence my sermon with such a weighty doctrine. I am glad to have such
a theme with which to stir the hearts of the reconciled. You owe it all
to God, my Brothers and Sisters, therefore render thanks unto the Most
High and never attribute to your own wills or to any natural goodness
in yourselves, your present friendship with the Lord. For all this is
of God who has reconciled you unto Himself.

In the process of reconciling the sinner to Himself the Lord uses
means. He might, if He had pleased, have influenced all human hearts by
His Spirit, without a pleading ministry selected from among men, but He
has not chosen to do so. God exercises His power over the human mind
not miraculously, but in conformity with the laws of the mind. The
Spirit of God beseeches and prays men to be reconciled. He deals with
us not as with marble or wood, carving and shaping us by mere power.
Acting upon the mind of man He does not act according to the laws of
matter, but deals with mind after the mode in which minds must be dealt
with. And therefore His Divine Grace operates upon human wills by
persuasion–"as though God did beseech you by us." And by pleading–"we
pray you, in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God."

But the means used of the Lord are always such as will ensure that all
the glory shall be to Him alone–if God beseeches, there can be no
honor to man in yielding to the Divine persuasion, but great glory is
due to Him who in infinite condescension prayed to His own creatures
and stooped from the loftiness of His Glory to beseech His own
rebellious subjects to have mercy upon themselves.

This morning I shall try to drive at the heart and conscience with all
my might, depending upon the Spirit of God to make my appeals
effectual. And with that aim, and no other, I shall first of all speak
upon the ambassadors of reconciliation. Secondly, upon the matter of
their embassy, the message they have to deliver. And, thirdly, upon the
manner in which they are to deliver their message.

I. First, then, dear Friends, we will begin with THE AMBASSADORS OF
RECONCILIATION. It appears, from the text that they, themselves, were
once enemies to God. "All things are of God, who has reconciled us to
Himself." Yes, Beloved, when we beseech you to be reconciled to God, we
give to ourselves no airs as though we were superior to you by nature,
or had been superior in our former conduct before conversion. No,
rather we are bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. Are you
sinful? Such were we. Are you rebellious against God? Such were we. Are
your hearts hard? Such were ours. We do not look down upon you from an
elevated platform of affected dignity, for we recognize our own nature
in yours. Therefore we come to you as to fellow sinners and, albeit it
is a sorrowful thing ever to have sinned, we are glad to think that we
can speak to you of an evil which has vexed us, the power of which we
have painfully felt and penitently mourned, as you must yet do.

We hope that our former condition as sinners and unbelievers will make
us speak to you more tenderly and will enable us to reach your hearts
the better. God might have sent angels to you and you would, perhaps,
at first have been awed by their glory. But their sermons would have
been cold and unsympathetic compared with ours, for they could not know
your misery and degradation as we do. They would have felt a horror of
you and would not have cared to come near you–their purity would have
made them regard you as a healthy man regards a leper–it must have
done so, kind as, no doubt, they would have tried to be.

But we have no such feelings. We have a horror of your sin but not of
you. And looking at you as being what we once were, we say to you,
Brothers and Sisters by nature, we trust you will yet become Brothers
and Sisters by Grace, and that the blood of Christ, which has made
peace between us and God, may also reconcile you to the great Father in
Heaven! From the text we gather that though those who are now God's
ministers were once His enemies, they are now reconciled. They are no
strangers to the reconciliation which they have to preach, for they
have been reconciled themselves. Yes, we were by Divine Grace made to
feel the evil of sin. We were led to know its bitterness in our inmost
souls and we were led to the Cross, and led to look to the Savior
nailed there for human sin. Our guilt disappeared, our burden rolled
from our shoulders and we were free!

And now we feel no enmity towards God, but, on the contrary, a love to
Him which we desire you to feel. We have no quarrel, now, with our
Maker. We desire that He should always do what seems good to Him, for
we are sure that His will is always kindness, wisdom and love towards
His people. And now as God's friends we speak to you and tell you that
He is a good Friend and a kind Father, that He is willing to forgive
and does forgive, most freely, all those who come to Him by Jesus
Christ. We have been reconciled and therefore can speak to you, not
theoretically, but experimentally. We can tell you what we have tasted
and handled of the good Word of God and our hope is that, perhaps, you
will be influenced by our testimony as that of men like yourselves who
have ourselves been saved.

