Our first reading for this evening from God's holy word is from the book of Ezekiel, chapter 33. Ezekiel, chapter 33. Again, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts and set him for their watchman, and if when he sees the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people, then whosoever hears the sound of the trumpet and take us not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning. His blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity. but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, and therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. And when I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die, if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. Therefore, O thou Son of Man, speak unto the house of Israel, and thus ye speak saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto them, As I live, said the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression. And as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness. Neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. When I shall say to the righteous that he shall surely live if he trust to his own righteousness and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered. But for his iniquity that he has committed, he shall die for it. Again, when I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die if he turn from his sin and do that which is lawful and right, If the wicked restore the pledge, give again, that he had robbed and walked in the statutes of life without committing inequity, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him. He hath done that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live. Yet the children of thy people say, the way of the Lord is not equal. But as for them, their way is not equal. When the righteous turneth from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby. Yet ye say, the way of the Lord is not equal. O ye house of Israel, I will judge you everyone after his ways. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them. So the chapter began that we read this evening of Ezekiel 33. There is probably not a more solemn task in life than to be a preacher. with a weight of authority and a weight of accountability that in some ways I think cleaves to no other task in life than the public preacher of the Word of God. I didn't realize it as much when I started my ministry work, but as I grow older and begin to realize the weightiness of the task. Now this place here often is more a pleading ground. Lord, set a watch before my mouth and keep the doors of my lips and touch my lips to speak thy word. And I covet your prayers as I have received those and experienced those over the years to continue Because preaching is an extraordinary solemn thing. As God gives his church, and that is not only to the minister, but to the church, the keys of the kingdom of God. Matthew 16 and I believe in John 20, God speaks about that, I give you the keys of the kingdom to open or to shut. That's a solemn responsibility in the name of God and in the name of Jesus. And so, congregation, as this evening we look together at that aspect of the ministry and that angle about the ministry, let me remind you the book that we preach out and read is like a treasure chest of the covenant of grace. This book is about God and his benefits of grace towards poor, guilty, sinful man and woman. It's full of treasures, of the most beautiful jewels of comfort. There's no book in the world that can stand next to this book in authority. This is where God speaks. You go find out yourself sometimes this week, children, how many times it says in the Bible, thus saith the Lord. Prophets didn't speak in his own name. The Lord's name. Apostles didn't speak in their own name. Jesus spoke in his own name. This is the Word of God. If I remind you of one scripture in Psalm 12, where David is speaking about the word, the words of the Lord are pure words. As silver dried in a furnace, of earth purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord. Thou shalt preserve them from disgeneration forever. When David wrote that, or said that, his Bible was very thin. And he already had that esteem for the five books of Moses. The authority, the purity, the weight of the scriptures. Now we have so much more today. This book is so valuable. This is where God speaks to us today. Now the sad truth is that these covenant jewels are often the wrong hands. There are many for whom these comforts are meant They are too shy to wear them. They are too shy to put them on and to decorate themselves with the beautiful jewels of the comfort of the Covenant of Grace. Isn't that sad? They are meant to display them in their life, as it were, in their walk and in their joy. There are also many who are walking around with these crown jewels of the Kingdom to whom they don't belong. They have stolen them. They have taken them to themselves, and they make themselves rich while they are poor, while the others are making themselves poor, while they are rich. Now, obviously, that's been always the reality, and that's never to be avoided. Because, well, it could be the preacher's fault, but it can also be the hearer's fault. And so God gives us the divine charge, as preachers or as church, Isaiah 3, verse 10 and 11, for example, he says, Say ye to the righteous, it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doing. But