On this Sunday Service, I want to talk about the ministry of reconciliation, and give you two very tangible illustrations of how this ministry plays out in the real world which we all live in. The first person I want to bring to your attention is John Harper on the Titanic in 1912, and the second being Al Braca in Tower 1 of the World Trade center in 2001. Both these men are prime examples of what it means to be an ambassador for Christ and to exercise the ministry of reconciliation.
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00:00:00One day Jesus is coming. You may be at church, you may be at work, you may be
00:00:14asleep. God grant that you will be ready when he makes his personal appearance.
00:00:24My God! What if his appearance occurs on a Sunday morning? My prophetic word to you this morning is get ready! Get ready!
00:00:55Yevarechecha Adonai ve'yishmerecha. Ya'er Adonai panayv eylecha ve'yichuneka. Yissa Adonai panayv eylecha ve'yaseym lecha shalom.
00:01:09The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be
00:01:17gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
00:01:29Please turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and I only have one passage of
00:01:37scripture to bring you this morning. Normally we like to bounce around and do
00:01:41a lot of different things and I love to cross-reference and look at all the
00:01:46different things in the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, but sometimes
00:01:51you hit one passage and one passage gets it done for you. Today is one of those
00:01:58days. 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and let's start reading in verse 17. 17 through 20.
00:02:102nd Corinthians 5 17 says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new
00:02:16creature. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. And all
00:02:23things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath
00:02:30given to us, and if you have a paper Bible I want you to underline that, the
00:02:35ministry of reconciliation. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world
00:02:41unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and, underline this
00:02:47part, hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. And my text today is
00:02:54found in verse 20. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, underline that
00:03:00too. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye
00:03:08reconciled to God. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for the word that was
00:03:13taught this morning in Sunday school. We thank you for the word that was sung
00:03:17during the psalm time, Lord. We thank you for the giving and now, Lord, we pray for
00:03:22the word that is to be preached. Let it bless the hearers and, Father God, we just
00:03:29commit all this to you and ask you to lead and guide by your Holy Spirit. In
00:03:33Jesus' name, amen. One of the often overlooked parts of the ministry of the
00:03:41Apostle Paul, who is our Apostle, he says three times, follow me as I follow
00:03:46Christ, and he is a living example of how we are. He is the pattern for us. He
00:03:54follows Christ. He lives it out in the flesh and blood for the amount of time
00:04:00that God gave him for his ministry and we are to look at the Apostle Paul and
00:04:05say, okay, that's the footprints that we are to walk in. He was the hand-picked
00:04:12person by Jesus Christ and we read about that in Acts chapter 9. And so he takes a
00:04:19person, Saul, who at the moment that he is called, he is hot in pursuit of killing
00:04:26Christians and Paul, as we have looked at in previous messages, Paul is the poster
00:04:33boy for what grace and mercy is all about. Paul was given the ministry of
00:04:40grace and he goes from being a type of Antichrist to a type of Jesus Christ, so
00:04:47much so, and as Brother Ed pointed out in Sunday School this morning, it's the
00:04:52Holy Spirit that wrote this book. This is God's thoughts on paper and we know that
00:05:00Saul was a type of Antichrist. He created havoc. He hailed men and women and he put
00:05:06him in jail. He put him in prison. He was consenting onto their debts. That's
00:05:11exactly what the Antichrist is going to do after the rapture. And so Saul begins
00:05:17his career as a type of Antichrist and then on the Damascus Road, he meets Jesus.
00:05:24He becomes born again. He says he was one born out of due time. And then he says
00:05:30he's the only person outside of Jesus to say this anywhere in the New Testament
00:05:36and if it says it someplace else, I just must have missed it. He says, follow me as
00:05:42I follow Christ. So here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul talks about the ministry
00:05:50of reconciliation. When a lost sinner gets saved, they are reconciled unto God by
00:05:56the gospel of the grace of God. And of course, you go to 1 Corinthians 15 verses
00:06:023 and 4 and Paul shows you, lays it out very clear, that the gospel of the grace
00:06:08of God is you are to preach and teach the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus
00:06:14Christ according to the scriptures. Not according to your church, not according
00:06:19to your denomination, not according to how your grandfather did it when he was a
00:06:25minister riding the circuit trail in the Appalachian Mountains. You are to do it
00:06:29according to the scripture. Now, as we set the table for my message today, if any
00:06:38man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Verse 17, old things are passed away.
00:06:42Behold, all things are become new and all things are of God who has reconciled us
00:06:48to himself by Jesus Christ. You know what the Titanic is a picture of? The Titanic
00:06:55is a picture of this world. It is a encapsulated version of the entire world.
00:07:02You had people from all different races. You had Spanish people, you had black
00:07:06people, you had white people, you had Asian people, you had people living down
00:07:12next to the boilers, you had people living in luxurious penthouses up on the
00:07:16top, everybody eating all different types of food. And the Titanic is a perfect
00:07:23picture of this world. And you know what's going to happen to this world one
00:07:28day? It's going to blow up. It's going to explode. It's going to cease to exist
00:07:34just like the Titanic. One day, it was the ship that God could not sink, didn't
00:07:40even make one voyage, maiden voyage for the ship that God could not sink. Well,
00:07:48God sunk it halfway through its very, very first trip. And when we look at the
00:07:54Titanic, it is a picture of the world that we live in today. You go out to St.
