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[0:00] Well, I direct your attention this evening to the Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, chapter 1 and verse 20.

[0:17] Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, chapter 1 and verse 20. And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.

[0:38] By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.

[1:04] By him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. The word that has fastened on our spirit is reconcile.

[1:23] By him to reconcile all things unto himself. The Apostle Paul in another place, in his second letter to the church at Corinth, he says that the Lord has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

[1:44] And the doctrine that is here spoken of is the atonement. And we have this, the manner of this reconciliation given in our text, having made peace, having made peace at his reconciliation by the blood of his cross.

[2:09] We have also the condition of those described here prior to their reconciliation. They are alienated and enemies.

[2:23] There is a conflict. A war. And it began in Eden.

[2:38] It began with that word of God to Adam. What a solemn word it is. The Lord found Adam in his disobedience.

[2:55] All sin is disobedience. And God came into the garden. And he found Adam in the shame of his nakedness.

[3:10] In the sin of his disobedience. And he hid himself from the presence of the Lord God because he was ashamed.

[3:22] Or what a description of that is. Of the alienation. It is a description which the scriptures have given us.

[3:35] And the alienation is heard in the words of God to Adam. Adam. Very simple words these.

[3:46] But they're the word of God to a sinner. Adam, where are they? May the Lord send them home tonight.

[4:03] Where are they? To a hard heart. They mean nothing. Nothing. I would desire for a moment to speak of the conscience that is seared.

[4:21] And that can sin with impunity. Enemies to God through wicked works. Walking in the darkness of sin and iniquity with impunity.

[4:36] No guilt. No guilt. No conviction. No remorse. No remorse. No sorrow. Hardness of harm.

[4:47] What a solemn place it is. No. What a solemn place it is to be in. When the Lord begins to work.

[4:58] This mighty work of reconciliation. There has to be conviction. There has to be conviction. There has to be a sight of ourselves in the light of God.

[5:16] No. No. Yes. There has to be a sight of God. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

[5:27] No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

[5:39] No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. There. No.

[5:50] No. No. No. No. Nore good. No. No. No. No. No. No.

[6:01] No. No. No. No. The 놓- Fear. No. No. No. it seems impossible at times that a child of God can walk in such darkness and sin and without feeling and without sorrow but it is the great hallmark of the work of God in the hearts of his dear children that they mourn over sin that their sin causes them grief that their sin is made bitter to them and that they are brought to confession this alienation they desire that it may be removed in their hearts under the work of the spirit when the light of the truth and the knowledge of God and the fear of God is shed abroad in their hearts they are brought to a desire this alienation may be ended and they have a desire for this lovely word in our text reconciliation and we see the origin of this reconciliation it says here he yet now hath he reconciled you who were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled it's not a joint reconciliation oh let this be quite clear while we are yet in our sins

[8:03] Christ died for us there is no particle of truth in that false theology which says you do your part and God will do his the scriptures are blessedly true regarding this reconciliation greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends and the Lord laid down his life long before any of us were born and let us be quite clear of this his work of redemption upon the cross of Calvary was a work of redemption which was particular in its kind that he died for those he prayed for it is a solemn fact in the scriptures that this reconciliation is as the scriptures make it quite clear it is a limited atonement limited to those whom he eternally loved in the covenant of grace and you know dear friends that the truth of the matter is this that if we are to be reconciled to God we shall come as beggars we shall indeed how many play with the truth sit under it how many treat it lightly as though it didn't matter how few are brought into a solemn view of the serious nature am I made a real

[10:08] Christian have I union with the church's living head where would any of us stand tonight if we were called immediately into the presence of God where should we stand what evidence have we got that Christ has reconciled us that of our sins it is true thy sins and thine iniquities will I remember no more forever you see we must know this alienation if we are children of God it is only the children of God who are aware of this alienation the wicked live in their wicked works to the end of their days but the child of God leaves them so he can mark the departure from them he can mark how God brought him in he can mark the work of the spirit that separated him from that love of darkness and brought him into Christ's marvellous light he knows what it is to know both the alienation and the reconciliation it is part of his experience the apostle

[11:54] Paul knew that alienated by wicked works from God so he spoke so clearly to the church of Colossae do you know it can you mark the change you may have heard me recount only about two years ago I visited the dying bed of an aged person and said to her where did the Lord begin with you and she said I don't know only five days or ten days later I was called to bury her sure I don't know and then she stopped and added this but I can remember when I didn't know him dear friends that sealed everything can you say that I can remember when I didn't know him the days of your unregeneracy

