First question people most often
ask is, where is Essex Fells? And the best way to describe
it is to say that it's my privilege to live and minister in an area
that is just about 20 miles due west and a little bit south of
the George Washington Bridge, which is upper Manhattan. In
that area, way up in northern New Jersey, in that section of
the country that is generally described as the northern New
Jersey, New York metropolitan area, whereas I've often told
people no one lives if he has a choice unless A. he's crazy
or B. he's called of God and it's because
of the latter I trust that I am there and have been there now
for a number of years in fact seventeen plus years and thirteen
years ago it was my joy and privilege with thirty-seven charter members
to constitute the Trinity Baptist Church it's a church which has
so much in common with your own because we are committed to a
confession of faith which is the second child of the Westminster
Confession of Faith. The Westminster Confession of
Faith gave birth to its first child, which was the Savoy Confession,
in which those who held the broad doctrinal perspectives of the
Westminster Confession wanted to declare their oneness with
the people of God who held to that confession But they differed
in the area of church government. Well, a little bit later, those
who differed in the area of church government and the matter of
how much water on whom, drew up the 1689 or London Confession
of Faith. And that was the second child,
and that's the confessional basis of our assembly. Well, from that
time some 13 years ago, God has been pleased to bless the work
with a steady and solid growth And though many have been with
us for four or five years, and then God has moved them on to
other places as career opportunities have opened before them, our
membership now stands around 300, with about 350 in attendance
regularly on the Lord's Day. And in addition to all of the
regular ministries of a local church, local evangelism, in
missions, in hospitals, and in other channels that are open
to us, God has been pleased to entrust to us as a church the
oversight of three missionary families, two of whom we fully
support and are also, in a sense, their mission board in that we,
as our elders, give them counsel and direction. And we've seen
the joy of a church planted in the area of East London in England,
a church planted in Sweden with a literature ministry that literally
extends to all of Sweden, and then we have a major part in
the support of a missionary in the suburbs of Nairobi, Kenya,
East Africa, and we've also had the joy of seeing a church planted
in that place. And then in addition to those
ministries, God has been pleased to entrust to us a Tate ministry,
which has two full-time employees and one part-time employee and
each year about 35 to 40,000 cassettes go out to over 60 countries
and all of the states and all of the provinces of Canada and
that just is something that is developed at its own we've never
promoted it it's nothing we ever had ambitions to have but God
in his providence was pleased to give this door of ministry
and then three years ago God led us to establish a three-year
program of ministerial training and so the trinity ministerial
academy operates every tuesday through friday in the basement
of our church and i'm privileged to be one of the instructors
in that academy our church is made up primarily of young couples
anyone my age is almost like a patriarch uh... the average
age is probably late twenties possibly early thirties couples
just beginning to have their families in fact it's a joke
around our place that our young couples have babies like old-time
catholics when it was a sin not to have as large a family as
you could possibly have, and we rejoice in the wholesome,
biblical attitude which our couples have to the privilege of parenthood
and the establishment of Christian homes. Well, I hope that gives
you at least a little bird's-eye view of what our church is, and
as God would bring us to your remembrance, we would covet your
prayers that God would help us to be faithful to the trust which
He has given to us as a local church, a trust which I am grateful
to say I do not carry on my shoulders alone, but my fellow elders meet
with me every Saturday night from seven till ten or ten-thirty,
every single Saturday, to share the burdens of the work of the
ministry there. And then, as some of you know,
God has entrusted to me this other ministry, particularly
ministering to pastors and the servants of Christ in many parts
of the world, a ministry again which I have never sought, and
I would give it up tomorrow if I could because it's not a glamorous
thing, it just means additional burdens, but God has thrust that
ministry upon me, and this summer I try to limit my overseas ministry
to one per year. Sometimes I break that rule of
thumb under the pressure of other responsibilities in these places,
but I'll be ministering in South Africa in the month of July,
along with the Reverend Ian Murray, whom some of you have had the
privilege of meeting, and would covet your prayers for God's
blessing upon that ministry as well. Thank you so much for the
privilege of sharing with you something of what God is doing
for the fulfillment of his own promises to his son through the
efforts of his servants there in Essex Fells. And thank you,
brethren, for the opportunity to share these things. May I encourage you to follow
with me as I read again this evening the portion of the Word
of God which was read in your hearing this morning. In looking
out over the congregation, I noticed at least a few faces of men and
women who are not with us this morning and are here this evening.
