Ambassadors for Christ

Christ’s ambassadors are men and women called by God and placed where Christ would stand if He were on earth. Any ambassador stationed in a foreign land represents the interests of his country and strictly follows its law in order to not be found guilty.

So it is with each preacher who is a true ambassador for Christ. God calls His servants. They are saved and reborn, sanctified through the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit and God’s Word.

Ambassadors for Christ need to be clear and well-versed in doctrine to be able to show searching souls the way to eternal life. When a servant of God practically applies doctrine and truth, the way of life will be clearly visible to the church, whether all are saved or not. It is certainly obvious that some people in a local church come and go without ever possessing a salvation experience, but they should still know the way leading to eternal life.

A true ambassador for Christ must model the way to Christ for people seeking God, and wherever possible, give instruction and information.

A child of God came to his pastor and asked for advice and help. He wished to be sanctified but was still very unclear about the second work of grace. After a short while, he received the answer, “I cannot give you a good answer because I myself do not know much about it. I can however give you a book that clearly describes it. After you read it, you will certainly find your way.” – Paul wrote once to Timothy in reference to experiencing the grace of Jesus Christ, “The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops” (2 Timothy 2:6).

It is detrimental when an ambassador for Christ has no experience of sanctification. This is why we so often see a superficial Christianity in our time.

A man came once to an evangelistic meeting. At the end when the invitation to come to Christ was given, he was deeply moved, went to the front, knelt down, and cried out loud to God that He might forgive him his sins. As the local minister and evangelist were praying with other souls, another preacher came to this repentant man and knelt beside him. No one could hear what this “preacher” whispered in his ear, but one thing happened: the searching man stopped crying and went to the back. Once all the searching souls had been prayed with, the evangelist asked this “preacher” what had happened with the man who had stood up suddenly and gone to the back. The evangelist received the answer, “I told him that this wan't being done right. You are coercing the people with fear and scare tactics. He should know that we can just accept everything out of God’s hand by faith.”

This man went home, but never came back because this odd “preacher” had made him completely unconcerned. How will this “preacher” be able to answer for this? God will one day require an account from him. God’s Word shows us the duty and the responsibility Christ’s ambassadors have towards poor souls. In Ezekiel 3:19 we read, “Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.” The 18th verse shows us the opposite; that is, if a preacher is silent, God will require the blood of the sinner at his hand.

Oh, how important it is to be called by God. How necessary it is to be sanctified and to show lost people the way that they may receive salvation from sin and then also experience sanctification through the Holy Spirit.

It is especially tragic in our time. Unsanctified people claim to be ambassadors for Christ. We hear things like, “We need to make things more interesting and interactive for our young people so that they will stay in church. We need to do more for our youth...” But do people also say, “Our young people need forgiveness of sin, salvation from all unrighteousness and the enemy’s power”?

There were ambassadors for Christ that showed me the way to the Lord. It spoke to my heart when they preached of cleaning up the stones that are heaped on every sinner’s path. God gave me grace to clear my path. I was able to ask my peers for forgiveness, and Christ forgave my sins and saved me from all evil.

Superficial “ambassadors” are not ambassadors for Christ. They contradict the truth and the Holy Spirit. They perform a superficial work that will harvest eternal ruin on the Day of Judgment.

God can equip us with power from on high so that we may act in a way that is pleasing to Him. In today’s spiritual “midnight," the devil is dealing out his last blow. Many people have deteriorated into a mere religious form. Instead of truth and a salvation experience, people have set up an empty religion. Many are being deceived by others persuading them that they are reborn and sanctified, but their works do not prove it. No one can see a difference between before and after “sanctification.” Sadly, they are deceiving themselves!          

 Adolph Lutzer (1900-1980)