I want to turn with you again this morning to Paul's second letter to the Corinthians and the fifth chapter and read once more from the middle of the chapter from verse 11 to the end of the chapter in verse 21. Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord We try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are out of our mind It is for the sake of God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all and that for all died. And he died for all, but those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, And gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ. Not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors. As though God were making his appeal through us. we implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Now the topic of our Our together this morning is, as you know, the subject of the free offer of the gospel. And it is to the privilege and responsibility of that free offer that the Apostle Paul draws our attention once more in this passage when he tells us on the basis of his exposition of the Christian gospel and his exposition of the message of reconciliation that has been committed to him he tells us you notice in verse 20 that as a direct consequence we are therefore Christ's ambassadors and what he is saying in these closing verses of this passage is that he is an ambassador for Christ because the message of reconciliation has been committed to him. That message which he describes in verse 18 as the message of the God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given to us the ministry of reconciliation. And it is, he says, because he is an ambassador for Christ That is to say, because he has this ministry of reconciliation that he has sent out into the world to appeal to men and women and to implore them, as he says in verse 20, on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. In other words, he is saying to us in these verses, that conscious of the nature of the gospel, conscious of the character of the privilege that has been given to him as an ambassador for Christ, the great focus of his life is to go into all the world and to proclaim that God was in Christ. reconciling the world to himself, not counting men's trespasses against them, because having counted men's trespasses against Jesus Christ. And it is on the basis of this finished work of Christ, this full gospel that he has come to know and the power of the Holy Spirit. that charged us a minister of reconciliation and an ambassador of Jesus Christ. He apparently goes into all the world and has the responsibility indeed the debt to Jew and Gentile alike to every creature to appeal to them on this basis. You be reconciled to God. And you will remember how elsewhere in his epistles, this concept that he is an ambassador for Christ, given this ministry, appealing to men and women everywhere, grips the apostle. When he is in prison, he writes in Ephesians 6, praying that though he is an ambassador in chains, He may be given the help and power of the Spirit to preach this gospel thereto in prison with power and clarity. And that his mouth may be opened and he may be given unction to enable him to speak freely and fully as he ought to speak. And similarly in the twin epistle to the Colossians, he appeals again to the Colossians that as an ambassador for Christ, The message that has been committed to him may be preached and explained and expounded to all without exception with great clarity. Now it's interesting as we noticed yesterday morning that as a matter of fact this passage in 2nd Corinthians occurs primarily in a pastoral and ecclesiastical context and not fundamentally in an evangelistic context. But what apparently Paul is saying at the beginning of chapter 6 is this, that having once more displayed the great evangelistic message of the New Testament Church. He wants to appeal as a fellow worker with God that the Corinthians in this pastoral context receiving this pastoral letter may not allow the evangelistic message of the grace of God in the gospel to be in vain in their lives. And I want to underscore for you once again But what we have here in the second half of 2 Corinthians 5 is undoubtedly the very kind of language and manner and style and conceptualization in which the Apostle Paul preached the gospel wherever he went in the New Testament world. The very sparsity of the language he uses, the way in which he falls back upon expressions that are pared down to the very minimum, characteristic of expressions that are used time and time again and have become familiar to him. The way in which he appeals in this evangelistic fervor that men and women should be reconciled to God, all this underscores for us, I say, that what we have here undoubtedly is the apostles' evangelistic preaching. And incidentally, by the way, he is teaching us that the people of God ever stand in need of that evangelistic preaching and this further appeal in chapter 6 verse 1, lest the grace of God be expounded to them in vain. So it is on the basis of his understanding of the gospel And in the context of the very words he uses to preach that gospel, that we find Paul's universal overtures through the gospel, be reconciled to God. And the question that arises for us in this context is obviously this, that having already had expounded to us in the providence of God from this very man's lips and writings, the great doctrines of grace, man's total depravity in Romans chapter 3, God's unconditional election in Ephesians chapter 1, the limited and efficacious atonement of Jesus Christ as Savior in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, the irresistible grace of God in the same chapter. The question obviously arises for us. How is it that when the