Keep your Bibles open there in
Acts Chapter 28. It's very interesting that Peter
begins his preaching of the Gospel in Acts Chapter 2 by taking events
that people see before them and then explaining those events
in light of the Scriptures. And that's exactly what I'd love
for us to do always, and enlightened before us because
of the Word of God. Here we come to the Paul's conclusion
of this Holy Spirit inspired testimony of the life of the
Apostle Paul, and we have one generation of Gospel preaching
before us. We have almost 30 references
to the preaching of the Gospel in Acts. We have four records
in the Gospel accounts of the Lord Jesus Christ and his preaching. a witness established in Jewish
churches in Israel and Gentile churches throughout the Roman
Empire. And ultimately the Gospel is
a person, isn't it? The Gospel is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the good news, good news
for sinners. It's the good news of a king,
a resurrected reigning king, a king who came in sovereign
eternal purposes, a king who came purposefully, a king who
reigns and rules over all things at all times. I love his petition
to his father in John 17. He says, Thou hast given him
power over all we rested our concerns about
the things of this world and the fact that thou has given
him power. This is what a king does, isn't he? His power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
has given him. And this is eternal life, that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent. He's preaching those things which
concern the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I said a few weeks ago,
that word concern is the word that we use for perimeter. And
so in a sense you go around the perimeter of the Lord Jesus Christ
and from every aspect, every infinite aspect, He is more and
more glorious. And the more you go around the
perimeter of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more He grows. He grows in
His wonder and His glory. Why does eternity go on forever?
Why does heaven last forever? Because we'll never get to the
end of the glory of our Saviour and God. There is just one Gospel. There is only one Gospel. And because the Gospel is a person, about the Lord Jesus Christ which
is not true according to the book that you have in your hands.
If you turn with me to Galatians and we'll see how serious this
is. So people think that they can
move, they can move from the truth of the gospel to That's what the whole ecumenical
movement is about, isn't it? That you can choose, in some
sense, what sort of a Jesus. We used to have, the headmaster's
wife used to do devotions at school and she brought in, I
couldn't believe it, in a staff meeting in a Christian school
in India, she brought in the staff meeting and she said, She
has a little shrine, a little corner in her house where she
used to have a little shrine. And here you can imagine God
as this, and she had a little picture of him. And you can imagine
God as this, and you have a little picture of him. who he is. Listen to what Paul
says in Galatians chapter 1 verse 6. He says, I marvel that you
are so soon removed. He doesn't say you're removed
from a doctrine. He doesn't say you're removed
from some denomination or truth or some confession. He says you're
so soon removed from him. A departure from the gospel is
a departure so soon removed from him that
called you into the grace of God, into another gospel, which
is not another, but there be some that trouble you will pervert
the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that of from God. And as we say before,
so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto
you than that you have received, let him be accursed. Let him
be accursed. the Lord Jesus Christ and him
crucified, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,
the Gospel is established because of what the Scriptures say about
him. There is just one mediator, there
is just one sacrifice, there is just one sanctifier, there
is just one way to God. There is just one truth. It's
not as if there are many paths up to the top of a mountain and
you can choose the one you wish to have. There is just one way.
He is the way, personally is the way. the salvation of God's people
and all of the truth that's wrapped up in it, isn't it? And the first
one is the very nature of God and the character of God. The
scriptures define the character of God and they most clearly
define the character of God in all of the glorious attributes.
In one man, at one event, on one day, in one death, in one
resurrection, in one burial, in one established proclamation,
it's all wrapped up in who the Lord Jesus Christ is. That's
where God declares himself and declares his glory. The fundamental issue is the
nature and the character of God. Our God is holy. Our God is righteous. Our God
is just. Our God is faithful. Our God's characteristics, His
very character is the very comfort of the souls of God's people
and they're most clearly revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ hanging
on Calvary's tree. The other issue of course is
what is man? Every character in this world
has fallen. See, most of religion is denying
the reality of the fall of man. In most religion, man has just
fallen over and broken his little finger and he just needs some
help. The scriptures declare man to be dead. If you are dead,
you can't help yourself. You need life. If you are blind,
you need sight. If you are lost, you need to
be found. And if you're dead, you have
no hope of helping yourself. God must do something for you.
And that's the glory of the God-man mediator, isn't it? The Lord
Jesus Christ. The one that can reconcile the
holy, righteous, sovereign God to man in the depths of his depravity
and enmity against God. And restore fallen man. We simply preach with confidence,
as Paul did. We preached with boldness, we
preached with assurance, we preached with pious, because Paul preached
the gospel from the scriptures all the time. He began at Moses
and the prophets and he kept preaching the gospel. And one
of the clearest indications I love what Revelation 14 declares,
isn't it? There's an everlasting gospel.
