invite you to turn back with me to that passage which has been read to us this evening from 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 particularly verses 11 to 21 and you will find it helpful I'm sure if you are able to have a Bible open before you or perhaps able to look on with one that belongs to your neighbor. Our subject for this evening as you have just heard is the wonderful subject of the grace of God. Indeed the subject of the irresistible grace of God. And in the New Testament as you may know the Apostle Paul who expounds this grace to us. Perhaps above all other writers in the New Testament uses a variety of pictures in order to help us to grasp what the grace of God really is. On occasion he uses the picture of the temple and he speaks of the grace of God providing sacrifice and propitiation for man's sin. So that man although he is sinful may come into the presence of a holy God and know that he will be accepted because God's wrath has been propitiated by God's grace. And there are other occasions in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul moves from the scene of the temple into the scene of the marketplace. And he describes how the grace of God ransoms men from their bondage in sin and delivers them from the powers of darkness and evil and sin which bind them and shackle them and how the grace of God sets men free in order to live for God's grace and to God's glory. But the picture that Paul has chosen to employ in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 is a picture that is drawn neither from the world of the temple nor from the ancient world of the slave market, but from the very relevant and contemporary world of human relationships. Because the picture that he draws in these verses we have read of the grace of God is a picture which introduces us to the notion that what the grace of God does in a man's life is to bring him reconciliation. And perhaps of all the pictures that the Apostle uses as he expands the meaning of the grace of God, there is none that is easier for us to grasp in the late 20th century than this picture of reconciliation. Indeed it is a word that is frequently upon the lips of men and women whether they be Christians or not. in terms of family life and married life, in terms of the relationships between parents and children, in terms of the relationships between employers and workers, in terms of the relationships between party and party in civil government, in terms of the relationships between nation and nation in the world in which we live. If there is one thing perhaps above all others that is obvious even to the blindest man in the universe, it is that we live in a world today and many of us live in personal circumstances at home or where we labor or certainly in the countries in which we live. We live in a world which stands in dire need of reconciliation. So that everywhere we look in this world today, this very night, in every corner of the universe and in every part of the United States of America, we are able to detect whether we be Christians or not, that man's great need is for reconciliation. Because man's contemporary situation in every area of his life personal, national and international, is by and large, even as the poets are able to tell us, a situation of alienation and distress and need, above all other things, for reconciliation. And what Paul is seeking to teach us here in 2 Corinthians 5, is that in the midst of all the different areas of our lives in which we stand in need of harmony and harmony and reconciliation because of our alienation from one another and because of our alienation from other nations our great and primary need the need that gives rise to all of these other needs is our fundamental need for the grace of God to bring our personal alienation from him to an end and to bring us what he here calls reconciliation with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And as we turn to this passage together this evening and focus attention on it I want you to notice how as Paul expounds this teaching he has on the grace of God that he traces reconciliation through a series of stages which are vital for us to grasp not only in order to understand what he means by reconciliation but in order for us to understand what he means by the Christian gospel. And if there is one thing above all others that it is important for us to lay hold of in understanding his gospel of grace his message of reconciliation. That thing is this, that for the Apostle Paul reconciliation fundamentally means exchange. Indeed the very word he uses in the Greek language in which he penned this epistle. The very word he uses for reconciliation has as its root meaning the notion of making an exchange. And I want us to notice together from this portion of God's work how the apostle underlines four great truths for us. First of all how much we need the grace of God for an exchange to take place. Secondly how God has supplied that grace in order that an exchange might take place. Thirdly for us to try to understand the operation of that grace as the exchange takes place. And finally for us to look together at the effects of that grace in the exchange that takes place in the life that the child of God who is reconciled to his father begins to lead in God's grace and for God's glory. Now the first of these things that we need to notice as you recall is what the apostle has to say here about our need of God's grace. And he makes this abundantly plain not only in the obvious things he says but in some ways even plainer in the way he says things. For example, you would have noticed in our reading how he says in verse 20, that although God has set him in the world in the position of being an ambassador for Jesus Christ, a messenger of a heavenly king and a heavenly kingdom. Although God has in a sense exalted