[13:01] Samuel says the scriptures did not yet know the law the apostle Paul knew that condition he did not yet know the law but there comes a day when God speaks in the process of this work of reconciliation there comes a day when we are as it were in the garden and we hear the Lord speaking to us in the call of the evening and saying to us Adam where art thou where are you tonight what is your answer let me name a few places let me name the first one the first place may be this

[14:13] I have no idea where I am I have no interest in the truth I have no faith I don't know God I don't pray I don't read his word I don't know where I am it may be you can go on to say I live in sin and darkness in my heart and mind I can sin lightly with ease it is no trouble to me I forget it have you and perhaps you can name a second place perhaps I can name a second place

[15:15] Adam where after where after where after and it may be you would say uneasy restless like the apostle Paul kicking against bricks something is happening be to wonder whether there's anything in real religion whether there is a God but still not deeply exercised as to your own condition before God still living in the world that lieth in wickedness still not really separated from it still neglecting

[16:23] God and his holy world and yet as it were an inkling array of life and perhaps you might add I pray sometimes but not much we could go on you know naming these places Adam where aren't there when we come to name another place it's this guilty I'm guilty I know it I feel it I walk with a constant state and realization of the filth of my soul I cannot cease from sinning

[17:24] I am fighting against sin and how many have not been brought to say I feel neither fit for the world nor fit for the house of God I listened only recently in our Bethesda home at Studley to a dear woman say to me I don't feel fit to be here amongst God's people I'm black she said she said I feel out of place I feel I shouldn't be here the work of God is to bring his dear people to this the scriptures speak of it black Hannah did not exaggerate when she said in her prayer that God lifteth the beggar from the dunghill she felt the filth and pollution of her own heart she didn't exaggerate when she said he killeth and he maketh a lie how solemn to be in a place where we are unconvicted where sin is no load to us no anxiety no burden how blessed to be in a place where we feel black unfit for the house of

[19:14] God unfit for the people of God full of sin and iniquity and filth and guilty before God what are we looking at we are looking at the preparation of this mighty work of reconciliation sinners can save and only they how precious is the same Christ said the sick need the physician how many of you have had to come to God feeling the filth of your own heart mourning over your own sins under the wrath and condemnation of God crying out in the language of the scriptures Lord help me undertake for me we live at ease in the world and sin passes lightly but God send his afflictions into our souls and I do not wish tribulation on any but this

[20:33] I know that tribulation is used by the Lord to bring home conviction to the heart affliction says the hymn writer make us see what else would escape our sight and you know dear friends if we're going to be washed from our sins it's not going to be done and I say this reverently while we are impassive to it it's going to be done as a direct result of our pleas to God and if there's no urgency in our prayers there'll be no answer to them if there's no sincerity there'll be no answer if there's no wrestling there'll be no answer how many of you here tonight have had and have come to God in wrestling prayer pleading with him that he would apply that blood of the atonement to your country and have walked out the blessed pathway and have known the application of that precious blood because I tell you this outside of knowledge of that precious blood you'll never reach heaven you never can it's not something you're going to casually receive it's something we're going to plead for and what is it to be a sinner what is it to know conviction of sin why it's to carry the immense weight of sin in your heart and conscience and let me be clear about this the Lord only shows us what we can bear our lives will be one constant revelation of the iniquities of our hearts of the fallen ruined nature that is within us of the deception that is there

[22:48] I would speak of this deception it is a dark evil deception but satan would deceive us that sin is not sin I see so much of this you live in a generation where men and women have tried to alter the law of God to excuse their sins and they are constantly saying that sin is not sin but the scriptures are absolutely clear we cannot escape the holy word of God in all its light and truth in our evil permissive society today there has been a constant effort to as it were reduce God's law to remove commandments even in our statute book but you know sin remains and will remove and if you see it not today if you are a child of God you must eventually see it before you die if you are to confess it and you must be brought down before God under a sense of filth and violence and the deceitfulness of your heart must be removed and you must be brought to confess your sin before God if there is to be any reconciliation now let me be clear about this this conviction is the work of the Holy

[24:37] Spirit this conviction is the light of the truth this conviction is the word of God in your heart this conviction the Lord works himself and he can do it in a moment but it may take years before you are brought to see it it may take years before the Lord open it before your eye and show you the sin that lies buried in your heart and that which deception had told you was not sin and that which you had excused in yourself but the Lord will shine as a light in a dark place it is one of the things that is abundantly absent from the churches today it is conviction conviction oh how clear it is that the arrows of divine conviction are mightily withheld but you know this we know the wrath of God remains against sin whether there is conviction or not and God will work and do not think that he is not working because he is not working to die divine wrath and divine judgment if you are a child of God will find its course in your pathway and we read in the scriptures here that he scourgeth now that is the most terrible punishment scourging it was a beating with wrath of immense suffering