The angel flew with an everlasting gospel. Our gospel
is an everlasting gospel. It's an old gospel. It's an unchanging
gospel. See, Paul began both out of the
Law of Moses when he was preaching to these people. He was preaching
to them the Gospel out of Genesis 1 verse 1, and he preached the
Gospel out of all of the Old Testament Scriptures all the
way through to Malachi chapter 4. All of the Scriptures testify
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, all of
the New Testament Gospel proclamations draw That's what 1 Corinthians 15
says, doesn't it? Three times it says, according
to the scriptures, according to the scriptures. Romans 1 says,
according to the scriptures. Our gospel is always a gospel
according to the scriptures. Acts has given us a glorious,
glorious picture of these first 30 years of the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ. A glorious, glorious picture
of God himself. In resurrected glory, reigning
and ruling over his church, the blessed Holy Spirit coming as
promised and taking the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and
revealing them to people. What are the things of the Lord
Jesus Christ he's taking? All the things that are promised
in the Old Testament Scriptures is what he's taking, isn't it?
The Lord Jesus Christ is that one who is to come, the one who
is the covenant. It's an old gospel. When the
Holy Spirit is present in gospel preaching, the Lord Jesus Christ
will be the one proclaimed all the time. It's very common in
these modern days for people to talk about the Holy Spirit
and then they go on and talk about themselves all the time.
The Holy Spirit takes the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and
faithfully That's what happened in Acts
chapter 2 at the beginning of Acts. Paul finishes by, in a
sense, where Acts began, isn't it? What did they hear? These
people from 15 different nations in Acts chapter 2. In verse 11 it says, We do hear
them speak in our tongues. That's what tongue speaking is.
They were hearing them speak in languages that they knew and
understood. What were they speaking? Paul preached what he received. That's what he says in Galatians
chapter 1. He didn't come up with this gospel. He was in no
state to come up with this gospel. He didn't cause there to be a
meeting between him and the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't open
his heart to invite the Lord Jesus in. The Lord Jesus comes
and knocks the door of the hearts down and people find them very
welcome guest when he comes to his people. He preached. We preach what we have received,
and all that we ever want to preach is what we've received,
according to 1 Corinthians 15. We preach what we have received
from God, and we stand in it. See, the Gospel is a declaration objective finished facts. It declares the description of
a person who is defined in objective historical facts. And then it
preaches the history according to those facts, the truth connected
to those facts, which is exactly how Acts began, wasn't it? This
is what is happening and God will explain it to you. This
is what happened when the Lord Jesus Christ came. And if you
want to understand what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ, and
find it, and God will reveal it to his people through the
Scriptures that Christ came and made atonement for his people.
The Gospel is all about what Christ has done. It's not about
us. We are the glorious, grace-given
recipients of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. I love how God,
who at sundry times in diverse manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things,
and by whom also he made the world, who being the bright image of his person and upholding
all things by the word of his power when he had, I love these
words from our God, when he had by himself purged our sins. By himself purged our sins. Sat down on the right hand of
the Majesty on high. Why is he sitting down in Christ. The sins of all of
God's people were put away once and for all. Faith is receiving
what has been done. It's being persuaded. That's
what Paul did with these people. He persuaded them concerning
Jesus. It's receiving what has been
done. It's being persuaded that it's
true. It's looking to Him your sins put away. Long, long ago, and long before
you believed. Faith is receiving what God has
done, what he's finished. We do read those glorious words
that Paul wrote in what may well be the last epistle, the last
letter he wrote in 2 Timothy, and if you keep on reading in
2 Timothy it's very hard to read of this man and the end of his
days without tears in your eyes. He says to Timothy, be thou not,
verse 8, be thou not therefore ashamed Nor of me his prisoner, but be
thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, who hath saved us and called us with an holy
calling. See what he did first? What's
the order there? Verse 9, he has saved us and
then he calls us. And he calls us for the holy
calling. It comes from a holy one calling people in holiness
to himself. He's the holiness of God. He's
their sanctifier. Not according to our works, not
according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace,
which was given us in Christ Jesus when we believed. When we did something, when was
it given us? It was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Our gospel is an old gospel. It declares a finished work from
before the foundation of the world. Verse 10, but is now made
manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who
hath by himself, we read it in Hebrews chapter 1, by himself,
who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light. So it existed beforehand, didn't
it? It existed before, and he's brought it to light. Just like
this, we put all these curtains down here away the mountains. We won't be able to see them
at all. We won't see the mountains and the trees and the other things.
And what happens when the Gospel comes is as if the curtain is
lifted and all of a sudden we see. We see what God has done. We see what God has done in eternity
and he's brought it to light. He's brought it to light through
the Gospel. And that's why we call ourselves
Shelhaven Gospel Church or Sovereign Grace Gospel Church That's the only reason we're
here for. It's the only purpose the Church has in this world,
is the proclamation of the Gospel. And all sorts of other things
attend the proclamation of the Gospel. But that's what we're
here for. To preach the Lord Jesus Christ.
And He comes in glory, doesn't He, through the preaching of
the Gospel. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Well-known verses, aren't
they? He says in verse 2 of chapter
4, But we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth, commanding ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. We want God to be nodding with
approval about what we say, and the closer we are to just saying
what he says back to him, the clearer our gospel will be. But
if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom
the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe
not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
But Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness. It's shined in our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Will you see the glory of God? You see the glory of God in the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ. And where's the shining? Where's
the shining? It's shined in our hearts. The world can't see it, but God
shines in the heart. And verse 7, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. We have a glorious gospel. We have an old gospel. We have
a gospel which covers all of the scriptures from Genesis 1
through I'd like us to turn to Genesis
chapter 3. As Acts lays foundations, Paul,
when he preached both out of the law of Moses and out of the
prophets, he went back and he laid foundations again, didn't
he? He started at the beginning,
and for want of time we'll skip the first few chapters. I want
to look at what happened in the garden, and unless we see what
happened in the garden, we'll never see the glory of the Gospel.
Unless we see the nature of the fall of man and the nature of
the responsibility of sinful man before God in his fallen
state, we'll never appreciate the glory of the Gospel. in its horror when we see the
Lord Jesus Christ crucified. Verse 1 of chapter 3. Now the
serpent was more subtle than any beast of the fair which the
Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God
said? So all false teaching begins here, doesn't it? Hath God said?
Hath God said? You shall not eat of every tree
of the garden, and the woman said unto the serpent, We may
eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said,
you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you
die. See, she's been led to consider
the words of God, and now she changes them. He said nothing
about touching the tree. And the serpent said unto the
woman, you shall surely not die, for God doth know that in the
day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and you shall
be as gods. free will, choose the good over
the evil, that you will make that decision. You shall be as
God. That courses through the veins
of every one of Adam's children. By Adam's fall, by Adam's transgression,
we're all made sinners. And Romans 5.12 says that you
were there. You were there. You were there.
representatively in Adam. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit
thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig
leaves together, and made themselves apron. with now with these opened eyes
that see themselves as God and no good and evil. I go about
to sow fig leaves together and they'll hide. Listen to what
it says in verse eight. They heard the voice of the Lord
God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. There's
no question about who was walking in the garden. It was the Lord
Jesus Christ was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
And Adam and his wife, hid themselves from the presence of the Lord
God among the trees of the garden. That's what all of Adam's race
is doing. They are hiding themselves, stitching
together fig leaves to cover their shame. And there's a glorious
picture of the gospel, isn't there, in Genesis chapter three.
So who does the calling? Who does
the retrieving of this pair? Verse nine, the Lord God called
unto Adam. So the Lord God called his people
to himself. The Lord God will always call
his people through the preaching of the gospel. He calls his people
to himself. And for want of time, we might
skip down all of the curses that came upon Serpent and this creation,
and the trials and troubles that would come upon Adam and Eve
because of their transgression. But I want us to see the Gospel
in Genesis 3, because the Gospel foundation is laid here. In verse
21. In verse 15, sorry. It says, God promises, and I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed, between Satan and the woman, and the seed of
the Satan, Satan and the seed of the woman. And it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Satan is going to receive
a mortal wound at the hand of the seed of the woman. God promises a solution to this
problem, this captivity of fallen sinful man in his rebellion against
God. So God calls. Note that, don't
you? In verse 9, God called them to
himself. They were hiding as far away
from him as they possibly could. Verse 15, God makes a promise,
and he declares promises about what life will be like in this
creation. For man in this creation, for
man and women together, for women in childbirth. And then, I want us to see the
order of the gospel, isn't it? God calls lost people. God's
the one that comes and calls, and how does he call? He calls
in the gospel. God calls, God promises, the Gospel proclaimed to Adam
and Eve. And unto Adam also and to his
wife did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothe them. So take the picture, isn't it?
There they are, hiding, covered in their fig leaves to cover
their shame, and the Lord God calls them to himself and he
makes his glorious promise. He kills, and I don't have any
doubt that it was a lamb. He kills a lamb in their presence
and clothes them so that the shame of their nakedness is covered. He clothed them. So before Adam
and Eve left the garden, they had the gospel preached unto
them. So we have an old We'll find this gospel. But I
want us to see the glory of the eternal
union between the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride. And it's back in Genesis chapter
2. In verse 21, And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed
up the flesh, made here woman, and brought
her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman,
for she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they
shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the
man and his wife. That's the word of God. But there is something very glorious
in that picture, isn't it? In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul
takes those same words, those very same words, and he
wants us to see that before the fall of Adam, there was a union
between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. And it speaks
to husbands and wives, And it speaks of us being, in
verse 28, husbands ought to love their wives and their own body,
for he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet
hated his own flesh, but he nourishes it and cherishes it, even as
the Lord the Church. What an extraordinary picture
of our God and Saviour. He nourishes his church and he
cherishes his bride. Do you feel cherished by God? It's remarkable that he can cherish
people like us. What does he nourish us with?
He nourishes us with his word of grace. He nourishes us with
his gospel. He feeds us with himself, which
is what he said to John 6. You eat my blood. You drink my
blood and you eat my flesh. He becomes one with us. of his body, the children of
God, and of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall
a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his
wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery,
but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. there was a betrayal. As we go through the rest of
the Old Testament scriptures, we see again and again the picture
of this glorious union, of the preservation of God's people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Noah was put in the ark, and
the ark is the Lord Jesus Christ. And what kept that ark, both
inside and outside, was the propitiation of God. That's what the word
pitch means. that they floated above the judgment of God, shielded
and secluded, and put inside the ark, and God put them in
there, and God shut them in there, and they were safe and secure
in there. The children of God left Egypt that night, and what
was the glorious event that night? It was the Passover, and if you
want the gospel in a phrase, You know the story, the 10 plagues,
the 9 plagues had come and this was the very last plague that
was to come. Pharaoh had asked the question of Moses, who is
the Lord? Who is the Lord that I should
obey him? You can almost hear Moses And the judgment of God came
upon all the gods of Egypt. And that night, the Passover
was instituted by the command of God. You were to take a lamb.
You would take a lamb that was blind, a spotless lamb, and you
would take it into your household and have it with you, as it were,
in your house. And you nurtured it for those
days beforehand, those four days. And then on that Passover night,
when you were ready, you were shod with the feet of preparation
to leave Egypt, In verse 12 he says, And this
is the gospel in a phrase, I will pass over you, and the
plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the
land of Egypt. When I see the blood, when I
see the blood, says God, when I see the blood of my son, I
will pass over you. So the gospel is the fact that
God accepts the sacrifice of his son. because of our union with him
and our being in him. Paul says I'm crucified with
Christ. God says when I see the blood. God is satisfied when he sees
the blood of his son and he'll pass over us. And the plague
shall not be upon you to destroy you. The gospel never ceases to be
more glorious. Everywhere in the rest of the
scriptures in the Old Testament, all of the blood sacrifices are
all pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ, pictures of that blood
that was shed in the garden, pictures of that blood that was
shed, that sweet-smelling savour. Noah was protected and preserved
because of the propitiation of Christ in that ark. They sacrificed those animals
that they'd carried with them inside and God smelt the sweet
smelling savour. He smells the savour of his son's
sacrifice and he looks upon us in him and says, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied
with my son. I'm satisfied with his work. I'm satisfied that he died for
our sins according to the scriptures. There are two glorious words
that describe the gospel, don't they? One of them is satisfaction
and the other is substitution. It was Christ that died. Our
Passover was sacrificed for us. God saw the blood. He saw the
blood in eternity. He saw the blood in time. He
saw the blood in promise, in shadow. He saw the blood in the
promised explained. He saw the blood of his dear
and darling son. The lamb slain from the foundation
of the world the shedding of his blood, the
just for the unjust. You know what that word for means? It's a word of substitution.
It means to stand over or to bend over and to shield and defend
one. That's what our saviour did,
brothers and sisters. wrath of God fell on his son,
as all the wrath of God in the day of Noah fell on the ark,
and we're safe. We're safe because of his death. When I see the blood, may the
Lord help us. to find our peace where God finds
his peace, to find our satisfaction where God finds his satisfaction.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, for the joy that was set before him,
he endured the cross. Our God is satisfied. Our God is joyful because the
work is finished. Let's have a break and have