him to this position of authority and dignity in the kingdom of God. He is so conscious of the deep need that men and women have to receive the message he brings as an ambassador that he tells us he beseeches them to be reconciled to God. He beseeches them in other words to receive the grace of God that is offered to them in the gospel and he is so passionate about this matter. He brings himself down, as it were, from the dignity of being an ambassador of a heavenly king. And he goes on his hands and his knees and he pleads with men and women, be reconciled to God and receive his grace in the gospel. Why? Because above all other burdens upon his spirit and on his heart is man's immense need for this grace of God that is offered to him in the gospel. Now why is that need so great? Well in all that Paul says, everything he says indeed is underlined and undergirded by the fact that in every area and dimension of a man's life Paul is able to detect the signs of alienation from God as a creator and as a provider and as a redeemer and as a friend. For example he tells us in these verses that apart from the grace of God one of the things that is true of a man is that he lives for himself. You will notice how he says in verse 15 when he is speaking about the change that takes place in a man's life when he receives the grace of God is that he is brought out of the condition in which he lived before he received that grace and that position was he lived entirely and utterly for himself everything that he did everything that he practiced that might in the eyes of other men and women have seemed to be altruistic and even humble at times. Does the Apostle Paul have ever been directed against this one final goal? That I might be the captain of my own fate. That I might be the Lord of my own destiny. That I might live unto myself. instead of living for him for whose sake and glory I was created in grace and in love. And attached to that do you notice how he says in the words that follow that not only did men live for themselves apart from God's grace but they regarded one another and supremely they regarded Jesus Christ merely from a worldly point of view. And he says this is the great symptom of the man who is alienated from God. As he is alienated from God he becomes alienated from his neighbor. And how does he regard his neighbor? He regards his neighbor in terms of the three scored years and ten of life span that he and I share together. he sees nothing more to him than the passing of a few years and at the end of his life he gives a passing nod of acquaintance of thanks to the life that has been lived before him and apparently says the Apostle Paul the great hallmark of the man who has been alienated from God and from his grace is that he thinks of Jesus Christ in precisely the same way Although, says the Gospel, God has lavished his love for us by sending his Son into the world as the apex of human history to bring man back to God. The man who is alienated from God, he says, thinks about this purely from a secular point of view, purely from a worldly point of view. Jesus Christ is a matter of interest to him, or perhaps a matter of amusement to him. Or perhaps a name that appears upon his lips, or at least in his heart, merely as a word to curse and judge the God who has created him. So that the tragedy of his life is that he does not even have the eyes to see the gift that God has given him. When he sent his son into the world to be his savior. And the consequences of this says Paul in verse 17. Are that men and women apart from the grace of God live in a creation that is old and passing. They will have their day and be like the grass of the field, he says, that today sprouts up and tomorrow it's cast into the oven and burnt. Because he lives and he belongs to a world and to a scene and to a life that is passing away into the mists of eternity. and when he stands before the judgment seat of God he will have nothing to say and nothing to plead and no excuses to bring he will be empty and devastated and alienated from the life of God and from God's grace and mercy and so he goes on to say later on in the passage as you would see in verse 19 he hints at this very thing But what is true of the man who is alienated from God and the reason he stands in need of the grace of God is because one day God is going to count his sins against him. And he will be in that position that you remember that Samus describes when he says, Oh Lord, if you should count our iniquities, who could stand before you? And that position that Paul had elsewhere described in Romans chapter 3 as he enlisted the characteristics of the man who is alienated from the grace and from the life of God as he would stand before the judgment seat of Jehovah and his mouth would be shut. And on that great and awesome day when we are told that the great men and princes and generals of the earth will call on the mountains and the rocks to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb and there will be no space in the universe in which they can hide and no corner they can find to make excuse says the apostle Paul every mouth will be shut closed And alienated man will be found guilty and judged before the judgment seat of God. And why the Apostle Paul is so passionate in his appeal of the gospel grace of Jehovah is this. That he sees from his own personal experience and he has begun to see in the Christian gospel and he has seen perhaps as clearly in the world in which he lives how men and women stand in need of an exchange. an exchange in which the wrath of God is changed for the grace of God and their heart of enmity against God is changed for a heart of trust in God and love for God. Because he has come to see that man's greatest need lies not merely in the fact that his own spirit and life has become alienated from God but that