00:07:59Augustine, and you have a very diverse, multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi...
00:08:10what's the word for money? Everybody's making all different types of money, okay?
00:08:16St. Augustine is a great picture of this world. And when you step out into this
00:08:22world, there's lost people, there's saved people, there's people who, if you start
00:08:27to give them a gospel message, they'll receive it gladly. There's some people
00:08:31who, like on St. George Street, we've been spit on. We've had our boxes of gospel
00:08:36tracts stolen and put into the dumpster. We've been threatened with open switchblades.
00:08:42And on the other side, we've had people crying tears of joy. Dozens of people have
00:08:47prayed to get saved. And what you have is you have a big mess of what this world is.
00:08:55And believe me when I tell you, this world is a big fat mess. And if you're saved today,
00:09:02you have a ministry. I'm not talking about being a pastor, or a Sunday school teacher,
00:09:07or being a nursery worker, or volunteering on the mission field. All those things are
00:09:12important. All those things are good and necessary. But what if you don't fit into
00:09:18any one of those categories? You are still called to the ministry. Now, raise your hand
00:09:26if you knew that. Let me see by a show of hands that you knew that you were called to the ministry,
00:09:33even if you don't have any particular gift. Okay? And that's what these passages are talking about.
00:09:42He says this, in all things, verse 18, are of God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ
00:09:51and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. And this is why I said if you have a paper Bible,
00:09:59you underline that. You star that. And in the column next to that, I want you to write
00:10:07my ministry and underline the word my. Now, if we believe that Paul is our apostle,
00:10:15and Romans to Philemon is our doctrine, and we do, then he is talking to every person here,
00:10:22and every person listening online, who is saved. This is the ministry that you have been given.
00:10:31There are no exceptions that I'm aware of to this spiritual rule. Paul here is talking to
00:10:38the Corinthian church, which is a hot mess. If you've ever looked into the Corinthian church,
00:10:44they are backslidden. They are apostate. Most of the time, they are a fleshly church.
00:10:51They are a carnal church, and yet they are still the church. And keep your finger there.
00:10:58Return to Revelation 3. A lot of people read these verses that we're about to look at,
00:11:06and they say, well, this has got to be, you know, the fake church, the false church,
00:11:11the false professors. But it's not. This is the same church that John is talking to.
00:11:19Verse 14 of Revelation 3. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write,
00:11:27These things sayeth the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
00:11:33I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot.
00:11:40So then, because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.
00:11:49Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.
00:11:53And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked?
00:11:58That is the diagnosis, here is the cure. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire.
00:12:06That thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed,
00:12:10and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve,
00:12:16that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent.
00:12:24And then here's the invitation to saved people. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
00:12:32If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and suck with him and he with me.
00:12:39To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne,
00:12:42even as I also overcame and am set down with my father in his throne.
00:12:48This is the last moments of the church at the end of the church age.
00:12:54And what we're getting done is simply scraps compared to what they did in the 19th, 18th,
00:13:0016th, 17th, and going all the way back to the apostles. We are the scraps generation.
00:13:08But this is what we are called to do. Go back to 2 Corinthians 5 as we set the table today.
00:13:16Verse 19, to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.
00:13:24Why would he bother? Have you ever thought about that? If you were God,
00:13:29have you ever had those fantasies where you think, well, if I could just speak something,
00:13:34what would, what would you speak into existence? Well, God created man, gave man free will,
00:13:41knowing full well the 6,000 years of problems that would develop from that free will.
00:13:49But he did it. And in verse 19, that God was in the world in Christ,
00:13:55reconciling the world to himself and not imputing their trespasses onto them.
00:14:01And then here's the really humbling and awesome thing and have given unto us the word of
00:14:10reconciliation. We are to go to a lost and dying world with the message of salvation in Jesus
00:14:18Christ. Jesus says in Luke, go out to the highways and hedges and compel them to come in.
00:14:27Doesn't matter how you do it. You wear a scripture t-shirt. Somebody will read it.
00:14:32Hold a scripture sign. Somebody will read it. Give somebody a gospel travel. If you can't do
00:14:37any of those things, buy a hat that says John 3, 16 in attractive letters, wear it and walk
00:14:44through a crowd. You'd be surprised how God will bless something like that.
00:14:49Verse 20. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us,
00:14:59we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled unto God. Have you ever watched a relay race?
00:15:07And those things are really kind of awesome to watch. People running at top speed and you had
00:15:14that stick, that baton, and then you get to that crucial moment. You got to kind of reach behind
00:15:20you and the person's got to see it. They got to take it. You can't drop it because you got
00:15:25to get that baton over the finish line with the last person. This is what Paul was talking about.
00:15:32God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Saul becomes Paul. Paul lives the life
00:15:42that we are supposed to live as a model, as an example. And then he says, okay, now do you have
00:15:51it? Here's the baton. Now go and replicate it. Go and do exactly what you watched me do.