say ye to the wicked, woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hand shall be given him. So tonight I may bring a message of wealth and I may and must bring a message of woe. And let us pray that the Holy Spirit will accompany this soul tonight, that you may go home with either the well and rejoice on good grounds, because God spoke, or may go home with woe in your heart, also on good grounds, because God spoke. So let us consider tonight the task of the ministry and the guarding of the kingdom jewels. We'll look at Lord's Day 31. Let's read that together. What are the keys of the kingdom of heaven? It ties in of course with question 82, right in front of it, where we touched briefly on last time about the guarding of the Lord's Supper And if I just may ask you to go back to question 82, because really we should start there for a moment. Are they also to be admitted to this supper who by confession in life declare themselves unbelieving and ungodly? No. For by this the covenant of God will be profaned and his wrath kindled against the whole congregation. Therefore it is the duty of the Christian Church according to the appointment of Christ and his Apostles to exclude such persons by the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven till they show amendment of life. Now what are those keys of the Kingdom of Heaven? They are two, the preaching of the Holy Gospel and Christian discipline or excommunication out of the Christian Church. By these two, the Kingdom of Heaven is opened to believers and shut against unbelievers. How is the Kingdom of Heaven opened and shut by the preaching of the Holy Gospel? Thus, when, according to the command of Christ, it is declared and publicly testified to all and every believer that whenever they receive the promise of the Gospel by a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them for God, of God, for the sake of Christ's merit. and on the contrary, when it is declared and testified to all unbelievers and such as do not sincerely repent, that they stand exposed to the wrath of God and eternal condemnation so long as they are unconverted, according to which testimony of the gospel God will judge them both in this and in the life to come. How is the kingdom of heaven shut and open by Christian discipline? and thus, when according to the command of Christ, those who are under the name of Christians maintain doctrines or practices inconsistent therewith, and will not, after having been often brotherly admonished, renounce their errors and wicked course of life, are complained of to the Church or to those who are thereto appointed by the Church, and if they despise their admonition, are by them forbidden the use of the sacraments, whereby they are excluded from the Christian Church and by God Himself from the Kingdom of Christ, and when they promise and show real amendment, are again received as members of Christ and His Church. So this evening we'll take part of this Lord's Day, the guarding of the Kingdom Jewels. Now first, let's ask ourselves why is the Christian Church to do this? And secondly, how is this to be done? and tonight only then deal with the key of the kingdom of preaching. Why is the Christian Church to do everything to guard the jewels of God's kingdom? There are three reasons. The first is that God clearly commands it. It's a joy to me to have the task to comfort God's people, the believer. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord, and proclaim to them that their sins are forgiven. Go tell them in my name. That is my task. But I'm not to indiscriminately announce that to all of you here. I will not. I may not either. I must define who it is for. And that is for the believers. Those who've come to genuine repentance and to them in the name of God, and we'll look at that in a moment, am I to preach God's comfort of the promise. Now, congregation, God often speaks about woe on those preachers who are bringing the word of God deceitfully. For example, in Jeremiah 6 verse 14, God speaks about prophets who came in his name. And they haven't died out yet. They are still there today. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. In the book of Ezekiel, that we read of tonight, in the 13th chapter, you read the same thing, but even stronger, because Ezekiel gets to say, they have seduced my people, even stronger. And not only proclaim peace, they have seduced my people, saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. One is building up a wall and others are diving it with untempered mortar, so they are building a very inferior wall. It looks strong but is not strong. Those are false preachers. And they are spending the kingdom comforts in a false way. Now they're still around today. There's many preachers who are making you feel good, called feel-good preachers, that build you up, make you feel better about being a Christian. and about being good. There's those who call it the prosperity gospels. Joseph Prince, I'll mention his name now already, because you're going to hear more about him in the coming months, is a prosperity gospel preacher. All about money, and being prosperous, and healthy. And of course, all of us like to be prosperous, and all of us like to be healthy, and we like to feel good. But those are deceitful messages that are brought because the Bible doesn't speak that