Turn back there to Colossians
chapter 3. Scripture teaches us in Romans
13 to render honor to whom honor is due. And I, for one, owe so
much to Pastor Henry Mahan for what he's done for me, how the
Lord used him preach Christ to me. And in fact because the Lord
used him to preach Christ to me, you owe him much. And I think you would agree to
that too. I believe Brother Henry was used
more than any preacher in the 20th century. I was talking with Todd Nybert
today and Todd said he didn't know of any other preacher, past
or present, that preached Christ from the Old Testament more or
more clearly than Brother Henry. He just had an ability that God
gave him and eyes that God gave him to see Christ in the Old
Testament. and to preach, consistently preach
Christ without mingling any works or law or legalism in with it. So I want to preach a sermon
tonight in honor of my friend and my brother, my mentor, Pastor
Henry Mahan, but I want to do it in the way he would want me
to do it. I want to preach Christ. That's what he would want done. Christ to be preached. Our text
declares the gospel that brother Henry preached. This is it right
here. Over 54 years of preaching is
summed up right here in verse 11. Christ is all. That was his message. Not sometimes,
all the time. Christ is all. I want to give you three or four
things I learned from this servant of the Lord and that will make
up our division. The first thing I learned from
Brother Henry is faithfulness. He taught me what it is for a
preacher to be faithful. And he taught me that by preaching
Christ is all every time he stood in the pulpit. That's faithfulness. That's faithfulness. To preach
Christ is all every time you stand in the pulpit. I hear men
talk about, I have a Christ-centered ministry. That's not what's meant
by Christ is all. Christ is the gospel. Christ is all. If He's the center,
that means There's some other things being preached too. Christ
is all. He's all. He's all. From the very first message that
you hear, and it only takes one message to hear, and you're going
to hear, as soon as you hear Brother Henry preach, you're
going to hear, he's just like the Apostle Paul was. I determine
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
You find that out right quick. Now, let me give you a few examples
of how a faithful servant preaches Christ is all. How do you do
that? How is one faithful to preach
Christ is all? Well, if we're preaching the
doctrine of election, for instance, turn with me to Isaiah 42. If
we're preaching the doctrine of election, we're just trying
to get sinners to believe the doctrine of election, the teaching
of election, is that what we're trying to do? To preach Christ
is all, we're going to preach Christ who is the preeminent
elect of God. Look here in Isaiah 42 verse
1, he says, Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in
whom my soul delighteth. I've put my spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentile. That's Christ. He's the elect of God. When God the Father chose His
elect, where did He choose us? Where did He choose us? When
He chose His elect, where did God choose us? Ephesians 1 verse
3 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. according as He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world. That means before God
chose His people in Christ to be saved, He chose Christ who
would do the saving. Christ is His elect. He chose
Christ. Psalm 89, 19 says, Then thou
spakest in vision to thy Holy One, and saidest, I have laid
help upon one that is mighty. I've exalted one chosen out of
the people. I found David my servant, and
you know that's Christ my servant, who David typified. I found Christ
my servant, God said, and with my holy oil I've anointed him. I've chosen him. I've chosen
one from among the people, like unto his brethren. Peter said,
To whom coming as unto a living stone. We don't have a dead foundation,
we have a living foundation. Disallowed indeed of men, rejected
of men, but chosen of God. Chosen of God and precious. For
it's written, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect,
precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.
The faithful servant of God, when He's preaching the doctrine
of election, He's not just trying to shut sinners up to a doctrine.
He's not just trying to get sinners to believe a doctrine. You can
believe the doctrine of election and die in your sins. That won't
save you. We're trying to teach sinners
Christ, who is the preeminent elect of God, in whom all His
people are chosen not according to anything in us, good or bad.