00:16:02And this is what the Christian life is all about. And if you're saved, I am speaking to everybody
00:16:09who is saved. Nobody is accepted or left out or doesn't have to do what it is that I'm telling
00:16:17you here. Now we sang that song, Nearer My God to Thee. And I told you that that was the last song
00:16:30that the quartet played on the deck of the Titanic as it went down. And what a beautiful song that it
00:16:38is. And when that ship went down, there were people who were saved that were getting nearer and
00:16:45nearer and nearer to God. And then they went under the water and then they were with him. And there
00:16:52was a lot more people who were not saved, who were getting nearer and nearer and nearer to the pit of
00:16:59hell filled with literal actual burning flames. And there was a man, his name was John Harper.
00:17:09I just want to read a couple of paragraphs of his story to you. Maybe you've heard of him,
00:17:14maybe you haven't, but this is a true story. John Harper was a Scottish evangelist and he was on
00:17:21the Titanic because he was sailing to America and he was going to Chicago. This is after Moody had
00:17:29died, but the Moody church was his big thing and he was invited to preach at the Moody church.
00:17:36And so he was on a ship and that's where he was going. How many times last Sunday when we had
00:17:44our big weekend and we had everybody from Suncoast Baptist Church, we had people coming from David
00:17:50Daniels from California, we had people who drove here from Tennessee and Illinois and Georgia and
00:17:58all over the place. And we were filled with people. And what's one of the last things that
00:18:04we prayed for as everybody was being let out traveling Mercy's home. And that is something
00:18:12that you'll hear, especially in Baptist churches talking about, Hey, I'm going to, when Ronnie and
00:18:19Wanda said on Wednesday that they were going to be out this week and they're going up to Georgia.
00:18:26I said to him, we'll pray safe travels for you, brother. And we do that as Christians, we ask God,
00:18:33please anoint their steps and don't let the car break down. And if it does break down, let there
00:18:39be help close by. And, and this is what we do as Christians. But did you know that I still have yet
00:18:46to find a verse anywhere in the Bible that when you pray for traveling Mercy's to get there safely,
00:18:54that God is obligated to get you to your destination safely.
00:19:01I haven't found a verse that would prove that. Now we ask for God's mercy and God's blessing
00:19:07as people travel, because the road is a really scary place. And 95 is a nightmare. 75 is a
00:19:15nightmare. And we, we, we ask God to keep people safe while they travel, but he is under no obligation
00:19:24to not allow you to be involved in a fender bender or to be hit by a tractor trailer, or to have your
00:19:31car hit a pothole and flip into a river bank. And if you know of a verse that God is obligated to do
00:19:39those things that I haven't come across, please let me know about it. But the point of what I'm
00:19:44telling you is when we pray and we ask God to keep people safe, then he answers according to his will
00:19:51for those people. Can you imagine John Harper? He's an evangelist. He's committed his entire life
00:19:59to serving God. And now he is on a boat, the Titanic, and he's traveling to Chicago.
00:20:07Let me tell you a little bit about what happened that night. John Harper's reputation as an
00:20:13evangelist was so well known that he was invited to speak at the Moody church in 1910. And the
00:20:19person who wrote this says, I have in my possession, a photocopy of a letter in his own handwriting,
00:20:25which reads, I had been in Chicago for three months. God gave us a very precious and wonderful
00:20:31revival of continuous services each day. And sometimes even more often, he went on to say
00:20:38that now he had been invited back to the Moody church for another three months of meetings.
00:20:43And so it was that John Harper, his sister, and his six-year-old daughter, his wife had died,
00:20:51found themselves on the great ship, the Titanic. Survivors later reported that as the Titanic
00:20:59began to sink, I want you to think about these verses that I told you to underline
00:21:04and to start and to highlight. There's a reason for that. Survivors reported later that as
00:21:12Titanic began to sink, John Harper began to admonish people to be prepared to die.
00:21:22Is that what you'd be thinking about if you were on a ship that was going down?
00:21:26Would you be worried about other people or would you be trying to save your own neck?
00:21:31John Harper admonished people to be prepared to die. He made sure that his sister and daughter
00:21:38were in a lifeboat, even as he continued to share the gospel with whoever would listen.
00:21:44And when he found himself in the icy water with a life jacket floating near another man,
00:21:51Harper asked, are you saved? No, I'm not, the desperate man replied.
00:21:58Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, Harper shouted. One report says that
00:22:04Harper, knowing he could not survive long in the icy water, took off his life jacket and threw it
00:22:11to another person with the words, you need this more than I do. Moments later, Harper
00:22:18disappeared beneath the water. Four years later, when there was a reunion of the survivors of
00:22:25Titanic, the man to whom Harper had witnessed told the story of his rescue and gave a testimony of
00:22:32his conversion recorded in a gospel track with the title, I was John Harper's last convert.
00:22:40And let me just give you just a couple of lines from that gospel track.
00:22:46Four years after the Titanic went down, a young Scotsman rose in a meeting and said,
00:22:52I am a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a spar, a wooden plank,
00:22:59that awful night, the tide brought Mr. John Harper of Glasgow, my grandfather was born in Glasgow,
00:23:07on a piece of wreck near me. Man, he said, are you saved? No, I am not. He replied,
00:23:16believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. Well, the waves bore him away, but strange
00:23:24to say, the waves brought him back a little while later, and he whispered to me, are you saved now?
