And obviously, you've heard me read from Hebrews 13, eight already. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. And here we've read from Paul's instruction regarding ministry and the message that they had been entrusted with as one to carry the word of reconciliation. Now that we beg, we call, we plead, for people to come, be reconciled to God. And we wanna consider that gospel message today, but I wanna do so in light of news that has been also on the TV. And as we think about things that never change in our world, heresy also is something that never changes. It just continually is wrong. And I say that to say, that if you pay attention to any news outlet, you know that for the year of 2025, the Roman Catholic Pope has declared the year of jubilee, the year of jubilee. And from what I understand, every 25 years, there is a declaration of a Jubilee year. And in that span of that one year, during that Jubilee year, the offer of indulgences comes back. And so as we think about time and how time changes, old heresies just keep coming up and coming up and coming up. And the selling of indulgences is really what sparked the Protestant Reformation many, many, many years ago. I think roughly coming up now on maybe 508 years ago. And as we think about that, you know, Martin Luther was really burdened by the fact that there was being a preachers sent out from the Roman Catholic Church to preach a message regarding the selling of indulgences and Johann Tetzel was one that is most popularized for his preaching in those low-lining areas and villages outside of the Rome and all and he would proclaim as A coin was placed in his coffer, and I've told you this before. I love the old 1980s Disney portrayal of Robin Hood, okay? The little cartoon version, you know, and I picture Johan Tetzel as Sheriff of Nottingham, okay, that's walking around with his cup. and he's collecting taxes. Prince John has issued taxes and he's walking around getting all the taxes. Well, he's coming around, I mean, he's knocking coins out of people's cast on their feet. I mean, they're trying to find every coin they can. And Johann Tetzel's famous slogan was, as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory Springs. That was his famous one liner. And he would preach messages that really would grip the hearts of those villagers in the sense that you want to give to this and you want to buy these indulgences because cannot you hear your mother's cry from Purgatory as the flames rise up? touching her feet where she lied. Don't you want to free them from this awful place? And so in order to do that, they were pinned in the corner, so to speak. They would flock to just give their money, give their alms, give all they had to the church in order to purchase these indulgences. To lessen the time of their loved ones in purgatory. Now, some may think that this selling of indulgences has gone away, but it hadn't. Part of this pilgrimage for 2025 is the declaration of indulgences, what is being called a plenary indulgence. A plenary indulgence is a grace that is granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ to remove the temporal punishment due to sin. These indulgences apply to sins that have already been forgiven. A plenary indulgence cleanses a soul as if a person had just been baptized. Plenary indulgences obtained during the jubilee year can also be applied to souls in purgatory with the possibility of obtaining two plenary indulgences for the deceased in one day according to the apostolic penitentiary. Now, to obtain an indulgence, Now this is all off their website. To attain an indulgence, the usual conditions of detachment from all sin, sacramental confession, holy communion, and prayer for the intentions of the pope must be met. So this is how you can get an indulgence this year offered by the Roman Catholic Church. You can make a pilgrimage to Rome, and if you make your pilgrimage to Rome, you have to visit one of four major basilicas in Rome and say enough prayers in that basilica. Secondly, you can perform acts of mercy. In other words, you could sit with someone who is sick on their deathbed, you could go and visit those in prison, you could spend time with people that needed help, maybe for them to run an errand. Or thirdly, you could fast from social media, you could defend life, or you could volunteer. Those are the ways in which you could get indulgences this year. And that's all available right now, starting in the year of 2025. Brothers and sisters, this discussion of how can a sinner be made right with God has gone on for a long time, a long time. And it will continue to go on and go on and go on and go on. And you and I, must be those who stand as a voice for the truth. We must be those who stand for the voice of the gospel, the pure gospel, the gospel of the word, not the gospel plus the works of men, but the gospel pinpointing the works of Christ and Christ alone being sufficient to atone for our sin. We want to remember today that Rome taught and still does. that sanctification, sanctification is an operation of the church, not an operation of God, but an operation of the church, which they refer to as sacerdotal operations. Now that means that justification, you and I as justification, then mainly takes place primarily through the use of the sacramental system. So in other words, for you or anyone to be justified, Rome teaches that you must go through the process of the sacerdotal operation, that you have to go through the process of sacraments in order for you to reach the stage or the point in your life where you're justified before God. At the Council of Trent, which was a response to all that Luther started, They use the term cooperare et ascentare, and that was in Latin. That means that what you do either has to cooperate with the grace of God or whatever you do has to be so good