To Plead with Tears

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Remain standing and open your Bibles with me to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 20.
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2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 20 says this.
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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
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God making his appeal through us.
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We implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for your word.
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I pray, Father, that you would, even now, prepare me to preach it.
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That you would keep me from error, as I know I am capable of teaching error.
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That you would protect me from that and protect the congregation from that.
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And that ultimately, Lord, your word would speak out into the hearts of your people.
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And where there is needed conversion, that that would take place.
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And where there is needed conviction, that that would take place.
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Where there is needed encouragement, that that would take place.
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Where there is needed correction and rebuke, that that would take place.
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Let it be, O Father, that we are focused on the message, not the messenger.
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On the word of God.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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In 1985, the Times reporter of New Philadelphia, Ohio, reported in September of that year, a celebration at the New Orleans Municipal Pool.
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The party around the pool was to celebrate the first summer in memory where there had been no drownings.
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And so 200 people came to gather, 100 of them certified lifeguards.
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They gathered at the pool and they partied for hours.
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And as the party began to break up, they noticed a man fully dressed at the bottom of the deep end of the pool.
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He had died in the midst of 200 people, 100 of them lifeguards.
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Now that's a sad story and it's a true story, but it's also a parable.
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It's a parable of the modern church.
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Because there are thousands of churches all over our land and yet there are people all around them and even inside them who are dying, having never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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You see, the problem is we think everyone has heard the gospel.
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And that is not true.
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I work as a substitute teacher, as most of you know.
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And so I spend many hours a week around young people and I exercise my pastoral prerogative in eavesdropping.
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So I listen to them talk as I'm sitting behind the desk.
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And often the subject will turn to things spiritual.
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As people think kids don't want to talk about spiritual things, they really do.
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And they often are very interested to hear and be heard on subjects of spirituality and faith.
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And I can tell you from what little experience I have in the one little subsection of America that I deal with.
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It's in Yulee, so it is a southern, you know, kind of country rule area.
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I can tell you this from what little experience I have, not empirical in any way, but my own experience is this.
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America and America's teenagers and children are devoid of any true, real, living, good biblical theology.
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They speak nonsense to one another and argue over the trivial.
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Well, my church has a super fun, happy slide.
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And that's why you should come.
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And it's all about the nonsense.
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Recently, Ligonier Ministries combined with Lifeway Christian Stores, and they did a survey of theology in America.
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This was their finding.
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They asked questions to people who identified themselves as Christians.
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Now, I'm the first one to say I think that sometimes these are a bit skewed, because a lot of people in America think that they're Christians because they grew up in a Christian home.
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But be that as it may, I just want to share with you a few of the statistics.
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One of the questions on the survey is even the smallest sin worthy of damnation.
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Is small sin important? Is the smallest sin worthy of damnation? Only 18% agreed.
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Even though the Bible tells us in James chapter 2 and verse 10 that if we have broken the law at one point, we have broken the whole law.
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Another statement of the survey was this.
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Everyone sins, but most people are basically by nature good.
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67% of people who identified themselves as Christians agreed that people are by nature good.
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Even though the Bible tells us in Ephesians 2 we are by nature children of wrath.
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67%, a great majority said people are by nature good.
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Is salvation found in Jesus Christ alone? Only 53% of people who identified themselves as Christians said yes.
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Just a little over half of people who identified themselves as Christians.
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Is Christ necessary for salvation? And then the next question.
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Are there many ways to get to heaven? 45% almost half said yes.
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Beloved, please hear this.
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We live in a new dark age.
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You know, we talk about the dark ages, the middle ages.
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We talk about the medieval period.
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But beloved, that is not something that was a thousand years ago.
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We live today in the dark ages of theology.
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We live today in a time where people go about their lives devoid of the knowledge of the gospel.
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Such a thing should cause us to be ever more fervent about sharing our faith.
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But you know what has happened is we've become ever more lackadaisical in sharing our faith.
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It's part and parcel of the problem.
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I asked this question in Sunday school this morning.
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I said I didn't want to answer.
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I don't want a show of hands.
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I want you to answer this question in your heart.
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And I want you to be honest.
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Because you're not lying to me and you're not lying to someone beside you.
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If you lie on this question, you're only lying to yourself and to God.
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But answer this question in your heart.
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Have I ever, whether I'm 20 years old or 70 years old, have I ever in my life led a person to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? You might say that's an unfair question.
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Well, let me go one beyond it then.
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If you think that one's unfair, I'll go one beyond it.