Moreover, it seems that the ambassadors of God were reconciled to God
by Jesus Christ in the same way as other sinners. How very different is
this confession from the boastings of priests and prelates nowadays!
They are not of the same order as the people whom they address, but are
reverend and right reverend, and fathers in God. They speak not as
sinners saved, called to be servants to their fellow sinners, but as
Brahmins, who by the imposition of Episcopal hands have obtained
magical powers wherewith to perform potent ceremonies which shall
purify men from their sins. These are not such men as we are, but are
very far above us, a superior race of beings–a sacred caste! Do you
not observe how they fence off wherever they can, one end of the Church
for themselves? That pen of theirs is holier than the place where the
common people sit.

Do you not observe how they array themselves in white, blue and
scarlet, and fine linen, because they are the depositories of
mysterious powers which reside in none else? It is not that they are
any better in character, nor that they have more zeal for the Truth as
it is in Jesus, nor that even the bishops excel in clearness of
doctrine, or courage to defend the Truth of God. Brethren, it is
preposterous that these men should claim so much when they have so
little to show for it! Here are bishops who can bestow the Holy Spirit
and yet have not the manliness to speak out while the Church is

being Romanized and even the abominable confessional is being set up! I
could show tailors and cobblers who are more earnest for the Gospel
than the occupants of the Episcopal bench!

We are taught to believe that these wonderful beings, the bishops and
priests, are God's clergy or heritage, and all the rest of us are mere
stony laypersons who ought to do them reverence. I suppose the day will
come when our fellow countrymen will bow their heads in the dust before
a priest and count themselves thrice blessed if they are but spit upon
by their reverences. Not thus was it with ministers sent of God in
Paul's day! Here is a man who is an Apostle and an Inspired man and all
he has to say of himself and other ambassadors is this–"All things are
of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ."

No, dear Hearers, we speak to you as Brothers in one common Fall,
hoping that we may also be Brothers in the great salvation. If ever I
enter Heaven I shall owe my cleansing to the blood of the Lamb–not one
among you will owe more to the rich, free Grace of God than I shall.
No, there is not one among you who shall bow in humbler, lower
gratitude than I shall before the Throne of Infinite Mercy as he
remembers his forgiven sins. Having sinned much and had much forgiven,
we feel we cannot love enough and cannot too plainly tell the story of
our dear Master's Grace! And we feel that this is better for you than
that we should be something superior to you, for we hope you will be
won by a Brother's testimony–by the story of one who has received the
Grace of God just as you must–and is cleansed just as you must be.

Again, Paul tells us that the ministers of Christ, having been
themselves reconciled to God, have a message to deliver which has been
given to them–"has given to us the ministry of reconciliation." And he
repeats it–"has committed unto us the word of reconciliation." You
see, we have nothing to tell you but what God has told us! We have not
to stand in our pulpits and utter original ideas, or to invent a Gospel
for you! No, we are simply the bearers of a message which God would
have us deliver to you and it is at our peril that we add to it or take
from it! In these days there is a great deal said about, "thinkers,"
and by "thinkers" they mean men who startle their people with a fresh
heresy every three months! God save us from such thinkers!

I send my servant to the door with a message and if on the way, she, in
her wisdom, deliberates and alters my message to suit her own views, I
must discharge her, for I need someone who will bear my message and not
make one of her own. God would have His ministers be like transparent
glass which lets the rays of the sun pass through unchanged–and not
like painted windows which color all the rays after their own nature.
Through infirmity we all give some amount of coloring to the Gospel,
but he is the man according to God's order of ministry who longs to let
the Gospel shine right through him and does not send upon the people
anything of his own except the earnestness which the Gospel works in
him as it streams through him. As some glass adds heat to light by
concentrating the rays, so should the minister add heat to the Gospel,
but woe unto him if he adds anything beyond! Brothers and Sisters, we
have nothing to tell you which we have invented–so if you are saved by
it, it will not be due to our skill! We have nothing to tell you but
what God commits to us and therefore God will have all the glory if
your souls are saved.

