Ministry of Reconciliation

It's nice to see everyone. Everyone always has questions that house me on today doing what's happening. I always tell people, you know, pray for what we do because if God doesn't bless that, His chances of success are zero. Anyone who worked in radio and television knows that. It's an interesting project. I've only done three programs in the last six months. I just had to take some time off. I was just handling three churches and doing the television and I was just exhausted. I had to take some time off or I wouldn't have been good for anybody. But we did three programs actually in Texas and I'll be doing up in August to do some more. But every time we do something, I think it's going to be real successful. There was one program we did. I said, this is so good. Daris was the host on it. And I said, this one's going to be so good. It's just we're going to get more calls from this program than we ever have. It's been one of the worst responded to programs we ever did. And then they did a program one time. We crammed eight people onto that set, that little set. And I'm thinking, I remember sitting there watching it being recorded and saying, this is really dumb. This won't work at all. It doesn't sound good. It doesn't work. People loved it and people responded to it. So, you know, this isn't about doing good television. It's about just preaching the Word and God calls who He calls. And we're supposed to go out there and tell people. But it is interesting, you know, on an individual basis what happens. I got a phone call two weeks ago from a man, left a message on my answering machine. I called him back and he said, I just have to tell you, he said, I believed, he says, I learned about the Sabbath years and years ago. I've gone from Protestant Church to Protestant Church telling people you should keep the Sabbath. Nobody would listen to me. He said, my wife died a year ago. And he said, I literally thought I was going crazy. I had a belief system nobody else believed in. I had, my wife had died. He said, one night I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep all night long. Finally, in the morning, I got up and I was surfing through the television and came across these people telling me I should keep the Holy Days. And I said, I'm not crazy. And he says, I just want to come to church. He said, I said, well, I'm going on vacation for two weeks. You know, come on, come to church and I'll see you when I get back. He said, no, I'll wait till you get back and then we can talk. He says, but I want to be there. So when you get back, call me. And then you get those individual things that happen. And you start to see where God does do all work. And He changes people. Now, the greatest miracle isn't having eight million people watch you on television. I had a young boy walk up to me and ask for my autograph and I said, son, they put juggling monkeys on television. This isn't a great big deal. It's God's opening of someone's mind. That's a miracle. That's the miracle.

That's what's amazing. And we pray for those miracles that God warns people. You know, you don't know what God's going to do in someone's life later on. I've met people who watched Herbert Armstrong for 30 years before they ever came to church. But we plant seeds. That's all we're supposed to do. We go out and plant seeds and then we water the ones that come up where we can water.

It was very interesting. A couple of years ago, I went to Australia to do some good new seminars. They had 250 people not in the church show up at a good new seminar. Most of them never came to church after that. It wasn't because they didn't want to. They lived too far away. They had to travel so far to come. So they came to the seminar and they shared stories how they'd given up Christmas and their family had ostracized them.

How they had been keeping the Sabbath now for months by themselves. How they were just learning about, you know, you don't go to heaven when you die. And they were doing it by themselves. And their main... One woman walked up and said, this is amazing. I never thought they'd let me come up and shake your hand being on television.

I'm thinking, we're not on television in Australia. She's watching on the internet. Every week she watches it faithfully. She says, I just went to a Pentecostal meeting and they wouldn't let me shake hands with the guy on television, but they let me shake your hands. I hope she got a little more out of what we were doing.

But anyways... So just, you know, keep those things in your prayers. It's a tough time in the church. You know, there's now a hundred different groups that used to be part of... Mr. Morrison calls it our former fellowship. It was the World Wide Church of God. We just have to, you know, it's... After all these years we can say what it was. It's not a secret. No, but, you know, a hundred different groups. Many of them trying to keep the truth, some of them not.

Many of them in various stages of decay, some of them in growth, some of them in attitudes, in bitterness, some not. And the church was just scattered. But you know, God still has power in us. It's in our lives that He works. And it's in the lives of doing the work that He does through us that it works.

Which leads me to what I want to talk about today. When we go through the Beatitudes, we are given the attitudes we must have to be the followers of Jesus Christ. It's not just a belief system. It would be much easier if this was just a belief system. All we'd have to do to be converted is go through some classes on some basic doctrines, understand them, sign a piece of paper, get baptized. I mean, there's churches who do this. You come out and you're saved! Right? You're going to heaven!

If that's all this was, all Christianity was, was learning a set of beliefs. Now we have to have those beliefs. We have to have those doctrines. I'm not putting that down. We have to have those. But I'm saying it's more than that. And when you go through the Sermon on the Mount, you realize it's a lot more than that. And when you go through the Beatitudes, you realize without those attitudes of life, we're not being what we're supposed to be.

One of those attitudes that Jesus says we have to have says, blessed... Remember, all those attitudes are blessed people. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. They say, oh wow, okay, we're going to talk about peacemaking.