[26:45] Christ was scourged in the judgment hall and he scourgeth every son whom he received and the Lord scourges his dear people for their sins and that scourging brings them into conviction he lays his mighty hand upon them and if he desists to die yet if you are his child there will come a day when he will act when he will work when he will move and it may be in the most solemn and terrible circumstances he will move I name these things out of the experience of my heart I name these in the path of reconciliation the Lord is well able as we spoke this morning if he is to have the preeminence then we have to bow at his feet at the feet of the king of kings and we have to be brought and I have learnt this lesson deeply in my own soul we have to be brought to know the sufferings that our sins have caused him you have heard me quote it many times

[28:12] I quoted out of the deep experience of my own soul your dread crimes once pierced his heart sank his soul in awful smile but his sin atoning blood now procures your peace with God and if there is to be reconciliation we have first to go down into the depths and as dear old Jabez Lee used to say though he never specified what he was speaking about but he used to say that the Lord worked through terrible things in righteousness and through terrible things in righteousness he will bring us to know the solemnity of our sins and how he sees them and he will bring us to a solemn understanding of what he is doing

[29:19] I do not necessarily speak of solemn afflictions of body or bereavement but you know the Lord has a way of speaking and I won't specify but he has a way of speaking particularly and his children know that he is speaking they know that the hand of God has gone out against them and they know why it has gone out against them the Lord works that we may know his presence we may know his mighty hand I will work and who shall let it nothing will hinder him I will work and who shall hinder me

[30:22] God will work and he works to bring conviction home into the hearts of his children that they may see as it were that writing upon the wall teakled weighed in the balances and found wanting now let me add this what a mercy what a mercy how many have read in that writing on the wall their own destruction they have read there that God the hand of God has gone out against them they have read the wrath of almighty God against their sins but what is there the foundation of reconciliation God is bringing his children to a place of conviction let me mark one in the scriptures the day that

[31:29] Jacob came to Brook Jabba with Esau ready to kill him oh you meditate on those circumstances what lay behind that sin why he would never have left his home if he had not sinned he certainly wouldn't have been returning he never offered the excuse that his mother suggested the idea to him he came in that hour and there is one word there that is very sacred I am not worthy what was he doing he was praying what a blessed prayer why you know the beginning of that reconciliation was at

[32:38] Bethel many years before but he could see all those years later the hand of his God and as I said this morning it wasn't the end of the dealing of God with him over that sin I'll work the whole of his life was a working out of the solemn hand of his God for the sins of his youth but what was it why it was teaching at the end of the day when he stood in Egypt to bless Ephraim and Manasseh what a word of knowledge he uttered the Lord who redeemed me from all evil he could scan that evil the dreadful evil of his life perhaps you can scan your evil I can scan mine I tell you this tonight out of my heart there will be as there was with Jacob a relationship between our sins and God's dealings with us and they will bow us down and those dealings of

[33:55] God with us will be a constant conviction of our sin and a constant bringing of us to confession oh how he bowed in that sacred hour at Brook Jabbok and wrestled that night with crime the angel of God came to him and wrestled with him and his God dealt with him in reconciliation you listen to the blessed words of reconciliation he blessed him there do you know I wouldn't expand the scriptures but the blessing of God the presence of God in that hour was the peace of God and it was peace through his cross that he knew it was absolute reconciliation I will not let thee go except thou bless me there was a dire need death was before him

[34:58] God had brought his dear servant face to face with eternity and with his sins and with the just hand of his God gone out against him he could see it now he brought it all upon himself solemnly done so and remember that wasn't the end of God's chastening the coat of many colours with the blood on it Benjamin taken from him he had yet grief upon grief to go through years of sorrow and mourning before the Lord had effectually wrought in him conviction for his sin and God will work in the hearts of those whom he has eternally loved and he will teach and he will bring sin into the fall and he will bring us to mourn over it and he will bring us to understand what he suffered because we are going to suffer if we're his children and it's going to be between our souls and

[36:06] God nobody's going to interfere it's going to be that we shall be brought to know that the Lord is in it to teach we shall come as Jacob did at the end of his days to say the Lord who redeemed me from all evil we shall come like Hezekiah came by these things men live conviction as life wounded healed restored forgiven who like thee his praise shall sing God will bring his children to do what Peter did to go out and weep bitterly my late dear father in the excruciating suffering which he went through with his cancer was heard in the night crying out oh the sins of my youth little did

