Reconciliation

"Reconciliation" – Joel 2:12-13 There is something hard for the human being: so often we claim to have the knowledge, and that almost always leads us into acts of rebellion. If there is anything of great obligation that we have with God, it is that we have had a reconciliation with Him. And reconciliation is not a mere restoration: it means beginning again, and it offers a relationship with God that a human being could never reach by his own strength. What is spoken of here is not only those who are in sin, but how we stay behind when we could be further ahead. Rend your heart, and not your garments.

I. Turn ye even to me with all your heart... and rend your heart, and not your garments (Joel 2:12-13).

A. The soul is what rules by nature.

1. We are soul, body, and spirit. A child has his soul in plain view and has not developed the spirit; the spirit is developed when we begin to know God directly.

2. The soul confuses, the soul bewilders, and the soul casts down. Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God.

3. That is why our mouth is so sensitive to the soul; and as the soul sets us, the mouth is quick to speak. It is the absence of knowing oneself to be a spiritual person.

4. If you weigh the message, you can examine yourself and say that automatically, by instinct, you speak. Why? Because of the soul; and the soul speaks so much that it disquiets.

5. I have already seen that nothing on earth gives contentment: what contents you today, tomorrow some small thing will spoil. No one can claim permanent contentment with human beings.

B. Forgive us our debts.

1. It is not that Jesus needed that prayer: we need that prayer. And each day, coming to that part, it is something that gives pain.

2. When one has to say: Lord, forgive me, because I have not done this; Lord, forgive me, because I have not loved as I ought to have loved.

3. That is not automatic: it is a wholly disciplined prayer. For it is easy not to pray; it is more comfortable to fall into life's trifles than to keep a prayer.

4. Neither you nor I deserve anything: we deserve punishment. Today we think well and tomorrow ill; today we love and tomorrow we detest humanity; today we want to do what is upright and tomorrow we are filled with passions.

5. For to do good and not to do it is sin. It is that simple. You could have done good to many and never did, because you say: let each one mind his own.

6. And that is not an impulse, nor because I want to, nor because I am pretending: it is for one reason only, because I love.

II. Reconciliation is not a mere restoration: it means beginning again.

A. A relationship not reached by one's own strength.

1. To do good and not do it is the absence of a reward. You will arrive in heaven with a salvation, certainly; but the salvation Christ paid in full.

2. You have done nothing to be saved, nor to have that blood. You did not come to the Lord because you wanted to: some through troubles, some through circumstances, some through sickness.

3. There are routines of recited prayers, and care must be taken where they land; in those routines what is done is to clean the conscience that accuses. For that is what a conscience is for: the conscience accuses. But you sear it.

4. The human being is very proud, and it is not about how the hair is done: it is inside, in that depth of a silence that becomes our accomplice. No one can finish you off: your silence is what finishes you.

5. Do you think a child can work some wonder for you? Or that a mother can work wonders? We absolutely cannot; we are limited. The one who works wonders is God, and from us flows simply the service of love.

B. To be born again by the power of the Spirit.

1. The day we were converted, if Jesus came and washed you with His precious blood, it was so that the Holy Spirit might come fully into our lives.

2. And that strength enters, so that you are no longer common or ordinary: you do not speak foolishness, nor move according to what your old self dictates.

3. For your own personality imposes itself so much that it eclipses the Holy Spirit in your life.

4. The person who has the Holy Spirit is not merely the one who comes to church: it is the one who knows he is led by Him, that He reveals the Scriptures, and that He is the one who convicts.

5. The Holy Spirit cannot be where there are stains. Your case you can defend with another mortal; but before the Holy Spirit one cannot defend oneself.

6. Reconciliation is the putting away of anger. If God wants to use you, and you are part of His body, and you are living a fifth of it in the flesh, there can be no such relationship.

III. Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing (John 9:7).

A. Jesus was on His way to reconcile a blind man to Himself.

1. Could Jesus not have healed him at once right there? But clay that heals is not what one associates with medicine.

2. Why does Jesus come to this blind man out of the whole multitude? Because He went straight to have him reconciled to Himself. Jesus cared about a poor wretch, battered, mocked, and despised.

3. Look at the simplicity of heaven: He sought out the blind man so that he would be reconciled to Him through a miracle. That is God's dealing when He wants to reconcile a human being.

4. The only thing is that after we receive the good it pleased God to give us, we turn around and walk away.

5. There the reconciliation began, because there his faith was set in motion: the miracle is at the pool, there I go, because the one who told me is the great I Am.

6. It was not that he recovered his sight: he had never had it. God created sight for him at once. What a surprise, to see for the first time the world he had lived in so long.

B. Lord, by this time he stinketh (John 11:39).

1. There is no sight without obedience; there is no resurrection without reconciliation.

2. He stinketh already is a refusal, and the refusal is toward Jesus. Martha knew Him and had seen Him work many miracles, and she doubted: you came late, four days.

3. Jesus commanded them to take away the stone. He could have done it Himself by a word, for He created that stone; but God does not usually do for men what they can do for

themselves.

4. Learn this: do not ask God for what you can do well yourself.

5. Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died: there is a complaint in that too. In life one says things for which one must be reconciled to God.

6. No one could cast a stone at the adulterous woman; no one can cast stones at anyone. But a reconciliation with God must be shown. Heaven has no filter: one enters heaven in purity.

IV. These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:13-14).

A. There is no entrance to heaven without cleansing.

1. The conversation John has here is in heaven; he was in the spirit, and to John was revealed all that concerned the end of the times.

2. To be truly clean is when a person is reconciled to God.

3. Here the body of Christ is no longer on the earth. These are those violent seven years, in which there will still be opportunity for reconciliation.

4. But it will not be easy to be converted in that time, because all must be sealed in the forehead or in the right hand; that is how what is eaten must be paid for.

5. How then do those clothed in white come to the throne? Those who let themselves be executed. The only way we can go to heaven is by the blood of the Lamb.

6. The palms they carry are not only of victory but also of martyrdom: they lost their lives violently in the persecution kindled by the antichrist, for the sake of the Word of God.

B. The sixth seal and the wrath of the Lamb (Revelation 6:10-17).

1. Those who dwell on the earth are the unbelievers who take the earth for their home. White robes are given to the martyrs as a sign of their righteousness, and they are told to rest until the number is complete.

2. The opening of the sixth seal produced enormous convulsions of nature: a great earthquake shook the earth and the sea, and the whole globe moves.

3. The sun became black and the moon as blood; the stars fell as a fig tree casts her figs; and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.

4. Every mountain and island was moved out of its place. The islands will disappear, say the Scriptures; this one too, which is very small.

5. It is no wonder that every class of society was seized with panic, recognizing that God was pouring out His wrath. They hid in the caves; they would not have reconciliation.

6. They would rather be crushed by the mountains than bear the judgment of God and the wrath of the Lamb. They realized too late that no rebel can stand before it. Reconciliation is gain; to be far from the Lord is the great tragedy. Amen.