apostle held these convictions with such clarity and fervor, how is it that he was able to offer the gospel to men and women with such freedom of spirit and with such intense fullness and passion or to put it in other words against the background of the great doctrines of grace of these major points of our Calvinistic heritage. How is it possible for us still freely to offer the gospel when what we have come to see is that God's grace in election and salvation is particular and distinguishing and effectual And that question arises, you know, in a number of different ways. It arises in the first place, obviously, because there are those who deny that we can offer the gospel to all men on this basis. In the second place, it arises because there are those who deny that we should offer the gospel to men on this basis. And it arises in the third place, because there are those who want to do it and yet wonder how we can do it on the basis of God's unconditional election and Christ's particular redemption and the necessity of irresistible grace. And it is to these issues that I want us to try to see how this portion of God's Word speaks with helpfulness and clarity in a variety of different ways, and in particular there are three elements in Paul's teaching that I want to draw out from this passage once more, and we shall spend almost all of our time on the first of them. There are three strands here which apply to the issue of the free offer of the gospel. The first strand is Paul's exposition of the nature of the gospel we offer. The second strand is Paul's exposition of the manner in which we offer it. And the third strand is the strand of Paul's exposition of the marks of those who offer it. And as I say, we will spend almost all our time on the first of these. And the thesis, the proposition of the first of these is this, that the solvent to the so-called problem of the free offer of the gospel and the motive for the activity of the free offer of the gospel is one and the same. It is the nature of the gospel itself. And I want us to look in these verses at how the apostle begins to bring this out. in his description of the gospel that we offer. And I want you patiently, if you will, to follow Paul's reasoning with me. He tells us that the gospel we offer is as follows. In verse 19a, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ. It begins with the objective divine activity. And it leads us, Paul, in verse 18a, to the appreciation that God has reconciled us to himself in Christ. Paul hears the gospel, and in his response to the gospel, he is able to say that God was reconciling not only the world to himself in Christ, but in Christ God reconciled us to himself. And it is out of that knowledge in verse 18b that he tells us God has called us to the ministry of reconciliation and in verse 19b has given to us the message of reconciliation. Now what is the message of reconciliation? Well it is this in verse 18 and again in verse 21 that reconciliation has taken place in Christ. on the basis of the non-imputation of our sins to us, and the imputation of our sins to Jesus Christ, and the imputation of Jesus Christ's righteousness to us. The heart of the gospel, as we were trying to say yesterday evening, is that reconciliation is based on this wonderful and glorious exchange that took place in space and time and history on the cross of Calvary when Christ stood in my place and bore the judgment and wrath and condemnation of God against sin. And it is on this basis, says Paul in verse 20, that the gospel appeal issues for everywhere. It is because we are Christ's ambassadors and it seems as though God is making his appeal through us. We implore you without exception or differentiation Be reconciled, you be reconciled to God. Now in our context the question that seems to me to arise against this background of Paul's understanding of his gospel and his ministry. The question that arises is this. Why is it that the Apostle Paul seems to have had no difficulty in freely offering the fullness of the gospel to all men? Why is it that with the background of his understanding of unconditional election and irresistible grace and limited atonement, focusing upon man's total depravity? Why is it when the grace of God seems to focus down upon the elect exclusively, is He still able, unhindered and unashamed and without embarrassment, to freely preach this gospel and to apply this gospel to men and women utterly without distinction and make what we now call the free offer of the gospel. Well, the answer to that question, and it's a vital answer, and we will try and expound it in a little more detail, is that Paul had no difficulty in expounding the gospel and appealing to men and women to come to Christ on the basis of the gospel, because whatever metaphor he employed to explain to men and women the heart and nature and character of the gospel, The thing that was central in his preaching of the gospel was Jesus Christ as mediator. Jesus Christ identified by his office of prophet and priest and king. Jesus Christ appealing to men and women in the preaching of the gospel. Jesus Christ appealing to men and women on the basis of the imputation of men's sins against Him, Jesus Christ appealing to men and women on the basis that His love is able to constrain us and overwhelm us irresistibly and bring us into the kingdom of God. So that whatever metaphors, whatever pictures the apostle employs to try to plumb the depths of the message of the gospel, the heart of the gospel for Paul is always Jesus Christ as mediator. And in order to sharpen what is meant by that, let me put it this way. And more and more it seems to me that this is vital for us to grasp if we are to ever have harmony with the