Once more, and we add it with all sincerity. When we plead with
sinners, our expectation of their being reconciled to God does not lie
in our pleading, but in the work of the Holy Spirit. I never did expect
a sinner to be saved because of anything I said or the way in which I
said it. I have expected God to bless the Word and I have seen it
blessed ten thousand times, glory be to His name! But I never reckoned
that there was any force in my word, or that there could be any potency
in the manner in which I spoke the Truth of God. No, it is God
beseeching you by us, who performs the work when He speaks through our
lips, makes His own mind to rush like a torrent through our mind and
bears our mind away by its force. When He gives the utterance and then,
by His Spirit, applies it to the conscience and the soul, then are men
reconciled to God, but by no other means!

Therefore do we feel a trembling when we speak to you lest our Master
should leave us to ourselves and so we should fail to bless you. And
therefore do we never come to beseech you for God without first
beseeching God for you. We know that you will not be saved except the
Spirit of God shall bless the Word, therefore do we ask the prayers of
our Brothers and Sisters as well as send to Heaven our own, that the
Lord will be pleased to take of the things of Christ and by the Holy
Spirit apply them to your souls.

So you see, the ambassadors of God are your Brothers. Though I might in
some respects magnify our office, for it is no small thing to be an
ambassador for God, yet after all we are as nothing in the matter. We
cannot stand between you and God to take any share of praise–"we
preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord." We direct you to the
Lord

and the Lord alone for, "all things are of God, who has reconciled us
to Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of
reconciliation."

II. The second point of consideration is THE SUBJECT MATTER OF OUR
MESSAGE–And first the faithful minister's message to the sons of men
is this, that reconciliation is only to be obtained towards God on the
ground of Substitution. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
Himself." "For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." You cannot reconcile
yourself to God by weeping and lamenting on account of your past sins.
There is no efficacy in regret to blot out transgression. You cannot
reconcile yourselves to God by any future arduous service. All that you
can do is already due to God–you will have done no more than you ought
to have done if you should be perfect all the rest of your days.

Neither can you be reconciled to God by any ceremony of man's
invention, or even of God's ordaining–He has not made rites and
outward forms to be the way of Grace. And if you choose them, God will
not choose you. There were many in the olden times who went about to
establish their own righteousness and would not submit themselves to
the righteousness of Christ. And therefore they failed of all
reconciliation with God. But this is the plan of reconciliation– men
were all lost and condemned, for there was no difference between the
Jew and the Greek. They all lay under condemnation. Jesus came into the
world, the eternal Son of God, and He took upon Himself our manhood in
all its feebleness, that He might be our Brother. He lived here for 30
years and more in poverty, obscurity, sorrow and persecution, until at
last He died.

In His death He bore the whole burden of human sin. God laid upon Him
the iniquity of His people and on the Cross Jesus suffered what His
people ought to have suffered. What God's justice must have inflicted
upon man for sin He inflicted upon Christ. He laid the whole weight of
His wrath upon Jesus. And now, this day, whoever will come to God by
the way of the Cross may come. Whoever will hide himself in the wounds
of Jesus shall be free from the arrows of vengeance. "Whoever believes
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." "He that believes in Him is
not condemned." "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the
earth," is the voice from the Cross of Calvary. And a true voice it is.
And whoever heeds it shall find eternal life!

Reconciliation by the blood, by the substitutionary Sacrifice of the
Infinite Son of God–this is the message of our ministry. If we do not
testify this, it were better for us that we had never been born! If we
do not preach this constantly and incessantly, we have missed our main
topic, we have failed in the great commission which our Master sent us
to execute. We do declare it this day, in the name of the Eternal
God–O Sinners, there is forgiveness through the blood of Jesus! There
is mercy, Grace, pardon, Heaven, for as many as believe in Jesus, the
great Substitute for sin! And there is no other mode of reconciliation
under Heaven.

