BECAUSE HE LOVES ME!
MIKE CUNNINGHAM
February 7, 2010
I don’t think there are many of the
millions of football fans on this Super Bowl Sunday who would be interested
in hearing this morning’s message. I doubt if the previous ones in this series
would be of interest to most Americans either. In case you don’t already know
what I’m alluding to, the following excerpts from the entries in my web page
guestbook will help you understand.
“I asked you to please pray that I would stop having nightmares and you gave
me this sermon to read?! A thriller, a real page-turner, a good lesson, though
not exactly the type of night time reading that encourages peaceful slumber.
What were you thinking, Pal? Love you, Dad, Anne-Marie.” “Mike, You talked
of the reason for this event [the earthquake in
Ezekiel 3:17-21
"Son of man,
I have made you a watchman for the house of
20"Again,
when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put
a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he
will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will
not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.
21But if you do warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not
sin, he will surely live because he took warning, and you will have saved
yourself."
For those of you who may be wondering
what those scriptures have to do with the earthquake in
In ancient
2 "Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If
I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from
among them, and make him their watchman,
3 and if he sees the sword coming
upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people,
4 then if anyone who hears
the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes
him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
5 He heard the sound of the
trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if
he had taken warning, he would have saved his life.
6 But if the watchman sees the
sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned,
and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in
his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand, Ezekiel 33:2-6 (ESV)
The person who ignores the watchman’s
warning will have no one but him or herself to blame. Their blood shall be
upon their own head’s. Commenting
on the prophecy of Ezekiel in the February 1999 issue of The Banner of Truth
magazine, Maurice Roberts writes: “The Bible however does not so much present
this thought in isolation. Rather, it connects the concept of the blood of
men’s souls with the work of the preacher of the gospel.
Although
men are…responsible for their own souls, there are also men in this life who
are responsible for souls which are not their own. These men are ministers
of religion, whose official duty it is to shepherd the souls of others to
God and to Christ our Lord and Savior. Nowhere is this
clearer in the Old Testament than in the prophecy of Ezekiel. There is scarcely
any note more urgently needed today, than this note which is heard repeatedly
in the prophecy of Ezekiel that the minister is accountable to God for
the souls in his care.”
“The apostles themselves, inspired as they were in their ministries
as other ministers since are not, saw themselves as bound under this solemn
obligation to warn their hearers to flee to the mercy of God. What else can
the Apostle Paul mean when he writes:
“Yet
when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe
to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16).
Or again, what else
is in his mind as he writes,
“We proclaim him [Christ], admonishing and teaching
[warning] everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone
perfect in Christ.” (Colossians
1:28).”
“It was to his great relief to be able
to state,”
‘Therefore,
I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27For
I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.’
(Acts 20:226-27)
None of us know the exact moment we will leave this world and
enter into the next any more that those poor Haitian’s did. There is one thing
we can be absolutely certain of though and it is that we will leave everything
and everyone behind us except that God given best friend I’ve been speaking
about recently--our conscience. When you leave this world and enter into the
next only your conscience will accompany you. That’s why I must warn you that
if anyone hearing or reading this message hasn’t already done so, I plead
with you this very moment to silently accept Christ’s immeasurable loving
forgiveness of your sins, because everyone who dies unforgiven will find an
eternal horror awaiting them.
The old Puritan, John Flavel writes:
“There are mournful sighs and groans heard in prison. “Let the groans of prisoners
come before you,” said the psalmist, Psalm 79:11 (ESV) but deeper sighs and
more emphatic groans are heard in hell. “There shall be weeping and wailing,
and gnashing of teeth,” (Matt. 8:12). Those who didn’t groan under the sense
of sin on earth will howl under the anguish and desperation in hell. (B) ”
As I have said elsewhere: “...we all must do everything lawfully
possible and make a humble, heart-felt, passionate appeal in an attempt to
persuade the poor lost sinner to pay attention to the Scriptures were are
sharing with them, and other information such as I have shared in last week’s
message, and use it as an aid to help the person acquire a clearer understanding
of their Creator, and then lovingly attempt to convince the person that unless
he or she accepts the love and forgiveness of the Risen Savior, they are destined
to experience eternal torment infinitely exceeding that of the Haitian Horror’s.