And particularly for their sakes, I do want to read the passage
which was read in your hearing. Spend just a few minutes catching
up the main threads of thought that were opened up from the
passage and then proceed in our study of this rich portion of
the Word of God. Acts chapter 20, Acts chapter
20, and beginning with verse 17. Speaking of Paul the Apostle,
the Word of God says, And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and
called to him the elders of the church. When they were come to
him, he said to them, Ye yourselves know from the first day that
I set foot in Asia, after what manner I was with you all the
time, serving the Lord with all lowliness of mind and with tears,
and with trials which befell me by the plots of the Jews,
how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable,
and teaching you publicly and from house to house, testifying
both to Jews and Greeks. repentance toward God, and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in
the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall
befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me
in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But
I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself so that I
may accomplish my course in the ministry which I received from
the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And
now, behold, I know that ye all among whom I went about preaching
the kingdom shall see my face no more. Wherefore, I testify
unto you this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, for
I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God. As we came to the study of this
passage this morning, I noted with you that in a very real
sense we could describe the Apostle Paul as a man who was possessed
with this overwhelming passion. He was an obsessed man in that
sense. And his great obsession, which
caused him to regard even the preservation of his life as a
very little matter, was this obsession in conjunction with
preaching the gospel of the grace of God. Verse 24, I hold not
my life of any account as dear to myself so that I may accomplish
my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus to testify
the gospel of the grace of God. It was this consuming passion
to fulfill the will of God with respect to preaching the gospel
of God which constantly motivated this dear man of God. And so,
because of this obsession and the manner to which it worked
out in his life, Paul becomes to us a great model of a gospel
preacher. And under that theme, Paul a
model of a gospel preacher, we studied two lines of thought
that are in the passage in our study this morning. We saw, first
of all, his self-conscious position from which he preached the gospel. He could say, you know that from
the first day I was among you, I was among you serving the Lord. And that word serving means literally
discharging the function of a slave. I was among you as the bond slave
of Christ. And we'll never understand Paul
as a model of a gospel preacher unless we understand his self-conscious
identity as the love slave of Jesus Christ. He calls himself
precisely that. in Romans 1 in verse 1, Paul,
a bond slave of Jesus Christ. And then we noted, secondly,
the manner in which he preached the gospel. And it's all right
there in the passage. You should be able to preach
the sermon to anyone else when we're done, because it's right
there in the text. He said, you know, the manner
I was with you, verse 19, serving the Lord with all lowliness of
mind. His ministry was characterized
by genuine humility. There was no strut, there was
no cockiness, there was no swaggering confidence. There was the recognition
that he was but a creature, and a sinful creature, even the chief
of sinners, who stood by grace and grace alone. But he was also
characterized not only by humility, But by compassion and pathos,
he says, you know that I serve the Lord with tears. And more
than once, these very men had seen the tears flash from the
cheeks of this great man of God, because these were issues not
of professional concern. He didn't talk about God and
Christ and heaven and hell, because those were the verbal tools of
his trade. But he spoke about them as the
great realities of his heart. And when he saw men indifferent
to his Savior, it broke his heart. When he saw men unconcerned about
the hell to which they were going, it broke his heart. When he saw
men opposing the gospel, it broke his heart. And the manner of
his preaching was marked not only by humility, but by compassion
and And then it was marked thirdly by faithfulness in the face of
opposition, notice the language, and with the trials which befell
me by the plots of the Jews. These unbelieving Jews continually
plagued him wherever he went, but he continued to be faithful
in the face of that opposition. And then the manner of his ministry
was marked by thoroughness. Thoroughness with regard to the
content of his message, he said in verse 20, I shrank not from
declaring unto you anything that was profitable. He calls it down
in verse 27, the whole counsel of God, whatever God revealed,
he was prepared to preach. And remember, this was not as
a teacher in the seminary, but as an evangelist, as an apostle
at Ephesus. And he was concerned to proclaim
the whole truth of God to men. But then he was thorough in his
exposure. He taught and preached from house
to house as well as publicly. And then we concluded our study
by noting that the manner was always characterized by intelligent
solemnity. He uses two words, testifying
both to Jews and to Greeks. Verse 20, I shrank not from declaring,
and I taught you. And those words declaring, testifying,
and taught speak of a manner of preaching that was characterized
by both solemnity and by the intelligent communication of
truth. He wasn't there to whip up their
emotions. He wasn't there to play a tune
upon their emotions and to try to elicit a response based upon
the heat of present emotional pressure as so many evangelists
do in our day. He wasn't up there ranting and
raving. No, he was solemnly declaring
in a manner that was clear and intelligible to his hearers the
great truth of God. Well, that's in about seven minutes
what it took us about 50 minutes to work out this morning. Now
let us move on in our study of the passage as we further consider
Paul a model of a gospel preacher and trace out a third line of
thought that is in the text. Having looked at the position
from which he preached the gospel, a bondslave of Christ, the manner
in which he preached the gospel, these five characteristics. Now
thirdly, the kinds of people to whom he preached his gospel. Notice verse 21, testifying both
to Jews and to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward the
Lord Jesus Christ. So the kinds of people to whom
he preached is summarized in these two words, Jews and Greeks. Now you will find that little
formula, Jews and Greeks, in several places in the writings
of Paul. He says in Romans chapter 1,
I am not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greeks. You will find in 1 Corinthians
chapter 1, he speaks of the preaching of the cross that is a stumbling
block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. Now what does
that little combination of words mean? Well, it simply means this,
that if Paul were trying to describe all men in all circumstances
of all races and all religions and all backgrounds, he couldn't
do it a better way than just to put those two words together.