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Have you ever tried? Have you ever wept over someone's lost soul? Have you ever pleaded with someone? If you knew someone needed a blood transfusion, if you knew that they didn't have that blood transfusion, that they would die, but their belief system in some way, shape or form told them that blood transfusions were wrong and you love this person, would you not beg them to reconsider? Would you not plead with them to consider the reality that they would die without that transfusion? You know you would.
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You know you would.
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But we don't plead with people over Christ.
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We don't weep with people over Christ.
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And it's so much more valuable than a blood transfusion.
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It's so much more valuable.
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It is their eternal soul.
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Heaven and hell are the stakes.
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It is the reality of life or death, glory or wrath.
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And yet we make up all of the excuses in the world not to plead with the lost, not to bring them the gospel.
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Charles Spurgeon said this.
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And by the way, if you ever use your Reformed theology as a reason not to share the gospel, shame on you.
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Charles Spurgeon, one of the most committed Reformed theologians, said this.
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He said, have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself.
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Be sure of that.
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One of the greatest tools in evangelism, as far as curriculum is concerned, was created, it's called Evangelism Explosion, was created by Dr.
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D.
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James Kennedy, himself a committed Reformed theologian.
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If you allow Reformed theology to keep you from evangelism, you are a false convert to Reformed theology.
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You do not understand it.
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The greatest evangelists in the past, from George Whitefield to Jonathan Edwards to John Newton to William Carey, have all been committed to Reformed theology, but they did not shirk their responsibility to climb aboard ships and cross the oceans to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and find a land where there had been no flag for Christ and plant that flag.
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So don't tell me your Reformed theology keeps you from sharing the gospel, because I'll tell you, you don't have any.
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I'll tell you, you just don't understand what you think you do.
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So having said all that, I want to look at the text, because this text ought to knock us right out of any bad theology we have in regard to evangelism.
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2 Corinthians 5.20, we've already read the text, but to really understand this text, we would need weeks and weeks and weeks to go through verse by verse, and because we do not have that, because this is a special message to prepare us for our conference this week, and because I didn't have the time to take a six-week or eight-week opportunity to expand out 2 Corinthians 5, I simply want to give you an overview very quickly, and I want to go back and read the context.
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Because the context of verse 20 starts up at verse 9.
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So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.
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That's Paul's goal.
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By the way, you ever wonder what it should be? What should be our goal in life? To please God.
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To please Christ.
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That's what Paul said.
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We make it our aim to please Him.
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People talk about church mission statements and all these things.
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We ought to have a mission statement, a goal statement.
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You know what our goal is? To please God.
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That must be it.
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Everything else is superfluous.
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To please God.
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So he says in verse 9, We make it our goal, our aim, to please Him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due, what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
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Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.
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Do we do that? But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience.
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We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart.
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For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God.
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If we are in our right mind, it is for you.
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For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died.
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And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
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From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.
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Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
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The old has passed away.
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Behold, the new has come.
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All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ.
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God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
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God making his appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God for our sake.
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He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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And then in chapter six, because there are no chapter distinctions in the original scriptures, it goes on to say, working together with him, then we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
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For he says in a favorable time, I listened to you in a day of salvation.
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I have helped you.
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Behold, now is the favorable time.
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Behold, now is the day of salvation.
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And we'll end our reading there.
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Beloved, this passage gives three implications regarding our call to evangelism.
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I want to share those with you today.
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Three implications regarding our call to evangelism.
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The first is that this passage provides the reason for evangelism.
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The reason for evangelism.
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Now, one might could argue that the only reason for evangelism is that it's commanded.
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Well, that's true.
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But from our perspective, why do we go out and we seek to reach the lost? Well, we go back up to verse 10 and it tells us why.
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It says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
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Beloved, the Bible tells us it is appointed to man once to die and then comes judgment.
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Do we believe that? Because if we do, that should be an impetus that drives us toward evangelism.
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If we really believe that God is going to judge the world in righteousness.
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If we really believe that God is the holy judge of this universe.
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If we really believe that all of us will face him one day.
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Should that not drive us to tell people that truth? As I mentioned in Sunday school this morning, I have stood over the dead bodies of many people.
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I don't know.
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I have no evidence of this.
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But I have a good idea that I've probably done more funerals than most of the pastors that I know.
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Simply because I have relationships with funeral directors.
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And I've been called in many times to come together with families that I've never met.
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And I've done many more funerals for people I've never met than those that I have met.
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So I've stood over a lot of dead bodies.
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And I've had to talk to a lot of grieving families.
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But I'll tell you this.
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The ones I did know.
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I looked down in that casket.
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And I said, you know what? If they have never heard the gospel from anyone else, I know they heard it from me.
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That's all I can do.
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I can't convert their soul.
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I can't win their heart.