Then we are to tell men that this reconciliation, which was made by
Christ through His Substitution, was not apart from God, but that God
was in Christ. We often tell you that Jesus Christ's sufferings removed
the wrath of God from His people, and that saying is true, though
sometimes it is stated in inaccurate language. Yet a great Truth is
intended by it. But mark this, you must never fall into the idea that
God is revengeful and angry and that the death of Jesus Christ, His
Son, was necessary to pacify the Father. Beloved, you know better than
this! You know that God was Love before Jesus died–always Love, always
full of Grace and Truth towards His people. The act is that the
Substitution made on Calvary was a Substitution provided by God's Love,
for the Lord, Himself, gave His own Son to die as a manifestation of
Love as well as a vindication of Justice.

God was in Christ. God came on earth to reconcile men. God made the
Atonement for us. God was not made to love us by the death of His Son,
but because He loved us and had mercy on us–therefore He gave His Son
Jesus that the dishonor done to His Law might be wiped out–that the
difficulty which stood in the way of His mercy might be removed. That
so He might be just and yet the Justifier of the ungodly. Look at the
Cross in this light, O Sinner, and I trust it may reconcile you to God!
It is by that bloody sweat, that crown of thorns, that shame and
suffering–it is by those five dear wounds, those extreme agonies–that
God has removed all hindrance to your reconciliation. God Himself has
given to you His Son and He suffered in His Son that you might be
reconciled to Himself. It is not Jesus, a stranger, who hangs there to
gratify the Father's vengeance, God forbid–it is God who, in one of
His Divine Persons, bears the penalty which the inflexible laws of
right and justice demanded of sinful men. Oh, that you would come to
Him and be reconciled to Him by the death of His Son!

And now the third announcement of our message is this, that in
consequence of God's having reconciled the world to Himself in Jesus
Christ, He is able, now, to deal with sinners as if they had never
sinned, for that is the long and the short of the expression, "Not
imputing their trespasses unto them." He treats sinners as if their
sins were not theirs. They have sinned and they do sin, but He does not
put their sins down to their account. When He looks upon them in mercy,
and they are reconciled to Him, there are the sins–but He lays them
upon His Son. "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

We are a mass of sin but He does not account us such, for He has made
Him to be sin for us, although He personally knew no sin. Substitution
is a plan arranged by Wisdom for the joint display of Justice and Mercy
and by its means the Lord comes near to us to commune with us and gives
us countless blessings. Having absolved and pardoned us, He blesses us
as if we had never sinned. Yes, and there is something more wonderful
than that! God treats poor sinners who are reconciled to Him as if they
were full of good works, for what does the text say? "He has made Him
to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him." What a grand expression! He makes us
righteous through the righteousness of Jesus! No, not only makes us
righteous, but righteousness! No, that is not all–He makes us the
righteousness of God!

That is higher than the righteousness of Adam in the garden! It is more
divinely perfect than angelic perfection! He makes the guilty sinner,
when he believes in Jesus, to be the "righteousness of God in Him."
Never did lips have a sweeter message to deliver than mine! And I
murmur not if my speech should seem feeble this morning and if I cannot
garnish my message with the flowers of oratory. God forbid I should try
to do so! To you who are guilty there was never a more important
message delivered at any time and, having heard it, I charge it on your
conscience that you value it and think it over and accept it! God grant
you may.

We are, moreover, bid to tell man that the Atonement of Christ is not
confined to the Jew. That God has not reconciled the Jewish nation to
Himself, but the, "world." That is to say, Christ has died for all
nations, classes, sorts and sizes. The Atonement was not made for a
class, but for all classes. Not for the old exclusively, but for the
young, too. Not for the young only, but for the old as well. This is
such an Atonement made by Christ upon the Cross that it presents a
warrant for every sinner born of woman to come to God and say, "Lord,
forgive me, for Christ has died." When we preach the Gospel it is in no
stinted terms, looking about and thinking that perhaps there might be
half a dozen in the building to whom the Gospel might honestly be
spoken. But looking every man and woman in the face, we preach
reconciliation by Jesus Christ to them and point them to the atoning
blood. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting
life."