You know, that's nice stuff to talk about. In a sermon, we were hoping for a little more powerful, you know, some prophecy or something. Well, actually that is a prophecy. Blessed are the peacemakers, because when Jesus Christ returns, they will be called the sons of God. Now, if you want to be a child of God, we have to develop those attitudes that are part of the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount.

That means you and I must become peacemakers. This isn't an option. It's part of what we must become to be true followers of Jesus Christ and the children of God. Now, you and I don't live in a peaceful world.

I mean, there's this conflict. You've got to work. There's conflict. You know, you're driving home, and driving is conflict, right? And you get home, and there's conflict waiting for you at home, and you turn on that television set. And all it's talking about is a riot, or a terrorist bomber, or a war. It's all about conflict. Everything is about conflict. We live in a world in which we spend much of our time in conflict with somebody.

And so, because of that, we find ourselves in conflict with each other, even in the church. That's why there's a hundred different groups. Why is there a hundred different groups in the Church of God? Because we're in conflict with each other. Why are we in conflict with each other? Why present to you is because we haven't learned the Beatitudes. We aren't past Christianity 101. We got the Ten Commandments down real good. We even have the Holy Days down pretty good.

We're not to third grade yet. That's the problem. We're still in first and second grade. We have to move on to the Beatitudes now, without giving up the other things. But we have to move on to something. Blessed are the peacemakers, who live in a world of conflict, and who participate in conflict all the time, until we become conflict-driven. And basically, we are conflict-driven in this country. We're waiting for the next conflict, so here's how we walk around.

Jason's brother, this little boy, comes over the other day, and he puts on these boxing gloves, and he wants to beat up all the other little kids. I said, come here, son. He walked over, and I got down on my knees, and I said, you don't understand, boxing is not fun. I mean, it's fun for you right now. You have boxing gloves on, and you're beating up all the other kids. It's not fun. He said, I want to box. I said, okay, put him up, and he put him up, and I said, throw a punch at me and hit me. So he did. I said, throw it again. He threw it again. I caught it, and slapped him right in the face, and his eyes got real big, and I said, it's not fun, is it? And then he took him off. He decided he didn't want to box anymore.

We live in this world of conflict until it becomes absolutely impossible to sort through the real issues. Do you realize that? Most of us, on a daily basis, do not solve conflict by dealing with the real issues. We simply find some way to emotionally survive the conflict. That's all we do. Husbands and wife don't solve things. Children and parents don't solve things. You don't solve things with a neighbor. You just find a way to emotionally survive it. You don't solve the conflicts at work. And yet, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be the children of God. Christ is coming back as the Prince of Peace to solve the world's conflicts. And if we can't solve our little conflicts, how are we going to help Him solve the world's conflicts? Well, we'll just teach Him the law. You and I know the law. Does that solve all of our conflicts? In fact, what do we do? We fight over the law!

How do we become peacemakers? Now, it's a huge subject. To tell you the truth, I just gave six sermons on this. I'm not going to give six sermons today, and I've got 50 minutes left. But, I want to give an introduction to something. We have to go back to something very simple. Something we all know. Something we all know. But we have to go back to it. And then we have to examine our lives to see how much we've become like the world as conflicted people. What are the basic reasons for conflict? I will give you four basic reasons why human beings have conflict, and then I'm going to give you a fifth one. The four are very simple. Most conflict will come down to these reasons. And we can talk about all the, you know, go into the depths of these, but that's not my purpose today. You know, each one of these could be in a sermon in itself. One of the major reasons for conflict between human beings is pride, right? We have an exaggerated viewpoint of ourselves. Pride's a great deceiver. It makes us think we're more important than we are. So therefore, in every situation, we have to win. Pride drives us that we have to win, and we live in a society that promotes conflict and promotes winners, right? So it plays on this. We have to win. Now, you know, if you're playing a game, you're doing something, and you try to win, that doesn't mean that's wrong. But you know what I mean? If you're playing Scrabble, and you lose, and you punch this person in the nose, you probably have a pride problem, okay?

But in conflicts, whether it's between you and your neighbor, you and somebody else in the church, you and your husband, you and your wife, a lot of times, what does it really come down to? You have to win to accept that you were wrong, to accept that you were partly wrong. You just can't accept that. Pride. A second great problem in human conflict, a source of human conflict, is all of us, and this is interesting, we could talk about this a long time, but I don't want to because of this lack of time, but we expect other people to meet our needs and desires.

And when they don't, we're upset with them.