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But I can share the gospel with them.
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And I look at these people.
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And there have been times where I've looked at people.
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And I say, you know what? I knew him and I didn't share the gospel with him.
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And it broke my heart.
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Judgment is coming.
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The reality is true.
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This was the impetus for Paul to go out and share the gospel.
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He wanted to tell people about this truth.
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Because in verse 11, and this is the second reason.
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Because he knew the fear of the Lord.
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He says, therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord.
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Do you fear God? People say, I don't fear God.
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I love God.
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Well, I fear my...
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When I was a kid, I loved my dad.
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I still feared my dad.
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There's still a part of me that does.
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He's a 70-year-old man.
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But the reality is this.
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Do we truly fear God? Because that understanding of who God is.
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You know, the most righteous person in all of Israel was Isaiah.
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But when he faced God, what happened? He put his hand over his mouth.
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He said, woe is me.
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I am undone.
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Why else should we evangelize? Well, verse 17 tells us.
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Because we've experienced regeneration.
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And I'm not trying to just jump over the text.
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But I do got to move through this to simply give a context.
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Verse 17.
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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
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Why should we evangelize? Because we have been evangelized.
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Why should we share the gospel? Because someone shared it with us.
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We ask the question.
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I'm afraid to share.
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I'm afraid to.
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I'm afraid of the embarrassment of sharing the gospel.
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I'm afraid of not knowing the answers.
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We talked about all this in Sunday school.
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I don't know what to say.
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But you know what? Somebody told you and they didn't know what to say either.
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Somebody shared it with you and they didn't have all the answers either.
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But you came to Christ through them.
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Will God not also bring people to Christ through you? Even though you don't know all the answers? Why do we evangelize? Verse 18.
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Because we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.
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Look at verse 18.
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All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
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First God reconciled us.
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Then he gave us the ministry to go do that for others.
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He saved you.
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And then he gave you a job.
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He reconciled you so that you would go tell others how to be reconciled.
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He fed the beggar so that he could go to other beggars and tell them where the bread is.
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He saved you.
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Can he not also use you to save others? Did you not have an obstinate heart? Did you not have a rebellious heart? Did you not not want to come to Christ, but yet he came to you and he saved you and he caused you to obey him? Can he not do that also through you? Certainly he can.
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And he will.
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Because God has reconciled mankind to himself through Christ.
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Verse 19.
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And now he makes his appeal through us.
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Verse 20.
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The reason for evangelism.
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We know men are going to be judged.
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We fear God.
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We've experienced regeneration and thus we want to see other men experience regeneration.
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We want to see other people come to a saving knowledge so that they will understand what we now understand.
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That though we were lost, now we have been found.
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Though we were blind, now we see.
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And we want other blind men to see.
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We want other hungry men to be fed.
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We want other lost men to be found.
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So God gives us that ministry.
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And verse 20, again, that's the focus.
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So I want to just get there now.
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Because verse 20 is where we find this word ambassadors.
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He says, therefore, remember what the word therefore, based upon everything I've said, based upon the ministry of reconciliation, based upon the judgment of God, based upon the fear of the Lord, based upon him saving you, based upon him regenerating you, based upon all of this, we are ambassadors.
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And you know what an ambassador is? An ambassador is someone who comes from one nation to another nation as a representative of that nation with a message to give that nation.
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If you have been saved, God has taken you out of this world and he has seated you in heavenly places with Christ, according to Ephesians chapter 2.
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He has taken you out of the muck and mire of your sin and he's made you a citizen of heaven.
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But guess what? You don't get to live there yet.
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We had this question in Dads and Dudes a few weeks ago.
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Why does God not just take us out as soon as he saves us? Because he doesn't take us out.
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He gives us a task.
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He gives us the ministry.
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Remember, Bruce, we talked about that question.
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God gives us the work to do now.
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To go be his ambassador.
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He sends us back into that world that we were taken out of.
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We were taken out of this terrible world and we were saved and he says now you've got to go back in there and you've got to go get your hands dirty and you've got to go reach down in that muck and mire and you've got to start pulling other people out too.
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That's your job now.
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You know what it's like to come to Christ.
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You know what it's like to have your heart converted.
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You know what it's like to be a citizen of heaven.
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But they don't, so go tell them.
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Go be the ambassador.
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Go be the one to tell them.
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And know this, you're not alone.
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Because the text goes on to say that God makes his appeal through you.
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Beloved, if you could only see this as I think the Apostle Paul intended us to understand it.
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Because that's the key to it all.
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People say, I just can't share my faith because I'm afraid.
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I just can't share my faith because I don't have all the answers.