Testifying to Jews and to Greeks. Now, who was the Jew in Paul's
day? Well, the Jew was that person
who had all the privileges of the revealed religion of the
Old Testament. The Jew was that person described
in Romans chapter 3, and then again in Romans chapter 9, who
was part of that nation to whom the oracles of God were given.
with whom God made special covenants, that is, special arrangements
of privilege. It was this nation to whom God
gave the prophets, it was this nation that had the temple and
the priesthood and the sacrificial system and all of the wonderful
privileges of the revealed religion of heaven. And so, for the most
part, because of the discipline of God's dealings with that nation,
in Paul's day, the Jews were found scattered throughout the
Roman Empire, often gathered together in synagogues in these
various places, free from the idolatry that characterized the
Gentile or the Greek nations. They had the scriptures that
were read every Sabbath in their synagogues. They had the instruction
of the Word of God, and because of it, Outwardly, many of them
were far above the hordes of the Gentiles or the Greeks in
their religion and in their moral standards. Now, the Greek was
simply the pagan of that day. Some of them were very cultured.
Some of them very educated. From them came some of the great
philosophers. Some of them had sunk to the
depths of Romans chapter 1, where Paul describes the then-existing
Roman world in language that makes the most realistic person
blush just to read it, where every form of degeneracy and
every form of wickedness is described in the most graphic way. And
the Greek, you see, was part of the hordes of the Gentiles
who did not have a revealed religion. They did not have the Scriptures
in the language of Ephesians 2 verse 12. They were cut off
from the commonwealth of Israel. They were without hope and without
God. And yet, and this should amaze
us if we can feel something of this, Paul says in this passage,
as a model of a gospel preacher, that he had one universal message
for the Jew and for the Greek. Now think of it. what would you
think of a doctor in this town who had but one remedy for every
patient that came to him? I think we'd say, quack quack. We'd say any doctor who has one
remedy for every patient that comes to him is a quack. He's not a bona fide physician
unless Everyone who comes to him has the same disease, or
unless he has discovered a miracle drug that can cure any kind of
disease. Now what was Paul? Was he a spiritual
quack? When he said, I have one remedy
for the Jew and for the Greek, Or was it that he had been given
a remedy that was adequate for all the needs of all men, no
matter what their condition may have been? Now it's this precise
point that I want to press for a few minutes tonight. Why did
Paul have but one universal message? For the simple reason that when
you get down to the things that really matter, all of us are
in precisely the same condition. Now think of all the differences
on the surface between a Jew and a Greek, alright? Here is
the Jew who can tell you about his history going all the way
back to Abraham. He can tell you how God sent
Abraham out with a word of promise, and how out of that nation that
was sent down into Egypt, and hurry out of that man and his
family, God formed a nation and brought them to Himself that
signed the eye, how God gave them Moses and gave them His
law. He could talk about the miracles. The Jew could speak
of tremendous privileges in the sovereign purpose of God. The
Jew could talk about many things in terms of his knowledge that
there is but one true God, that He is holy, He is not to be worshipped
with our own notions. The Jew could quote the Ten Commandments,
all of these privileges. Now there's the Gentile. He's
never had any such treatment from God. He's been left for
centuries in the darkness of paganism with nothing but the
light of creation pointing him to the fact that there is one
true and living God. But beyond that, no special revelation
coming to him. And this created, in a very real
sense, two totally different cultures, two totally different
perspectives on life in all of its dimensions. And yet Paul
says, take the Jew and take the Greek. with all of the differences
religiously culturally morally and everything else but when
you get down to the things that really matter they are exactly
one and what was true then is true today there are many differences
reflected in the group of people gather here tonight age differences
we've got some young people probably anywhere from age uh... age five four five right up to
some not so young, and everything in between. We've got people
who were nursed, as it were, at the breast of Christian truth
from the time you were born. You were given the knowledge
of the Word of God, taken to Sunday school. The Word of God
was read in your family. There was loving, strict discipline
that kept your outward life from so many of the sins that have
crippled others. Some of you who in that sense
are modern Jews, born under the privilege of the light of the
Word of God, kept from so many sins because of the influence
of a godly home. We have some modern Greeks. Some
of you who came from a totally pagan background, where the only
thing you knew about the name of Jesus is that was the word
your father used when he was angry or drunk. And all you knew
about church was that you heard people say, that's where a bunch
of hypocrites go, or that's where a bunch of people go who can't
make it and hack it on their own, and they need a crutch,
and that's where they go to get trussed up to make it for another
week. You would be the modern Greek. But what in the world
do you have in common? One of you been kept from immorality
and the drug culture and the hedonism and the blatant godliness
that marks our generation. And yet others of you who perhaps
are the living example of that kind of a lifestyle. But in reality,
in the things that matter, there's no essential difference between
the two. Why? Because every single one of us
is the creature of the living God. Acts 17. God has made of
one all nations for to dwell upon the face of the earth,"
the apostle says. Everyone, whatever distinctions
there may be in background, in culture, ethnic, and racial,
and all the rest, every single human being that breathes upon
the face of the earth is the creature of God. Secondly, every
single human being fell in Adam's Acts, I'm sorry, Romans chapter
5 says, wherefore, as through one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men,
for all sinned. When did all sin? All sinned
in Adam. And you see the stupidity of
any kind of racial or ethnic pride? My friend, when Adam sinned,
you sinned and fell in him, along with the pygmy in the bush, and
that naked person in the Baleen Valley in what used to be called
New Guinea and is now called West Erion, who has nothing but
a gourd for his clothes. You stand right with him in all
of your refined southern finery as a sinner who fell in Adam. You stand right with Him. I stand
with Him. With all of my Yankee depravity,
I stand with Him. You stand with Him. We're all
in it together. The creatures of God, all of
us, fell in Adam. And no group is more fallen than
another. As in Adam, all died, says the
Scripture. The scripture goes on to say
we are all equally depraved. Romans 3 verses 10 and following,
Paul says we have proved from the scriptures concerning Jew
and Gentile, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none that
understandeth, none that seeks after God. They are all turned
aside. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no not one. We are all equally dead in our
trespasses and sins. Look at Ephesians chapter 2.