Let no man, woman, or child here say, concerning himself, that there is
a difficulty with God which Christ has not removed. The difficulty is
in your own soul and if you are willing to be reconciled, as sure as
you live and as sure as God's Book is true, there is a reconciliation
provided for you in Jesus Christ, the Son of God! Oh what gladness it
is to be allowed to speak thus! And now we are to tell men that there
is nothing whatever needed in order to their reconciliation and
acceptance with God except what Christ has already worked out, for God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself! Not reconciling it
by some other means, but reconciling it by Christ, doing the work in
Christ. You have not to bring Him your good works, or your tears, or
your mortifications, or your feelings, or emotions, or anything of the
sort–you have only to accept what God has provided!

There is the Propitiation and if you say in your heart, "My God, I take
it," you are reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Oh, go not
abroad to heap together your vanities, for they cannot appease Him!
Bring none of your vain oblations to Him! The incense of your
self-righteousness will be an abomination to Him! Come as you are,
defiled and filthy, polluted and wretched, and put your trust in what
He has done in the Person of His only-begotten Son–and you are
reconciled unto God! This, then, is the Gospel message with which we
are sent.

III. And now, thirdly, and very earnestly, I would speak to you a
little upon THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS MESSAGE IS TO BE DELIVERED. The
text tells us very plainly–First, it is to be delivered by beseeching
men and praying to men. "As though God did beseech you by us we pray
you." Then if I should merely tell you, dear Hearers, the Gospel,
though God might bless it, I have not done all my duty. To inform the
intellect is not the minister's sole work. We are to proclaim, but we
are to do far more–we are to beseech and to pray! We are not merely to
convince the

intellect, but to beseech the heart. Neither are we only to warn and
threaten, though that has its place, yet it is not to be our main
work–we are to beseech.

You know how a beggar bows his knees and implores you, when he is
starving, that you will give him bread? With like earnestness are we
bound to beseech you to be saved! You know how you will pray a fellow
creature to help you when you are in sore distress? In that same way
are we to pray you to be reconciled to God! As I ponder this I feel
self-condemned. I have besought you and I have prayed you sometimes,
but not as I ought to have done. Oh, to be taught how to beseech men,
how to pray them! God forbid we should fall into the error of those who
think beseeching and praying to be unlawful–it is the Christly
principle which leads God's ministers so to do–it is the main part of
a minister's business and he who neglects it will have to answer for it
before God's great bar!

The text goes on to say that we are to beseech men as though God did
beseech them. Now how does God beseech them? Read one of the Lord's
beseechings in the 1st chapter of Isaiah–how imploring it is! He says,
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against Me." For several verses the
Lord expostulates, and then pleads–"Come now, and let us reason
together, says the Lord: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be
as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as
wool." Oh the tenderness of that invitation to reason together! There
was first a burst of righteous indignation to arouse the mind and then
came the voice of most tender pity to allure the heart. What matchless
pleading!

If this is how ministers are to beseech, we have a high standard set
before us. We are to plead with men with a boundless freedom of
invitation and gentleness of expostulation, so I gather from the 55th
of Isaiah, where you have another of God's pleadings–"Ho, everyone
that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money; come
you, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and
without price." Oh, think of God's talking like this to His creatures,
and arguing with them–"Why do you spend money for that which is not
bread? And your labor for that which satisfies not? Hearken diligently
unto Me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness." Oh what freeness is there, what concern for their
welfare, what regret at their mistakes! What gentle upbraiding, as
though it were not for His sake but for theirs! "Why do you spend money
for that which is not bread?" Why disappoint yourselves and waste your
strength? It is after this fashion that we are to beseech men to be
reconciled to

God.