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I just can't share my faith because I'm embarrassed or that I don't know what to do.
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And just remember this, God is making the appeal through you.
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It is not your gifts.
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It is not your ability to have a winsome wit or a nice personality.
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It is not your ability to win souls that God uses.
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He uses your willingness to go to them and He wins them through you.
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Recently, I heard a missionary, Don Curran, share this story.
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He just said, this is what he thinks about when he shares the gospel.
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This is a guy who goes out and shares the gospel in places that it's never been heard by anyone.
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And he said, I sit and I tell them about Christ.
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And I know, he didn't say I imagine it.
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He said, I know that the Holy Spirit is standing there with me.
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And he's saying, believe it.
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This is truth.
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Know it.
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He said, I have the confidence that God is making this appeal through me.
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Not me.
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Beloved, what could keep us from going? What could keep us from sharing? Vain pride? Selfishness? What could keep us from telling? Nothing should, but so many things do.
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So we see the reason for our evangelism.
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God is appealing to them through us.
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God is reaching His lost through us.
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He's reaching His people through us.
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And thus, we avail ourselves to that use.
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We avail ourselves to that task of being used of God as His instrument to win souls.
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God does not open the heavens and take a skywriter and say, you all must be saved and repent.
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He uses you.
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He uses us.
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Now the passage also tells us something else.
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It doesn't just give us the reason for evangelism because the reasons are many fold.
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But it also tells us this.
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It tells us what our evangelism should contain.
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What is the message? What do we tell people? Look at verse 20 again.
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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
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God making His appeal through us.
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That's God working through us there.
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And then here's the message.
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We implore you on behalf of Christ.
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I'll just stop there for a second.
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He's basically saying, we urge you.
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We plead with you.
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The very simple vernacular of the Greek, we beg you.
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And I say, I don't like that word.
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Get over it.
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It's the vernacular.
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It's the base word of this means.
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We beg you, be reconciled to God.
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And we beg you as if it were Christ here.
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On behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, repent.
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On behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, be reconciled to God.
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Now why do you have to tell somebody to be reconciled to God? Only one reason.
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They're not.
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What is reconciliation? Two warring parties that have been divided over an issue.
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And beloved, the world is at war with God over sin.
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And the reconciliation comes through Christ.
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And we are ambassadors of that reconciliation.
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We're ambassadors of that message.
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We go to the world and we say, you are at war with God.
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And people say, I don't know if I believe that.
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I don't care if you believe it.
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The Word of God says you are.
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I don't need you to agree with me.
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I need you to hear me.
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The Word of God says that you are.
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You are at war with God.
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And thus, you need to repent and be reconciled unto Him.
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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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My most favorite verse of the Bible is that verse, Romans 5.1.
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And do you know why it's so important to me? It's because it expresses a very simple truth.
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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
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Do you know why we have to talk about peace with God? It's because before we have come to Christ, before we've been justified by faith, we're at war with God.
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The opposite of peace is war.
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And that is where we are before coming to Christ.
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The Bible says we are at enmity with Him and we need to be reconciled.
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And thus, we tell the world, be ye reconciled unto God through Christ.
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And I plead with you as if I were Christ.
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Be reconciled unto God.
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That's my goal as a believer.
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It's to see that other people be reconciled unto God.
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Verse 21 tells us more about it.
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It says, for our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
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That, we see, is the substitutionary atonement of Christ.
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That one verse right there, I could take weeks and not unpack all of its depth, but that one verse right there.
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If you've memorized a verse of Scripture, if you don't memorize Scripture a lot, but you try to commit a few verses to memory, memorize that one.
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For He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might in Him become the righteousness of God.
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See, I didn't memorize it in the ESV, so it always sounds awkward when I'm reading it.
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But the reality is it must be understood this.
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He made Him who knew no sin, Christ knew no sin, to become sin on our behalf.
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How do you share that with an unbeliever? Beloved, your sins call out for God's wrath.
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But Christ on the cross took the sins of all who would ever believe on Him, and He took their punishment.
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He became their sin.
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He became sin.
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As the Bible says, the sin was nailed to the tree, so that God would punish their sin in Christ.
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So that in Him, we would become the righteousness of God.
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What we call the great transaction of propitiation.
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God's wrath is satisfied in Christ, and Christ's righteousness is given to me.
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And it's all done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
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All my badness, all the things I've done wrong, all of my hatred to God, all the times I've spit into His face, all the times I've declared His name to be ungood, all the times I've screamed out His name as a blasphemous word, every time I've ever sinned against God, that sin was nailed to Christ.
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And He took every drop of punishment for the wrath of God I owed, that I could become the righteousness of God in Him.
