God Beseeching Sinners by His Ministers

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2 Corinthians 5:20

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.

Man became God's enemy without the slightest provocation; but man did not make the first overtures for peace. Consider —

I. THE AMBASSADORS OF RECONCILIATION.

1. They themselves were once enemies to God. God might have sent angels to you, and you might have been awed by their glory; but their sermons must have been unsympathetic compared with ours, for they could not know your misery as we do.

2. They are now reconciled, and therefore can speak not theoretically, but experimentally. They were reconciled, too, by Jesus Christ, in the same way as other sinners. Again, Paul tells us —

3. They have a message to deliver which has been given to them. Their mission is not to invent a gospel. I send my servant with a message, and if she, in her wisdom, alters my message to suit her own views, I discharge her, for I want some one who will bear my message, and not make one of her own. God would have His ministers be like transparent glass, not like painted windows, which colour all the rays after their own nature.

II. THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF OUR MESSAGE.

1. That reconciliation is only to be obtained towards God on the ground of substitution. You cannot reconcile yourself to God by lamentation on account of your past sins, by any future arduous service, nor by any ceremony of man's invention, or even of God's ordaining. This is the plan: — Men were all lost and condemned; then Jesus took upon Himself our manhood, that He might be our brother; and in His death He bore the burden of human sin.

2. That this reconciliation was not apart from God, but that God was in Christ. You must never fall into the idea that God is revengeful, and that the death of His Son was necessary to pacify the Father. God was love before Jesus died. The substitution made on Calvary was a substitution provided by God's love. It is not Jesus, a stranger, who hangs there to gratify the Father's vengeance; it is God who, in one of His Divine Persons, bears the penalty which justice demanded of sinful men.

3. 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. "Not imputing their trespasses unto them." "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Aye, and something more. God treats us who are reconciled to Him as if they were full of good works; "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

4. That the atonement of Christ is for the "world" (John 3:16).

5. That there is nothing whatever needed in order to their reconciliation and acceptance with God, except what Christ has already wrought out.

III. THE MANNER IN WHICH THIS MESSAGE IS TO BE DELIVERED. The text tells us very plainly —

1. By beseeching and praying men. We are not merely to convince the intellect; neither are we alone to warn and threaten, though that has its place.

2. By beseeching men as though God did beseech them. Now how does God beseech them? Read Isaiah 1., 4.; Ezekiel 33:11; Jeremiah 44:4; Hosea 11:8.

3. By praying souls in Christ's stead — i.e., we are to preach as if Christ were preaching. That would not be in a light or trifling manner, or in a cold official style, but with melting eyes and burning heart. Sometimes He prayed —

(1) By setting before them the evil of their ways. "For which of these works do you stone Me?" And so I inquire, "For which of God's works are you His enemy? Are you His enemy because He keeps you in life, gives you your food, or sends you the gospel?"(2) By showing them the uselessness of their rebellion (Luke 14:31). Why will you be God's enemy when you cannot win the battle?

(3) By displaying the result of their sin, as He did when He stood on the brow of the hill and looked down on Jerusalem. Remember the passages where He speaks of dividing the sheep from the goats, 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.

(4) By pleading the love of God — e.g., in the parable of the prodigal son, And, oh, how tie implored man to be reconciled, in such words as, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."

4. By bringing this matter home and pressing it. We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. It comes to this with you: God says to you —

1. Throw down your weapons; why dost thou contend with thy Maker? What has Christ done that thou shouldst not love Him? What has the Holy Ghost done that thou shouldst resist Him? What wilt thou gain by it in time or in eternity?

2. Accept the Lord Jesus.

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