way. They're those who minimize the law of God over the gospel. We're not under the law anymore. We're under the gospel. That's a quote out of Romans 6. If I just take that whole section and I disconnect it from all kinds of connections that the apostles make, you can make the Bible say anything. So we need to be discerning as we listen because there are definitely preachers today who preach peace when there is no reason for peace. Therefore God is commanding his church to make sure to use the key of the kingdom of heaven in preaching. So God pronounces a woe on those who proclaim peace when there is no peace, but the opposite is also true. God also pronounces a woe on those who are withholding the comforts of the gospel for those to whom belong. The Pharisees and the Scribes were doing that. And Jesus gives them a very strong condemnation in Luke 11, verse 52. Notice what he says there, once I find that passage. Luke 11, verse 52. Woe unto you, lawyers! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You enter not in yourself, and them that were entering in, you hindered." See, here God is speaking about preachers who are holding back the true gospel comforts of those who are seeking to enter in, and are hindering them. That's an opposite evil and just as evil. It's also an abuse of the key of the kingdom of God, when God's people are kept of the true gospel. And how is that done today? By twisting the simplicity of the gospel. by muddying the clear Gospel waters, by taking away the directness of the Gospel proclamation that I may tonight also do to you. That's how we hold the key of the comfort away from many seeking burdened souls. So we can go wrong both ways. You see why it's so important? that we as preachers may be baited in your prayers, that we may be honest, upright, discerning, bringing the truth of God to the right address. Not bringing you the golden truth when there is no basis for you to take those home, but neither withholding from you the golden truth when there is every basis for you to take them home. That's the challenge that we as preachers have. And therefore, as Paul so often prays, I also ask you, congregation, pray for us, men who are called to preach the gospel of God, that we may do so, searching, soul-challenging ministry, that we may do so honestly, directly, uprightly, without any deceitful purpose. For we lie all open for that. The second reason why we need to guard the kingdom jewels so well is because our hearts are utterly deceitful. You can only blame the preachers when people take away the comfort without the wrong or without the right basis. It's also your own heart. Proverbs 13 verse 7 speaks about those who are making themselves rich when they have no reason to do so. who speak themselves poor also have no reason to do so. There is that maketh himself rich, yet he has nothing. And there is that maketh himself poor, yet he has great riches. Therefore, we need searching preaching for both groups. We need clear biblical preaching that those who are enriching themselves without any scriptural basis may hear that they are deceiving themselves. We also need it that those who are walking continually in the doubts and in the darkness land may hear that there is also no reason for that. They are rich. And that's why from time to time indeed we are to preach the scriptural marks of the spiritual birth, marks of grace. Scripture is full of that. There are hundreds and hundreds of marks of grace in the Bible. Why are they there? So that you may identify, may examine yourself, may see, do I have these marks in my life? Just as in verse 8 we look for the vital signs, heartbeat, whatever the other vital signs are, so in spiritual life we look for the vital signs. What are those vital signs? Marks of grace, their spiritual hunger, their godly sorrow, their fear of God, Is that true repentance? Is there an experiential sense to what I confess? Those are marks of grace. They're not to build up in feelings and experiences, as we so quickly tend to do, but simply to examine, am I truly a man or a woman in whom God has worked with his sovereign grace and turned me around? That's the whole purpose. And any of us who's trying to build up his feelings, trying to encourage himself on the marks of grace, you will eventually find out that will never feed your soul. It's Christ alone that comforts and strengthens and upholds us in our spiritual life. It's also the Holy Spirit's way to assure you of your faith, the marks of grace. Now there is a reflective assurance, as our fathers would call it, when I, by the Spirit's testimony, may see in my own heart the marks of grace, I can be, by the fruits, determine the tree. And so sometimes indeed the Spirit will use the method of the marks of grace to make someone know he's born of God. Think of John's letter. Any man who loveth a brethren is born of God. So if I love the brethren, truly have a love for God's children. John says that's not coming out of your own heart. That's a spiritual sign of the birth of the new birth in your heart. So read John's gospel, sorry, John's epistle. And you notice that that whole chapter's full of the various marks of grace. Now, if you cannot observe these marks, you say, you know, I don't really know these things. And you must also not claim, and you must also not rest on a salvation even though intellectually you'll