apostolic heart and the free offer of the gospel. The focus of the apostolic preaching is not on the benefits of the work of Christ, but on Jesus Christ in whom alone these benefits are to be found. And you see this in a very real sense towards the end of the passage. For example, in verse 18, he is telling us that the gospel message comes to us and reconciliation comes to us in Jesus Christ. And in what has taken place in Jesus Christ to mark him out in his capacity to save men, that God made him to be sin who had no sin. that in him we might become the righteousness of God. And so, when Paul explains to the Corinthians what is involved in being a Christian, he says what is at the heart of being a Christian is not receiving the benefits of what Christ has done, but being in Christ in order that there might be a new creation and the old might pass away. And that is why he says in verse 16, the fundamental point of transition, as far as the noetic illumination of the gospel is concerned, is that formerly we viewed Christ from a worldly point of view, and now we view him no longer after the flesh, katasaka, but after the Spirit. It is all concerned, he says, with who Jesus Christ is, with our new view of Jesus Christ, and most of all with our great need to focus entirely upon Jesus Christ, identified in his mediatorial office by all that he has done by way of grace and salvation in the work of atonement. And I want to stress that to you, my brothers, this morning, although it may seem to you to be altogether commonplace and obvious. Because it is because we are sometimes guilty of a mis-focus precisely here that we begin to think of the free offer of the gospel as a problem rather than as a privilege. Now, let me try and unpack that by simply focusing attention on the fact that this focus is characteristic of apostolic preaching. What is the content of the gospel in Paul's preaching? Well, he tells us in 1 Corinthians 2.2, our message is this, we preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Our message, he says, is not simply here are the benefits of what Christ has done. Our message is fundamentally Christ and Him crucified. Similarly, he tells us, you remember in Acts 17, that the message of the Apostle was this, Jesus and the resurrection. That is to say, not simply Christ identified as the crucified one, but Christ identified in his risen power and conquest over sin and death and hell and Satan. And that is why the appeal of the gospel is this, for example, in the Johannine theology, that all who received him received the benefits of being in him, namely the right to become the children of God, who were born not of the flesh nor of the will of man, but born of God. What he focuses attention on is not the benefit of regeneration that flows from Jesus Christ and his resurrection, but the necessity for man to be in Jesus Christ to receive and welcome Jesus Christ himself in order that we may receive in him the benefits of the gospel. And similarly says the apostle to the Philippian jailer as he comes before him and says, What must I do to be saved? Oh, my dear friend, he says to him, what you need to do is to believe into the Lord Jesus Christ. And I say that is so significant for a variety of reasons, but particularly for this reason. That the New Testament gospel is never merely the offering of the benefits of grace to men and women as though it were Christ did this for you and offers this to you. But rather the heart of the New Testament gospel and the evangelistic message and the basis of its free offer is Jesus Christ himself fitted by God through his incarnation, obedience, atonement, suffering, resurrection, ascension and glorification at the right hand of the Father and soon return. The message of the gospel is Jesus Himself. And over and over again you find in the New Testament how this is underscored for us. Now why do I say that is so important? Because there are certain implications of merely offering the benefits of the gospel to men and women. At its very worst, it becomes offering to men and women peace and joy and love and power. The commodities that they feel they need for themselves. At its very best, it is merely offering to men and women forgiveness and justification. But what the New Testament is offering to men and women is not merely forgiveness and justification, but Jesus Christ clothed in the gospel, never His person without His work, but never His work without His person. But always Christ, as Calvin used to delight to say, Christ clothed in the garments of the gospel and identified to us as mediator through all that he has done for us. And the reason that is so important is because ultimately, ultimately, the only way in which the benefits of the gospel can be ours is if Christ himself is ours. That's why the great focus and the center of this passage in 2 Corinthians 5 in which Jesus is described as the one in whom reconciliation has taken place because of what took place in his life. That's why the focus of attention lies on the necessity of a saving union with Jesus. That's why, by and large, the direction of the prepositions that are used of salvation in the New Testament are prepositions taking us out from ourselves and into Jesus Christ. Because it's only in Jesus Christ, in union with Jesus Christ, by grace and regeneration and faith that brings us to be one savingly with Jesus Christ. that in him we may shelter from the wrath of God and in him we may receive all that he possesses for our sakes. And so, says the Apostle Peter as he preaches the gospel, the reason you need to believe in Jesus Christ is because there is no other name under heaven by whom we may be saved. You remember how the Apostle Paul summarizes it all in