We just expect everybody else to meet our needs and our desires. And what we have is billions of people in the face of the earth, all walking around expecting everybody else to meet their needs and desires. So you find selfless people who tend to give, and what happens? Other people literally drain them and there's nothing left. It's like they just suck the life right out of them and there's nothing left. Why? Because everybody expects. So when you find selfless people, they usually get destroyed. Because we all need somebody else to meet our needs and meet our desires. It's called selfishness, and we're driven by it. So what we do is we put such expectations on other people, they can't fulfill them. I've seen more marriages destroyed because they had such expectations. She expected him to be some way and he expected her to be some way. Nobody could have met those expectations. Nobody! And they end up destroying their marriage because their expectations are so high. You're going to meet everyone of my desires, everyone of my needs. I'm going to come home every night and there's going to be a perfect meal there and perfect children. And you're going to look like you just walked out of a glamour magazine saying, Hi sweetheart, let me take your shoes off and feed you. Then I'll rub your back and put the children to bed. We have these expectations that are just... and we destroy other people because of why. They didn't meet our expectations.

A third reason for conflict is we need to control. You and I have very little control. We have control of some things that are very important, but in reality we have little control of what goes on. I can't help it. I'm 5'8". That's my genetics. I'd like to be 6''.

I was talking about boxing with my little boy the other day. My son and I used to box all the time. I'd get on my knees and we'd box until he was about 8 or 10 years old. When he reached about 18 he said, Hey dad, come here, let's box. I said, Box? You're huge. He said, No, come here. I walked over and he put his hand on my head and I couldn't hit him.

That's genetics. I couldn't reach him. He just stood there laughing with his hand on my head. Some people can sing, some people can't. Some people have all these abilities. Some people have different abilities. You didn't choose where you were born. If you were born in Mongolia, you would have a yak in the backyard, not a car. There are people today who don't have cars. They have yaks. Why? Because that's where they were born. You didn't choose where you were born. We don't have any control over that. What happens as human beings, we need to control this chaos.

In a need to control chaos, what do we do? We cause conflict with everybody around us. If you would just be what I want you to be, and what we're actually saying is, if you'll just let me be God, and what we are is what I call little dirt gods. We're made out of dirt, right? We're little dirt gods. We have six billion dirt gods running around, trying to get everybody just to do it my way.

And then we can't forget why there's conflict. If you'll just let me be God, this will work out just fine. Wouldn't it be great in your company if everybody just let it run the way you want it to be run? If everybody did what you told them to do? That's what everybody else is thinking, too. And then a fourth reason for conflict. Listen to this one. We have a need to be emotionally healed when we've been hurt by somebody. I wish I had time to go through all these, because in the sermons I've given, I spend a great deal of time on these motivations.

If someone's hurt you, you need them to heal you. You actually need them to come say, I'm sorry, or be punished. Look, you either get punished or say you're sorry, but I can't heal until that happens. Now those are the four, and I'm sure we could create more, but I came up and I said those, most human conflict falls into those four categories. But there is an underlying reason for all conflict between human beings. An underlying reason for all conflict, no matter what category it fits in, between all human beings.

Whatever your conflict is, let's go to the core cause of it. Romans 8. And when we forget this, your home will become just like everybody else's home. Your marriage will become just like everybody else's marriage. Your congregation will become just like every other person's congregation. Your business, I mean, there will be no difference. And it's sad when we look at ourselves as the people of God with God's Holy Spirit, and sometimes our divorce rate is just as high as the world. What's wrong when the people of God have a hundred different groups all competing against each other?

What's wrong with us? That's the question we have to ask. What everybody's saying is what's wrong with everybody else. Right? What's wrong with us? We have forgotten something very, very important, and this has to do with the Gospel. Romans 8, verse 7. Because the natural mind, the carnal mind, because your natural state and my natural state is enmity, is the enemy of God.

That's a very strong word. Because you and your natural state and me and my natural state, we don't get along with God. Because you and your natural state and me and my natural state, we disagree with God, or we don't always obey God. That's not what he says. We are his enemy. And that means that in the dirtiest way you can think of that word. The most terrible way you can think of that word. We are the enemy of God. That's who we are. For it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

We can't be subject to the law of God in our natural state. You and I cannot be subject to the beatitudes in our natural state. This is where we start. We go back to this point. Human beings are in conflict with each other because human beings, every human being, including you and me, are in some state of conflict with God. That's why this conflict takes place. We are in conflict with God. You think, wait a minute, you are simplifying this.

Okay, let's answer this simple question. If you had two human beings, both of them absolutely right with God. Could they get along? Could you have a divorce between a man and a woman, and you were both absolutely right with God? No. The source, the core of all conflict is we're all in conflict with God. All six billion of us. Now you and I have been called to come out of that.

Let's go back to Genesis 3. This, once again, is a whole other subject than this. I'm just going to touch on it so I can get into what I really want to cover. I'll tell you what, I'm going to skip Genesis chapter 3. I'm just going to mention it. When Eve saw the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, okay? Remember, she said, wow, that looks like good fruit.