understand the Gospel. It's possible to intellectually understand the Gospel without experiencing it, without knowing the power of it, without experiencing the very truth of it in your heart. Paul writes about those who have the tongue of the angels, those who have the gift of prophecy, those who have the understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge, have faith so great they can remove mountains, but they have not charity. Nothing, he said. You're nothing then. So you see I can have great knowledge of the whole way of the truth and still maybe deceiving myself in thinking I am a safe person. So therefore we need this faithful guarding of the kingdom jewels. Now the third reason is because God is holy. Mary refers back to question 82 briefly. You know, God is underlining in His Bible that He is a holy God. And if you look in the outline, I've taken the instances on every new beginning, as it were, that God underlines His holiness again. And He begins with Moses in Acts 3, verse 5, at the burning bush. He says to Moses, take your shoes off, Moses, this is holy ground. God wants to make Moses feel when he begins to deal with this man, I'm a holy God and none of you come in my presence without remembering that. So Moses would have never forgotten this burning bush experience. And the man has been changed from that moment on in a solid understanding of the holiness of God. Notice, when God institutes the tabernacle for the first time, Nadab and Abihu, they thought they could approach God on a different level. And the two young men don't even make it to the holy place. And the fire of God falls out of heaven and slays them right there. I'm a holy God. And you will remember that, Israel. As we go through the rest of the Old Testament, you notice when they come in the land of Canaan, where the Israelites begin the conquest of Canaan and Jericho. And what happens to their children in Jericho? Not only Achan, but others with him, steal. And God has the whole family of Achan, who no doubt knew about it, stoned to death. They have transgressed my covenant, God says. I'm a holy God. You think about the beginning, the restoration and the moving of the tabernacle by David from the house of Abinadam. And on the way, Uzziah died. He touched the ark. David gets angry and afraid. God says, I'm holy. See, every time, beginning in the New Testament, Ananias and Sapphira, God says, I'm a holy God. And so, the whole of the Old and the New Testament is continually warning us that God is a holy God and He will not deal with any compromise of His holiness. Even in the end of the Bible, Revelation 3, verse 14 to 16, for example, as He deals with the Church, of Philadelphia, I believe it is, or the Laodiceans. He deals with them and he speaks to them, I will spew thee out of your mouth and I will take away the candlestick of my word of your midst, because I am a holy God. Now God is just as holy today as He was in the Old Testament. So when we allow at the Lord's table any person who is rejecting God's law, who lives by his own standards. And we allow that. We will bring the wrath of God upon our congregation. When sin is not mentioned as sin anymore, when we just beautifully be nice to one another and don't mention the sin issues, what's going to happen? The wrath of God will be revealed. Notice question 82. If we do not use the discipline of the key, we will profane the covenant of God and His wrath will be kindled against the whole congregation. Now when we think about God's wrath against the whole congregation, what are we thinking of? We're thinking fire and brimstone, maybe volcanoes, perhaps. You know what is most common is God's wrath? When He gets really silent and He steps back. and he won't speak anymore. He withdraws and withholds the Holy Spirit in his speaking ministry. That could be that he takes the ministry away, or he could turn the ministry of the Word in a dead ministry. That's how God's wrath will be revealed. Then we have only forms left, a name to live, beautiful rituals, and no more power. In congregation, we do not want that, do we? Therefore, the teachings, the keys of the kingdom of preaching and discipline are so extremely important. And that brings me briefly to the second point, how is the Christian Church then to guard the kingdom jewels, and that is by the preaching of the word as well as by the discipline. Now let us together first sing, Psalter 3, 5, 6, verses 1, 2 and 3. All who with heart can fight depend on God alone. And now what follows in the three stanzas, 356. I love you. Shedding darkness the shining of His cross, His hateful acts of violence, The Mother of Grace will bless you, the righteous and the brave. Thy greater faith imparted to God the Ever-Lord. There's hope in our pure hearts, And hope is looking on. I'll say my thanks in ev'ry land. will bless thee and protect thee, and ever love thee, please. Jesus has given his church two keys by which to guard the jewels of the kingdom, so they will not fall into wrong hands and so they will not stay out of the right hands. And the first key is preaching. As I said in our catechism, how is the kingdom of God open and shut? By preaching. What is preaching? There are three words that the Greek uses For the word preaching, the word evangelize, evangelo, is the first one, that is announcing the glad tidings. For example, when Gabriel, or let's