Romans chapter 1. It is such
a delight for me to be back here. I've been here many, many, many
times over the years. The very first Sovereign Grace
Church I ever preached in was this one right here. Really?
We was at a meeting at Don Fortner's, and that's when they would go
over and eat in that electric building. And old Scott was there. He had on a big old brown hat.
A big old brown cowboy hat. And I started sitting there talking
with him. We got to talking and talking a little while. And I
heard him preach, you know. He said, well, we have a meeting
every Easter. He said, I have a lot of preachers
in. He said, now if you've got time, now I mean if you've got
time, if you ain't booked up too much, if your appointment
book ain't just full, he said, I'd like you to come. And I tell you what, they could
have given me a hundred dollar bill that morning and I couldn't
spend it. Tim James was sitting here, Jim Byrd, Henry Mahan's
back there, Don Fortner, I mean every preacher that I knew, and
some of them I hadn't even heard of. And my first time to ever
get up in a free grace where the gospel of God's grace was
preached was right here. I remember what I preached. Six
things that give me assurance that I'm one of God's sheep.
Six things that give me assurance that I'm one of God's sheep.
I could preach that. You want me to do that? But it is so wonderful to see
everybody, all my dear friends and a lot of Water went out of
the bridge, and a lot of God's dear people have been called
home, and I'm happy for them. And we'll be along. We'll all
get to go right along behind them. All right, I'm going to
just make a few comments on the Gospel of God, Romans Chapter
1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated under the Gospel of God, which
he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,
concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the
Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by
the resurrection from the dead. He calls it the gospel of God
in the last part of verse one. But Paul says, I'm a slave, I'm
a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what a servant
means, a bond slave. I'm a bond slave of my Savior.
I'm a bond slave of my Redeemer. He is my all in all. He's all
I look to. He's all I need. He's my righteousness,
my Redeemer, my wisdom, my sanctification. He says, He's everything to me. So I just give myself away to
Him lock, stock, and barrel. And He's mine, and I'm His. And
he goes on to say, called to be an apostle. Now, he was called
to be an apostle. An apostle has certain gifts
that others didn't have. And the first thing that about
an apostle was, he saw the Lord Jesus Christ for himself. And
all the other apostles did, but Paul saw Him on the Damascus
Road when the Lord Jesus revealed Himself to him. And then again,
when the Lord Jesus, according to Galatians chapter 1, taught
him the Gospel. He said, I certify that my gospel
is not after men. He said, neither was I taught
of it of men. But the Lord Jesus Christ revealed
it to me, taught it to me, made himself known to me. So he had,
you know, they saw the Lord, they worked miracles, they spoke
languages, they did signs, they did wonders that other men couldn't
do. And then he said, I separate
it unto the gospel of God. Anybody that God calls and anybody
that God separates from the world, from sin, from self-righteousness
and self-confidence, anybody that God separates unto Himself,
He also separates them to the gospel and by the gospel. He
only separates people by the gospel. And that's why it's so
important, so imperative that we preach nothing but the gospel
of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ. You know, we've got the
only message that God honors. I'm going to tell you something.
You can go and find every false doctrine and heresy where it
started at. You can find out where Jehovah's Witness started
at. You can find out where Pentecostalism started out. You can find out
where Christian science started out. You can find out wherever
heresy started. You can go and find it in the
history book and who started it. But when it comes to the
gospel, when it comes to what God tells a man and teaches a
man, the only place you can find that is in the Bible, in God's
Word. Everything else, you can go to
a time and a place when it started and who started it. Russellites,
I mean, Charles Tate, you can go on, Ellen G. White, just go
on back and just find everybody that started it. But if you know
the gospel, God gave it to you from His blessed Word. So He
separated from the world, from sin and self-righteousness, separated
under the gospel, and the gospel is what God used to separate
you. And oh, listen, and I'm going to tell you something else,
separated under the gospel of God. Here's another thing about
the gospel. The gospel always starts with
God. Brethren, knowing your election
of God, brethren, we're always bound to thank God for you. In
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If you
start with man, you start at the wrong end of the shotgun.
And I'll tell you what, the Bible, the gospel, everything about
it starts with God. We start with God. God started
with God. God's the one that sent his son
into this world. God's the one that gave us his
word. God's the one that gave his soul. God's the one who shed
the blood. God's holiness had to be honored. God's righteousness
had to be satisfied. The gospel, the word of God,
starts with God. And I tell you what, when men
have to deal with God with whom we have to do, God's high and
holy and lifted us. And how in the world is man,
being what he is, as sinful as he is, as weak as he is, and
as miserably wretched as he is, how is this man going to get
to God the way we are? There's only one way, and that's
what the gospel tells us, and that one way is through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Our Lord himself said, there's
no way. He said, no man can come unto
me except the Father which sent me. And no man can come unto
the Father except by me. And so the gospel starts with
God, never starts with man. And if you ever find anybody
starting with man, working his way up to God, you found somebody
that don't even know the gospel. Don't even know the gospel. And
one thing that I know for without a shadow of a doubt, that people
have such a low, low esteem of God, such a low estimation of
God. Such a low estimation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They think so little of Him.