And it'll make me wise. Is the pursuit of wisdom evil? No. It became evil. When she ate of that fruit and Adam ate of that fruit, there was immediate change of their nature. And this is where we have to go back to. You all know this. You all learned this 30 years ago. You just didn't repent because you had committed sin against God in terms of I had broken the law. You also repented because you knew deep inside yourself you were messed up. You were the enemy of God. Your nature.

I remember an old man thundering out over and over again the knowledge of the tree of good and evil and how their nature was changed until the place as a young person I thought, stop talking about that. Now I understand why. We, as keepers of the law of God, which we're supposed to be, we've forgotten that our nature, by nature, that's not normal. We've also not really grasped that by nature we're not going to do the beatitudes. We will make them unimportant. You realize that? What we will do is make them unimportant.

Oh, well that's not as important as being a peacemaker isn't as important as thou shalt not steal. Yeah it is. Now you have to stop stealing before you can be a peacemaker, right? There's no thief that's a peacemaker. But once you stop stealing, what's the next thing you do? The law describes what we don't do. What describes what we do? That's when you get into the Sermon on the Mount, all three chapters of it, in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Here's what we do. We are peacemakers. Why is that so hard? Ephesians 2.

I really want to spend some time in Genesis 3, but I'm going to skip that because I brought eight hours worth of stuff up here. So we're going to pare it down as we go along. Ephesians 2. You know the scripture. Most of you can say it by heart. You've heard it in sermons. You've read it yourself. You've read it in the churches. You know, booklets and in the good news and the old plain truth. Ephesians 2. Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, he says, And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

You were, I was, a son of disobedience. Well, yeah, we were deceived by Satan. Then we fall and say, no, this means more than that. He says, verse 3, Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves, the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were, and notice what it says, by nature, at the core of who you are, this is what you wanted to be.

By nature, the children of wrath, just as the others. So I grew up in the church. It doesn't matter. By nature, you are a child of wrath. Growing up in the church doesn't guarantee, in fact, growing up in the church, if you say, well, I'll just grow up in the church and do everything, and if you aren't, if you don't receive God's Spirit in you, you're doomed just as much as the murdering, drug-dealing guy down on the street.

But I'm not doing anything bad. You know, I keep the Sabbath. I don't worship idols. I've never committed fornication. I say, I'm okay. By nature, you are a child of wrath. You are inside, at the depth of your being, an enemy of God. No, I'm not. I grew up in the church. Yes, you are. We have forgotten. Now, you have God's Spirit. Are you completely converted yet? No. Why not? Because at the core of who you are, there is still some part of you that's the enemy of God.

And because there's still part of us that's the enemy of God, guess what we do? We have conflict with everybody around us. Because we're in conflict with Him. We solve that conflict, and we begin to solve every other conflict. We solve that conflict, and we begin to solve every other conflict, as much as another person will allow us to do it. So how do we get from being a child of wrath to being a child of God?

How do you get from one point to another? Well, let me think. How did I get here? How did I get from one point to another? Because the problem at any time we have conflict is how do I reconcile? In other words, how do I come back together? What you and I think is that to solve problems, all we have to do is solve the issues. It's like the old marriage idea was just compromise on everything. And you had a couple that stayed together, compromised on everything, and they were two incredibly unhappy people. Just working together and compromising on everything is not the same thing.

We have to reconcile. That means that issues become secondary to relationship. Now, I'm going to show you what I mean by that. It doesn't say the issues aren't important, but the issues become secondary to relationship. 2 Corinthians 5. This is where we go to say, How did God take me from a child of wrath, a child of disobedience, the sons of disobedience, a child of Satan under his influence? How did he get me to where I am? Now, there's a number of steps. I'm going to talk about the first step today.

There's a number of steps. I'll mention a couple more and you can study on your own. 2 Corinthians 5. This is what God is doing. Until we figure this out, we will never really solve our marriage problems. We will always have conflict with everybody around us, at our neighbors, at our work. We'll always have conflict with each other in the church. Basically, the church will split 100 times again. It will never stop. It will never stop until we do this. Let's go back to how God took us from one thing to becoming...

We are now becoming the children of God. You're different than your neighbor. Your neighbor is a potential eternal child of God. You already are a child of God, learning it with God's at the down payment of eternal life given to you. Already been given to you. Called the Holy Spirit. Now, people can walk away from this, right? And actually go back out into the world and end up in the lake of fire.

So this is very serious. 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 18. Now, all things are of God, who has reconciled. Now, reconciliation is about bringing back into relationship. He didn't say, solve the issues between him and others. Reconcile. He reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Paul said this is what he was supposed to say to the world.

We're supposed to say this to the world. This is the ministry of reconciliation. That is, what God was doing in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though Christ were pleading through us. That's an amazing statement. Paul's talking about him and the other ministers, but then this goes down to every member of the church.

If you have been reconciled to God through Christ, then God is pleading with others through you, if you were truly reconciled. Now, if we're not reconciled, we won't know what this means. Now, I say not reconciled. You can be partially reconciled to God. You can have a very immature relationship with God and not understand this. But a mature relationship with God means blessed are the peacemakers, for they will become the sons of God.