take the other angel, who comes on the day of Jesus' birth, he brings the glad tidings of great joy. That's the preaching of bearing glad tidings, evangelize. That's my task. and proclaim to you the glad and hopeful tidings that in Christ everyone can have a new beginning, as we heard this morning. Now the second word is the word kérusalem, a very common word too. That means to herald or to proclaim. As Jesus sends his disciples away in Mark 16, he says, go ye out of the world and to herald the gospel to every creature. Not everybody can do that. You can all share the good tidings, but you cannot all be heralds in the name of the king. A preacher is someone who is given the authority to speak in the name of the king of all kings. And that is the word kerosene, the word heralding. For example, Paul uses that in his mind as he writes this, Now we then, as ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's head, be ye reconciled to God. Now as the Apostle Paul, he thinks himself to stand in Christ's place. He's not speaking on his own behalf. He's speaking on Christ's behalf, and he's even saying more, he's speaking on God's behalf. That's preaching. As I speak to you, I speak on God's behalf. When I bring this word, not my word, but this word, it's God's word speaking to you. That's what's solemn about preaching. That's also solemn about being in the preaching. Whenever I may bring the word, not just my interpretations, not just my thoughts, and a lot of that comes along in the sermon as well, as I'm also to expound the word, and that's the third word for preaching, diamino, that is the word interpret. to expound or to unwrap. Think of Jesus on the way to Emmaus. As he walked with those two men, it says, he expounded to them the things in the Moses and the law. So he's unwrapping them. He's taking these men to the scripture and says, look, here's where Christ must suffer. Here's where Christ must suffer. There. He's unwrapping. That's also the task of preaching. But particularly the second one. This heralding is the task of the use of the key of the kingdom of preaching. So, also this evening, when those who are called by God through the Church speak in the authority of the name of Christ, therefore, congregation, it is God speaking through His ordained channel of ministry. Listen to this, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13, he says, For this cause also thank we God without ceasing. Why? Because when you received the Word of God, which you heard of us, you didn't receive it as the Word of man, but in truth you receive it as the Word of God, which effectually worketh in you also that belief. When I speak to you the Word of God, and if I am an ordained man, with the blessing of the visible Church, a Church which is true to its own confessions and commitments to the Scriptures, It's God speaking to you. And I plead with you that in the name of Christ you be reconciled to this God who is standing at your door to offer you peace and pardon on the basis of the death of his own son. It's God standing before you. I spoke about it this morning. Daredevil. That's bad. Their God is worse. So, come to church please, realize of what an solemn place a church is, where a God-ordained man may preach to you in the name of God. He is thereby using the key of the kingdom of heaven, either shutting or opening the glorious kingdom. Not that he has authority to let you in or out, but declaring who is in and who is out on the basis of the word of God. Now the second key of the kingdom is discipline and I'll deal with that next week, Lord willing. So let us now come to an application as it also is spoken of in question 84 this evening. There is a well And there is a woe I need to preach. In the first place, I have in the name of Jesus tonight a word of comfort to all and everyone in this assembly who is truly believing. And it is as if God is speaking when I may declare this in his name to you again tonight. That's what it says, right, in our Heidelberg Catechism, and what an accurate echo it is, that when according to the command of Christ, it is declared and publicly testified to all and every believer, that whenever they receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them for the sake of Christ's merits. So I have a message this evening. from the court of God for all and every believer. So who is that? Let's first of all define that. Who is this believer? I'm not talking here about a historical believer. I'm not talking here to anyone who holds the word of God for truth and to a certain extent conforms his or her life to it. I'm not talking to you. That is not for you tonight. To have historical faith is great, it's good, it's worthwhile, it has already brought you many blessings, but I may not give you the real blessing. For you can have historical faith without having the relationship of love, of faith, of the fear of God with the Lord Himself. You can have all the historical convictions about the Bible, without having a real relationship with the God and the King of Glory. And so, let's think for a moment, friends, who tonight is a believer? Now, a believer, it says in this particular Lord's saying, is one who receives the promise of the gospel by a true faith. Notice how that is defined. Every believer is that whenever they receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith. That implies