[37:15] I know until I read his autobiography how he blasphemed in his youth and how like Bunyan he was reproved for his blasphemies by a worldly woman and they were with him in the end of his days George Rose said once in my hearing that the very lewd songs that he had known in his youth were passing through his mind as he stood in prayer in the pulpit and oh how the Lord chastens his dear people to bring them to a knowledge of their sins but he brings them in guilt before him in sorrow in confession in repentance and this in fellowship with him in his sufferings for your if you are a child of

[38:19] God your sin necessitated his death your sin caused his death and I have learnt much of life that he will have his dear children to know what he suffered for to enter into his sufferings if we are to have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings and are to be brought into this blessed reconciliation then we must be brought into suffering for our own sins we must be brought under the chastening hand of God we must be brought to mourn over our sins and we shall be brought then to a realization of what he suffered to an understanding of his sufferings was he despised we must be was he mocked we must be was he wounded in spirit we must be oh we must be brought to know our sins and what we have done and how we have wounded him

[39:47] I never forget when he applied that word to me your dread crimes once pierced his heart he did it a few days before my late wife died I was in the greatest sorrow and suffering wounded and broken when he said that to me but I saw it in that hour oh how I saw it your dread crimes once pierced his heart but you know there's this and I do point you to this that when the Lord is working in such a way he is working to bring that wounded soul to the cross of Calvary there to know the application of this precious blood no longer are they enemies of

[40:49] God no longer are they alienated by wicked words I hate says the sinner the sins that made thee more and drove thee from my breath and there is an entrance in to this blessed truth thy sins and thine iniquity will I remember no more saith the Lord as far as the east is from the west so far have I removed thy sins from me it is hard for us to contemplate that in this reconciliation in this sacred peace our sin your sin my sin is gone forever never to be remembered against us again it is a wonder of wonder that the

[41:54] Lord should take away our sins cast them behind his back forever and bring about this blessed reconciliation you know the free willer makes a great thing about the fact that he wants to be a Christian and he wills it himself but God is made willing they are so wrought upon by the spirit in all their sin and iniquity in a knowledge of it in conviction of it and they are so taught the precious nature of the blood of Christ that they are brought to flee for refuge to that precious fountain they plead with God to apply it to their hearts their desire is to be found in Christ in the shelter of his precious blood washed and there is peace they know it and like

[43:03] Bunyan's pilgrim they wend their way to a cross of Calvary carrying their burden and there they enter into the sacred experience of their burden being removed it is the way to heaven reconciliation here in this earth between God and your soul through the peace speaking blood of Jesus Christ he has given unto us the ministry of reconciliation oh what a blessed ministry it is faith in the only sacrifice that did for sin atoned to cast our eyes to fix our hopes on Christ on Christ alone ask you one question here tonight do you see the why do you see it has the Lord brought you to see that precious why has he brought you to see that only in the person of the

[44:10] Lord Jesus Christ the eternal son of God the second person in the trinity through his sacrifice upon Calvary can there be any hope of heaven for you of late we have watched one after another loved ones in the flesh loved ones in the bonds of the everlasting gospel pass through the gates into Emmanuel's land we have seen them go a small company only a couple of months ago the Lord led us into that word on several Sundays these all died in faith one after the other we have been watching a procession of those passing that way each one who has died in faith each one whom we have known each one would have given their assent to that lovely word my hope is built on nothing less than

[45:25] Jesus' blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus now on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand can you put your amen there when you come to die where will your rest be my father's late deacon Arthur Gammon at Southampton said to me the last time I saw him I go down resting on the blood I go down resting on the blood all the mercy of going down resting on the blood and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things under himself heaven will be that land of total reconciliation we cannot contemplate what it will mean but if we have known anything in this world of peace by his cross for those of you who know it will well understand it the peace of God which passes understanding total reconciliation is to be known here in the application of the precious blood of

[47:00] Christ to our consciences the wrath of God is gone forever the law is kept in all its parts and there is that sacred peace perfect peace in this dark world of sin the blood of Jesus speaketh peace within Amen peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace peace and peace

[48:02] In 925 June 422 Peace by his cross As Jesus made The church is everlasting hell For hell and sin and victory won And with a shout to glory gone Hymn 925 June 422 dataset in televice

[49:07] For Luke P.M. He even like On the redeeming Earth Where else desperation At the end of the day Amen.

[49:51] Amen. Amen.

[50:51] Amen. Amen.

[51:51]  Amen.