God himself has become alienated from him and he is under God's judgment and under God's wrath and God has turned his face of justice against him and because God will mark his iniquities apart from grace he will have nowhere to stand and it's because of this general background that beloved we need to hear over and over again until the word of God and the spirit of God penetrate into the depths of our being and we see that this is not some general truth but what is true of me and may even be true of me this night this very moment But the greatest need and the greatest lack in my life is this need of God's irresistible grace that there may be an exchange taking place in my life and I may be reconciled to the God of heaven and earth. And you see what Paul is building us up to as he expounds this background to the message and to the ministry of reconciliation is that it is only against that dark back cloth that we are able to see how brightly the glory and the grace of God shines upon us in the message of reconciliation and in the ministry and word of the gospel. And so he speaks to us, you will notice in this passage, not only of our need of grace, but most powerfully in the second place of God's supply of grace. And the question he is asking us is this, is there a place in all the universe where a man or a woman or a boy or a girl may find this exchange that is needed where this changed relationship may take place so that I no longer look upon God as my judge but I'm able to see him as my father and my savior and he no longer looks upon me as an object of his judgment and wrath but as an object of his love and favor and compassion and pity and patience. And I want you to notice with me how in verses 18 to 21 particularly. Again and again and again and again the Apostle Paul points us to where this grace of God may be found in the gospel. He tells us it is in Christ, it is through Christ, it is in Jesus Christ that an exchange may be found that reconciliation with God and friendship with God has been provided for us in God's grace. And he tells us that the most important words that any of us ever need to hear may be heard by us in Jesus Christ where we may hear the echo of the gospel that in Jesus Christ God no longer counts men's trespasses against them. And in those words he answers the deepest echoing cries of the human heart for some place in which I may stand and know that my sins will not be counted by Jehovah. And I may be free and bold to come into his presence and call him Abba, Father. Now is the gospel then this message? That God has decided not to count our sins against us? Oh no my friend. The gospel message is not that God has decided not to count my sins against me. The gospel message has got less to do with a divine fiat and more to do with a most amazing exchange. For what the apostle tells us you will notice at the heart of this chapter in verse 21 is not that God has not imputed our trespasses against us simply, but that God has not imputed our trespasses against us because He has imputed them against His Son Jesus Christ. The heart of the gospel, he says, is that God has lifted up the burden and weight of my sins. And he has transferred that burden to the head of his own son upon the cross of Calvary. And on the cross of Calvary he has made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us. that we might become in him the righteousness of God. So that if what we most desperately need from the gospel is an exchange, what Paul says is most gloriously provided in the gospel is the very exchange that we need. And my dear friends, I want to say to you this evening that if you are to ever grasp the heart and kernel of the Christian gospel, this is the message you need to hear and to learn and to know and to understand. The gospel good news is the good news that God has made an exchange. And the whole of Scripture bears eloquent testimony to the fact that this is the great center stage item of all human history. And the great center stage activity of God in sending His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our Savior. In Jesus Christ the exchange you need has been made. You remember how in the days of the Old Testament the people of God were given a type or a picture of this. When on the great day of atonement two goats were brought together and the sins of the people were laid on the head of the goats and one of them was taken and slaughtered. as a sacrifice to God and the other upon whom the sins of the people had been confessed and laid was taken out into the wilderness of the desert and the no man's land outside the camp and there was made to wander in the barren desert and in empty loneliness and alienation and dereliction And of course what God was saying to his people was that the day would come in human history when the sins of the people would be confessed not merely upon beasts from the flock, but upon the chosen son of God. And he would not only become, as it were, the goat that was to be slaughtered and whose blood was to be offered up to reconcile God to sinners. But even as his blood was offered up upon the cross, he would know what it would be to become the scapegoat, as that goat was called, who would enter into the wilderness under dereliction and the alienation of man's sin, and make an exchange of himself for the sake of men and women. so that he would go into that virgin territory outside the camp where he would cry as none other out of hell would ever cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And you remember how the prophet Isaiah lifting out these pictures, these types from the Old Testament began to express as clearly and lucidly as any other could what the meaning of Jesus' coming would be. He said it would mean glorious saving exchange. Because one would come who would be wounded for our transgressions. Who would