Chapter 21
Rejecting God The Son
We have now come to the second stage of rejection. We are in search for the reason that men are lost. If God can’t save a Sinner (and we see that the sinner is not saved), there must be a reason for it, and the trouble must be with the man, and not with the Lord. In our last chapter we noticed that men rejected God the Father and were lost and now for awhile we want to see if we can find out why they were lost under the dispensation of the Son.
We all know that God loved sinners, and we all know that Christ died for sinners. Now if these are facts, and we all know they are, there must be a ground for God the Father and God the Son’s turning away from a lost man and turning him into an awful hell. But we read in John’s Gospel 1:10, 11: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own and his own received him not.” Here is one key that will unlock the door and let you get a peep into the real condition of things.
Now reader, remember that the dispensation of the Father is now past, and the dispensation of the Son is now inaugurated, and men now are to reach the Father through the Son. They can’t go direct to the Father, for the Son is now the link between God and man. You come to Christ and ask Him how to get to the Father, and you hear Him say, “No man cometh to the Father but by me; I am the door.” That means if you get in by me you will have to come in by me and if you don’t come in by me you don’t get in at all. Then we have just read that He came to His own and His own received Him not; now reader, if He came to His own and His own received Him not, what is to become of them? The Holy Ghost has not yet been given, for the Son of man has not yet been glorified, and the dispensation of the Father is now a thing of the past. The Father, so to speak, has had His day and age, and has passed off of the stage of action and has withdrawn Himself from the public and is now retired behind the curtains of time, and has put His well beloved Son on the stage of action. Now he waits to see whether or not we will receive Him, and with all the love of a great God and all the love of a tender Father, He watches to see lust what we will do for we remember that when the Son was baptized at Jordan, the voice came from heaven, “This is my Son, hear him.” And now it is hear Him or hear nobody, for the Father only works for us through the blessed Son.
Now, if you will turn to the 4th Chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel you will there have record of the first sermon that the Son of God ever preached, and we will see just how they received it, and what effect it had on them, and see whether or not it was received or rejected. Please read the 28th and 29th verses. “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.” If the only hope of heaven for these people is through the blessed Christ and we know that it is, and here is the record of His first sermon, and they are filled with wrath and desire to drag Him from the synagogue to the top of the hill and cast Him headlong, on what grounds do you think they will ever get to heaven?
It is to go to heaven through Christ or not go at all. What bright hope do you see in the future for that crowd? Their hope of heaven is in Christ, and now they have rejected Him, and not only that, but the desire of their hearts is to kill Him and get Him out of the way. They watch Him and try every way in the world to get some clue at Him in order that they might put Him to death.
No doubt but that they talked much of going to heaven; and what kind of a place would heaven be, if a set of murderers could get into it?
We read again in Matthew and Mark and Luke of the Master’s crossing the Sea of Galilee and coming to the country of the Gadarenes. There He found a man with a legion of devils in him, and we read that he was a terror to the whole country. He had broken jail and broken off chains and fetters and stayed out in the tombs, and cut himself with the stones, and he was so devil-possessed that no man could go where he was. The Master went over and saved the fellow, and when the people of the city came out the man was clothed in his right mind and was sitting at the Master’s feet. It looks like the whole country would have gone forward for prayer. Well, let’s see if they did. Read in Mark 5:17: “And they began to pray him to depart out of their coast.” Now, the reader will see at a glance that there was no hope for that crowd on the face of the earth. They were lost When the Son of God got into the boat there was a whole country of Christ-rejecters as much lost as they can ever be.
Again we read in the 12th Chapter of Matthew of a man whom the Lord God healed on the Sabbath Day, and now look at the 14th verse and you will see the results and the reward He got for His good deed. “Then the Pharisees went out and held a council against him how they might destroy him.” Brother, or sister, you are a man or a woman of good judgment, and you know that these Pharisees were living at that time in the dispensation of the blessed Christ, and the only hope of heaven is in Christ, and now they have just gone out and held a council against Him that they might put Him to death. He has just said, “No man cometh to the Father but by me, I am the door,” and what hope Is there for those Pharisees? If they are not lost there is no such thing as a man’s ever being lost. So many people are concerned about the sin against the Holy Ghost. Well, it is enough to make a man tremble from the top of his head to the end of his toe. But while it is true, the man who sins against the Holy Ghost is a lost man, he isn’t any worse lost than the man who sins against the Son of man until the Christ has cut him off and appoints him his portion among the hypocrites and unbelievers. If a man cuts himself off from the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost until he is lost, it doesn’t change the thing a bit in the world which one he rejected. He is a lost man, and a lost man is a lost man, don’t you see?
I could pile up Scripture here all day to show that the blessed Son of God was rejected, but you know it as well as I do. If you will turn and look at the betrayal of the Son of God by Judas and then look at His arrest and trial and conviction and see the mob on His trail as He was sent from the hall of Pilate to the hall of Herod, and see the awful mob and hear them shout, “Let his blood be on us and our children. Give us Barabbas and let Christ be crucified.” Get Him out of the way; we don’t want to hear His preaching any longer. He says repent or perish, and we don’t want to repent. He says, “Ye must be born again,” but we don’t want to be born again. He says, “Ye must be holy or ye can’t see God,” but we don’t want to be holy, we want to be unholy, in fact, we are tired of Him; kill Him and get Him out of the way.