Then take another instance of matchless pleading. Turn to Ezekiel
33:11–"As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death
of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." And
then He says to them, "Turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why
will you die, O house of Israel?" He swears first, to show his deep
sincerity that He has no joy in a sinner's death, and then turns to
entreaty–"Turn you, turn you, why will you die?" There is a passage in
Jeremiah 44:4 where the Lord is represented as sending His Prophets to
say to the people in His name–"Oh, do not this abominable thing that I
hate." There is something so appealing, so pathetic about these words
that I dare not attempt to open them up to you! Their condescension and
tenderness are unspeakable.

Perhaps if there is one passage in Scripture in which the entreaties of
God are set in a more tender light than in any other, it is to be found
in the book of Hosea, 11:8, where the Lord cries, "How shall I give you
up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver you, Israel? How shall I make you as
Admah? How shall I set you as Zeboim? My heart is turned within Me, My
repentings are kindled together." Oh, how God beseeches men and He
means His ministers to beseech them in the same way, with weeping
tenderness and melting pathos, if perhaps the stony heart may be
softened and the iron sinew be bowed!

Do I hear some strong doctrine Brother say, "I do not like this"? My
dear Brother, I am not careful to answer you in this matter. If the
Lord appoints it, you ought to approve it and if you do not, you are
wrong, and the Scripture is not. If God beseeches and bids me beseech
as He does, I will do it. And though I am counted vile for it by you,
then so must it be. Besides, it is no derogation for God to beseech His
creatures. You say we make God beg to His creatures. Assuredly that is
how the Lord represents Himself–"All day long have I stretched out My
hands to a disobedient and gainsaying generation." It is in the
Scripture that He represents Himself as crying like a chapman at a
fair, "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come you to the waters," and bids the
passersby to buy His wine and milk. It is wonderful condescension–if
He had not so represented it, we dare not have done so! But as He has
said it, we do but follow His footsteps and quote His Words.

Besides, remember these entreaties of God, in which He stoops to our
littleness, even when they do not prevail with man, do mysteriously
affect the Divine purpose. They are a savor of death unto death
wherever they are not a savor of life unto life. But then, blessed be
God, in thousands of cases they are the means by which His power works
on men's hearts! They do bring men to be reconciled to Him. But I must
pass on. Our text, speaking of the manner of ministers, tells us that
we are to pray souls in Christ's stead. That is to say, we are to
preach as if Christ were preaching. Oh, what a model for the minister!
"We pray you in Christ's stead!"

I am to say to you who are not reconciled to God–"Be reconciled to
Him," and I am to say it as if Jesus said it. That would not be in a
light or trifling manner. That would not be in a cold official style.
That would be with melting eyes and burning heart. How was Jesus Christ
accustomed to implore men? Why, sometimes He prayed them by setting
before them the evil of their ways. "For which of these works do you
stone Me?" He asked. And so I am to enquire, "For which of God's works
are you His enemy? Are you His enemy because He keeps you in life?
Because He has raised you from the bed of sickness? Are you His enemy
because He gives you your bread and your water? Are you His enemy
because He sends you the Gospel? For which of these works do you hate
Him?" Oh, wanton malice, to be at enmity with the infinitely good God!

Sometimes Christ would plead with men on account of the uselessness of
their rebellion. "What king," He asked, "will go to make war with
another king without first sitting down to see whether he is able, with
10,000 to meet him that comes against him with twenty thousand?" Why
will you be God's enemy when you cannot win the battle? The flax may
sooner contend with the flame, or the wax with the fire, than you with
God! Oh, why, then, are you not reconciled to Him? Sometimes Jesus
pleaded with men on account of the result of their sin, as He did when
He stood on the brow of the hill and looked down on Jerusalem and said,
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the Prophets, and stone them
which are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children
together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you
would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."