be bruised for our iniquities. Upon whom would be the chastisement that would bring us peace. and the one through whose strife and affliction we would be savingly healed. And as the New Testament begins to pick up this great central theme of the gospel in all that's new. It expounds to us in so many different ways again and again and again. Here is the core. Here is the heart of the Christian gospel. In Jesus Christ there is an exchange for you. And perhaps that is nowhere more clearly evident than in the night of our Savior's betrayal. When you remember in the upper room he came to his own disciples. whom he had called and chosen and loved and for whom he was going to give his life. And he thrust into their hands the cup of his own fellowship with his Father, the cup of his peace and his joy and his glory, about which he spoke to them in the upper room in John 14 and 15 and 16. And he said to them, this is the cup of salvation. This is the cup of fellowship with God. Drink from it, all of you. And having given them the cup that was his own cup of fellowship with his father, he went out into the darkness of the Jerusalem night and into the garden of Gethsemane and began to wrestle in his own spirit with the knowledge that God was thrusting another cup into his hand. A cup that he knew had been described in scripture as the cup of God's judgment and wrath and desolation and dereliction. And he wrestled with it and he cried to God, Oh my father, he said, if it is possible, let this other cup pass from me, if it is possible. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And he reached out in those hours. And he took from the hands of his own father the cup of his father's judgment, the cup of his father's curse, the cup that would lead him to the cry of dereliction and the isolation and the alienation from God that he knew upon the cross of Calvary. Because there he would make the exchange. giving to his disciples the cup of salvation and taking from his disciples from the hand of his father the cup of judgment and dereliction and condemnation. You remember how this very thing is illustrated when Joseph brought his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh to his father anticipating that his father, as was the custom, would stretch out his right hand to the elder and bless him, and his left hand to the younger and give him the inferior blessing. For, O beloved, what God's word is teaching us took place upon the cross, is that as the father stretched out his right and his left hand, There came the amazing and wonderful exchange of His grace in which the right hand of His blessing and acceptance falls upon sinners and the left hand of His judgment and curse falls upon His own dear Son. As He made Him to become sin and a sin offering and a sacrifice for our sake, so that in Him this exchange might be made and we might become before God righteous with the very righteousness of His own Son, Jesus Christ. So that if you are to ask the Apostle Paul what the grace of God is, He says to us, you remember in this very epistle, you know, the grace of God, you know, the grace of God. How that the Lord Jesus, though he was rich with all riches, became poor with our poverty, that we through his cross bearing sin, bearing poverty, might become rich beyond all riches with the riches of His Father's acceptance and His Father's blessing and His Father's grace. You know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, says Paul. But of course, the real question he was asking the Corinthians and the real question we need to ask ourselves is, do we know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Does this exchange really mean anything to us in the sense that we know that it is ours? This is what he is saying. Here is the grace of God demonstrated to us in this wonderful exchange, the very exchange that we need. But do we know the grace of God? And it's that question that leads us to the third thing that Paul emphasizes in these verses. Because having spoken of our need of grace and God's supply of grace, he goes on in the third place to describe the operation of grace. And what he means us to understand in these verses is this. that this exchange that is offered to us in the gospel in a sense needs to take place on two levels he says it has already taken place in Jesus Christ but he says because it has taken place in Jesus Christ because in Jesus Christ God has laid his judgment and his wrath The apostle tells us there is a further exchange that needs to take place. He expresses it, of course, in the appeal that he makes. He says, be reconciled to God. Or as we might say, he says, exchange your attitude to God. Come to Christ, he says, and in Christ exchange your hostility and your indifference and your apathy and your antagonism against God. and receive the riches of the gospel that are offered to you in the name of Jesus Christ. And in order that that may happen, and here is the point of almost everything we are saying, in order that that may happen, that in which we stand in need of is nothing less than grace that is irresistible. Now, you may say that as you read through the New Testament, is it not true that the New Testament teaches us on almost every page that God's grace may be resisted? And that is true. You remember how Stephen speaks in these words, he says, you do always resist the Spirit of God. But of course, it's precisely because of our power and our ability to resist the grace of God. It's because of the very fact that left to ourselves, we would do nothing but resist the grace of God. But that grace in which we stand of need of is what we sometimes call irresistible or invincible grace. And Paul brings this out in a very striking way in these verses. He had already said to the Corinthians in chapter 4 that it is possible for this great and glorious gospel message in which the glory of God is seen. It is possible for men not to see this and possible for men to resist this because their minds are darkened because their eyes are veiled and they cannot see. the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He could never get over this that the gospel was so clear and powerful and so winsome and yet it was all too possible for men to resist it and to be blind to it. And that's why he says at the heart of 2 Corinthians chapter 5 that if a man or a woman is to come and make this exchange that is offered to them in the gospel That in which they stand in need of is the grace of God that they cannot resist, that overwhelms them, that compels them to lay down their hostility against God and brings them by his irresistible grace into his heavenly kingdom. And it is of nothing less than this irresistible grace in which you and I stand in need. We need, as the apostle says here, something akin to a creation to take place in our lives. When he searches for some picture by which he can describe how this irresistible grace of God operates, what he tells us is this, he says, this only happens when all things are of God. when God not only offers us Christ in the gospel, but when God in his invincible sweet grace works in our lives to bring us to the gospel. And when that happens as he stretches his imagination to try to get some picture, some illustration or analogy which can describe the power that is needed to bring a man to understand and receive the gospel. He says it is nothing short of a new creation. It is like God at the beginning speaking into the darkness of the universe and saying, let there be light. So he says the same God has shone his light into our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He says there is this great need in man's life not simply that he should be educated in the gospel but that God should speak with resurrection power into his life And he should be brought to embrace the gospel like a Lazarus brought out of the tomb bound hand and foot in order that the grave clothes may be stripped away that he may see his Savior standing before him in all his majesty and saving power. So that what Paul is saying that we need if we are to ever embrace This wonderful exchange that is offered to us in Jesus Christ is for Jesus Christ himself to stand before our lives and to shout into our darkened tombs, Lazarus, come forth! So that by the word of him who died for us on the cross and made this wonderful exchange We may be powerfully and irresistibly drawn. Did you notice how the apostle puts this in the heart of this passage when he tells us that when we begin to understand the gospel in verse 14 and become convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. What is it that happens? He says the love of Christ compels us, irresistibly compels us. And you know, that's a very interesting expression. It's the very same expression that is used in the Gospels. When you remember, Jesus found himself unable to move because of the crowd around him. He was held in or constrained or restrained irresistibly by the crowd. And what the apostle is saying to us here is that the love of God pursues us to the point where we find ourselves held in by the grace of God to receive the Christ of God. And oh, what marvelous ways the Father in heaven has to pursue us and to hold us in and to crowd us to Jesus Christ. how He does it sometimes as He pursues us through the preaching of His Word. And we find, do we not, sometimes that wherever we go, our own church or another, wherever we read in this portion or that portion of God's Word, wherever we turn, it seems as though God's Word leaps out of the page as we cannot escape from it. And what God is saying to us is that we need to be able to come and turn to His Son to be our Saviour. And sometimes He constrains us and hems us in through Christians around us. And we know what it is. It seems wherever we turn there is another Christian. We change our jobs and it so happens that the man above us or below us or beside us is a Christian. And wherever we turn as we seek to get away from this hound of heaven as He pursues us with His love. We discover that He confronts us again and again and again. And He stands before us and He says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock and you must hear my voice and open the door and I will come in in grace and power and sup with you and you with me. And isn't it true that sometimes He crowds us through the circumstances and the tragedies and the agonies of our lives? And He begins to move in ways that touch us to the very quick of our beings as He withdraws from us the things that we have cherished most dearly because He wants us to take our eyes off merely earthly things in order that we may come and embrace heavenly things. And He has so set His heart upon bringing us to Himself that no cost is too great for Him or it seems for us. For Him to pursue us into His heavenly kingdom. Do you remember how the Psalmist David found us? when he wrote in the 23rd Psalm that goodness and mercy pursued him all the days of his life. And the verb he uses there is the kind of verb that you could easily use for your sheep dogs. Barking after the stray sheep to bring them into the fold. And that's the glory of God's grace. He sends out his sheep dogs of providence of His Word, of His people, of His Spirit. And He hands us in to Christ irresistibly. And you know, my friends, these words, in a very real sense, are a test of where we are. Because you see, for some people, the notion of the irresistible grace of God is one of the great philosophical problems in the universe and in the Christian faith. But the man or woman who understands his real need sees God's irresistible grace not as a problem but as the answer to his greatest need because he knows that