Paul is describing, first of all, the Gentiles. And he says
in Ephesians 2, you, you Gentiles, did he make alive when you Gentiles
were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein you once walked
according to the course of this world? According to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now works among the
sons of disobedience, now notice, among whom we, you see the change? You were this. You were this. You were that. But now he says,
among whom we all once lived in the lust of our flesh. doing
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath, even as the rest. Think of it. Here's a man
who describes himself in Philippians chapter 3 as a Hebrew of the
Hebrews, a strict Pharisee, touching his outward life. You could go
through the law of God and you couldn't find a place at which
you could point the finger at Paul and say, Aha! There you
are! You're breaking God's law. He said, Touching the external
standard of the law, I was blameless. And yet you see where he puts
himself in this passage. He puts himself with all these
raw, heathen pagans and says he was a slave of sin and of
lust and a child of wrath on his way to hell like everyone
else. That's where he learned his theology. When God showed
him that there is no difference between due Jew and Greek in
the things that really matter. all the creatures of God, all
fallen in Adam, all equally depraved, all equally dead and condemned. And I wonder as you sit here
tonight, has that ever come home with power to your own heart?
I am amazed at the stupid, inconsequential things that people use as a platform
on which to put themselves out of the reach of the gospel. oh
yes if i had been one of those wicked women if i had been one
of those vile women who gave my body to any man who propositioned
me or if i had been a hooker in new orleans in bourbon street
or oh yes then i might have to use the terms vile and full of
sin i am but god was good to me you see you'll give god the
credit even for your pride god was good to me i was brought
up in a christian home and i was kept from those bad things and
Oh yes, I know I need Jesus to have a little more than I could
have myself, but I don't need him as a vile, filthy hooker
needs him! I don't need him as some foul-mouthed,
cursing, fiendish woman might need him! i don't need him as
an alcoholic might need him or a lecture or an open liar and
blasphemer and so what do you do with the very privileges that
surrounded you and kept you from being scarred by certain sins
you construct a platform to put yourself outside of the reach
of the gospel paul says i have one remedy for
all men i testify to chew and to creep without discrimination
One message. Why? Because in the things that
matter, they are essentially one. Oh, my friend, does that
come home to your heart? Not that you despise the privileges.
I thank God again and again for parents who knew how to say a
sanctified no. Who set up standards and rules
and regulations and made me keep them. And when Pop said, do this
or else, it was no idle threat. I'll clue you. It was no idle
threat. You be in it such and such an
hour or else. And I was in because I knew what
happened if I tested him. I thank God for all those things
that kept me from so many sins that have scarred so many of
my friends. But listen, listen, when I stand
before God, what's the ground on which I stand? I must say
with the Apostle Paul by nature, I was a child of wrath, that
is, exposed and liable to the wrath of God, for sin is essentially
a matter of the heart and of one's relationship to the living
God. Oh, my friend, listen from this
passage. Learn from this great model of
a gospel preacher. Not only the manner of his preaching,
but those to whom he brought his gospel, Jew and Greek, all
kinds of people. who had the same need were brought
to the same gospel. Well then, move on with me to
consider in the next place then, what are the essential elements
of the gospel? Paul is a great model of a gospel
preacher, not only because of his identity as a bond slave
of Christ, his attitudes that we've noticed, his understanding
that everyone needed the same message, but he's a wonderful
example of a gospel preacher because here he gives us the
essential elements of his gospel. What are they? Look at verse
21. Testifying both to Jews and to Greeks, two things. Repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice, Paul is summarizing
three years of ministry and he says, everything I preached can
come under this two-fold summary of repentance towards God and
faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And I like to think of repentance
and faith like the two plates on a hinge. Now you know what
a hinge is. It makes, holds the door. to the door frame so when
you open it, it doesn't fall out? Well, you have the one plate
that is attached to the door frame, the other plate that is
attached to the door, and a pin that holds them together. And
when you have, you can see one right from here, okay? When you
have the two plates held together by the pin, you have a hinge
on which a door can turn. Now that's the way you need to
view repentance and faith. Repentance and faith are the
two plates brought together by the pin of the mighty work of
the Holy Spirit on which the door of salvation turns. And
if any sinner has ever walked through the door of salvation,
it's had one hinge with two plates, repentance and faith, wrought
in his heart by the Holy Spirit. There's no way to get through
the door of salvation, but according to this passage, in a way of
repentance and of faith. Now let's unpack them for the
next few moments, all right? First of all, as we look at repentance
toward God, consider two things with me. The activity itself,
repentance, and then the primary object of that activity, repentance
toward God. You see, we're letting the Bible
suggest the outline. We're not artificially manipulating
it. When someone has opened up the scriptures, you ought to
go away saying, well, that's plain, that's simple, any old
fool can see that. And if you go away feeling that
tonight, say, he didn't tell me anything unusual. It's all
right there in the Bible. That's the most wonderful compliment
you can pay to me as a preacher. All right? The activity itself,
he describes as repentance. Now, the word repentance in itself
means a change of mind. But in its use in the Bible,
it means something more than just, oh, I changed my mind.