So I guess I better become a peacemaker. I guess I better figure out how that works. Well, how do I figure out that? Where do I go to even start? Here's where you start. He says, we're ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. That's what he tells the Corinthian church, which was a mess. I've never seen a church as messed up as the Corinthian church was. And he tells him, you need to be reconciled to God to clean up this mess.

For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Paul doesn't say that God wants to open lines of communication with you. He doesn't say, God says, let's get along. Why don't your people get with my people and we'll have lunch?

God says, I wish to be reconciled to you. Now, why do we need to be reconciled? Because we are his enemy. I think we have, sometimes, we know God loves humanity. I do not want to downplay that at all. God wants to save humanity. But what is the current relationship between human beings and God?

They are his enemies. You want to do an interesting study? Look up the word abomination. Abomination means something that is absolutely disgusting. It is a word that in Hebrew, I mean, this is the most disgusting, despicable thing you can look at. And find out how many times in the Old Testament God calls us abominations. He calls us idolaters abominations. That's true. And he calls murderers abominations.

That's true. And homosexuals abominations, oh good. Let's go after the idolaters, murderers, and homosexuals. We can blast them because they are abominations to God. He also said, pride is an abomination to me. He said, your thoughts are abominations to me. Proverbs 6. Dishonesty is an abomination. We can go on and on. It's disgusting to me. Proverbs 6. What we do is we love the big ones. We love to take on homosexuality because it's so easy to take on as an abomination.

I don't like to deal with pride as an abomination because I have that. See, homosexuality is easy. I hate that as much as God does. I don't hate my own pride as much as God hates my own pride. And that's what we have to come to grips with. I don't hate my own self-righteousness the way God hates my self-righteousness.

And so therefore I can justify my conflict with other people. Now, there's always going to be conflict. We're always going to have conflict with somebody because we have different ideas, different viewpoints, different opinions. Some people are wrong. I mean, some people, if they sin, you have a conflict with them. I'm not saying—and there's a whole—I mean, that's a whole study in itself, how to deal with those kinds of things. I'm talking about the attitude in which we much approach this whole subject, the attitude in which we approach this subject. Proverbs 6. Let's see, I'm not even there yet. Proverbs 6, 16. These six things the Lord hates. I don't know. Do you want to be, you know, well, on a list that God hates?

And it doesn't say—well, God doesn't like this. Well, this is something that God says, ooh, you know, that's sort of not nice. It means He hates it. Yes, seven are an abomination to Him, absolutely disgusting to Him. A proud look. Well, wait a minute. Let me deal with murderers. I like that. Let me deal with chow molesters.

Yeah, I can—yeah, yeah. Let me deal with them. That's an abomination. A proud look. A lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that deceives wicked plans. Feet that are swift in running to evil. A false witness who speaks lies. And one who sows discord among brethren. You go through this Old Testament, I guarantee you, you look up every place in the Old Testament where the word abomination is used, and you'll feel real good about this one and this one and this one, yeah. And you will find, if you are honest and you pray about it beforehand, you're going to find an abomination you fit into.

You're going to find you fit in some of these abominations. And God says, you're my enemy. I hate that in you. He can't use any stronger language. I despise that in you just as much as I despise the homosexuality in Him. Yeah, but you're not comparing me to Him. And God says, oh, yes, I am. We have to go back to this. We've lost a humility in the Church of God before the Almighty God. We've lost it. And so we all carry around clubs, and we beat each other up.

And say, what a good Christian I am. Romans chapter 10. You see, we must become peacemakers. That doesn't mean that you and I put up with other people's sins, although sometimes you do. He who covers a multitude of sin, that love covers a multitude of sin, sometimes you even put up with other people's sins. Sometimes you confront them. Sometimes we learn to... It's interesting to watch people who have lived together for long periods of time, say a husband and wife who have lived a long period of time together, and they seem to do everything in harmony. And people say, how did you do that? Well, we learn to put up with each other. And you'll say, what does that mean?

You don't like each other? Oh, yes, we like each other. But we've learned that certain things aren't important. It's not important whether she squeezes the toothpaste from the middle or the end. It's just not important.

That may be a shock to some of you, but it's just not important, right? We've learned to say that's not worth having a conflict. You are more important to me than toothpaste. That's what we've said.

But there are people who ten years in their marriage are still fighting over the toothpaste.

There's a point we say, this relationship, okay? This relationship is more important than those issues. We'll solve those issues, and the ones we don't, we'll learn to live with. But see, we don't like that, because it's messy. Folks, this is always going to be messy. It's always going to not be clean. It's always going to have a problem. It's always going to be sin. You know why I know that? Because I just described me.

Because that's who we are inside. We're in the process of being cleaned up. None of us are there yet.