something. That implies that that person knows why he needs the gospel promise. Let me give an example tonight. I'm using the woman in Luke 7, the woman that came to Jesus when he was dining at the house of Simon the Pharisee. She is a bad woman, at least she's known as a woman with a history, a woman in the city which was a sinner. You see her coming? Keep in mind she's coming to this house where Jesus sits at meet in the Pharisee's house and she's bringing with her an alabaster box of ointment, quite expensive. And she stands at his feet behind him and she weeps. And then she breaks the bottle and she wipes with the hairs of her head, she kisses his feet and she anoints him with the ointment. You familiar with the picture? Let's think about that woman. She's a true believer. How do I know? Well, she is coming in a place where she is not welcomed by any man. But she comes despite all that, because the one who is in that room has become utterly needed for her. She is a bad woman. She has a bad history. She has a saving conviction of her sin. How do I know she has a saving conviction of her sin? Because she is at Jesus' feet. That's why I know that. Any conviction of sin that doesn't bring you to Jesus' feet is not saving. It may be real, terrible, horrible, long, if it doesn't bring you to Jesus' feet, it's not saving. But this woman cannot stay away from Jesus' feet. When she walks into this room, everybody's eyes is on her, and she must have felt the icy chill as all those self-righteous men. And everybody stops talking, no doubt. But she knows, she needs Jesus. She is a true believer. She has seen the burden of her life. She has seen her wrongdoing. She knows the wound she has caused, the relationship she has broken. And she has She is so convicted, she is willing to humble herself in the presence of all those men. And she does something pretty uncommon. As she stands at Jesus' feet, she weeps. You know why she wept? Because all of a sudden she saw those dear feet of Jesus are unwashed. He is horribly offended by all that Simon and his Pharisaical religion. And she weeps. She didn't come prepared to wash those feet. She was expecting those feet to be washed. But they aren't. And so she unlooses her hair and she wipes his feet and now she's ready to pour upon him all her devotion expressed in his alabax, a box. This is a woman who loves the Lord. who hates her sin. She's come to repentance. She humbles herself. She is ashamed of her life, but she's not ashamed to own it. She's ashamed of who she is, but she's not ashamed to own Jesus. See, that's saving, friends. That's what faith does. That's what the work of the Holy Spirit is. She says in all her language, I am an unworthy woman, but I need this Jesus. When there is true repentance, when there is true godly sorrow, there is a turning away from sin, and from the habits of sin, and the lifestyle of sin. So we all know that this woman has turned away from what she used to be. That's one. Now the second that identifies her as a believer, that she knows that in Jesus Christ is her only answer on all her needs. This woman came to Jesus. Despite every objection, despite a hostile environment, why is it that she comes in this place? Because in her heart she has learned by the Holy Spirit that there is only one man on this earth that can help a woman like me. There is only one Saviour who can help a sinner like me. And that is that Jesus, the one who everybody despises and rejects, has to her become the focus of hope. We have no idea whether this woman understands the extent of Jesus' ministry, whether she understood anything of his death, whether she understood anything of the real way by which he was going to save her. She only knew one thing, that man, Receive sinners. Save sinners. Touches the unclean. Forgives sin. She's her dad, baby, as well. She knows he is her meeting point between God and her. She knows he alone could bring forgiveness. How? She doesn't really know yet. But she knows that in this man is all her hope. And now it says that she is receiving this Lord Jesus Christ by faith. Recognize her? You see something of that woman in your own heart and life? something of that sense of sin and shame, something of that conviction of the need for Christ, something of that willingness to do anything to confess Him, even though it brings shame on you, as He might have received. Is there that hunger and that thirst after this Man, Jesus Christ, who is also the Son of God and the only Saviour? What is now the message for such a believer as he or she applies himself to Jesus? Well, let's listen to what Jesus says to her. When it comes to the end of this, and I will skip all the in-between, he says to her, I say unto thee, Simon, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven. She loved much, but to whom little is forgiven, the same loved little. And then he turns to this woman and he says, Thy sins are forgiven you. You know what Jesus does there? He uses the key of the Kingdom of God in preaching. He says, woman, you are forgiven. You say, yeah, but Jesus said that. No, Jesus said that as a prophet. In the prophetical ministry of his father, he proclaims here the gospel message. And he opens for this woman the kingdom of heaven. When he proclaims to her, your sins are forgiven you. You see, congregation, Exactly what Jesus does here is what I am to do