unless God pursue him with grace that is irresistible and overwhelming. Unless God, like the shepherd coming and seeking out the sheep and putting the sheep on his shoulders and carrying it home to the pen, unless God exercise irresistible grace, then all His providences, all His people, all His works We will always resist. And that's why these words are so wonderful. That's why it's a glorious thing to be able to say to you that there is such grace and God that overwhelms us and compels us lovingly and freely to receive the wonderful exchange of Jesus Christ. And so you see we need this exchange. And God has provided this exchange in the supply of His grace. And God brings us to this exchange through the operations of His grace. And God, do you see the Apostle also emphasizes, changes our lives to produce in us the fruit of His grace. We need an exchange. Christ provides an exchange. God brings us to an exchange. And His Spirit produces a change. And you see how Paul puts it here in verse 17. He says the final exchange is this. that if anyone comes to Christ, if anyone is in Christ, he exchanges the old creation for the new, the old world for the new. And he spells out to us precisely what this means. In verse 16 he tells us that it means in the first place that we exchange our old view of Jesus Christ for a new one. We no longer think of Jesus Christ merely in a worldly way, the kind of way we used to. But we see Jesus Christ as our only Savior, and as our Master, and as our Lord, and as our God, and as our King. And it also, says Paul, produces a new view of others. We exchange the old view of others for a new view of them. From now on, he says in verse 16, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. We regard them from a new point of view. If we are children, we no longer see our parents the way we once did. If we are parents, we no longer think about children the way we once did. If we are a husband, we no longer think of our wife the way we once did. If we are a wife, we no longer think of our husband the way we formerly did. But all things have become new and the grace of God begins to permeate our lives wonderfully and gloriously and things begin to change as this great exchange is made. But then do you see that the apostle says in verse 15, that we exchange the old lifestyle for the new. Christ died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them, who died in their place instead of them. and was raised again to newness of life that they might walk with him and live in his risen presence and by his risen power. A great exchange. The exchange in which we cease to live for ourselves and are dominated by Jesus Christ and live gladly and freely and joyfully and gloriously for Him who loved us and who gave Himself for us. So that the ultimate test, the ultimate evidence that this gospel exchange has been made The ultimate evidence that we have experienced irresistible grace is that we live in uncompromised and uncompromising devotion to our Savior Jesus Christ. And in these words, I say to you, The apostle spreads before us the gospel of the grace of God. And I ask you, as the apostle says, as though God were making his appeal through us. And perhaps it is that in a unique way for you this evening, God is making his appeal through us tonight. and the voice you hear and the accent that sounds in your ear. You have begun to see in the course of this meeting during the singing of the hymns and the reading of this book and the explaining of it in the preaching of the Word the accent that you are listening to now is no more the accent of man but the accent of Him who calls His sheep by name. And He is saying to you I am speaking to you through this word of mine tonight. And I want you to see, do you see your need of this exchange? Have you begun to understand the sheer grace of Christ's exchange? Are you longing to know something of the exchange that only God's irresistible grace is able to bring into your life? So that you plead with Him, Lord, in my powerlessness and my faithlessness, bring me to yourself. So that even though I come, nothing in my hands I bring. I am able to say simply to your cross, I cling. Naked, come to you for dress. Helpless, look to you for grace. Foul, I to your fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. And as He offers Himself to you in the Gospel, as Savior, Will you not bow before him as Savior and Lord and pray that this wonderful exchange of his irresistible grace that makes all things new, so that you live no longer for self but for him, may be true of you tonight and always. by His grace. My dear friends, as God places His hand upon you tonight in the gospel, will you not place your hand upon Jesus Christ in the gospel? And roll your sins upon Him and receive The reconciliation. Oh, I beseech you. Receive this wonderful exchange. For Christ's sake. And for yours. Oh, receive it. Receive it now. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we bow in wonder and yet in great joy before you tonight, that although we merit your judgment and wrath against our sin, yet you did not spare your own son, but delivered him up to the agony and the dereliction of the cross. that we might receive the forgiveness of our sins and newness of life. And we pray that as we hear His voice speaking to us of all that He has done for us in that wonderful exchange, we pray that we may be swept to Him by Your grace, that we may embrace Him as our Savior, that we may come with the burden of our own sin as humble penitents before Him and cling to Him as our Savior and as our only Lord. Oh, we pray. Speak to us. Call us. Receive us. Change us. Uphold us. And bring us to your glorious presence. We ask it for your great name's sake. Amen. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N, Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.