So the only way we can judge everybody else is you've got to be perfect.

Now you say, well, you're saying, do not judge. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, use this to judge. And that's fine. Someone commits a sin, you can say, you've committed a sin. In fact, we go to Scriptures that require you to go to that person and say, you've committed a sin.

Because you also remember before you go that you're a sinner, too. There's the problem. We've got to remember who we are before we do anything. What is our purpose? To hurt the person? To get our pound of flesh? To get justice? Or to help them get out of their sin? What's the motivation behind it? Why do we do what we do? Romans 10, 14. How did God get us from one place to the other? How then shall we call on Him? Break in the middle, a little bit of a thought here, but you'll see where it's going. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? Talking about God. This is verse 14. And how shall they believe on Him of whom they have not heard? And how should they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things. Part of the gospel is peace.

Okay. Well, what's that mean? The beast's power comes and destroys the earth. Jesus comes back, destroys the army, and He has peace. No.

It's about the peace between you and God that we have to teach the world.

So I have to ask you, do you have peace between you and God? Here's the problem you and I face. And this is what we forget to. I'm going to use a word that will get me in trouble.

Grace. Now, I don't mean grace the way it's used by... What's the guy that... Oh, man. The guy in Houston. Joel Olstein. I can't sti... Did you ever watch Joel Olstein? Oh. My friends ask me. They say, Joel, how come? All the people in your church have such... all believe different doctrines. And I tell them, because that's the way it is in heaven. Oh, shut up, Joel. I say that in a peaceful way.

I don't hate the man. I have no animosity towards that man at all. I just want him to be converted. You see, the difference is, I can say the man's wrong. And I have no hatred towards him. Actually, he's very good at what he does. He is very good at playing an audience. In fact, he's a genius. But it's not the truth. He's not leading people to God. Do I hate him? No. Do I wish he'd be converted? Yes. Do I get upset at what he's doing? Yeah. Do I think he's doing it on purpose? I think he's deceived. Only God will determine where he ends up. Probably he'll end up in the kingdom with the rest of us. The rest of us kids. Will Joel Olsteen be less of a child of God than us? No.

So we have to make a stand against people like that. We have to sometimes make public stands. You ought to see some of the hate mail I get for things I say on the on today.

Because we make stands. It's not making the stand. It's the attitude by which we make the stand. That's the issue. What is God's purpose? Is it God's purpose to fry people? No, he does. Jesus cries in the back and he fries some people. But why does he do it? What is God's desire? We just read it. To reconcile all people to Him. To enter into a relationship. What is the relationship? Father-child. What is the relationship between Jesus Christ and us? Older brother, younger siblings. He says, that's what this is all about. I want to reconcile back to what you were made to be. We were made to be the children of God and our nature was changed.

And He has to change the nature to get us back. That means He has to come across the gap you and I can go across. You and I can modify behavior. I have seen people keep the Sabbath and never know the Sabbath.

I've seen people keep the Sabbath and never love it.

They modified behavior, but their nature never changed.

How did we bridge that gap? Here's what I mean by grace. It's a very simple concept. It's misused by people like Joel Steen. The Bible talks... Mr. Nimitz used one or two verses that he read this afternoon that used the word grace in it. So we can't ignore what it says.

Picture yourself on one side of the Grand Canyon. Whoever's been to the Grand Canyon, it's awesome. You can't believe. It's a mile down. And you're looking across... I think it's about five miles across at its widest point. Now, God's on the other side of the Grand Canyon. Get a running start and go over there.

What kind of running start do you need to jump the Grand Canyon?

You think a rocket pack's going to get you across there? There is no way to get from here to there. What is grace, then? So we don't want to use that word. It's what the Protestants use. I don't care how they use it. I want to use it the way the Apostle Paul used it. Or do we want to say Apostle Paul was a Protestant? So let's not care what they use. That's what the Bible says. I'm standing on one side of this chasm. Mr. Armstrong used to call it the gap. Go back and read the Incredible Human Potential. He said, there's a gap between us and God. You're on one side of the Grand Canyon, and God's on the other side. Right? Here's how he began to fix that. It wasn't because you and I jumped it. Hebrews, Chapter 2. Hebrews, Chapter 2. We are supposed to tell people how to cross, or how the chasm is crossed. Okay? That's what we're supposed to tell them. We know, because we tried to jump it. And we couldn't. Hebrews, Chapter 2, Verse 14.

We go back to this.

Inasmuch then as the children. That's you and me. That's also Hindus and Buddhists and everybody else that has the potential to be a child. Because this context of this just isn't the people who are becoming children, but all those who have the potential to be children. Inasmuch as the children have never taken a flesh and blood, He Himself, Jesus Christ, likewise shared the same. Now, understand what that means. The eternal Son of God found out what it was like to walk around and get hungry. The eternal Son of God found out what it was like to be working as a carpenter and miss that peg and slam His own thumb.

