John 15:22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”
As often as you hear the Word preached and reject it, as often as you are warned, and stifle the voice of your conscience, as often as you are made to tremble, and yet say, “Go Your way for this time, when I have a more convenient season, I will send for You,” (ref?)
Jesus Christ came for the specific purpose to suffer and die for sinful mankind, but He is coming again (His second advent) to reign as King of king and Lord of lords, who came once to suffer, but who comes again to reign. “For the preaching of the gospel is to them that perish foolishness” (ref).
Those who preach the gospel do speak as God’s ambassador.”How shall hear without a preacher” (ref?)
When Israel of old despised Moses and murmured against him, Moses meekly said, “You have not murmured against us, but you have murmured against the Lord God of Israel.” And truly the minister may, with Scripture warrant, say the same, he that despises us, despises not us, but Him that sent us, he who rejects the message rejects not what we say, but rejects the message of the everlasting God. The minister is but a man, he has no priestly power, but is a man called out of the rest of mankind, and endowed with the Holy Spirit, to speak to his fellow-men, and when he preaches the truth as with power sent down from heaven, God acknowledges him by calling him His ambassador, and puts him in the high and responsible position of a watchman on the walls of Zion, and he bids all men take heed that a faithful message, faithfully delivered, when despised and trampled on, amounts to rebellion against God, and to sin and iniquity against the Most High.
“Take heed unto yourself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this you shall both save yourself and them that hear you,” and they hear behind them this awful threatening—“If you warn them not they shall perish, but their blood will I require at your hand.”
Oh! that you might see written in letters of fire before you this day the words of the prophet—“O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord,”
Prepare to meet your God—consider your ways—set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live.” (ref?)
“Look unto me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth,” (ref?)“When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me.” “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.” “He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”
“What must I do to be saved?” Let me tell you the way of salvation, and then farewell. If you would be saved, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved,”
Hear the apostle’s words once more, “For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them who heard him?”