Colossians 1.28. He says, this is our ministry. Him we proclaim. Him we proclaim. Warning and teaching every man and desiring, yes, to bring every man to full maturity in Christ. But this is where we begin, not by offering men benefits. but by offering men Jesus Christ himself. And if I may say so, it seems to me that that is the true sense of those enigmatic and strange to our ears words of the great Puritan court preacher John Preston. In the breastplate of faith and love, those words that cause so much controversy, and I dearly hope will not cause any more controversy during the rest of this day. Go and tell every man that there is good news for him. That Christ is dead for him. Now, what does that mean? Well, if it's orthodox, the only thing it can possibly mean is that we preach freely and fully to every man, not the benefits. The heart of our Gospel message is not our knowledge of those for whom Christ died and who will eventually receive the benefits of the Gospel. The heart of our Gospel message, as was true of the Apostle Paul, is that Christ crucified is available in the message of the Gospel to all. And because the focus of our attention is on Jesus Christ, as in a sense we march round the great insights of the New Testament Gospel to exalt and to lift up our Lord Jesus in order that He may draw men to Himself. What we are simply doing is crying, Behold! Behold! The Lamb! Christ crucified! Christ risen! Christ able to say! And because we proclaim Him, who is Himself the way and the truth and the life, and without whom none may come to the Father, we are given this great freedom and liberty as His personal ambassadors to appeal to men and women, all receive Christ and be reconciled to God. Now of that there are various implications and on the surface it seems to me it is that focus of attention that delivers us from on the one hand the Scylla of Hyper-Calvinism and on the other hand the Charybdis of Arminianism. I say that's true on the surface because I believe that what the Apostle is able to teach us in this connection has profound and challenging implications for all of us. I don't suppose there are any of us here today who would want to stand up in the midst and say, by the way, I happen to be a hyper-Calvinist. I've never met anyone who professed to be a hyper-Calvinist. And what I am speaking about here and I'm speaking to myself as I seek to do so is those tendencies which are innate in us so to mishandle the message of the gospel that we tend either towards the Scylla of Hyper-Calvinism on the one hand or the Charybdis of Arminianism on the other. And I want to ask you as we consider these matters simply to ask God's Spirit to apply this to your particular tendencies. that we may be held in and constrained, as Paul says, by the message and the glory of the gospel. Let me deal with the hyper-Calvinistic tendencies and forgive me for the expression, but it says a great deal in one hyphenated expression. The issue for us is this. How can I offer the gospel to men and women for whom Christ did not die? Now, I want you to notice that often, perhaps not always, but often underlying that question is the similar tendency that one finds in Arminianism to limit the offer of the gospel by the ability of those who receive the gospel to respond to it. But more seriously, That tendency falls, it seems to me, into the error of assuming that the divine allocation of grace is the warrant for the offer of the gospel. And may I briefly, therefore, against that background, spell out to you simply from the New Testament, what is the warrant for faith? What is the warrant that enables us to preach the gospel freely to all men and enables us on the basis of our preaching of Jesus Christ to beg all men everywhere to be reconciled to God? Well, it is surely this. In the first place, you are a sinner and you need a Savior. What must I do to be saved? You must find a Savior in order to be saved. And Jesus Christ is the only Saviour. There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved. And this Jesus Christ who is exclusively the Saviour has given to us the promise of His Word that He is able to save all those who come to God by Him. And He Himself has promised in the 37th verse of John chapter 6, that if you come to Him, He will save you. And you see, it's because all of this focuses our attention on Jesus Christ and Him crucified, identified as the One who is able to save to the uttermost. But the warrant of faith, the reason why we may appeal to all men everywhere to come and be saved in Jesus Christ is because God has fitted Him to be the Saviour. And we therefore offer Him in all His ability and capability and glory and invite sinners to come to Him and to find in Him forgiveness, justification, peace with God, and reconciliation. That's why Samuel Rutherford, than whom there has never really been a higher Calvinist, was able to say daringly that the reprobate, the reprobate have the same warrant to believe as have the elect. And that can never be true, beloved, for a Calvinism that merely offers the benefits of the gospel to men and women. But what about our Arminian tendencies? Well, when we offer Christ clothed in the gospel to men and women, we are saved from the Arminian catastrophe. And what is the Arminian Catastrophe in a nutshell? The Arminian Catastrophe is this. That you do nothing else but offer the benefits of the gospel to men and women. And the almost immediate consequence of that manner of preaching of which let me say not all Arminians have been guilty. But the immediate consequence of that kind of thinking is that it's possible for men and women to be deluded into the notion that they can have the benefits of salvation without having