February 26
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Matthew 23:37.
When we proclaim the Gospel, we are telling the Good News that, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation . . . (God) made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,” 2 Corinthians 5:19, 21. We are assuring sinners, one and all, that, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin,” 1 John 1:7. There is no sin too great or too grievous to be forgiven. Neither is there any sinner who is excluded. The message of the Gospel is for everyone. “He died for all,” 2 Corinthians 5:15. All sins have been paid for, and all sinners are included!
Does God the Holy Spirit sincerely desire to bring all sinners to repentance and faith? The answer is, “Yes!” The prophet Ezekiel wrote, “‘As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!’” Ezekiel 33:11. The apostle Peter wrote, “The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance,” 2 Peter 3:9. The apostle Paul wrote, “(God) desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” 1 Timothy 2:4.
Having declared the Gospel so clearly, it is natural that a question arises. If Christ died to save all, and God desires the salvation of all, then why are not all people saved? Scripture also answers this question. Many in their unbelief and their rejection of Jesus as God’s Son and their Savior stubbornly close their ears to the voice of the Holy Spirit and are eternally lost because of their own fault.
Think of the ministry of Jesus. How He pleaded with the people of Israel! Yet the vast majority rejected His pleading. The evangelist John writes at the beginning of his Gospel, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him,” John 1:11. At the beginning of the first Holy Week, when Jesus came near to Jerusalem, “He saw the city and wept over it,” Luke 19:41. Yes, He cried out to the people, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”
Today, how many are unwilling to hear the voice of Jesus as He calls for repentance and faith! How many refuse to listen to Christ-exalting pastors who urge and invite them to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man, who suffered and died on the cross at Calvary to wash away our sins and who rose from the dead to conquer death and the devil! Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not turn a deaf ear to His call!
Today Thy mercy calls us, To wash away our sin.
However great our trespass, Whatever we have been,
However long from mercy, Our hearts have turned away,
Thy precious blood can cleanse us, And make us white today.
O all-embracing Mercy, O ever-open Door,
What should we do without Thee, When heart and eye run o’er?
When all things seem against us, To drive us to despair,
We know one gate is open, One ear will hear our prayer. Amen.