That None Should Perish

That None Should Perish

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, (2 Timothy 2:1-8)

“The Lord is not willing that they should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” “God will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth.” “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all.” God desires not the death or destruction of any but the welfare and salvation of all. Paul does not in this passage or in any other passage teach universal salvation. Paul teaches that God loves all men, in every walk and condition of life. God would have all men come unto the knowledge of truth, Christ and through Him experience God’s love. But the man who is reluctant to walk the highway of truth and through whom the hardness of his heart refuses to accept the Son of God, that one cannot experience God’s saving love. God has done all that He can do to bring about man’s salvation and at the same time not violate the freedom of man’s will.

“There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave His life a ransom for all.” God so loved man who was dead in trespasses and sin that He sent His Son to effect peace between God and man by paying through His death on the cross the penalty of man’s sin. “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.” However God may want one to be saved, that one cannot be saved until he reaches out and by faith accepts that which God has done for him in Christ. You may will to give everyone present tonight a glass of water. You turn on the tap, you provide a glass; you draw the water; you hand the glass to one present. But for the transaction to be complete that one must reach out and accept it. God in love for all men holds out to all men the gift of salvation and in tender mercy waits for man to accept it. God wants all to be saved and thus He has provided the means of salvation.

But not only has He provided the means for salvation, He has also provided the messenger of salvation. To those who have accepted salvation God says: Go to those who have not yet accepted my gift and tell them of Jesus. Jesus said to His disciples, “I have chosen you that you should go and bring forth fruit … As the Father has sent me even so I send you.” Paul has told us, “We are laborers together with God.” Annie Johnson Flint has written this poem:

Christ has no hands but our hands

To do His work today,

He has no feet but our feet,

To lead men in His way.

Christ has no tongues but our tongues

To tell men how He died;

He has no feet but our feet,

To lead them to His side.

Jesus Christ is dependant upon you and dependant upon me to make known the gospel. As you tell the story and as you bring others to the place where they can hear the story you have a glorious part in carrying out the purpose of God who would have all men be saved.

All who have not accepted the Son of God are without hope for all time and eternity. They are lost, lost in the wilderness of sin without chart or compass. They are lost in an airplane without its propeller or a ship without its rudder and are lost. They can’t find their way, they can’t get to their destination, and they are without hope. They are without hope until by faith they center their hope on Jesus. I wonder of we truly believe that men without Christ are lost? It is only reasonable to believe that they are. You come to me with your only son, the apple of your eye, the one in whom is centered your love, hope and aims by your side. You introduce your son to me and in response I say, “I do not want to know your son or to have anything to do with him,” and turn my back on him. What chance would I have of gaining your favor, your help? None whatever. What right do we have to expect that those who reject God’s Son will receive God’s salvation? But God has given to you and to me the privilege of bringing those who have not accepted Christ to Him that they may accept Him.

J. Wilbur Chapman related how some Abyssinians took a British subject by the name of Chapman, prisoner. They carried him to the fortress of Magalia and consigned him to a dungeon without showing cause for the deed. It took six months for England to discover this. Then she demanded an instant release, but King Theodore haughtily refused. In less than ten days, ten thousand British soldiers were on board ship, sailing down the coast to a point where they disembarked. Then they marched seven hundred miles under a burning sun up the mountain heights and unto the very dungeon where the prisoner was hidden. There they gave battle. The gates were torn down, the prisoner was lifted upon their shoulders and borne down the mountainside and hence to the ship. It cost the British government twenty-five million dollars to gain that man’s release. Such was the concern of the British government for the life of one man. How great is the concern for the life of your loved one?

We must be concerned now for others. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” We must be concerned now, tomorrow may be too late. In the days of the French Revolution, the aristocrats who were in prisons under sentence of death, used to get up entertainment in the evenings. The night would be spent in singing and dancing and eating. On the morning the executioners men would come and pit a red mark on the door of some of the cells signifying that the occupants would that morning be executed. The night before none of them knew whether that night would be their last night on earth or not. But the night was spent in revelry. We do not know when the last night will come for our friends, our neighbors, are loved ones who are out of Christ. They are spending their last hours in sin and riotous living. Let us hurry and warn them that now is the time, tomorrow may be too late. We must be concerned for them today. To really become concerned, just pause to realize what it will mean to that loved one if he goes out into eternity lost, without Christ, without hope.

You bare with me the concern of making Christ know but you ask preacher, “How can I do it?” I could answer in the words of a seminary professor who would say, “The way to do it is to do it. Just go out and tell your friends what Christ means to you and would mean to them.” But now I recognize that such is the hardest thing to do. When you go to speak about this most vital subject your heat pounds, your tongue thickens and words just do not come. But let me tell you two things that each one of us ought to be doing every day of our lives. The first is prayer. Let us pray for the lost. I read recently of a man who prayed for a period of years for his lost brother. He said that as time went on his brother exhibited less and less interest in Christ and became more vehement in his determination to reject Him. One day the mother wrote concerning him: “Don’t worry I have prayed the rest of you into the kingdom and so I will do with him.” Some months later another Christian and a deacon in a little Church in British Columbia was sitting in his usual pew worshipping God with the rest of the congregation. Suddenly the door opened and to his utter amazement in walked the unsaved brother. Without waiting for sermon or invitation from the pulpit, he made his way to the front and motioned to the preacher and said,”Tell me sir, what must I do to be saved? I can stand this no longer and have come from the ranch in the mountains this morning to find God. Can you help me?” That morning the prayers of a mother and a brother were answered.

The second thing we can do is to bring others to the place where they can be found by Christ. Let us pray and bring our friends to Christ.

Dr. Robert W Kirkpatrick

Fairview Chapel, June 6, 1946