the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Let me make a confession to you that I'm sure will astound you. When a number of years ago Pastor Riesinger wrote his little booklet, The Carnal Christian, I was shown the manuscript by Mr. Ian Murray, and when I returned it to him, he said to me, well, what did you think of it? And I said to him, surely there is nobody in the world still believes that carnal Christian theory. And he said to me with some degree of insight, this was a number of years ago. Wait until you start visiting the United States of America. But, beloved, what lies at the root of that? Do you see how what is being said focuses on the very root of this issue and slays the problem once and forever? We are not offering the benefits of the gospel to men and women merely. These benefits can never be detached from Jesus Christ. And, says the apostle, you remember in 2 Corinthians 4, earlier on in this section, We preach what? The benefits of the gospel? No, he says, we preach Jesus Christ as Lord, and it's because He is Lord, He is Saviour. And it's because the only way to salvation is the way of faith into Jesus Christ in all that He is, so that if He is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all. It is only in him that we receive these great benefits. That's why offering the benefits of the gospel instead of offering Christ is the father of a lineage of theological and pastoral confusion and the mother of all theologies of subsequence. The mother of all teaching that says you have not yet received everything that God has to give to you. There is something more to be received. And although each of us knows with all our heart that Christ still has in a very real sense an unfinished work in our lives. It's only because Christ as Savior and Lord is in our lives, indwelling us in the power of the Holy Spirit, that there is any work in our lives. And that all stems back and flows from the fact that what we preach in the gospel is Jesus Christ, Prophet, Priest, King, Mediator, Savior, Lord. I said a moment ago that it seems to me that this applies not only to those we describe in these two categories. What we are really after surely in a conference like this is the way in which this applies to us. And you know in some ways it may seem to us that the difference between these two things, offering the benefits and offering Christ, seems minimal until we see it as it were under the microscope of what happens when these things are taken to their logical conclusion. But perhaps we can apply these issues to our own lives in this way. by asking ourselves the question, what is the real strength of our own preaching? What is the real strength of our own preaching? Is it our ability to mark out the steps of grace subjectively? Is it our ability to demonstrate how the benefits of the gospel come sovereignly? Or is it that we have learned what it means to preach and to expound in all its depth and height and fullness and glory the message of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and Him crucified and risen? My dear friends, if there is one thing that perhaps we need to bring ourselves to more and more in these days in which we see such a resurgence of an understanding of reformed soteriology, it's an equally powerful understanding and exposition of biblical Christology, of Jesus himself, You may know the great story of Samuel Rutherford who, if you have ever read any of his sermons, you would realize that he wasn't really a model for young preachers because his sermons were rather like automatic machine gunfire and went from Dan to Beersheba. But there is a great and fine story of him preaching one day in Anwar and he had begun to focus his people's attention on Jesus Christ. the Saviour. And then, as some of us have a tendency to do, he began to drift away and drift away and drift away. And then there came a point where he began to come back and back and back and back until he was beginning to speak about Christ and Him crucified. And one of his old elders was so moved by what was happening that he shouted out from the back pew, Hold you there, minister! You're all right there. And that's what the apostle is saying. It's very striking how in this section over and over and over and over and over and over again he speaks of Christ. And my dear brothers in the Christian ministry, with all our failures, with all our quirks, and yes, even with all the special burdens that God has given to us and He has given different burdens to each of us. As members of the body of Christ, we do not all have precisely the same function to play even as ministers of the gospel. But at the center of whatever burden is peculiar to us in the place where we labor, let this burden be most central of all, that Jesus Christ Himself saves sinners. And you see, it's against that background that we are able to go on to examine very briefly in a word both the manner in which the gospel is offered and the marks of those who offer the gospel. What is the manner in which the gospel is to be offered? It is, in the first place, with a profound sense of responsibility. If, as we heard so powerfully the other evening, it is God alone who has taken salvation into His hands and elected sinners to receive the grace of Christ, why do we bother evangelizing at all? Well, of course it is because God uses means to bring His electing grace to fruition in our lives. We are not saved, as we heard again that evening on Wednesday, we are not saved apart from faith in Christ. And how is faith in Christ wrought? Well, asks the apostle, how shall they believe him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? That's why we evangelize. That's why we have this intense sense of responsibility Because we are