tonight, what I am to do every time I preach. When I may describe to you what it is to be a repentant believer, when I may describe to you what it is to come and eat, to the Lord Jesus Christ, in your shame and conviction of sin and what wrongdoing you've done, to confess His name as the only name, then I must declare in this place, on this pulpit, publicly to all and every believer, no matter how small they are, no matter how little they are, like this woman, that all their sins are really forgiven them of God for the sake of Christ's merits. That is the promise of the Gospel. And whosoever believeth in Him has everlasting life. I give an example of Peter's preaching in Acts 10, verse 43. Notice he does the same thing. He says, to him gave all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive the forgiveness of sins. And the Apostle John is writing to the congregations where he may minister. He writes this to them in 1 John 2 verse 12. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for Christ's name's sake. See, John is using the key of the kingdom. John is declaring and publicly writing and testifying to all and everyone that believe and he's described who they are. Little children in this case. Your sins are forgiven you. And we say, but I must hear it out of God's mouth. I pray, say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Nice prayer, beautiful prayer. You know how God answers that? By the public preaching of the Word of God in the name of Jesus. That's how He answers that, through the public preaching of the key of the Kingdom of God. Notice how Jesus ends this whole episode with this woman when He says at the end of her Sitting there, woman, thy faith has saved thee. Go in peace. Your faith that has come here as you've taken hold of me, as you confessed that all your hope is in me, woman, that faith has saved you. Go home into peace. What peace? Into the peace that everything between God and you is from this moment restored. Go home in peace and rejoice in it, that by faith in me there is peace between God and your soul. And so it is tonight, that if you, my dear friend, have come in a repentance of heart, you have confessed your sins before God, You have laid yourself before Him as an unworthy, sinful woman like this, or as a publican in the temple, seeking the mercy of God on the basis of the sacrifice. And if you have confessed that in truth before the Lord, Lord, on Thee alone do I put all my hope. And if so confess Christ, then I may say to you tonight, your faith has saved you. Go home in peace. And yes, may the Holy Spirit accompany this public declaration of everlasting wealth on those who may believe, that you may indeed embrace that message each time again Though you sin a hundred times a day, and a hundred times must come at the throne of God's mercy, confessing it, Lord, I repent, I am sorry, but please forgive me my sin again. And God does. If He is asking me to do it seven times a day to you, Will he not do it seven times every day when I come to him? It's hard to believe. And that's why the apostles ask, after that statement, increase our faith. Increase our faith in such a God of forgiveness. And so, congregation, I'll leave the other part of the key for later. But you see how precious is the Gospel preaching, how serious it is. And you must not so dismiss it, yeah, Pastor Begun said it. No. If in the name of God I may bring to you this Word, then God speaks. by the public ministry, opening and closing the Kingdom of Heaven. And I must close it indeed to those who have not believed and not sincerely repented. You stand exposed to the wrath of God and eternal condemnation as long as you are unconverted But I will leave the details of that till later. May God bless us together in this week. Amen. Faithful Lord, as we this evening have considered the seriousness of the key of preaching, O will thou fill us as preachers more with an holy awe and tenderness and sense of the weight of preaching as we handle this key and may so do it faithfully, biblically. But Lord, may we also walk away today with a serious impression on our heart of how grave it is to be under the preaching, and to have the message of the law and the gospel, the woe and the well, declared publicly and testified into our ears. And we pray also that this evening, Lord, thou thyself would accompany the public decoration and testimony to all and every believer here, that each time when they receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith, that their sins are really forgiven them by Thee for the sake of Christ's merit. Comfort that way Thy children, as each day again they must come before Thy mercy seat innumerable times when sin becomes sin in their heart. And Lord, let them then also believe that precious promise and walk in faith and joy and into peace. And so allow thy children this evening to go home into peace. And Lord, let also the reverse. that we didn't get to detail tonight, also be echoing forth in our heart that all those of us who have not sincerely repented, who live as practical unbelievers, may feel this wrath of God abiding on us to urge us to flee while there is still time. O bless us, O faithful God, as we go in this week and do our work and do all that is required of us, Lord, I will graciously uphold and strengthen. We ask of forgiveness, also for this evening. In Jesus' name, Amen.