I thought I might go down shopping tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.
Changed my mind when at 2 o'clock. No, no. It's not a change of
mind in the sense that you change your thinking or your choice
about some inconsequential little thing. I thought I might wear
a red ribbon tomorrow, but I changed my mind. I'll wear a blue one.
See? No, repentance, though a change of mind, according to the Scriptures,
is a change of mind that touches every area of life, listen carefully
now, at the point that really matters. You see, it really doesn't
matter whether you go shopping at ten or two tomorrow, whether
you wear a red or a blue bow in your hair, but whether you will acknowledge
the living God who made you as your God, that makes a difference
for time and eternity. Whether you will acknowledge
His holy law as the law by which He has bound you to perfect personal
and perpetual obedience, that makes all the difference in the
world. Whether you come to acknowledge that you've broken that holy
law and you stand under the wrath of a God who could take your
life and send you into hell in the next thirty seconds, that
makes all the difference in the world. Whether you change your
mind about what your role in life is, to run the show yourself,
or to be under the gracious government of the God who made you, rendering
loving, willing obedience to Him and His law, that makes all
the difference in the world. Whether you start taking seriously
what He says about His Son, that He is God, that He is the only
Savior of sinners, and that you must receive His Son and give
yourself to Him. You have a change of mind about
those things, and that's a radical change of mind, and that's exactly
what repentance means. It is a change of mind that affects
the totality of our lives in the things that really count.
Now, having spoken a word about the activity, notice the object
of that activity, and this is so critical. Look at your Bibles,
verse 21. Testifying to Jews and Greeks,
notice now, repentance toward God. And in the original language,
this is brought out by the structure of the way Paul wrote it. If
we gave a literal translation, it would read like this. Testifying
to Jews and Greeks, The unto or into or with reference to
God repentance. In other words, the words with
reference to God or repentance to God, but to God is put forward
in the sentence for emphasis. Now what does that tell us? It
tells us then that repentance has to do primarily not with
horizontal issues, but with vertical issues. Repentance doesn't have
to do with the fact that mom and dad caught you doing something
you weren't supposed to do, and when you got caught, you felt
sorry and cried a bunch of crocodile tears, and never do it again,
and all the rest. No, no. No, no. Repentance has
primarily to do with the fact that you stand before the eye
of the living God. For you see, in repentance, this
is what has happened. We have come to discover by the
law and the gospel that Almighty God is indeed our Creator. And as a Creator who is perfect
in righteousness and love and holiness and justice, who has
given a law that is spiritual and just and holy and good, I
owe to that God the unreserved allegiance of my heart. I owe
Him My heart's total affection for Him to command me to love
Him with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength is not tyranny. It is not unreasonable. It's
the only right thing. He's the God who gave me life.
He's the God who sustains my life. He's the God who simply
requires that I reflect His image, the very purpose for which I
was made. And in repentance we come to
that discovery. that we have not acknowledged
Him as our Creator, we have not served Him as our Lawgiver, we
have not honored Him as our Great Benefactor, we have not taken
seriously that He is our Judge, and in repentance we see that
and we begin to take seriously everything that the Bible says. about this God. It's a change
of mind with reference to God. We see that our Creator does
have a right to us. Our Creator does have a right
to the love, to the obedience, to the homage, to the devotion
of our hearts. And in particular, we come to
this discovery because this repentance is always a repentance in the
context of the Gospel. We see that the God who could
crush us in judgment, the God who could send us to hell as
He did the sinning angels, would be perfectly just in sending
us to hell and never giving us a chance of forgiveness. The
angels that sinned were sent to hell with no chance of repentance
and of forgiveness. God could have done the same
with us. when we see that this great, this holy, this God so
loved the world as to give His only begotten Son. That this
God who sent His Son offers pardon in His Son. This God who sent
His Son to die for sinners commands us to repent and to believe the
Gospel. Why, you see, that change of
mind about God touches every single issue. that really counts. And where there is any entering
through the door of salvation, there will always be repentance
towards God. The vertical realization of sin,
the vertical acknowledgment of sin will predominate, and the
sinner knows he's having dealings with God. Remember David in Psalm
51? How did he pray when he was repenting
of his sins of adultery, his sins of murder, his sins of lying,
his sins of deceit. He was guilty of all those sins,
yet listen to his language, Psalm 51, verse 4, Against thee, and
thee only have I sinned. and done that which is evil in
thy sight, that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest,
and be clear when thou judgest." Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Hold on a sec. David, do you mean what you're
saying? against God and God only you have sinned and done that
which is evil in his sight? Wait a minute, David. When you
looked out from that rooftop and lusted after Bathsheba and
made her your little bunny for the night, who says the playboy
philosophy is new? It's as old as the human heart.
