USE OR APPLICATION-Exhortation to the people to hearken to God’s ambassadors 1/2

            

                                                        

           Are ministers ambassadors?  This shows the gos­pel ministry to be an office peculiar to some, not a work common to all.  An ambassador we know is someone who hath his commission and credential let­ters from his prince to show for his employment.  It is not a man's skill in state affairs that makes him an ambassador, nor ability in the law that makes a man a magistrate, but their call to these places.  Neither do gifts make a man a minister, but his mission: ‘How can they preach except they be sent?’  The rules which the Spirit of God gives about the minister’s admission into his function were all to no purpose if it lay open to every man's own choice to make him a preacher.  ‘Lay hands suddenly on no man,’ I Tim. 5:22; that is, admit none to the ministry without good proof and trial.  But why should any be set apart for that which every one may do?  This leads to an exhortation, 1. To the people.  2. To the minister.

           Exhortation 1. To the people.  Be persuaded in the fear of God to hearken to the message these am­bassadors bring.  What mean you to do in the busi­ness they come to treat about?  Will you be friends with God or not?—take Christ by faith into your embraces, or resolve to have none of him?  We are but ambassadors; back again we must go to our Mas­ter that sends us, and give an account what comes of our negotiation.  Shall we go and say, Lord, we have been with the men thou sentest us unto; thy message was delivered by us according to our instructions; we told them fire and sword, ruin and damnation, would come upon them, if they did not at thy call repent and turn; we laid both life and death before them, and spared not to reveal ‘the whole counsel of God’ for their salvation; but they believed never a word we spake; we were to them as those that mocked, or told what we had dreamed in the night, and not the words of truth an faithfulness?  O God forbid that this should be the report which at their return they make to God of their negotiation!  But the more to affect you with the importance of their message, and your answer to it, consider these things following:

           (1.) Consider the wonderful love of God in send­ing you these ambassadors.  Is it not a prince that sends to one of his own rank, but a God to his rebel creature; against whom he might have sent, not an ambassador to treat, but an army of judgments to fight and destroy.  It is not against rebels that are en­trenched in some place of strength, or in the field with a force wherewith you are able to resist his power; but to his prisoners fettered and manacled —to you that have your traitorous head on the block. It is not any need he hath of your life that makes him desire your salvation.  A prince sometimes saves his rebellious subjects because he needs their hands to fight for him, and weakens himself by shedding their blood; but God can ruin you, and not wrong himself. If you perish, it is without his damage.  The Pharisees are said to reject ‘the counsel of God against themselves,’ Luke 7:30.  It is you that suffer, not God.

           (2.) Consider what an intolerable affront is given to the majesty of heaven by rejecting his offers of grace.  Princes’ requests are commands.  Who dare deny a king what he asks? and darest thou, a poor thimbleful of dust, stout it out against thy Maker?  It is charged upon no less than a king as an act of insufferable pride, that ‘he did...evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jere­miah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord,’ II Chr. 36:12. But what! must a king come down from his throne, and humble himself before a poor prophet that was his own subject.  God will not have him tremble and bow, not to Jeremiah, but to ‘Jere­miah...speaking from the mouth of the Lord.’  O, consider this, ye that think it childish and poor-spirited to weep at a sermon, to humble yourselves at the reproof of a minister!  Your carriage under the word preached declares what your thoughts of God himself are.  When Naash slighted David’s ambassa­dors, and abused them, the king took the scorn upon himself.  ‘I will publish the name of the Lord,’ saith Moses, ‘ascribe ye greatness unto our God,’ Deut. 32:3.  How should they ascribe greatness to God while Moses is preaching to them.  Surely he means by their humble attendance on, and ready obedience to, the word he delivered in God’s name.