that it can ascend to the grace of God and be accepted by God. It either has to cooperate with the grace you've been given or it has to ascend as being such a meritorious work that God himself cannot pass on deeming you a reward for it. Now, Rome teaches that faith is necessary for justification. However, they say that faith is the initiation of our justification. that faith is the root of our justification, and that faith is the foundation of our justification. And you say, preacher, then what is different? I'm so, so glad that you asked that question. What's different? If they teach that faith is the initial cause, it is the root cause, and it is the foundational cause, then what are you up there blabbing about that makes us so different? You ready? We're teaching that faith is sufficient. Faith alone is sufficient for a sinner to be justified in the sight of God. Not that it's the root cause, not that it's the initial cause, not that it's the foundational cause, but that it is the sufficient cause of justification. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ. That's it. Hard stop. Hard stop. If you come at me with any extra, I hear you not. It is Christ and his work alone. That's it. And Rome teaches. that faith is not sufficient to bring one to a state of justification. So in their teaching, that is going to be a prominent thing throughout the year 2025, because there's going to be millions of people making a pilgrimage to Rome. They're expecting a mass traveling, you know, scourge happening this year. And so if you're in a You may have faith, they would tell you, but if a person dies in a mortal sin, you go to hell. If a person dies with any sin, imperfection, then you must go to purgatory and endure its fires until it's purified and then all those impurities are melted away and then you're able to be granted into the presence of God. I hope you see what's at stake here. If I thought that what I had to do to get into heaven was to arrive at a state of righteousness in my own life without any imperfections. That would be horrible news. Horrible. I thought it would be very fitting what Brother John said in Sunday school this morning. You know, once the Lord saves us, we trust in Him, we know we're in Christ, it's an amazing thing, right? To know you're a Christian, to know that you've trusted in Jesus, it's an amazing thing. But years after being in Christ, You may wake up and as he said, which I think, I was thinking the same thing he was saying, because I feel it myself, the amazement kind of switches some from, not only did he save you, but he's kept you. He's kept you. You're still his. He's kept you a Christian. Because if it was up to me and you, there would never be any peace. There would never be any hope. So what do we know as Christians that bring us hope? Well, it's the message that never changes. And hopefully you never change it as well. I want to refresh your memory, thinking back to Genesis chapter three, the fall of man. We know that God gave Adam a command in Genesis chapter two, verse 16, 17. We know that Adam failed, Adam sinned. He and Eve failed and partook of the tree that they were told and forbidden to stay away from. And they willfully participated in the eating from that tree, and Eve followed the snake, Adam followed Eve, and no one followed God. This threw them both, you could say, into a place that they had never known. Have you ever thought about the immediacy following their rebellion? I mean, they went from perfect harmony, perfect peace, perfect fellowship with God, to immediately knowing they were naked and separated, fearful, shame. They went from one aspect in their life to the next, feeling things that were foreign to them. And I can only imagine their discussions. But it threw them both into a place they had not known, and that place they didn't know was separation from God. They were separated from the Lord. They were in a place of fear. They were in a place of shame. Their eyes were open, according to Genesis 3, 7. Their eyes were open. They had they had reached for anything they could to cover themselves up. They had even reached for fig leaves. I mean, fig leaves. Sinners will do anything they can to try to hide their sin from God, even use a fig leaf. But nothing, nothing can stand the view of the Lord. They passed in that moment from life to death. They went from being in a state of innocence to a state of guilt. They went from having peace to now knowing what it was to have fear. They went from, all those transitions took place in that moment that they sinned. And now in the midst of a garden, that would be bad news if we didn't have the rest of the story, wouldn't it? But there was a little promise made to Eve when the Lord said it would be from her seed that one would come and bruise the head of the serpent. It was a very gracious and merciful promise. And so I wanna ask you today, how did that happen? How did God do it? Well, let's walk through our text and we'll see how God did that. I want you to consider what Paul is saying here to the church, beginning in verse 18. And I really probably should just stick on verse 21, but I don't want you to think I'm skipping 18 to 20. So let's just kind of do a flyover here of these three verses. Really, you need to take into all of chapter five. But verse 18, Paul says, now all these things are from God. Aren't you glad he don't say, now all these things are from man? Aren't you glad he don't say now all these things are from your doing? But he says all these things are from God. Well, what are all these things? Well, if you back up, most of us know verse 17. If anyone in Christ, he's a what? He's a new creature, new creation. Well, who's that from? All these things are from who? From God. It's God's doing. It's God's doing that you were made new. It's God who's done that. Now, verse 18, again, he says, who reconciled us to himself through Christ. So God is the one who's reconciled us to himself through Christ. And not only did he reconcile us through Christ to himself, but he gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, well, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, as he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. So in other words, what Paul says here is this is God's doing. Reconciliation is what God has done. He has reconciled sinners to himself through his son, Jesus Christ. And now not only have we been reconciled, but we have been given the word of reconciliation. And the word of reconciliation is the gospel, the good news of Christ. That's the gospel. And so he goes on to say here in verse 20, therefore, so since that is true, What does that, what does that conclude? Here's the conclusion in verse 20. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. Most of us probably learned that in VBS. You're ambassadors for Christ. That word ambassador may throw you off. Let me give you another word. You are a representative of Christ. You are a spokesman of Christ. You bear the message of your king. That's what ambassador means. He goes on to say here that as though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Boy, there is a element in the Christian life that we should plead with sinners to come to Christ. Come to Christ. And Paul says, we beg you, we beg you. Can I ask you a question? And I think this may be a question for all of us to wrestle with, but when's the last time you begged anyone to look to Jesus? When's the last time you begged anyone to be reconciled to God? You know, Paul has a way of cutting us at the heart, don't he? I think often about what he said in Romans 9. He says he'd almost, he'd be willing to trade his spot. He'd be willing, he said, if I could, that they could have my place, that all my countrymen may know. Brothers and sisters, I pray that as we see that little phrase, Paul says there, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. I pray that we'll see the passion and the zeal that Paul had for summoning those to Christ, to beg them, to beg them. I think the begging we see today is probably from those, mostly our children, that want something, amen? Oh, daddy, please, please, daddy. Well, not that I know from experience, anyway. Nothing like being a preacher's kid. But you ever thought about begging? Passionately pleading with someone to be reconciled to God? Well, what is the message then that we plead with them about? That's the question. And the answer is verse 21. Here's our message. Here's the message we tell. It don't involve indulgences. It don't involve purgatory. It don't involve sanctification there. It involves God, his son, and the work of the spirit in sinners. That's what it involves. And I want you to know today that the gospel is very simple. The gospel is very straightforward, and I want you to see it in parts here, three headings. I want you to see, first of all, the father. the father. Look at verse 21. Here's our reconciliation message. Here's what we're begging centers to do. Be reconciled to God. Now look at verse 21. He says he made, and I'm going to stop right there. He made. Now some of you are a little excited last Sunday. I know about the 30 minute mark I hit. I understand that. But I'm not making any promises today, okay? All right, so back to regular scheduled programming. So as we think about He made, what do we do with He made? Well, let's think about it. Look at the end of verse 20. Be reconciled to God. So the antecedent for he is God, the father. Be reconciled to the father. Reconciliation is God's plan. It says in here, verse 21, he may. So this is God's plan. It could not occur unless God initiated it, formed it, and applies it. Sinners cannot devise their own religious approach to God. The approach to God comes from God himself. That's it. You and I cannot devise the plan because we have darkened minds and dead hearts. You and I, according to scripture, are dead in our trespasses and sin. The condemning lie of, quote unquote, religion. Religion is simply man's efforts to please God. And that every time falls flat on its face in failure. Brothers and sisters, there's not a man that is on this planet today that can reconcile himself to God by his own efforts. Not one. But all attempts of religion have certainly fallen and been futile. The only way reconciliation, the only way a sinner can be made right with God, and the only way that takes place is if it is God who reaches out to sinners. If it is God who reaches out to sinners, reconciliation is all of God. It's all of him. It's not our works. It's not God and man, but it's simply God. This is God's doing, according to verse 19. Clearly, then, reconciliation is not something we do. It is something that God has accomplished and this ministry that you and I have been entrusted with of preaching this message or teaching this message or telling this message of reconciliation is simply it's not just telling people to make peace with God, but it's telling them that God has made peace with the world. If I walk up and tell Brother Johnny, Brother Johnny, make peace with God. He's in a bind. because he ain't got nothing to offer to the plate. But if I tell him God has made peace, God has made peace through his son, then something he has there before him, he can grab ahold to. It's not something he brings to the plate, it's me telling him what God is offering him, what God has done. One writer said it this way, at the bottom, the gospel is not good advice, but it's good news. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. Many of us remember Romans 5. It says that at the right time, so if we were, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received reconciliation. We don't make peace. Peace has been purchased. OK, you and I fall short of making peace, but the peace you and I needed has been purchased by the blood of Christ. This is God's doing. Notice the phrase here. Be reconciled to God at the end of verse 20. Be reconciled to God. If you study the original language, you're going to find that this is not active. voice. This is passive. So in other words, this is not telling you what to do. This is telling you what God has done. It's not telling you what to do. It's telling you what God's done. So it's not telling you what to do in order to receive it. It's telling you to what God has done, calling you to believe it. That's what is taking place here. It does not say reconcile yourselves to God, but just simply be reconciled, receive God's offer of reconciliation. This promise was made a long time ago. Isaiah 53, he was wounded for transgression. He was bruised for our iniquity and the chastisement for our peace was upon him. And by his stripes, we are healed. The gospel is not reconcile yourselves. The gospel is be reconciled, receive the gift. This is God bringing the world back into a forgiven, restored state. And he does this by means of a word, and that word is the gospel. It's only God that knew what it would take to rescue sinners from the dominion of darkness and transfer them to the kingdom of his beloved son. Therefore, only God can Arthur and execute a plan that would bring about redemption and reconciliation of sinners. God, the offended one, is also the one who initiated the process for those who alienated themselves from Him to be reconciled back to Him. That's what God did. How'd He do it? 1 John 1, 4, verse 10. In this is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin. This is God's doing. God's doing. Well, how did he do it? How did God purchase reconciliation? How did God bring about reconciliation? Notice the rest of verse 21. The second heading we want to note this morning is not only do we see first of all the father, but the second heading we want to note is the son. The son. Or you could put the substitute. The substitute. Notice verse 21, he made him. He made him. So God the father made him. Well, who is this him? The son, the Lord Jesus Christ is only begotten. He made him. This is the heart of the atonement. How this is the how reconciliation happened. This is what Paul has stated in other places throughout the Bible. He said in Galatians three, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. There it is. How were we redeemed from the curse of the law? Christ became a curse for us, which implies that Jesus Christ was my substitute. Jesus Christ simply, you can put it this way. If you don't want to use the word substitute, you can say it this way. Jesus Christ took my place. Jesus took my place for curse is everyone who hangs on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith. He also said in Romans 8 3, for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness and requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Now here's what I want to kind of zero in on this morning. Look at verse 21 again, he made him. So this him is Christ, but what did God the Father and the Son do? What happened here? It said he made him, notice the next phrase there, who knew no sin. Theologians call this the impeccability of Christ, just simply means the sinlessness of Christ. Christ was without sin. Christ had no sin, none, none at all. But notice the next phrase here. Him who knew no sin, next three words, to be sin. That almost sounds like we're treading on some unsettled ground. Him who knew no sin to be sin. What does that mean? What does it mean that Christ, who knew no sin, the Father made to be sin? Well, Paul has even spoken like this before, has he not? If you remember thinking about the incarnation, God sent Christ in the likeness of what? Sinful flesh. Or, as we just read in Galatians 3, he became a curse for us. I want you to know that the sinlessness of Christ is proclaimed throughout all of his life. I don't want you to miss that first. Jesus said in John 8, 46, which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak the truth, he says, why do you not believe me? 1 Peter 2, 22, him who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. 1 John 3, 5, and you know that he was manifested to take away our sin, and in him there is no sin. Even a lost man knew this, you ready? You remember Pilate standing before the crowd? What did he say? Pilate said to the chief priest in the crowd, I find no fault in him. Nothing. Nothing. Only the one who had obeyed the law of God perfectly and completely was fit to suffer the punishment due to those who had willfully disobeyed the law. And only Christ, who was entirely without sin of his own, was free to bear the sins of others. The Bible speaks of this like this, the just for the what? Unjust. Or you could say the righteous for the unrighteous. Theologians have called this the great exchange. But what does it mean that he, who knew no sin is made sin. Be careful here because what you do not read is that God made him a sinner. You don't read that. It says God made him sin. It don't say that God made Christ a sinner. It says him who knew no sin was made sin, made him to be sin. So God made him sin, not sinner. That is to say, what does that mean? That's the question. So here's the answer. This is what that says. God the Father made his innocent incarnate son the object of his wrath and judgment for our sakes. The result is that in Christ on the cross, the sin of the world is judged and taken away. To be sin means that on the cross, Christ didn't become a sinner, but rather he was treated as though he was guilty. Christ didn't become a sinner on the cross. Christ was treated as though he was condemned. All of our sin was placed on him. Every bit of it. And can you imagine he who knew no sin to be drenched in the filth of sinfulness? I think we look at the scourging and we look at the beating and we look at the nails in the hands. But can you imagine he who knew no sin at that moment? Taking upon himself the sins of his people. On Christ, the full force of God's judgment and wrath against sin had fallen. And so it's in him as our arc. That centers find shelter from that judgment. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. On our behalf. Let me ask you the question here. Why did God do that? Don't you love those two words in the Bible when it says so that? It helps me know the answer. So that why did he made him who knew no sin to be sent on our behalf? Why did he do that? Here's your answer. so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. What is the result of the father placing our sin on his son on the cross? Ready? Reconciliation. It wasn't the number of prayers I prayed. It wasn't a pilgrimage I took. It wasn't the money I gave. It wasn't the baptism I got in. It wasn't the church I went to. It wasn't my great, great, great, great grandfather's donation of land to the church. No, what was it? It was God working through his son to reconcile me. That's what it was. There is no plus, there is no minus. It is the father has sent his son to take our sin on the cross so that you might be made righteous. I don't see any more commas, do you? I don't see any more periods, semicolons, whatever you wanna have. Seems pretty straightforward. So what does this mean, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him? That's salvation. There's your third heading. Real original, right? The Father, the Son, and the salvation. What is the result of such grace? What is the result of such mercy? What is the result of such love? The righteousness of God being gifted to you. That's the result. This is the amazement of the gospel, the Christian message, is that we become acceptable to God, not by what we do, but by what he has done. That's the amazement of the gospel. This is what people stumble over. You remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1 on the wisdom of the world and the confusion among the Jews. He said in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30, but by his doing, you are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. I love the way Dane Ortlund said this here. He, being Christ, the billionaire, takes our unpayable debt We the beggar receive his bottomless fortune. That's basically what happened. All of our sin credited to Christ and his righteousness credited to us. And therefore, we are not trying to sanctify ourselves to a point of justification, but rather, by grace through faith in Jesus, we are declared righteous. The benefit of God imputing believers' sins to Christ and his righteousness to them is that they become righteous before him. Here's the amazing thing. The very righteousness that God requires before he can accept the sinner is the very righteousness he provides for the sinner. He don't say, all right, here it is, here's your list. Now, go see how good you can do. Hope you turn out well. I hope you've let your children or grandchildren or whatever And, you know, watch the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you know, that, Lord of the Rings. Well, we can talk about all that later, but there's one point in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan, he's in the tent, and Edmund has sinned, and the, The other siblings are standing there, they're not really knowing the outcome, and the wicked witch who represents Satan, she has come, and as she has come to declare that that sinner belongs to her, Aslan steps out and says, come, let us talk. And they come and talk, and then after they talk, you know, the wicked witch goes back and says, Dennis, you really don't say anything. And you can tell Aslan's demeanor had changed. And Lucy noticed it. And she looked at him and she could see he had a lot on his shoulders. And that night, Lucy was waking as Aslan was leaving the tent, making his way through the dark forest. And they followed along behind him. And as he got to where he was going, Aslan surrendered himself to the condemnation, basically, of the law in the place of Edmund. And the lion lays down, the wicked witch takes the knife and sticks it right in his heart. And the children see it. And the message, they couldn't believe he gave his life so that Edmund could go free. And they sit there all night and cried on that stone tablet. And I think, Brother George, there's an old southern gospel song that says, and then came the morning. And then came the morning where the stone tablet was cracked and Aslan was no longer there. And the children were wondering where he was. Obviously with creativity, the sun beams and you see the shadow of Aslan standing. Because on the third day he had rose again. He says, Aslan's on the move. And a great fight and victory happens. There's a lot of awesome creativity in all of that. But the same be true for you and me, brothers and sisters. We stood guilty just like Edmund. And the Lord gave his life into the hands of condemnation that you and I would no longer be condemned. He was forsaken on the cross when he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So that you and I could be set free. Jesus paid the full penalty. I have no sin that has not been dealt with on the cross. Did you hear that? No sin, past, present, and future has all been dealt with at Calvary. The scripture says, how blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven. whose sin is covered. It says, as far as the East is from the West, so far he has removed our transgression from us. So in light of all the talk about the Jubilee indulgences and so forth, brothers and sisters, I want to be the voice of reason this morning and remind you that you and I have something to boast