David, looking upon that, Sheba lusted after her and made her
his plaything for the night. David, didn't you sin against
that noble woman? Didn't you sin against her virtue? How dare you pray against thee
and thee only, have I said? Didn't you sin against that noble
husband of hers, when you brought him back from the battlefield,
tried to get him to go home and spend a night or two with his
wife, so when it became known she was pregnant, everyone would
think it was his child? The noble man that he was would
not so much as enjoy the comforts and the privileges of his marriage
bed, but slept outside on the doorsteps because his heart was
with his soldiers on the field. David, haven't you sinned against
that noble man, Uriah, in trying to scheme to get him to cover
up your sin? And when you couldn't, then you
planned to have him put at the front of the battle so he'd be
killed, so Bathsheba would then be free to marry you? Didn't
you sin against that noble man? And David, for a whole year you've
been living the life of a hypocrite. Great King David! Man after God's
own heart! And for almost a whole year you've
been living the life of a hypocrite. Haven't you sinned against the
nation? And yet David says what? Against thee. And thee only have
I sinned. Now why did he say that? I'll
tell you why. Listen carefully. No matter how
great your sins or my sins may be to any fellow creature, and
David's sins were great, adultery and murder among them, two of
the greatest sins we can commit against our fellow creatures.
No sin against any creature can begin to compare with the horror
of sin against God the Creator. And so David says, Lord, I acknowledge
against you and you only have I sinned that you may be justified
when you speak and clear when you judge. What did he mean?
He meant this. God, you have said that the worst
thing a man can do is to break your law and to sin against you.
And now I come and say, Lord, against you and you only have
I sinned. You're right. You're clear. You're
accurate. You're just in what you've said.
I own it to be true. Listen to me kids, a lie is a
terrible thing because it's a breach, it's a breaking of the ninth
commandment. It's a terrible thing to lie to your mom and
dad, break their trust, break their confidence. It's a terrible
thing to lie in school and that's what you do if you cheat and
you look over and take someone's answer, you hand in the paper,
you're saying this is my work, that's a lie. It's your work
plus Sally's or Henry's or Pete's. But listen, when you lie, Mom
and Dad, you cheat in school. You're not sinning against Mom
and Dad. You're not sinning just against the teacher. You know
who you're sinning against? The God that made you. The God
who made you says, Thou shalt not bear false witness. The God
who made you says, Thou shalt not steal. And when you disobey
Mom and Dad, when they tell you to do something that's reasonable
and right, and you go off mumbling, Listen, listen, listen. We laugh,
but listen. You know what you're doing when
you disobey Mom and Dad? It's as though you're looking up to
heaven and clenching your fist and saying, God, don't you tell
me what to do. You've got no right to tell me
obey my mom and dad. You've got no right to tell me
honor my father and my mother. Well, you say, Pastor Martin,
I never said that. No, but that's exactly what you
do in your heart when you disobey mom and dad. And that's why a
five-year-old child under conviction of sin will feel the same spirit
of a 50-year-old David under conviction of sin. There is no
difference qualitatively. There is a difference quantitatively.
See, but no difference qualitatively. You remember the prodigal son?
You see the same thing, don't you? He came to the place where
he said, I've had it around here. I can't stand my pops rules.
I can't stand the restraints of this house. I've had it. Give
what's coming to me, dad. I'm getting out of here. That's
a little bit of modern paraphrase, but he got out of there. And
it says he wasted his substance with riotous living, blew his
money on booze and harlots and drugs. If he were living in our
day. Now the scripture says this, listen carefully. When He came
to Himself, He said, I will arise and go to my Father and say,
Father, I have sinned against Heaven. Wait a minute. Heaven? How did Heaven get into
all of this? There's no record in the beginning
that He said anything about Heaven. He just said, Dad, I want out.
I want what's coming to me. I want to live my own lifestyle. I want to do my own thing. But
the first thing he says when he comes to himself is, I will
go back and say to my father, I have sinned against heaven. What did he mean? He meant exactly
what David meant. He realized in his repentance
that when he disobeyed his father, When he dishonored his mother
and left that home, when he went and gave himself to harlots,
when he wasted his life in riotous living, he was not just breaking
the rules of society and the standards and the mores of contemporary
sociological structures. It was God who said, thou shalt
not commit adultery. God who made him a sexual being
and gave him the capacity for the sexual act has a right to
say how that capacity is exercised. And when men say, I don't care
what God says. I've got an itch I'm going to
scratch. I've got a desire, I'm going to fulfill it. I have sinned against heaven.
Oh, my dear friends, That's repentance toward God. Do you see it? A
change of mind that has this concern of our relationship to
the living God. Now, has that ever become a reality
to you? I'm not asking you to shed buckets of tears. There's
not a verse in the Bible that says you've got to shed one tear,
let alone buckets. I'm not asking you if you've
gone through days and nights for weeks of deep agony like
John Bunyan did. No, no. All I'm asking you is
this. Do you know anything about repentance that has primary reference
to God? I fear I'm speaking to people
whose religion can all be summed up in terms of horizontal concerns. You've got just enough religion
to make your mom and your daddy happy, to make you fit in your
own particular cultural and social circle. You've got just enough
religion to salve your conscience that you're no pagan. But my
friend, have you ever had any dealings this way? This way? Has it ever been brought home
to your heart with power that your sins have been against God
and against God essentially and primarily? The God who made you,
the God who holds your breath in his own sovereign hand, that
every unclean thought has been rebellion against God. Every
covetous thought has been rebellion against God. Every day you've
profaned the Sabbath has been sin against God. Every foul oath
you've ever taken upon your lips has been sin against God. That's
why Paul says in Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind is enmity against
God. It is not subject to the law
of God. Neither indeed can it be. That's the great problem.