And they think that they're doing God a favor by even looking in
His direction. They're going to patronize God
and go to church on Easter Sunday. They're going to put on their
Sunday best. But I tell you, if you ever find out who God
is, your mouth will shut up and you'll sit there and hope. You'll
hope and pray, maybe God, maybe God will have mercy on me. Depth
of mercy, can there be? Mercy still reserved for me? Me, the chief of sinners? God
forbear me, the chief of sinners? God would spare? Oh, listen. And look what else it says in
verse 2. This gospel which had a promise
before by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures. God had promised
this gospel. This gospel. And the gospel means
good news. And it's good news. For a sinner,
a God-made sinner, a Holy Ghost-made sinner, not a preacher-made sinner,
not an evangelist-made sinner, not somebody who was taught to
repeat the sinner's prayer, but somebody that the Holy Ghost
has made a sinner out of, that's who the gospel's for. That's
the good news that God was in Christ, reconciled the world
unto Himself, that God took His blessed Son, and He sent Him
into this world to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. He lived a life that you and
I could not live. He lived sinless, holy, harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners, and yet He became like in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and God made Him to be sin. and then
turned around and made him the righteousness of God to us. We
had a perfect exchange. He got our sin and died for it,
punished for it, and then God turns around and
justifies us and gives us His righteousness that can only belong
to God, and He gives it to us in Christ. These are rags, rags, rags, rags
I got on compared to the righteousness God sees me in. The best clothes
you got's rags compared to what God sees you in. And you can
have on the best clothes in the world if you ain't got the righteousness
of God. You're just as naked as a jaybird in God's sight.
Ain't that right? That's what the gospel says. And this was promised. And how
did he do it? Through the prophets. He said,
if you'd believe Moses, you'd believe me. Moses wrote to me. Isaiah. How many times did Isaiah
speak of our Lord Jesus Christ? How many times did Moses speak
of our Lord Jesus Christ? How come Abraham took his son
up on a mountain? And he had a lamb. And he had
everything but a lamb. He had a knife. He had wood.
He had fire. Father, where is the Lamb? God
is going to provide Himself one, son. And John saw Him. He said, Behold the Lamb of God,
which takes away the sin of the world. What world? The world
without ever tribe, kindred, nation, tongue and people didn't
make any difference what size, shape or form they were in. And
oh, bless His name. And as the Lamb of God, He had
His He had His blood poured out, and that blood cleanses us from
all sin, cleanses our hearts. And He was promised, promised,
and listen to this, in the Holy Scriptures, in the Holy Scriptures,
Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and saw, and he is glad. Why,
wait a minute. You're not 50 years old, he said.
Oh, you've seen Abraham, he said, before Abraham ever was. I have. Oh, the gospel. And look what
else it says about it. This is it right here. Concerning
his son. Concerning his son. And listen
to what Paul calls him. Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our Lord, our Sovereign. Our
Master. And oh, that's what God's concerned
about, the Gospel's concerned about, concerned to His Son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord. And I tell you what, I have no,
it does not embarrass me to bow to neither Lord Jesus Christ.
Does not, oh, it's just the most thrilling thing in the world
to say, that's my Lord, that's my Master. He loved me and gave
Himself for me. He's the Lord of glory. The glory
of God shines in the face, in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is concerning His Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. And listen to this. So that's
the Son of God. And look what it said, which
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. That
means that this Son of God came down here and took upon Him flesh.
And He was made of the seed of David. He was the Son of David.
God made a promise to David. He said, I'll establish your
throne forever and ever and ever. David's dead, gone, and they
know where his sepulcher's at. But David's son sets at God's
right hand. And you notice two things about
being David's son. Was that giving him a right and
title to the throne, the throne over Israel, king over Israel,
and secondly, to the throne in glory. that he assumes the royal
robe and sets with his crown on his head, and, beloved, he
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. And listen to this now, and declared,
declared to be the Son of God with power. Who declared it? God declared it. The Word declares
it. The Prophets declared it. The
Holy Spirit declares it. We declare it, don't we, brethren?
We declare He's the Son of God. Oh, and it's proved that He's
declared to be the Son of God with power. What kind of power?
That everything that He did, He did by the Holy Spirit and
this Spirit of holiness. to prove that He was the Son
of God, to prove that He was made of the seed of David, that
He assumed the likeness of sinful flesh. And the Holy Ghost came
and the Spirit of wholeness resurrected Him from the dead and showed
that He was exactly who He said He was. And He was delivered
for our offenses, raised again for our justification. Now, what
in the world, how do you know you're justified, preacher? It
says it's the right hand of God. My justification does. How do
you know you're justified? There it says. That's my justification
before God, before the law, before angels, before devils, before
my own conscience. There's my justification sitting
right there in God's right hand. Any of yours? Oh, what a wonderful Savior is
Jesus our Lord. What a wonderful Savior to me.
Do you mind if we pray? Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for allowing us just
this few minutes to be able to speak of the Gospel, to speak
of our Lord Jesus Christ. God bless these few words, time
and use it to your glory and the good of those that gather
here this evening. Lord, it is such a joy. Oh, what
a joy it is to think of our Savior, to think of His blessed name,
of His blessed person, what He did for sinners like ourselves.
It fills us with joy. It fills us with great peace
and assurance and comfort. And God bless these dear saints
here. Bless this preacher. And Lord, as David comes, as
Brother David comes, God use him tonight. Liberate his mind,
his heart, his soul. Quicken him by the Holy Ghost
and give us ears. Oh, give us attentive ears and
receptive hearts to the gospel that he'll preach. We ask these
things in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.