The eternal Son of God found out what it was like to get dirty and smell bad. I'm not trying to put Him down. I'm telling you this is what He became. You and I have to understand the sacrifice of what He did was more than just dying on the stake. He found out what it was like to have to go to the bathroom.

He found out what it was like to have to sleep.

He had to go through all that. Why?

Inasmuch as that's the way you and I are, that's what He became.

He became like us. We didn't cross the chasm. He did.

You and I can't get across the Grand Canyon to God. God came across the Grand Canyon to us. That's grace. That's all grace is. That's all it is. He came over here to our side because we couldn't get across it the other way. Notice what He says, Inasmuch then as the children have never taken flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death, what you and I fear and face, that through death, He might destroy Him, who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who fear of death for all their lifetime, subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore in all things He had to be made like His brethren. Who's He talking about? The one that it says in the Paulsians and Colossians, the one that God used the Father to create the universe had to become like His brethren.

Like you and me. He had to be 10 years old. He had to have His own family make fun of Him, which they did. His own family abandoned Him. His own brothers and sisters didn't believe He was the Messiah until after He was resurrected. Well, yeah, you can believe it now, right? His own best friends ran away when they came to arrest Him. He had to go through all of it. What's that feel like? Well, you know what that feels like. You don't think He knows what that feels like? You think He said, oh, don't worry, guys. I'll pick you up on the other end.

No, He became like us. That means when they ran away, He felt betrayed. That means when His brothers and sisters denied Him as the Messiah, He felt emotional hurt. You have to realize He became like us in all ways. And the first time that soldier slapped Him in the face, what did He want to do? I'm going to punch you in the nose, and then I'm going to stand here and call on some angels to pull you apart, limb from limb. How's that?

But He didn't.

Peacemaker. For indeed He does not, or verse 17, for in all things like His brother, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are suffered. Colossians 1. Colossians 1, verse 19.

Nothing happens till we go back here. Nothing happens till we go back here, to what we're talking about today. We have to go back and remember that we were the enemies of God. We were an abomination to Him, just like the rest of the world, and He jumped across that chasm for us. That's how we have to live life. That's how we have to treat each other. Until the conflict between you and me and God is solved, we'll never really solve the conflict with each other. When it's solved between you and God, a lot of this stuff really isn't that important.

It's just not that important. The person who cut you off in traffic, he just smiles a wave at him. Have a nice day! It's not that important! Colossians 1, 19. For it pleased the Father that in Him Christ all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace to the blood of His cross. And you who once were alienated and enemies. He's talking to the church, and He says, Now remember once, you were enemies of God. God doesn't look at you as an enemy anymore. He looks at you as a pretty messed up kid, but at least you're a kid.

I always tell my son, I said, when he was younger, he's 22 now, but when he was real young, first gave him the keys to the car, I said, why don't you remind you of something? You ever go out, I said, I want you to understand this from God's... You'll learn something about Christianity. You ever go out and drink and drive? You better hope I catch you. And he said, why? What do you do to me to be terrible? I said, it'll be nothing to what that judge does to you.

I said, you want to stand before God as judge or God as Father? That's the question. Until Christ comes across that chasm, you and I are facing God as judge. When he came across that chasm and died for us and went back, we started to react to God as Father. We still do wrong. See, that's why the law wasn't changed. It's still just as wrong to steal as it was before. It's just, I sure wish Dad catches me and not the police. Dad may beat me, but Dad's not going to put me in jail.

Dad might make me suffer, but he's not going to do to me what the judge does. That's why God keeps pleading to the world, I do not wish to be your judge. I wish to be your Father. Now, he's going to be the judge of some people, isn't he?

But what is it he wants? I want you to be reconciled to me. I want you to be in the relationship with me that you were designed to be in.

He says, you were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled. You are already reconciled to God. Now, it's not a complete work yet, but you're already in a relationship with God. When you get on your knees and pray to God, you go before God as a Father. You go before Jesus Christ as your brother. Every day! You're already in that part of reconciliation. In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight. And verse 23 says, if you indeed continue in the faith, you continue this way and God's going to reconcile you totally and completely at the resurrection. One final scripture, Romans 5.

Romans 5.

Because when we understand this, we begin to understand, and like I said, we won't talk about this today, but the idea of how we reconcile to other people.

How did God reconcile us to him? When we understand that, we will begin to understand how to treat others that we're in conflict with. Because what we usually say is, you are my enemy, and until you repent, I will not forgive you.

Right?

Can you imagine if God treated us that way?

We're the enemies of God. We're on the other side of the Grand Canyon, and he says, Well, I'll come over and interact with you when you repent. And we would say, Let's repent it.

We wouldn't even know what it is.

It would be meaningless.

Romans 5, verse 6.