The relationship to God. And if you ever walk through
the door of salvation, my friend, one of the plates on the hinge
of that door will be repentance toward God. But now I must hurry
to a close by looking at the second half of the essence of
Paul's message as a model of a gospel preacher. Look at it
and notice the language carefully. Repentance towards God and faith
towards our Lord Jesus, or our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice the activity? Faith. What
is faith? Faith is basically trust. To believe is to rely upon, to
commit oneself to, to trust in. It is the heart's trust and confidence
in another. Now that's basically and simply
what faith means. Now, it's illustrated many ways
in the Bible. There are many analogies, that
is, things that it is like. But when you boil it all down,
faith is the heart's commitment to and trust in another. Now, what is the primary object
of faith? Look at the passage. As surely
as God, as Creator and Lawgiver and Judge is the primary object
in repentance, notice now, the primary object in faith is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice, the object is a person. Not a religion, not a set of
facts, but a person. Paul says he preached faith toward
our Lord Jesus Christ. And the whole gospel, in a sense,
is found in a nutshell in those three words that comprise the
official name of our blessed Savior. He preached faith in
this person who is the Lord. Now you know what the word Lord
meant wherever you spoke it throughout the Roman Empire? It meant one
thing. Boss. Caesar was Lord. And when Paul spoke in the Roman
world that Jesus is Lord, it meant that he was supreme ruler.
And when he used that word amongst Jews, it meant even more to them. He was Jehovah himself in the
flesh. So if we're ever to find deliverance
from sin, it will not come from a human Jesus, the Jesus of the
modernist. It will come only from the Jesus
of the Bible, who is the Lord upon the throne, who is God.
But thank God it is the Lord Jesus, that name that was given
to Him when He was conceived in Mary's womb. And that word
means in itself, Jehovah. is our salvation. Thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And in the name Jesus is bound
up the truth of his humanity, his perfect life, his death upon
the cross, his resurrection. But he's not only the Lord Jesus,
he's the Lord Jesus Christ. And the word Christ is the Greek
word for the Old Testament Messiah. He's the anointed, long-promised
prophet, priest, and king who has come to teach us the will
of God, who has come to die to take away sin, is our great priest,
who is our great king to rule, to govern, and to defend us. And you see, in that name is
the very heart of the gospel. And if you are ever to pass through
the door of salvation, my friend, You must exercise faith in, or
towards, or into, literally, the Lord Jesus Christ. You must not simply trust some
vague religious notions. I'll never forget one time, I
was up in Virginia a number of years ago, picked up a young
hitchhiker, preacher friend of myself. And we got talking to
him about the gospel. He said, oh, I'm a Christian.
He said, oh, you are? Yes. Well, what makes you think you're
a Christian? Well, he said, because I trust Christ. We said, good.
Now tell us, what do you know about Christ? Who is this Christ
that you trust? Tell us what you think about
Christ. You know what his answer was? He said, well, I kind of
believe he's for good. And we thought we weren't hearing
straight, so we probed around a little bit, said, no, what
do you mean, he's for good? He said, well, you know, like,
he's for good. The whole content of his faith
was some vague notion that Jesus was some kind of a person that
lived somewhere, somehow, that had something to do in some way
or another with good. My friend, that's not saving
faith. Saving faith has to do with the knowledge of that person
who is the object of faith. It always involves some basic
knowledge of who Christ is. He is God. He is the only Savior
of sinners. He died upon the cross. Do you
get irritated when preachers keep emphasizing these things,
friend? You must not get irritated or weary because it is in the
knowledge of those facts that true faith is found. But faith
is more than knowledge. Faith is assent to that knowledge. Faith involves not only knowing
that He is the Lord, that He is Jesus, the Savior of sinners
who died in the place of sinners, who was bruised for our iniquities,
who was raised from the dead, who is the prophet, priest, and
king of His people. There must be assent to that
knowledge. And oh, how humbling that is. That means you can't
have a do-your-own-thing religion. That means that you have got
to credit all that God says about his son and say it's true. That's
why the gospel was foolishness to the Greeks. You see, the Greeks
would gather around all their philosophers, stroke their white
beards, and say, let's ponder the great issues of life. What
is the great good in life? And so they would debate it,
and then they'd write their large books, and then there would be
various schools of philosophers, and they would discuss the great
issues. What is the great good in life? What is the great end
of life? Who is God? Can we know Him?
And along comes a little-hook-nosed Jew, and he says, every one of
the questions that you philosophers wrestle with and you never agree
upon and can never answer with finality, every last question
is answered in Jesus Christ. In Him is hidden all the treasures,
or are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Oh,
they didn't like that. You see, that humbled them. That
meant they had to become like little children to enter the
kingdom of heaven. Isn't that exactly what Jesus said? Accept
to be converted and become as what? Little children. Faith involves not only knowledge,
but assent to that knowledge, but it involves more. It involves
actually committing yourself to that knowledge, and that means
committing yourself to the Lord Jesus. John 1.12, as many as
received Him. Not the doctrine that he died,
not the doctrine that he rose, but you must receive him. Believing
the doctrine that he died and rose again, you must receive
him. You can't receive him without
the doctrine about him, but you can receive the doctrine without
him. You see, I might go home and someone might meet me at
the door, and there have a large volume of all the lovely things
that are true about my wife. She is this, she is this, she
is this, she is not this, and not this, and not that. She has
done this and done that. Every word might be true. But
I might still be standing outside the door. And when I go home,
I clue you, I'm not going to stand outside the door reading
a book about all the lovely things my wife is. I'm going through
the door and take her in my arms and embrace her. See the difference? You can have everything about
Jesus all told to you in the Bible. And say, oh yes, I believe
all that. That's true. Son of God, Son of Man, lived,
died, rose, all the rest. But my friend, have you embraced
Him from the heart? With all your heart and soul
have you said, Lord Jesus, I take you to be mine, and I give myself
to be yours. As many as received him. That's
faith into the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the heart of the gospel.