00:23:35No, I cannot honestly say that I am. He was honest. It was a moment of truth. It was a moment of
00:23:44decision. Time for games was over. No, I cannot honestly say that I am. He said one more time,
00:23:55believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. And shortly after that, he went down
00:24:04never to rise again. And there alone in the night under the moon with two miles of black water
00:24:14underneath me, I believed. I am John Harper's last convert.
00:24:27And all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ
00:24:32and had given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Wherever God decides to put you,
00:24:41here's a fun fact that I want you to remember. God has placed you there wherever that place may be
00:24:50for a reason. And that reason, if we're going to break it down to its most minimalistic level,
00:24:58something that we're absolutely sure is true in 100% of all cases, we can safely say that
00:25:06wherever God has put you in whatever situation that you find yourself, you are there to carry
00:25:15out the ministry of reconciliation. Turn to Acts chapter five. Turn to Acts chapter five.
00:25:24I want to show you the apostles living this out before Paul. Acts chapter five,
00:25:39verse 38. And now I say unto you, refrain from these men and let them alone. For if this counsel
00:25:46or this work be of men, it will come to naught. But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it,
00:25:53lest happily you be found even to fight against God. And to him they agreed. And when they had
00:25:58called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus
00:26:03and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they
00:26:09were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And then they all went home and built a compound
00:26:17and stayed behind those walls so that they would never get arrested again.
00:26:22Is that in your Bible? No. And daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and
00:26:31preach Jesus Christ, knowing full well that sooner rather than later they were going to pay for that
00:26:39with their lives. Why would people do this? Why would God, why would he bother to reconcile lost
00:26:50miserable sinners to himself? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
00:26:58He didn't give you scraps. He gave you everything he had. He gave you the best. He gave you the
00:27:04firstborn. He gave you the only begotten. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
00:27:11son so that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You know what
00:27:18John Harper did that night in 1912 in April? He gave the best that he had. He didn't lock himself
00:27:27in his room or he didn't go to the bar like a lot of the people did and grab the brandy and the
00:27:33cognac and the whatever else was the vodka and the gin and said you know what we're about to die
00:27:39let's eat drink and be merry was it Mark Anthony say that right those of us about to die salute
00:27:45you eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die John Harper said if I only have a few moments left
00:27:54I am going to spend that time reconciling lost sinners to Jesus Christ. Now what do you think
00:28:02was waiting for John Harper about 90 seconds after he slipped under that water and never came
00:28:09back up? Can you imagine the shout of triumph that he heard being ushered in to the presence of his
00:28:18Lord? Paul says absent from the body present with the Lord with his last breath he took in he went
00:28:25under the water and when he breathed it out he was already in heaven. That's what Paul says and we
00:28:32have been given the ministry of reconciliation. Now how does that apply in our real life? I'm glad you
00:28:40asked. Wherever you find yourself wherever your path with the Lord takes you that is where you're
00:28:49supposed to be and rather say like Paul and Silas in Acts chapter 16 they were chained to the prison
00:28:57wall. Paul could have thought to himself well I don't think much of the ministry it's not working
00:29:03out too well now and we're chained to the wall nothing we can do except give up but they didn't
00:29:11do that and at midnight Paul and Silas sang in hymn and God blessed that and he broke down the walls
00:29:19of the prisons and the the chains were broken off the prisoners and they had a revival and the
00:29:26jailers sprang in trembling with the light and said sirs what must I do to be saved? Believe on
00:29:33the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. If you find yourself in a hospital bed
00:29:43as our friend Rob Beattie did diagnosed with stage 4 cancer he used that time to witness to
00:29:52the surgeon, the doctors, the nurses, the anesthesiologist and his next door neighbor
00:29:59who watched him come and go to the hospital. Not for one moment at least not publicly but he
00:30:07he was fairly open on Facebook not one moment did he have what appeared to be self-pity.
00:30:15He, Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able. Do you know whom
00:30:25you say that you believe and if you do are you persuaded that he is able in the midst of whatever
00:30:31your trial may be? How about Christians like Roy Bell? He gets saved, he backslides very badly,
00:30:41winds up in prison, he's sentenced to a couple of years in prison and then he decides he's going to
00:30:48have a prison break and from what I hear they don't take kindly to prisoners who break out
00:30:56especially not the ones that are successful at it and when they catch you you get
00:31:04double trouble because you were not supposed to do that.
00:31:11And so Roy Bell winds up in jail for 28 years, 28 years.
00:31:21Morning brother. Roy Bell winds up in jail for 28 years and you know what he does with that time
00:31:30after he gets over his, well I guess I'm here,
00:31:33he becomes a chaplain's assistant. He becomes the chaplain. He starts a 25-year correspondence
00:31:40with Dr. Ruckman who sends him every book he ever wrote, that's about 120 books, over a 25-year
00:31:47period and as soon as Roy Bell got out of jail in 2021 and the only reason why he got let go
00:31:57is because there was all these COVID rules and regulations and he didn't kill anybody and they
00:32:03had to get people out of the jail. So he was let go and he's been out serving the Lord full-time.
00:32:10He's a traveling evangelist. He was here for our camp meeting back in May and what an amazing
00:32:16testimony that he has but what is that a picture of? That is a picture of being a
00:32:24that is a picture of being a ambassador for Christ wherever God leads you to be.
00:32:34Now if you have ever watched politics and lately it's been really hard to watch,
00:32:40it's been and I'm not going to talk politics today but one way that you know that a country
00:32:46is getting ready to go to war, the classic telltale sign that a nation is either preparing
00:32:55to be invaded or preparing to do the invading, they recall their ambassadors
00:33:02and they say come on back home because there's trouble happening.
00:33:05Bombs are going to be exploding and they call the ambassadors home.
00:33:10What does Paul say that we are? Ambassadors for Christ. What is the rapture?
00:33:18Ambassadors being called home. That's what the rapture is. It's the calling home of the
00:33:24ambassadors and when we get to the judgment seat of Christ, we are going to have to give an account
00:33:33for the ministry of reconciliation that we did or did not carry out
00:33:37and this is something that I think it's obvious. Anybody who is saved can carry out Paul's ministry
00:33:45of reconciliation. It is not hard to do. After you're saved, there's only one qualification.
00:33:53You have to want to do it and this is why you get crowns at the judgment seat of Christ.
00:33:59Now I used to think years ago, I'm like well what type of a scam is that? I'm from Jersey,
00:34:05everything is a scam right and I thought well what type of a scam is that? If I can do all
00:34:12things through Christ would strengthen with me and he saved me and I played no part in my salvation
00:34:17other than just believing it and God gives me my food and my life and my breath and he wakes me up
00:34:24every day. Well what am I getting the crown for? It didn't make any sense until I began to realize
00:34:33that in places like 2 Corinthians 5, we are given a ministry to do and Jesus is not a hard task
00:34:43master. He said come and learn of me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light and at the judgment
00:34:52seat of Christ, he's going to say well how well did you do with that ministry of reconciliation?
00:34:57Reconciliation. Well I tried Jesus but you know I asked for traveling mercies and all you did was
00:35:05put me on the Titanic and the ship went down. What could I possibly do in that situation?
00:35:13I'm John Harper's last convert. What? Wherever God puts you is where you're supposed to be.
00:35:21If you're saved, we had a whole Sunday school this morning on how we are to look to the Holy
00:35:27Spirit for leading and for guiding and it is the Holy Spirit that directs you. He reproves you.
00:35:35He exhorts you. He corrects you and he is the comforter that Jesus left behind and we are to
00:35:42look to him to say okay what are the marching orders? Show me the path through. I'm on this
00:35:47boat. The boat's going down. I'm on a plane. The engines are starting to smoke. What do I do?
00:35:54Do something for the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give you one more example.
00:36:01Now raise your hand if you ever heard of John Harper before this morning.
00:36:09All right so the vast majority of you have not heard of John Harper so it is a near guarantee
00:36:16that you have not heard of Al Bracca. If you've heard of Al Bracca,
00:36:23if you've heard of Al Bracca, raise your hand.
00:36:32Al Bracca began his workday at his office on the 104th floor of One World Trade Center as usual
00:36:41on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Al had been a vice president bond broker for Cantor Fitzgerald
00:36:50for 16 years. Most importantly, Al was a devoted Christian with an insatiable desire to lead others
00:36:58to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ but Al had a problem. Al worked in the midst of people
00:37:07for a company whose only goal in life was money, more money, and lots of more money. And to get
00:37:16that money, they did and said, I'm not saying that they did anything illegal, but they certainly did
00:37:24everything immoral. They would wine and dine the clients and get them drunk and feed them cocaine
00:37:32and they would go to places of ill repute and they would bond and connect and then the next
00:37:40day after everybody had their whatever it was that they had, they would sign on the dotted line,
00:37:47money would exchange hands, salesmen would get commissions, and it is in this environment that
00:37:54Al Bracca worked for 16 years. He did not enjoy his job because there was the complete absence
00:38:02of Christian values. So you think to yourself, well, why wouldn't he just quit and go someplace
00:38:09else? Because God has this little thing called the Ministry of Reconciliation and Al Bracca was his
00:38:16ambassador. That's why. Al did not enjoy his job because there was an absence, the complete absence
00:38:24of Christian values. He would have quit years earlier, except for this fact that he had a
00:38:30deep-seated conviction that God had him there for a purpose and he knew that he was there for a
00:38:38purpose. He didn't know what the purpose was. He just knew that he was there for a purpose.
00:38:44He felt much happier in his church where he served as a deacon and led a small group of men.
00:38:50He was much more pleased to be basking in the environment of his own Christian home.
00:38:55However, he worked hard and faithfully at his job with the realization that he was there
00:39:02for a reason. Among the 700 people who worked alongside Al at Cantor Fitzgerald,
00:39:09if you remember anything about 9-11, and I've shared with you guys multiple times, I worked
00:39:15across the street at the Financial Center just a few months earlier. My younger brother worked on
00:39:21the 83rd floor of Tower 2 for Empire Blue Cross and got out just a few months before it all came
00:39:28down. Cantor Fitzgerald was unique in that they lost everybody. Among the 700 people who worked
00:39:37alongside Al at Cantor Fitzgerald, many called him Rev. Have you ever seen that Chick track called
00:39:44Holy Joe? Right? Well, that's how Al lived his life. Many called him Rev. Some because they
00:39:53admired him, but most it was just sarcasm for his strong Christian testimony. Well,
00:40:01one of the planes hit the 90th floor of Building 1, trapping people on the upper floors.
00:40:08Through the testimony of spouses who received messages through email
00:40:12and last-minute calls from their deceased loved ones, we have this final testimony.
00:40:19To the best of anyone's knowledge, this is what happened. When it was certain that nobody was
00:40:25going to escape, and again, Cantor Fitzgerald, everybody died. When it was certain that no one
00:40:31was going to escape, Al Bracca jumped to one of the desks and shouted at the top of his lungs,
00:40:40who wants to go to heaven with me? Now, regardless of whatever conspiracy theory that we may like,
00:40:48and I like a few of them, not going to go into them at this point, but I want you to picture
00:40:56that you're on the 90th floor of Tower 1. I want you to picture the unbelievable level
00:41:04of confusion, smoke, and however those floors are coming down, they're coming, you know,
00:41:12it doesn't matter what brought those floors down to the people who were on the floors,
00:41:17because they were about to be flattened in the rubble, okay? And it's dark, and it's smoke,
00:41:25and you can't breathe, and it is so hot on some of these floors that the plastic that people have on
00:41:32clothing and on shoes is beginning to melt, and they had to take their clothes off in a lot of
00:41:39cases because their clothes were catching fire, and their pocketbooks were melting,
00:41:44their shoes were melting. It was just, it was about as close to being in the pit of hell as you
00:41:52can be without actually being in the pit of hell. It was an unbelievably terrifying time. Well,
00:42:02God had his ambassador there for 16 long years, and I can imagine every day he swipes himself in
00:42:12with his microchip badge saying, okay, Lord, I gotta do this again. I don't know how much 365
00:42:20times 16 is, but that's a lot. If somebody knows it, just shout it out. But every single day,
00:42:31I can imagine he's like, okay, Lord, give me a witness today. Maybe today you'll give me an
00:42:36opportunity. And there is no recorded testimony of people that he spoke to before this moment,
00:42:42but you can imagine there must have been some who were curious, who were brave enough to go into
00:42:48the lunchroom with him and like Nicodemus in John chapter 3 coming to him in secret saying,
00:42:58what is this Jesus thing all about? But there's no recorded instance of that happening.
00:43:05Instead, he jumps up on one of the tables and cries out, who wants to go with me to heaven?
00:43:12People crowded around his makeshift platform and he continued, all right, a lot of you have made
00:43:18fun of this over the years, but now this is your last opportunity to do something about it. 16 long
00:43:28years he worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. On December 10th of this year, our ministry, Now the End Begins,
00:43:38is going to begin in 16th year. That is almost the same amount of time that Al Bracca worked at
00:43:46Cantor Fitzgerald. That's a long, long, long time. And he had been witnessing and they had been
00:43:54watching his testimony. And I can imagine people being the cynical people that we are.
00:44:02They saw things were going bad. And I'm sure some looked over at him and said, okay, Mr. Jesus
00:44:08Father, let's see what you do now. Let's see how brave you are now. He jumped up on the desk and
00:44:15shouts, who wants to go with me to heaven? And he says, this is your last opportunity to do
00:44:21something about it. I'm going to tell you about Jesus one more time and how to go to heaven.
00:44:28With that, Al quickly gave them the gospel and invited them to join hands. It is estimated,
00:44:36now there were 700 people there. It is estimated that approximately 50 people joined hands
00:44:45and prayed with Al to receive Jesus Christ. Within moments after that group of people said,
00:44:53amen, the tower collapsed.
00:44:59We are ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ. We are called to rush in to the burning building.
00:45:08We are not called to run away from the burning building. We are called to give our lives
00:45:16so that somebody else can hear the gospel and have the opportunity to get saved.
00:45:22Jesus Christ says this, no greater love hath any man than this,
00:45:29that he that would lay down his life for his friends. You know what Paul says in Romans,
00:45:37while we were yet sinners and not friends of Jesus Christ, while we were yet sinners,
00:45:45Christ died for us and has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation. This is what it means
00:45:55to be a Christian. I love coming to church and we're excited watching this church grow. I love
00:46:02camp meetings. I love revivals. I love podcasts. I love commentaries and Bibles and Bible study.
00:46:10I love talking about it endlessly for hours with other Christians over cups of coffee.
00:46:15I love everything about the Christian life. I like it all. But the main thing, if you're
00:46:24a Christian, if you're saved, now I'll give you one more thing. Turn to Acts chapter 11
00:46:30and we'll end on a controversial note, because why not? Acts chapter 11. People get mad when I say
00:46:44that you can be saved and you can be born again, but you might not be a Christian.
00:46:51And everybody looks at me, well not everybody, but people look and you see smoke coming out of
00:46:58their ears. Because in the minds of most people, if you're saved, you are automatically stamped
00:47:08with the title Christian. And that is not necessarily true. Acts chapter 11, verse
00:47:1824 through 26. For he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and faith and much people were
00:47:24added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul. And when he had
00:47:30found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year,
00:47:3612 months, they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people. And the disciples
00:47:44were called Christians first in Antioch. Every single one of these people are already saved.
00:47:51They're already born again. They're not called Christians until they are actually following
00:48:00the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how you get to be a Christian. John Harper gives us a very
00:48:11impressive to obtain, very humbling, very intimidating example of what it means to be
00:48:17a Christian. And rather than trying to save himself or to seek his own comfort,
00:48:24he jumps into the water, he swims in the ice cold water. And with the last breath that he'll ever
00:48:34breathe, the last words he ever speaks, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.
00:48:42And then he died. And that guy who's watching it, and he says, man, you know what that is?
00:48:48That's real. He must've told me the truth. Why would he spend his last moments like that?
00:48:55That has to be the truth. And when the World Trade Centers were taken down in 2001,
00:49:04and Al Brocca, a name that nobody knows, and you'll probably forget his name five minutes after
00:49:11you leave here today, but never forget what he did. And he labors at the same job that he found
00:49:21distasteful and hard. And he didn't like to do it. And he couldn't wait to go home
00:49:29at the close of every single work day. And why did he do it? Because he said, I believe this
00:49:35is where God would have me to be. And I'm going to stick here until he moves me. You know what
00:49:41that is? That is faith. That is a, that is about as good of an illustration of faith that I could
00:49:50ever possibly give you outside the Bible. And then when it all hits the fan and the windows are
00:49:57blowing out and the ceiling is collapsing and the hallways are filling with black plastic smoke,
00:50:03which is very, that, that takes you down very, very fast. And it's so hot in there that people
00:50:10are ripping off their clothes and jumping out the window, um, because the heat is just making
00:50:15them insane. He says, now I know why you put me here, Lord, 16 years ago, you saw this day
00:50:25and you put me in place. I'll tell you one more story. The story that happened to me.
00:50:32My dad got cancer back in 2003. And, um, on the day that he was diagnosed with stage four lung
00:50:44cancer, he went into urine retention. And there's a whole process that goes with that in order for
00:50:50him to live his daily life. And I was tasked with that after a couple of 3am visits to the doctor
00:50:59after a couple of 3am visits to the emergency room, I became his full-time caretaker because
00:51:06there was nobody else. I was happy to do it, but there was nobody else to do it. And during the 10
00:51:12months that God had me there living with him in 2003, 2004, I, I knew that I was there for a very
00:51:24specific reason. I didn't know what that reason was, but over time it became clear that God put
00:51:30me there to give him the gospel. And I brought the pastor from the church that I was going to at the
00:51:38time up north and they formed a friendship and that pastor came and visited my dad multiple times.
00:51:46And, uh, my dad said, well, you know, he's a great guy and I like him, but I don't believe it.
00:51:53And I don't want it. And he gets worse. We had to put him into a nursing home. I tried very,
00:51:59very hard to not have him go to a nursing home, but he just, his need was just too great.
00:52:06And he went to a nursing home and every day I said, look, dad, I tried really hard to keep
00:52:12you out of this nursing home. It didn't work, but we put you in a really good one. And I promise
00:52:18I'll come see you every day without fail. And as near as I can recall, I was there a minimum
00:52:24of one time every single day, sometimes two or three times for the entire time that he
00:52:30lived in the nursing home. And then one day they brought in a man next to him in the bed.
00:52:38And I don't know what his medical condition was, but he was kind of like in this
00:52:43semi-comatose state. All his organs were functioning and he was breathing on his own,
00:52:49but he couldn't wake up. He couldn't open his eyes. You, you could talk to him. He couldn't
00:52:55respond. If you jabbed him with a pin, he didn't react, but he was a hundred percent living.
00:53:03He was just, I don't, I don't, I don't know what the medical term for that is, but he was just in
00:53:08like this semi-comatose state and everybody figured that, you know, he's just gonna live
00:53:14that way until he dies. And so on this particular Sunday, I woke up and I start to do laundry.
00:53:22I'm at my dad's house and I felt the Holy Spirit, maybe more urgent than I ever felt the Holy
00:53:31Spirit aside from the day that I got saved. And I felt this unrelenting need to stop doing laundry
00:53:40and to go visit my dad. But I called the nursing home. They said he was fine. There was no problems.
00:53:48I finally, I'm like, okay, this is where God wants me to go. I got in the car. I drove the 10 miles
00:53:54to the nursing home. I got there, you know, and I'm like waiting for something. I don't know what's
00:54:00going to happen. And it's just like every other day that guy's still in his condition next to him.
00:54:07My dad's lying there. He had had a cup of coffee. He has his eyes closed. I said, how you doing dad?
00:54:13He said, all right, I guess. And I'm like, well, I guess this was just my imagination.
00:54:20And so I sat down, I figured, well, I'm here. I might as well give him some more Bible
00:54:29about a week earlier. He had said to me, we were watching a cooking show on the TV and out of the
00:54:35blue as we're watching Rachel Ray doing something with extra virgin olive oil and garlic out of the
00:54:41blue, he says to me, he says, your pastor's a nice guy. I'm like, what? We're watching a cooking show.
00:54:49And he said, your pastor's a nice guy. And I want you to tell him, thank you for me.
00:54:56But he's out of his mind if he thinks I'm going to get saved. That's what he said about a week earlier.
00:55:03And I'm like, well, dad, I said, I'll tell him, you know, and then we went back to watching the
00:55:10cooking show. On this particular day, I said to him, is it okay if I open up the Bible and read
00:55:16some Bible to you? I always like to ask lost people, is it okay if I read the Bible to you?
00:55:23And the 98% of it, anybody, any lost person I've ever asked has said, yes,
00:55:29they appreciate the effort. So I start reading the Bible to him and I felt kind of dry. I was tired.
00:55:38There was no emergency. There was no alarm. And I thought to myself, why am I here?
00:55:44Other than I could have come later. Now I got to go back and do the laundry.
00:55:49And so I closed the book and I stood up and I was, I started to say, well, dad,
00:55:57I'm going to go back to the house and do some laundry. I never got there. I closed the book
00:56:03and I stood up and all of a sudden I heard a voice, an actual voice with my actual ears
00:56:12saying to me, don't stop reading him the Bible. And I looked around, I'm like, God is talking.
00:56:20No, no, it's that guy. And he opens his eyes for the first time in months. Now, if I was sitting
00:56:29where you're sitting, hearing this story, I'd say, come on, that is just a Baptist fairy tale.
00:56:34That is just a Baptist fairy tale. This happened to me with my dad. And all of a sudden this guy
00:56:41opens his eyes and he tells me the most amazing thing. From the moment that they brought me in
00:56:48here, I have been praying for your dad to get saved. The guy in the semi coma that nobody could
00:56:56respond to or respond with. And he said to me, whatever you do, don't stop reading the Bible
00:57:05to your dad. Now, at this point, I am living in the twilight zone. I am, this is about as
00:57:17biblical as it's going to get. And so with a renewed vigor, as you might imagine,
00:57:24now I feel like I've had five cups of coffee. Now I'm excited to be the evangelist. And I started
00:57:31Old Testament and I'm like, God, just give me some verses. And every single place, Isaiah 40, 41,
00:57:39Isaiah chapter nine, any place that I could think of. And of course the New Testament.
00:57:45And for about 50 minutes, maybe an hour, I just gave him every salvation scripture
00:57:54that I could think of that God brought to my mind. And then he started to struggle to breathe.
00:58:02And it was different from what he had been previously doing. I ran down the hall and
00:58:07I got the nurse and she took his oxygen level. It said oxygen was 92. I says, what does that mean?
00:58:15She said, it means today's the day, call your brothers.
00:58:24And so I called everybody in and everybody formed a ring around my dad. And because I was just in
00:58:31the zone and I just threw myself on his neck. And as he went through that death struggle,
00:58:41I just said, dad, you're about to meet Jesus Christ. Believe in him. Believe. I said,
00:58:47I've already given you every scripture, believe in him, believe in him. And one of my brothers
00:58:52who was highly offended by that punches me in the back. Stop it. You're embarrassing the family.
00:58:59I mean, we were in a private, private nursing home room. There's nobody outside the nurses
00:59:05and the family. And the last words that my dad heard, he, he could no longer speak,
00:59:12but the last words that he heard was trust Jesus Christ, believe in him. And with that,
00:59:19he went out into eternity. Now, I don't know if he got saved or he didn't get saved,
00:59:26but over the years, I have come to believe that it is likely that he did,
00:59:31especially having the testimony of his roommate who wakes up out of a coma and to say anything
00:59:39would have been unbelievable. But he starts to talk like he had been talking the whole time.
00:59:45I've been praying for your dad all these months that I've been lying here.
00:59:51And it's, that was 20. Well, this past March, it was exactly 20 years, March 19th. It was 20 years
01:00:00since that day. What was I doing in his room that day? I was carrying out the ministry
01:00:09of reconciliation. What was his roommate who snapped out of the coma? What was he doing
01:00:16while he was in a coma lock that locked in thing? He was using that time to pray for my dad.
01:00:25He was exercising the ministry of reconciliation. And this is what we are called to do.
01:00:33And if we will only step up to the plate and say, here am I, use me, send me,
01:00:42then people will get saved. And you'll get something at the judgment seat of Christ
01:00:47for exercising your commandment of the ministry of reconciliation.
01:00:58Heavenly father, we thank you, God. We thank you for your word. We thank you for the power of it.
01:01:06And we thank you, God, for this ministry of reconciliation. And I pray today, Lord,
01:01:12I pray that every single person who listens to this message today will look in their own lives
01:01:21and understand that everyone is called to exercise the ministry of reconciliation.
01:01:28And sometimes you carry it out in ways that are truly awesome and amazing and just over
01:01:36the top, incredible. And Lord, like John Harper and Al Bracca,
01:01:44we are called to, to bloom where you plant us, to be where you put us.
01:01:50And rather than cursing the darkness, Lord, to light that candle of the gospel
01:01:57and to lead lost sinners, to be reconciled unto you and to see saved people get on fire for you.
01:02:06And Lord, we pray that if there's one listening today, either here or online that doesn't know
01:02:12you as savior, that something was said and done to lead that lost soul to you. And we pray,
01:02:18Lord, for those of us that are saved, that something was said and done today,
01:02:23that something was said and done today in the Sunday school, in the singing, in the giving,
01:02:28in the preaching that would get that saved soul on fire for you to be a Christian.
01:02:35And we ask for all these things, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.