For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's you and me. That's the drunk, homeless drunk guy that lives under the bridge down here. That's the agnostic that lives up here that isn't even sure there is a god. That's the person in Central Africa that worships rocks and trees and bugs.

He died for that person, too. He said, Well, they're the enemies of God. Yeah, they are.

Let's go on and say, verse 7. For scarcely, for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, that while we were yet still sinners, Christ did not die for you because you repented. God did not call you because you repented.

Look what it says. Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Verse 10. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more have Him been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

You and I were reconciled to God because God offered us forgiveness while we were still enemies before we repented. In fact, there's another place in Romans that says that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. In other words, unless Christ came across the chasm, you and I would even know what repentance meant. God has to touch you in your mind to open your mind. How many times have we said that? That's grace. You didn't open your mind. I didn't open my mind. God did it. Now, what we do with it is our decision. We have a part to play in this, but we didn't do it. God did it. And when we forget that, we treat each other differently.

We treat each other differently.

We forget the person next to us was the enemy of God. We forget the person next to us is an incomplete work. We forget that the person next to us God isn't done with yet. We forget that the person next to us is a sinner just like me. We forget that. And so what we do is say, let me get out my club and beat on you for a while.

Instead of, you know what? You need to repent.

Now, what's interesting in this process, and I'll end here, but there is another step to this. Christ comes across the chasm, dies for us, and goes back to the Father. Guess where it leaves us? Knowing that we're sinners still on the other side of the Grand Canyon. Now all we are is convicted. Until we came, we really didn't know the law. So Christ comes, and God opens your mind, and you say, Oh my, I'm a liar, a thief. I'm a person filled with greed and lust, and I'm a sinner. I need to repent. And you're stuck. But the next step in this is He gives us His Holy Spirit. That's when we just went through a Pentecost. God takes us back across the Grand Canyon. Through His Spirit, He takes us into His world. That's why you keep the Sabbath, that's why you keep the Holy Day. So that's why you understand the meaning of it. You didn't make it up. I didn't make it up. Why do we know it? Because God took us into His world.

God took us across the chasm. God took us across the gap. You and I couldn't do it on our own.

So the first step was what we talked about today.

He had to send Christ across this Canyon to us. We have to repent. That's our required response. After we repent, and that's only because He brings us to repentance. But we must respond. There's lots of people that won't respond. And God says, okay, you stay over here as my enemy. You respond, come here. You and I can be reconciled. Now, you're such a mess. To come over into my world, I'm going to have to give you a piece of myself. So God takes part of Himself, and He gives it to us. He's the opposite of what the New Age movement says. Discover the God within you. As a Christian, all you discover, if you go deep inside you... See, Hinduism is the same way. Hinduism says, if you go deep enough inside yourself, you'll discover the God within you.

True Christianity says, go deep inside yourself, and it's not, I'm okay, you're okay. You go deep inside yourself, and what you find out is, I'm doomed.

That's what you find.

When you get in there, you understand, I'm the enemy of God. True Christianity begins with that discovery, with God's help. And then God takes you where He wants you to go. We must follow, we must obey, we can turn against it. I'm not downplaying our part, and I'm sure not teaching... ...unequivocal eternal salvation, give your heart to the Lord, and you're okay. I'm saying, we have our part to play, but we must remember, our part is only a response.

We didn't initiate anything here. We didn't give ourselves anything. We didn't come up with anything.

And if you want the proof of it, I can tell you, there's one way to know you don't need this sermon. I can tell you right now. Resurrect yourself.

Die and resurrect yourself. You don't need this sermon. If you can't do that, you better listen.

Because we can't resurrect ourselves. We've got to go back to this. We've got to go back to the core of who we are, how we got where we are. Or we won't solve our problems in our marriages and our families. We won't solve our problems in our congregations. We won't solve these problems between all the churches. We'll never solve anything. You know why? It takes Christ to solve them. That's why. And we'll keep trying to do it ourselves. And we'll forget that deep inside of us, there is a war going on. You have a conflict going on inside of you. Because you have two natures.

I remember a woman once that told me... I don't remember her name, this was years ago, I never knew what happened to the woman. She came up to me and I was counseling with her. She was visiting me once every two weeks and she was going to a psychologist once every two weeks. She came in and she said, I'm not going to the psychologist anymore. And I said, you think that's a good idea? I mean, you've come a long way. She said, well, he was telling me a lot of the same things you were. But she said, he hit at the core of my problem. She said, he did, what did he tell you?

She said, I figured out what's wrong with you. He said, part of you wants to do what you want to do. And part of you wants to do what the Bible tells you to do. He says, you give up trying to do what the Bible says and the conflict won't be there anymore and you'll be free. And she said, I looked at me and it dawned on me and she said, I get it. I'm not crazy. I'm a Christian.

There you go. You and I have two natures in conflict. We must, we must be led by the Spirit of God. And not by the part of us that's still an enemy of God. Because when that happens, we will learn to be peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.