Well, as we close tonight, what can we see from these simple
words that I've tried to unpack and open up and illustrate? Well,
we should see the absolute necessity of repentance and faith, Paul
said he preached to Jews and Greeks wherever he went, that
men must repent, men must believe. And my friend, the Bible is clear.
He that believeth not shall be damned, except he repent, he
shall perish. Whatever you do or do not know
in life, if you go through life and enter death a stranger to
that hinge of repentance and faith, it would be better for
you that you had never been born. And my friend, it's not pleasant
for me to say that. As I sat here tonight as our
brother Cato was leading the service, my prayer was, Oh God,
help me to feel afresh. Help me to sense afresh in my
own heart. We're not just trafficking in
words and notions. These are realities, my friend. You're going to die. I'm going
to die. And if we enter death, strangers
to that hinge of repentance and faith, it were better that we'd
never been born, for we'll sink into hell. And I don't know what
hell will be like. The words in the Bible are enough
to scare me. Weeping, wailing, gnashing of
teeth, outer darkness. See the necessity of repentance
and faith. See the inseparability of repentance
and faith. Paul said he testified to Jews
and Greeks repentance toward God, faith toward the Lord Jesus. If you profess to believe on
the Lord Jesus but have never repented, you have deceived yourself. You cannot trust Christ without
turning from your sins unto God. And if you profess to repent,
but you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're just
a moralist who's cleaned up your life a little bit on the outside.
There is no true faith without repentance, no true repentance
without faith. They are the two sides of the
one coin. They are the two plates of the
one hinge. And then finally, will you notice
the centrality of repentance and faith in the gospel? Paul
says, you elders know I was with you for three years. I preached
many things. But you know what the central
thing was? Not social justice. Not economic equity. Not educational
advancement. He said my central message was
this. Repentance towards God. faith towards the Lord Jesus
Christ and God have mercy on any preacher in any church where
that ceases to be the central message. Well, Paul's a model
of a gospel preacher, isn't he? You say, but I'm not a preacher.
What's that have to say to me? Oh, yes, you are a preacher.
If you're a mom or a dad, you're a preacher to your children.
You're a minister and a preacher to your neighbors and your friends,
you students, to your fellow students at that high school
and junior high school and the kids in the neighborhood, the
gals at the office, the men at the shop and in the office. And
as we pray for those who are preachers in the formal sense,
now you see, I trust with greater clarity what you need to pray
for us, that God will help us to be men after the pattern of
this great apostle. And then for those of you who
need desperately this message, we urge you to take seriously
the questions I've pressed on your conscience. Do you know
anything of this repentance and this faith? You can go out of
here tonight and say, well, I never heard the likes of that. Somebody
getting all upset and being so dogmatic and overbearing and
all the rest. My friend, listen, listen, listen.
You can throw that kind of a blanket of rationalization over all I've
said, but you know what's going to happen? If God doesn't give
you up to hardness of heart and to a delusion, you know what's
going to happen? You're going to find in spite of all your
clever talk, the things you've heard are going to be like a
worm eating away inside your conscience and your heart. Why?
Because they are the truth of God and God attests to his own
truth. You're not dealing with this
preacher. I haven't stood up here tonight and given you my
opinions. We've just opened up this book. It's the Word of God. My friend, don't fight that Word.
The God who's brought that Word to you, and it's disturbed some
of you tonight. My friends, He only disturbs you that He might
bring you to the sweet and glorious provisions of the Gospel. Don't
fight. Don't resist. Don't quench those
stirrings within your heart, but seek the Lord while He may
be found. call upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,
and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, We pray
that we will never cease to be utterly and continually amazed
that you would ever condescend to send a Savior to the likes
of us. We confess the wretchedness of
our pride, our creaturely arrogance, that for many years caused so
many of us to go on in blindness and indifference to your claims
over us. But how we praise you that many
of us have been rescued from that course of self-destruction. You have brought us to repentance
and faith through the preaching of the gospel and the work of
the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And we pray for those who are
strangers to repentance and faith. Have dealings with them, even
this night, and bring them to yourself. And as this gospel
will be preached during the coming week, as you spare us and bring
us together night by night, Lord, make that gospel to be powerful
in the hearts of those who hear, that many will walk through that
gate of salvation, turning on that hinge of repentance and
faith. O God, hear our prayer and receive
our thanks for the privilege of meeting together around the
Word of God. Hear us in this, our corporate
prayer, and hear us in these, our prayers that we offer with
our praises, in the name and for the sake of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen.