Let's turn in our Bibles today
to the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, reading
verses 23 and 24. But we preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness.
but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. I'm speaking to us today
from three words in verse 23. We preach Christ. We preach Christ. If you look above that into verse
17, Paul said, for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach
the gospel. That means that to preach the
gospel is to preach Christ, and to preach Christ is to preach
the gospel. Christ is the gospel. He is himself
God's good news to fallen man. Now, Paul acknowledged that he
preached to different nationalities of men the way the Jews divided
all men. They separated themselves, the
Jews, and the others, the Greeks or the barbarians. Paul preached
to both, and he preached the same message to both. We preach
Christ. Whether we are preaching to Jews
or whether we are preaching to Greeks, Some demand a sign. Others think it's foolishness.
But we preach Christ. We preach Christ. And notice,
to them and all of them, not to part of them, not to most
of them, but to all of them that are called, Christ, the power
of God, and the wisdom of God. You say, who makes the difference?
It's not the preacher, it's God who calls out his people. Calls them out under the preaching
of Christ. What does it mean to preach Christ? What does it mean to preach Christ? I've looked at that many times
over the years that I have been preaching. And I could answer
it like this this morning. It means my whole ministry. What
does it mean to preach Christ? It means over 50 years, the messages
that I have brought. But this morning, I want to answer
that question in this way. What does it mean
to preach Christ? I've chosen five things, five
things. First of all, it means to preach
Christ in all the scriptures. What does it mean to preach Christ?
It means to preach Christ in all the scriptures. And I want
you to turn with me to several places today. But first, let's
look back to Luke chapter 24. And as we are turning here, I
would quote to us this verse, or read to us this verse, these
words of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, as they're given
to us in John chapter 5 and verse 39. He said, as you're turning
to Luke chapter 24, the Lord Jesus Christ said, search the
scriptures. He's speaking to a group of unbelievers,
a group of religious people, And he told them, search the
scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they
are they which testify of me. Now, when the Lord Jesus Christ
told those men to search the scriptures, recognize that the
only scriptures they had were what we call the Old Testament
part of our Bible. They testify, those 27 books
that make up the Old Testament, they testify of Christ from the
beginning, from the first day of creation, from the day that
man sinned and came short of the glory of God. God began to
proclaim and testify of the one who should come to save his chosen
people. We sang that hymn just a moment
ago. He is able to deliver thee. That's what salvation is. It's
deliverance. That's what the word actually
means, deliverance. And all men need deliverance. They need to be delivered from
sin because we're all guilty of it. And sin has a penalty. And that penalty is death, ultimately
eternal death. God, all through the Old Testament,
testified that there's one coming, and that one who is coming, he
is coming to deliver his chosen people from sin and all of its
ramifications. Death, hell, eternity separated
from God. The scriptures to preach Christ
is to preach Christ in all the scriptures. Here in Luke chapter
24, where we turned in verse 27, our Lord is speaking to two
of his disciples on the day of his resurrection and they have
left Jerusalem. They're walking along the road
to Emmaus and he comes alongside of them and they do not recognize
him, of course. And they are sad. They are sad
because Christ had been crucified. And here it was the third day,
and they had not understood nor believed what he had told them
several times that he would be crucified, but on the third day
he would come out of the grave. And so they're walking along
sad incontinence. He comes alongside of them and
asks them, why this sadness? And they explained to him, they're
sad because the one that they had thought was that promised
one had been put to death. And now we've heard that he's
alive. And really they were perplexed,
not knowing. And notice what the Lord said
to them. And beginning at Moses, that's
Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. Moses, he's the man that God
used to write the first five books of the Bible. Beginning
at Moses and all the prophets, all of those Old Testament prophets,
Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachi, Zephaniah,
all of them. To him give all the prophets
witness, the apostle Peter said. And our Lord began with Moses
and all the prophets. He expounded unto them. Now notice,
in all the scriptures, all the scriptures, all the 27 books
of the Old Testament, all the scriptures, it all reveals Christ. That's the whole purpose of this
book, isn't it, to reveal who God is, and who men are, and
who Christ is. He expounded unto them in all
the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. I'm sure he went through
the various types and the various promises and the various prophecies
that were given all through the Old Testament Scripture. And
they all testified they were all Scriptures concerning him. And now look down in that same
chapter to verse 44. When he appeared to the eleven
together, He said unto them, these are the words which I spake
unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the
prophets and in the Psalms concerning me. Then, notice this next verse,
then opened he their understanding that they might understand the
scripture. A man can learn the scripture
by root, as they say, as he would
learn various sciences and still not see Christ in the word of
God. But unto them which are called
Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. God alone
is able to open the understanding that we might see Christ. You
see, that's one thing that's so offensive about the cross,
so offensive about the gospel. It comes by revelation. You see your calling, brethren,
not many mighty, not many noble. Paul goes on to say in that first
chapter of 1 Corinthians, Some of the men and women who have
been acknowledged as the greatest minds that have ever existed
in this world have been completely devoid of the greatest knowledge
of all, that is, of Christ. It comes by revelation. But to
preach Christ is to preach Christ in all the scriptures. Now second,
what does it mean to preach Christ? It means to preach Christ as
God's servant. I want you to look back to Isaiah
chapter 42. This is what it means to preach
Christ. It means to preach Christ in
all the scriptures. And second, it means to preach
Christ as God's servant. In Isaiah chapter 42 and verse
1, God, speaking through the prophet,
said, Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom
my soul delighteth, I've put my spirit upon him, and he shall
bring forth judgment unto the Gentiles. Now, before this verse,
in the prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah 7 and verse 14, God said, I will
give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. And in the
New Testament, just in case some of us don't understand what that
title means, Immanuel, Matthew explains it to us. It means God
with us. A virgin shall conceive and bring
forth a son. and his name shall be called
Immanuel, God with us. And this here is God's servant. Isaiah 42 and verse one. Behold my servant, the eternal
son of God, he who is equal with the Father and God the Holy Spirit
in every way, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, that
he took into union with himself, with his person, that eternal
person, he took into union with himself that body that was prepared
him of God the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, so that he became
the servant of Jehovah. He did all those things as the
scripture here says, behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect
in whom my soul delighteth. Here's the only man and he is
the God man of all the men who have ever walked upon the face
of God's earth that God could look at and say, behold my servant. This is my son, my only begotten
son, in whom I am well pleased. He did always those things that
pleased the Father. And notice, if you will, down
in that 42nd chapter in verse 21, the scripture says the Lord
is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will magnify the law
and make it honorable. God has always had a law, my
friends. It is a reflection of His perfect
being. God sent His Son into this world,
made under the law, and He honored that law. It was His law. He
honored it just by becoming, coming under it, rather. And
then by His obedience, He honored God's law. He magnified the law
of God. Every jot, every tittle had to
be fulfilled. And he said it would be fulfilled. Heaven and earth would not pass
away until every jot and every tittle of the law of God was
fulfilled. He said, I came not to destroy
the law, but to fulfill the law. And he did that as God's servant,
as the servant of Jehovah. And do you see? He said, Behold
my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect. The Lord Jesus Christ,
God's servant, is His first elect. He chose Him first, the God-man,
and then He chose His people in Him. We are chosen in Christ. His people are chosen in Christ,
blessed in Christ. accepted in Christ, made holy,
sanctified in Christ. He is God's first elect. In other words, in that Lamb's
Book of Life and that scroll that contains the names of all
of God's elect at the very top, the first name is His name, the
Lord Jesus Christ. To preach Christ is to preach
Christ as God's servant, His elect, He whom the Father hath
chosen and ordained. Third, what does it mean to preach
Christ? It means to preach Christ as
the surety of the new covenant. Let's look in Hebrews chapter
seven. To preach Christ means to preach
Christ in all the scriptures. To preach Christ means to preach
Christ as God's servant. And to preach Christ means to
preach Christ as the surety of the new covenant. Here in John
7 in verse 22, the writer said, by so much was Jesus made a surety
of a better covenant. You know the word covenant. better testament here in our
English translation, but the word testament and covenant is
used interchangeably in the New Testament. The same Greek word
is translated sometimes testament and sometimes covenant. And I'm
thankful that it is because we can learn of this, of the truth
of what is revealed to us if we consider this covenant as
a testament or as a covenant. But the fact, the point I'm making
is he is a surety of this better covenant. It is a covenant of
good news to us. I prefer the word covenant here
because the covenant speaks of peace. In the Old Testament,
it is referred to as a covenant of peace. And it is through this
covenant that we learn how that Guilty men and women like you
and I may have peace with God how we may be Reconciled unto
God and it's also called a covenant of life And it is through this
covenant that we recognize and learn how that we are given eternal
life He said I am calm that they might have life his sheep that
they might have life And that they might have it more abundantly
It's through the work of this covenant, the surety work of
this covenant, that we both have peace with God and we have eternal
life. We, you and I, I can speak for
myself, I most often refer to it as a covenant of grace. Because
everything about this covenant testifies of God's grace. It's
a covenant of a gracious God. It's a covenant that concerns
men and women who need grace of all things that we need. We
need God to deal with us, not in justice. If He deals with
us in justice, He'll put all of us in hell. But He deals with
us in this covenant in grace. You know the word covenant, or
the word surety rather, it says here in this verse, but by so
much was Jesus made a surety of a better covenant. That word
surety, it actually means one that draws nigh. One that draws
nigh. And this is what the eternal
Son of God did when the covenant was made. When it was just Him
and His Father and God the Holy Spirit It was him who drew near
to the Father and agreed to be the substitute and the surety
of this covenant to pay the sin debt of his people. You know, the older writers,
John Bunyan, I remember in particular, he liked to use the word undertaker. Undertaker. I like that word. I like to use that word in preaching
and speaking about assurity. Because everybody in this room
today, I would imagine, we all know what an undertaker does. As we use the word today, here's
a corpse. It needs to be buried. It needs
to be put away. Well, it can't do anything for
himself, for itself. It cannot wash himself. It cannot
dress himself. It cannot lay himself out in
a coffin. It cannot carry him out to the
cemetery and put him down in the grave. The undertaker does
that work. What a picture, my friends. of
those of us who are dead spiritually, dead in trespasses and sins. And Christ came to undertake
for us, to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We cannot wash ourselves, though
we're filthy. We can't do that. We cannot clothe
ourselves, though we must be clothed with a righteousness,
a robe of righteousness if we are to appear in the presence
of God. We can't do that. We have a debt,
a debt of sin that's been accumulating since the day we came into this
world. Can you imagine the mountain
of debt? I speak for myself today. The
mountain of debt of my sins, and I can't pay it. The church
can't pay it. All the religious people in the
world cannot pay my sin debt. But I tell you one who did, the
surety, the undertaker, Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine
that? He paid the debt he did not owe. He paid our debt. He undertook
to do for us, his people, who by nature are dead in trespasses
and sins, what we could not and cannot do for ourselves. And fourth, what does it mean
to preach Christ? It means to preach Christ as
dying and rising again. He did, he did lay down his life. After speaking those awful words
from the cross, we read them at the beginning of our service.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Those are awful
words. We cannot even begin to begin
to understand really what they mean. Martin Luther one time
said, God forsaking God, I can't, I can't go there. None of us
can, but it was real. It was real. When he who knew
no sin, that is the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God,
when he was made to be sin, bearing the sins of his people in his
own body on the cross, that the holy Lord God of heaven and earth
forsook him. And that's what the punishment
is, the punishment for those who die in their sins. It is
to be forever and forever and forever forsaken of God. That is to be cast out into eternal
hell, to be cast into eternal darkness where the worm doth
not. That is where there's no death,
it's an eternal death. But there's no annihilation of
your being, but the worm, the conscience remembers. And I say
this this morning, if anyone in this service this morning
goes out into eternity lost with your sins still upon you, not
having fled to Christ, Look to Him as your Lord and Savior,
turning from your sins and fleeing to Him, that throughout eternity,
your conscience will remind you of this very message that you're
hearing today. That you one time sat in a place
and heard the gospel, Christ being preached, and for whatever
reason, you chose, yes you did, not to hear and not to heed and
not to believe. I'm going to blame God for that. No, you're not. No, you're not. Your mouth is going to be stopped,
but throughout eternity. Our Lord experienced there on
that cross in those three hours of darkness, my friends, what
all of his people, what we deserve, and that is eternal separation
from God. You say, well, how could he do
that in three hours when you're talking about eternity that never
ends? Because of who he is, God, God
in flesh. Well, to preach Christ means
to preach Christ is dying, but thank God that's not the end
of this point. It's to preach Christ is rising.
He carried our sins with him to the tomb. The Bible says he
bore them in his own body on the tree, but he carried them
to the tomb, but praise God, he came forth without them. On
that Sunday morning, so many years ago, he came out of that
tomb, my friends, and he came out having crushed the head of
Satan, crushed the head of Satan, having conquered death, and having
paid the sin debt of his people. Christ died as the one sacrifice
that does forever put away sin. And we know that he rose to give
eternal life to as many as the Father had given him. And lastly, fifth, what does
it mean to preach Christ? To preach Christ is to declare
that he is coming again. He is coming again. What a wonderful, day that's
going to be. I was thinking of that scripture
earlier and a message that I hope to preach sometime in the future. The text, this won't be my text,
but this is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice
and be glad in it. What day is that talking about? Was it the day He died on the
cross? Was it the day He came out of
the tomb? Was it the day He revealed Himself
in you? Is it the day He's coming again? Whatever day it is, this is the
day which the Lord hath made, and we will rejoice and be glad
in it. Is it today? Well, this is the
Lord's day. I'm glad. I'm rejoicing today
in Christ. Thank God I'm looking forward
to the fact that one day He's going to come again. This is
what the angels told His disciples the day He ascended back unto
the Father. You know, He ascended on the
40th day, didn't He? And here He was with His disciples
out there, and He ascended back to the Father, and there they
are looking up, looking up. I guess if the angels had not
spoke to Him, they'd still be there looking up. You know, some people take the
return of Christ and that's how they spend their time. They're
always just looking up, looking up. No, the angel said, this
same Jesus shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go
into heaven. That is bodily. He ascended unto
the Father and one day there's going to be the shout of the
archangel. and the trump of God and the
Lord Jesus Christ is going to descend again. He's going to
come again. And if it were today, just now,
what a blessed time that would be. And every person in this
building who knows Christ, we would be transformed. This old
float, this body of death, this body of corruption, this vile
body in which we now live would be exchanged for a glorious body
like unto His glorious body. And all of those believers who
are there with Him today, they would return and be reunited
with their resurrected bodies all over this world would come
forth from the tombs. And we all should be caught up
together to meet the Lord in the air and to forever, forever
be with the Lord. Paul tells us that when he comes
again, he will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. At the same time, at his coming,
when he shall be glorified in his saints, he shall take vengeance
on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel. What does it mean to obey the
gospel? What does it mean? And all men
are commanded to believe on the Son. Just as all men are commanded
to repent and turn from their sins, all men are commanded to
believe, to obey the gospel. You say, well, I don't feel like
it. It doesn't say anything about feeling. Doesn't say a word about
feeling. It's God's word. It's God's commandment. This is a commandment of the
one before all of us one day will stand. This is our warrant,
his word, that we believe on his son, whom he has sent, and
love one another. That's what it means to preach
Christ. It's what it means to me. And
I pray that in every message that God will give me, that I'll
be preaching Christ. I had a friend, or a man, acquaintance
recently, a pastor, who preached on Sunday morning. He'd been
preaching for over 50 years, and he never preached again.
God let him do what most preachers say they want to do, and that
is to die preaching. Just a few days, he was gone. All of us are going to die. None of us know when. But isn't
it a comfort today to know that when God calls us, if you know
Christ today, it's well. My sins, not in part, but the
whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear them no more. Praise
God, it is well with my soul. Is it well with your soul? Is
it? I pray so. We're going to sing
another hymn and then we'll be dismissed. Number 224.