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You don't have to be a scholar to understand that.
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You don't have to be a theologian to explain that.
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You memorize this verse, and just learn to share it.
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He made Him who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
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The great transaction of the atonement.
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And finally, we see the urging of evangelism, the urgency of it.
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And this is why I didn't want to just stop at verse 21, because chapter 6 and verse 1 and 2 is really the heart of this, because He goes on to say, working together with Him, working together with God.
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We get to work with God! We get to work with Him! To tell people about Christ.
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And we go and we do that.
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And we appeal to people not to receive the grace of God in vain.
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Not to trample it underfoot.
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But to understand the preciousness of it.
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And say, in a favorable time, I listened to you, and in a day of salvation, I've helped you.
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Behold, now is the favorable time.
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Now is the day of salvation.
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This is the urgency.
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This is the urgency of the message.
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Now is all we have.
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So now is always the day of salvation.
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There will and may never be another day.
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Now is the day.
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Ichabod Spencer is a name that I'm certain many of you have never heard.
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And I admit that I had not recently, until recently, heard that name myself.
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He's known as the Bunyan of Brooklyn.
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You know, John Bunyan, the great Puritan preacher.
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And Spencer was an evangelist and preacher in Brooklyn.
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And he was known for spending his days, morning studying the Scripture, afternoon sharing the Gospel.
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He would just go out and share.
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He'd meet people wherever they were.
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He'd invite people to come to him.
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He just wanted to tell people about Christ.
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And there's an entire book.
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It's required reading at Southern Seminary.
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It's a book this thick of his journals, wherein he simply shares his stories of meeting lost people.
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He would come home at night, and he and his wife would write out from memory what had happened that day.
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And his journals make up two volumes, which together can be purchased as one book.
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And it's huge.
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And this week, I started reading it, and I went to a story.
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It was amazing that it lined up so well.
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They had a young man come to him in his study, and he said, Sir, I am ready now to talk about religion.
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I'm ready now to talk.
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And what he meant was, I'm ready now to talk about Jesus.
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He said, I've put off religion long enough, and I've determined to put it off no longer.
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And Spencer said, well, that's good.
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Behold, now is the time.
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Now is the day of salvation.
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And the young man said, I don't really think that verse applies to me.
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He said, I've got some time.
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I just want to start talking about it.
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And Spencer said, behold, now is the acceptable time.
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Now is the day of salvation.
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And the young man said, listen, I've got a lot going on, and I just want to talk to you about this.
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I want to tell you what's going on in my life.
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And so they talked a bit, but every time it would come around to the idea, I just am not ready yet, he would say, behold, now is the acceptable time.
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And they'd go on for a bit further.
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And the man, he said, I'm not prepared yet to become a Christian.
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I'm not prepared yet to receive Christ.
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And he said, do you think if going on in the state that you're in is going to make you more prepared? Do you think it's going to make you better off? More able? And finally, he just kept saying, now is the accepted time.
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Finally, the young man just said, we're done.
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He prayed and left.
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And three days later, Spencer was walking and the young man walked up to him and he said, I want you to know something.
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He said, ever since I talked to you, I can't get that verse out of my head.
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He said, he said, last night I received Christ.
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And he said this, he said, he said, everywhere I went and every verse I read in the Bible, I kept coming back to that verse.
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Now is the accepted time.
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Now is the day.
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He said, I don't know what you did to me.
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He said, but I couldn't get it out of my head.
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Beloved, yesterday is gone and it is over.
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And you can't go back.
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And tomorrow is not promised for anyone in this room.
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Now is the accepted time.
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Now is the day of salvation.
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Statistics differ, but the average statistic says this, 150,000 people die every day.
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Can you imagine if a newspaper read that as a headline? 150,000 people died today.
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But they do.
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We don't know what tomorrow will bring.
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We don't even know if tomorrow will be brought.
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But we know this, today we have heard the gospel.
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And now is the accepted time.
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With that urgency, we need to bring the gospel to others.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank you for the truth.
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And Lord, it matters not the eloquence of my speech, but what does matter is the truth of your word.
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So I pray that the truth of your word has pierced the hearts of people today.
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I pray if there are those here who have never heard the gospel.
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That our sins, though they be scarlet, they have been washed whiter than snow in the blood of the land.
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That our desperately wicked condition can be brought to fullness and healing and forgiveness in Christ.
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God may it be.
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That this message has been heard by all.
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And may it be that those who have received it.
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Would not shirk their responsibilities to go out and share it with others.
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For we have been called as ambassadors of the heavenly city.
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To call men to be reconciled to God.
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In Jesus name we pray.