about. And it's not the fact that indulgences have been reopened for another opportunity to be purchased, but rather that we have another year that we can live out and celebrate the good news of Jesus. That what he's done is sufficient. Every bit of it, past, present, future has been dealt with on the cross if you have come to him by grace through faith. I love, there was a cardinal satellite I just had a joke pop in my mind. There's a reason he may be sad a lot, you know, like the Pharisees and Sadducees. You know, Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection, that's why they were Sadducees. And so the Cardinal sad a lot. He may have been sad a lot because he I always had a lot to do, I don't know. Anyway, I'll leave it alone. But he had written a reply to one historical theologian, John Calvin. And Calvin said this, and I felt, I said, man, I can't say that no better. But I want you to hear what he said. He said, we show that the only haven of safety is in the mercy of God as manifested in Christ. in whom every part of our salvation is complete. As all mankind are in the sight of God, law sinners, we hold that Christ is their only righteousness, since by his sacrifice, I'm sorry, since by his obedience, he wiped off our transgressions. By his sacrifice, appeased the divine anger. By his blood, washed away our stains. By his cross, bore our curse. And by his death, made satisfaction for us. We maintain that in this way man is reconciled in Christ to God the Father by no merit of his own, by no value of his works, but by gracious mercy. Gracious mercy. There was a question asked in Sunday school and I was going to give the illustration then, but I'm going to close with it. because I think it would be helpful. As Christians, I think there'll be days where you sometimes wonder if you really got this figured out or not. You ever just wake up and wonder? Man, I wonder sometimes. You fight sometimes those things. You struggle. I don't think days of struggling are immune to Christians. I think we battle with sin every day. And sometimes, if we're not careful, because we have minds that want to perform and checklist things, we tend to try to reassure ourselves that we're right with God based on how good we're performing. That's typically how it happens. I end up judging my status with God, whether I'm gonna tell my buddies or not, really subconsciously based on if I've really completed, what today? Day five of my daily Bible reading for the year. If you're like me, you've probably missed up already. You know, man, I promised I was gonna pray four times last week, but I got at least three and a half. I'm just meddling. You get my point is that Christians are the world's worst about trying to reassure themselves of the peace they have with God based on the performance they're living. Well, D.A. Carson gave an illustration one time and I've used it here and I think it'd be appropriate to use it again. And we should pray for him. I think he had to step aside from ministry at Ligonier and all because of Parkinson's. But he gave this illustration. He said, consider the days of Moses. when they were preparing for the death angel to come through the land that night. And say you have two families, okay? They've heard from Moses, Moses received word from God that the plague that night was going to be the death angel to come through, he was gonna take the firstborn in every house. What you needed to do was take the lamb, have the lamb killed, put the blood on the doorpost, and then they were instructed on how to eat the rest of the lamb. So you got two men, let's give them very two Jewish names, okay, Blake and Johnny. So, you know, you got the McDaniel household and you got the Millwood household, okay? And they're out, you know, piddling around outside and Blake and Johnny happen to walk up on each other and both of them are believers, both of them are trusting God. And conversation strikes up. Johnny says, hey man, you got things together for the night? You remember what Moses had told us? And Blake says, yeah, I do, I do. And Johnny says, man, you seem a little, you seem a little unsettled, a little nervous. I mean, you okay? Yeah, man, I'm just scared to death. I mean, I don't wanna lose my baby. I don't want nothing to happen. And Johnny says, man, just trust God. Just trust his word. Just put the blood on the doorpost. It's gonna be fine. I mean, don't you believe it? Yeah, I trust him. I'm just, I'm scared. I mean, I'm scared to even go to sleep tonight. Because if I lay down, I mean, just what if, you know? I struggle with what ifs, Johnny. Well. Day goes by, both men take the lamb, and both of them put the blood on their doorpost, and they happen to see each other one more time that evening, and Johnny said, did you get everything? Take care, I got it, man. Got it, everything's good. You okay? No, I'm not, it's about to be dark. He says, well, everything's gonna be good, man. And Blake says, well, whatever you say, we'll just try to make it through. Both of them go in the house. They roast the lamb as they're told, everything takes place. And later that night, they all fall asleep and the death angel comes through. And so here's the question. Which one of those men, based on the faith that they exercised, lost their children that night? Neither one. Neither of them? No. Why? Because the assurance of their salvation did not rest in the strength of their faith. It rested in the presence of the blood. What's the old hymn, Brother George? Are you washed in the blood? I know, I know. Are you washed in the blood? That'd be a good question to ask yourselves this morning. If you're not, there's another one, isn't there? Oh, why not tonight? Not tonight. Oh, I know. Why not today? Why not today? Would you trust him? Would you be reconciled to God? And for the Christian, rest in Jesus. Let's pray.