He Came and Preached

The point: Find tremendous comfort in the fact that Christ's promises, spoken through his servants, are as certain as if he spoke them directly.

He uses these characters from Pilgrim's Progress to represent timid and doubtful Christians who struggle with assurance due to past and present sins.

First of all, this concept should form the basis of tremendous comfort to the timid and to the doubtful. Am I speaking this morning to people who have reason to believe that you're Christians? You're like Mr. Fearing and Mr. Ready to Halt with some degree of weak faith you've laid hold of Christ as he's offered in the gospel. But there are many times when the accusations of your conscience and the chambers of memory bring up your past and present, and sins to such a degree that such gospel promises as these seem so distant and so unreal. Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. Come...

21:15 - 22:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Find tremendous comfort in the fact that Christ's promises, spoken through his servants, are as certain as if he spoke them directly.

This analogy illustrates the longing of a doubtful believer for a direct, audible word from Christ to calm their fears, emphasizing that the preached word is just as authoritative.

And you say, if only. If only I could have the Lord Jesus Himself stand three feet away from me and look into my face and say to me, look, I know all about your sins. I know everything that your conscience is troubling you about and more. I know everything that the banks of memory are throwing up into consciousness plus ten thousand times more than your own memory can recall.

22:31 - 22:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize that when the gospel is preached, you are dealing with Christ himself, and rejecting the message is rejecting the Son of God.

This extended story illustrates the folly of a rebel subject treating the king's ambassador kindly while rejecting the king's message of mercy, highlighting that kindness to servants is meaningless without submission to the King (Christ).

in all of his person in all the wonder of his saving work for sinners your dealings are with him and it will not do to comfort yourself that you're kind to his servants imagine with me if you will by way of illustration a king a gracious a kind king and in his kingdom there is a man who set himself in opposition the authority to the rules the government of the king the king has every right to send out his troops and to seize this man and to commit him to prison or even to death because of his foul revolt against the government of the king but the king because he is a beneficent kind gracious f...

30:38 - 32:07 Read in full sermon