ambassadors of a heavenly King. We are constrained, says the Apostle. We are crowded into this matter. We are men of one thing. But we are a link in the chain of God's eternal purpose. To bring His people into His kingdom. We are the angels He has sent out into all the earth. to reap the harvest of the gospel. And that is not only a great privilege. It is, says the Apostle, a debt. I am a debtor, he says. It's not simply a matter of option. It's something I owe. Because I've been sent as an ambassador. And I must fulfill my sovereign's ministry. So we offer the gospel with a profound sense of responsibility. We offer the gospel in the second place with an earnest and manifest sincerity. You know how he puts it in verse 11 and again in verse 13. He says, we know what it is to fear the Lord. And he means that we know what it is to fear the Lord. in the previous verse 10, because we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, where all that is merely wood and hay and stubble will be consumed, but all that is built of precious jewels will become the crown of glory for us, our joy and crown that will never fade away. And it's in the light of both of these things. On the one hand, the sense that we tremble before the judgment of God. And on the other hand, the sense that we will be astonished what God will do out of our little faithfulness. how out of our little gospel ministry He is fashioning a crown that will identify us forever in heaven, a new name that no one will know but ourselves to treasure, in which He reveals to us the secret of what He has done in us and through us for His glory. And when we have a grasp of that, our ministry, He says, becomes earnest to persuade men With such an awesome day before us on the one hand, and with such glory promised to us on the other hand, we become the instruments of the divine paraklesis, verse 20. The divine overtures of grace, as though God were making His own paraklesis through us. We beseech you, We become embodiments of the divine compassion. We become the instrument on which God begins to play the overture of His grace in what we say and what we are. We preach Christ as Lord, says the Apostle, and we are as He was, your servants for Jesus' sake. He plays the melody of the Gospel in the message we preach. And by the very fact that our manner of life embodies the heart of that message in the servant who came to save sinners. And so we preach and offer the gospel with a profound sense of responsibility, with an earnest and manifest sincerity. But also in the third place, with a profound sense of urgency. We will all, says Paul in verse 10, stand before the judgment seat of God. Wrote Murray MacChain in his diary as I was walking through the fields today, that thought came to me with almost overwhelming power, that everyone to whom I preach must shortly stand before the judgment seat of Christ. and be sent either to heaven or to hell. Urgency. Urgency. Urgency. And then briefly, the marks of those who offer the gospel. There are so many of them. In verse 11 we have seen how we are motivated by the fear of the Lord Jesus. In verse 12, how we are marked by integrity of life. In verse 13, how we are willing to receive abuse for Jesus' sake. In verse 14, how we are held in to preaching the gospel by Christ's love. In verse 15, how we are men who are utterly devoted to serving Christ. In verse 16, how we are men whose view of others has been transformed. In verse 20, how we are conscious of the privilege of our great office. And again in verse 20, how we are faithful in our appeals to sinners. But perhaps most of all, in verse 14 and in verse 15, And in verse 16, and in verse 17, and in verse 18, and in verse 19, and in verse 20, and in verse 21, we are men who are centered utterly on the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself has said to us, freely you have received, freely give. Let us pray. Oh, our Heavenly Father, we bow down before you this day conscious of our immense failures as your servants, our failures in understanding and our failures in expression, our failures in living. But even beyond that burden, and underneath that burden we bow ourselves prostrate before you under the burden of the privileges that you have lavished upon us that you have made us what we are that your grace has enabled us to labor that you in your mercy have employed the stumbling words of our stammering tongues in past days and touched the hearts of broken sinners and brought us in your mercy into your service and made us nothing less than Christ's ambassadors. O Lord, we pray that when the days are dark and the struggle is long and the fruit seems long in coming that you will give us grace still freely to offer Him who alone saves sinners for your praise and your honor and your glory and oh we pray that in your mercy you will take those things from this past hour that have been faithful to your grace and glory and impress them in our hearts for your namesake and as we bow before you we continue to pray that in the hour that follows you will meet with us and speak to us and aid your servant to minister your word to us that we may be sent from this place conscious of the glory and grace of God to poor sinners and to weak servants of the gospel like ourselves we pray that it may be so that we desire to give you All the praise and the glory and the honor through our Savior, Jesus Christ. 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 at SWRB.com by phone at 780-450-4232. 3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton Alberta Canada T6L 3T5 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 devise. 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 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.