I know “...it’s a dreadful picture
I’m giving you today; but how much better is it to see a picture than to actually
feel such horrible wrath,” asks the old Puritan. “Just as the tides wash up,
and leave slime and filth on the shore, so too does all the corruption and
sin that is in the other faculties of the soul settle upon the conscience.”
“To the pure, all things are pure, but to the
defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences
are defiled,” Titus 1:15 (ESV). [The conscience] is like the sink of a sinner’s
soul into which all filth runs and guilt settles. The conscience of every
believer is purged from its filthiness by the blood of Christ, (Heb. 9:14)
his blood and his spirit purifies it, whereby it becomes the region of light
and peace. All the guilt which has been accumulating throughout an unbelievers
lifetime, fixes itself deep and firm in his or her conscience.” It is “written
upon the tables of their hearts, just as a pen with an iron tip does (Jer.
17:1). Guilt is like a mark or character which has been fashioned or engraved
in the very substance of the soul just as letters are cut deep into glass
with a diamond. (C) All the sins of those who die out of Christ, cry out to
them when they leave this world saying: “We are your works, and we will follow
you.” The acts of sin are transient, but the guilt and effects of it are permanent.
It is evident by this, that in the great day, their conscience, which are
the books of records, in which all their sins are registered, will be opened,
and they shall be judged by them and out of them, (Rev. 20:12).
“Before
that general judgment, every soul comes to its own particular judgment immediately
after death.”
27 And
just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Hebrews 9:27 (ESV)
“By
this judgment, the soul is locked in an everlasting and fixed condition. The
soul of an unbeliever appearing before God, in all its sin and guilt, after
being sentenced by Him, immediately loses all of its hope.”
7 When the wicked dies, his
hope will perish, and the expectation of wealth perishes too, Proverbs 11:7. (ESV)
“Even
his strongest hope or delusion perishes.”
22 On that day many will say to
me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in
your name, and do many mighty works in your name?'
23 And then will I declare to
them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' Matthew 7:22-23 (ESV)
“This perishing, or cutting off of hope, is that which is called
in scripture the death of the soul. As long as the soul is alive it
has hope. The delay of receiving what it hopes for makes the soul sick, but
the final cutting off of all hope strikes it quite dead. Dead to all joy,
comfort, or expectation of any of these things forever, which is something
the death an immortal soul is capable of suffering,” (D).
“The
upbraiding’s of the conscience in hell are terrible and insufferable things:
To be hit in the teeth and mocked with our madness, willfulness and obstinacy as being the cause of all our eternal misery
which we have pulled down upon our heads. It’s like rubbing an open wound
with salt and vinegar. This was the kind of torment holy Job was afraid of:
“My heart [conscience] shall not reproach me so long as I live, Job 27:6,
(ESV). The eternal mocking and taunts of a guilty conscience are cuts and
lashes to the unforgiven soul.” (E)
The
unknown author of the “Epistle of Warning” cautioned those ancient Hebrew
Christians of the “fleeting pleasures” of sin, (Hebrews 11:25). Can you think
of any current day liar’s in or out of the pulpit who seem to relish and delight
in their power of persuasion over folks who have a propensity towards being
naïve and gullible? I sure can but where’re not going there today. After referring
to the fleeting life-span of such people, one of Job’s friends remarked:
“Though
wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue,
13 Though he is loath to let it
go but keeps it still within his mouth, 14
Yet his food turns [to poison] in his stomach; it is the venom
of asps within him, Job 20:12-14
(AMP)
Regardless
of how much pleasure a person such as a glutton derives from his or her sin
while they are doing it, after they swallow and digest it, so to speak, they
will learn that they have poisoned themselves. I’m indebted to another old
Puritan, Joseph Caryl whose language I have also modernized for the following
insights. “The sweetness of sin turns into becoming bittersweet and then into
gall. Not just ordinary gall, but the gall of Asp’s which is very bitter and
poisonous. The poison of Asp’s is most deadly. There is no known antidote
and it kills in four hours. According to legend, when Cleopatra, Queen of
Egypt saw that her husband Mark Anthony had killed himself and that all was
lost, including the City of Alexandria in which she thought she would be safe,
she became so distraught that, rather than allowing herself to become a captive
and brought in triumph to Rome, “... she chose to put Asp’s to her breasts
and die. Not only would they kill her but would also render her completely
senseless of the pain of dying.” (E)
“Although
sin is deadly, it leaves the sinner senseless of death. Every sin is so much
worse by how much it leaves us less aware of the evil it does to us. Those
wounds which may be the most mortal are the ones which at the present time
we feel the less pain. The wages of sin committed is death, (Romans 6:23).