Remember that wonderful chapter in Matthew where He speaks of His
coming with all the holy angels and dividing the sheep from the goats?
Remember the passages where He treats of the virgins who had no oil in
their vessels with their lamps? Whoever puts the doctrine of Hell into
the background, Jesus never did. It is thought in these days that we
had better not say much concerning the terrors of the Law, but so
thought not the Christ of Galilee! His ministry was full of the honest
warning which proves a tender heart. Oh, Sinners, you will be lost
unless you lay hold on Christ! And to be lost is something unutterably
terrible! Oh the wrath to come! The wrath to come! Who among you will
endure the devouring fires? Who will dwell in everlasting burning?

Thus the Savior invited. Thus He besought men. And so are we to beseech
them. And then you know in what style Jesus pleaded the love of God. I
do not say He put it into words that I can quote, but remember the
parable of the Prodigal Son–"When he was yet a great way off, his
father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and
kissed him." Was not that an eloquent discourse upon the abounding
mercy of the great Father in Heaven and did not Jesus then tell how
willingly God receives the penitent, and how gladly He puts away every
sin? And, oh, how He implored man to be reconciled in such sweet words
as these–"Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest." And what a word was that when He said, "Him that
comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." Never such a pleader as Jesus!

His birth among men and dwelling here on earth, was a plea! His actions
were pleas! His death was the master plea! Each groan seemed to say,
"Man, be reconciled to God!" And His last expiring cry of, "It is
finished," what was it but saying, "I have put away everything that
separates a sinner and his God"? Be reconciled to God was the true
meaning of that consummatum est with which He closed His agony. Once
more, it is taught us in the text that the duty of the true minister is
to bring this matter home and press it. We pray you in Christ's stead,
be you reconciled to God. It comes to this with you, my Friend–God
says to you this morning, "Throw down your weapons. Why do you contend
with your Maker? What have I done that you should despise Me? Poor
creature that I made, what have I done that you should hate

Me?

"I breathed into your nostrils your breath. What have I done that you
should spend it in speaking against Me? That throbbing heart of yours,
I give it every pulse. What have I done that you should forget Me, that
My day should be a weariness and My worship should be an abhorrence to
you? I have raised you from the bed of sickness, I have given you

many comforts. I spared your child when she was sick. I have prospered
your efforts in business. I have done a thousand things for you–do I
deserve to be forgotten? Is it right that your heart should be warm to
your wife and your child, and cold to Me?" My God, my soul is in
sympathy with You that You should be forgotten of your creatures! There
is not one of us that loves to be treated unkindly by those to whom we
have been kind. Ingratitude is one of the worst of ills. It bites like
an adder's fang and as an unkind child wounds to the quick–and will
you be such to your Maker? Will you be such to your Creator?

Come, be quiet for a moment and let the Lord speak with you, and let
your honest conscience answer Him. What has He done that you should be
His enemy? What has Christ done–look at His wounds!–that you should
not love Him? What has the Holy Spirit done that you should resist Him?
What will you gain by it? What will be the benefit in time or in
eternity? I have been almost every week to the grave lately with some
one or other of my congregation. Soon I may have to be there with you,
if I am not carried there myself. Well, and what will be the wisdom,
when you are dead, of having lived without God? What will be the profit
of having gained the whole world and having neglected your Maker?
"Come, O Man, hear you His words, and be reconciled to Him!"

I said throw down your weapons, but I have, now, another message.
Accept the Lord Jesus. "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish
from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little." There is life in
a look at the Crucified One. Jesus asks no hard thing of you. God your
Father does not ask you to do impossibilities, or to prepare yourself
by a long round of performances. His command is most simple and plain.
Trust in Jesus and you shall be saved. And, being saved, you shall love
your God and then all war between you and God will be over. God, the
Eternal One, will bend from Heaven to embrace His once erring child and
you shall feel the kisses of His love, while in your heart there shall
be music, dancing, joy and feasting because you have come back to God.

I do not know how to say more, nor how to plead more strongly. I would
God that He would beseech you, and that Jesus Christ would pray you,
and that the Spirit of God would sweetly touch the secret springs of
your will that you might say–

"I yield, by Sovereign Grace subdued, Who can resist its charms? And
throw myself, by lo ve pursued, Into my Sa vior's arms."

God be thanked for it. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Isaiah 1.
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The World On Fire