But the wages of sin concealed is the worse of that death. Every sin committed
has in it the seed of death, but sin hidden under the tongue, and kept in
the mouth by denying or excusing it is deadly poison. The gospel has a
remedy against that justly deserved death, which is caused by the committing
of sin, but it has no antidote against the poison of a deliberate and continued
concealment of sin; it’s the gall of Asp’s within him or her.” (F)
Arthur
W. Pink, another of my favorite authors writes: “In full assurance of faith
it means--negatively, without doubting or wavering. Positively it means--with
the unshaken confidence-not in myself, nor in my faith, but in the merits
of Christ, as giving the unquestionable right to draw near to the triune God.
“Full assurance of faith” points to the heart resting and relying upon the
absolute sufficiency of the blood of Christ which was shed for my sins, and
the effectiveness of His present constant intercession to maintain my standing
before God. Faith looks away from self, and eyes the great Priest, who takes
my feeble praise or petitions, and, purifying and perfuming them with His
own sweet incense, (Rev. 8:3-4) renders them acceptable to God.”
“...The
sacrifice of Christ was designed to give peace to the troubled mind and confidence
before God. An “evil conscience” is one that accuses of guilt and oppresses
because of unpardoned sin. It is by the exercise of faith in the sufficiency
of the atoning blood of Christ-the Spirit applying experimentally its effectual
virtue-the conscience is purged. “Being justified by faith, we have
peace with God,” (Romans 5:1): we are freed from a sense of condemnation and
the troubled heart rests in Christ.”
“Although
the first reference in the cleansing of the conscience and the washing of
the body is the initial experience of the Christian at the moment of his or
her new birth, yet they are by no means limited that supernatural event. A
constant cleansing is needed if we are to consciously draw near to the holy
God in prayer. We need to confess our sins daily in order that we may be pardoned,
and “cleansed from all unrighteousness,” (1 John 1:9). An uneasy conscience
is as real a barrier to fellowship with Jehovah, as ceremonial defilement
was to a Jew. So too our walk needs to be incessantly washed with the water
of the Word, (G) (John 13:1-20).
As I pointed out earlier: God appointed
Ezekiel a spiritual watchman over the Israelites to warn them of the terrible judgment they would experience if they
didn’t repent and change the sinful way they had been behaving. He also warned
Ezekiel that if he failed to warn them and they died in their sins, God would
hold Ezekiel accountable for contributing to their deaths (vv19-21). I
spoke of the Law of Retribution which states:
“And for your lifeblood I will surely
demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from
each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
6"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be
shed; for in the image of God has God made man, (Genesis 9:5-6).
Notice the second
part of verse 5. “And from each man, too, I will demand
an accounting for the life of his fellow man.” Every Christian
has the responsibility of sharing the Gospel to the very best of their ability
at every divinely ordained easily recognizable opportunity with the
lost people the Lord has brought into their life. You will intuitively know
which ones they are. And every Christian will be held accountable
as to whether or not they take that responsibility seriously. I hope today’s
sermon has made your conscience somewhat uncomfortable on this Super Bowl
Sunday. It certainly has mine and I’m very thankful!
I want to close by
saying that if someone you know was to read one of these sermons on my web
page and asked you why I preach so much about sin and its awful consequences;
a subject which is extremely unpopular in America today; I hope you would
answer by saying: “Because He Loves Me!”
Lord willing, next
week....
(A)
Entries
# 228-229.
(B)
The
Works of John Flavel, vol. 3, The Banner of Truth Trust, P. O. Box 621, Carlisle,
Pa. 17013, p. 132.
(C)
Ibid.
p, 132-333.
(D)
Ibid.
p. 134-135.
(E)
Ibid.
p. 139.
(F)
Practical
Observations on Job, by Joseph Caryl, Vol. 6, © 2001, Reformation Heritage
Books, 2919 Leonard St., NE, Grand Rapids, Mi. 49525, p. 507.
(G)
An
Exposition of Hebrews, by Arthur W. Pink, © 1954, by I. C. Herendeen , Baker
Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p.592-593.