That's what we're trying to do, shut sinners up to Christ. Let
me give you another example. What is it to be faithful to
preach Christ is all? Well, when you're preaching on
the everlasting covenant, it's to preach Christ who is the covenant. Go to Isaiah chapter 42 and look
down in verse 6. He said, I the Lord have called
thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep
thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of
the Gentiles. Christ is the covenant. He is
the covenant. Isaiah 49, look there, Isaiah
49 and verse 8. Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I
heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee, and I will
preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of the people to establish
the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. Christ
is himself the covenant. He's the surety of the covenant
before God, made anything that was created, He chose His Son,
and Christ entered into covenant with the Father to pay, to give
the law everything the law demands for His people. He entered covenant
to be the surety of His people, to give the law everything it
demands for His elect people alone. That's what Christ agreed
to do as the surety of His people. Christ is the mediator of the
covenant. Only He who is God and man could
stand between an offended God and His offensive elect and by
His shed blood reconcile us together in peace and harmony. He's the
mediator of the covenant. Go home tonight and read Hebrews
9. For this cause, He's the mediator of the New Testament. That through
death, He might be the mediator. Through death. Just like when
God ordained that first covenant, that covenant of works, that
old covenant. He made Moses to take a lamb
and to slay that lamb and He took the blood and He sprinkled
that blood on the book. on the people, on everything,
all the furniture, everything was sanctified with blood. God said without the shedding
of blood is no remission of sin. But God said, but with my new
covenant, it's got to be something more valuable than the blood
of a bull and a goat. Christ, the Son of God came. to be the mediator. He came to
lay down His life and shed His blood and bear the sin of His
people that He might bring God and His people together. And
it's by His blood that we're cleansed. By His blood. Christ is the messenger of the
covenant. You know it's by Christ alone
that His people have the gospel brought to us and are made to
effectually hear the gospel in our hearts so that Christ applies
all these covenant blessings to us. He's the messenger of
the covenant. And Christ Himself is the covenant. He said, Remember when he took
the wine and he was instituting the Lord's table and he said,
this symbolizes the New Testament in my blood. The New Testament
in my blood. Because Christ shed his blood
for his people, justifying all his people. He ratified, he fulfilled
everything in that covenant for his people. So that from our
side toward God, God looks at us and says, well done. You've done a perfect job in
establishing the covenant. He says that of His people because
Christ perfectly fulfilled that covenant. And so all the blessings
flow to us freely because of what Christ did. That's why Paul
said this, he said, In 2 Corinthians 1.19, he said, The Son of God,
Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and
Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, it wasn't maybe,
but it's yes. In Him is yes. What's he mean
by that? All the promises of God in Christ. or yes, and in Christ, amen,
unto the glory of God. That means God's not trying to
save anybody. Christ already saved them. He's
just coming now to tell them. And He's calling out His people.
And He's making you hear this good news that He's the covenant. He fulfilled everything. He did
everything. This thing is not a covenant
where God is looking to you and me to fulfill part of the covenant.
The covenant is fulfilled by Christ for us. He's done. He did it. Another example of
a faithful servant declaring Christ is all is when he preaches
on the righteousness of God. We preach Christ who is the Lord
our righteousness. We preach that Christ is that
righteousness. He is the righteousness. Go over
to Romans 1 and verse 17. Romans 1.17, Paul said, he said,
verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Verse 17,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. You see, this
thing's by divine revelation. But what is it God reveals? He
reveals the righteousness of God. Christ said when the Holy
Spirit's come, He's going to convince His people of righteousness. Well, what's He convince us of?
He convinces us that Christ is that righteousness. See, the
gospel is concerning how God can be just and justify hell-deserving
sinners like you and like me. What is man that he should be
clean? And he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous?
Behold, God puts no trust in his saints. Yea, the heavens
are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and
filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water? How then can man be justified
with God? How can he be clean as born of
a woman? Can the Ethiopian change his
skin or the leopard change his spots? God says, then may you
also do good that are accustomed to do evil. God says the day
that the Ethiopian can change the color of his skin and the
day the leopard can change his spots, that's the day me and
you can do anything God will accept. That ain't happening. We can't do anything God will
accept. How then are we going to be justified
before God? We've got to give the law perfect
obedience and we come forth guilty from our mother's womb. We've
got to give the law death because the wages of sin is death. How
are we going to die and yet live? Isn't this amazing? God sent His only begotten Son to give the law everything it
demands for abominable, filthy sinners like you and me. That's
amazing. That's the grace of God. We hated
Him. His people hated Him. Those He
chose hated Him. And yet He sent His only begotten
Son to lay down His life for God-haters. Me and you who hated
God. Go to Romans 3. Look here in verse
21. God's righteousness is not revealed
by our doing. God's faithful servant, he's
not preaching the righteousness of God by standing up and telling
you something you must do. Not the faithful servant of God.
A lying false prophet does that, but not the faithful servant
of God. He's standing up declaring this righteousness is by Christ's
faithful doing and by Christ's faithful dying. Look at Romans
3.21. But now the righteousness of
God without you doing the law is manifested. being witnessed
by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God,
which is by the faith of Jesus Christ, by His faithfulness,
unto all and upon all them that believe. You see, He wouldn't
say, this doesn't mean your faith, because He wouldn't turn around
and say that this righteousness is unto all that believe. That
would be like a redundant, dumb thing to say, to say it's by
your faith and it's unto you that if you believe. It's by
the faith of Christ. It's by the faithfulness of Christ
doing and dying. And this righteousness that He
accomplished is unto all you and upon all you that believe.
For there's no difference for all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. This is the only way we can be
made righteous. The only way. Everything that
was done on the cross was done for God's particular people,
His elect, to manifest how God is righteous in the salvation
of His people. That's what the purpose of Christ
coming forth into this earth was. It was to manifest the righteousness
of God. This is what God reveals through
the preaching of the gospel. This is what saves us right here.
Everything that was done was done in righteousness. The Lord
Jesus Christ proved Himself under the law to be the spotless Lamb
of God with no sin. And He presented Himself without
spot to the Father. And He hath made Him sin for
us. For His people. For His particular
people. He made Him sin for us. That we might be who knew no
sin, this one who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And then, having made Christ
sin, God justly made Him a curse for us. What does that mean? It means God paid Him the wages
of sin, which is death, which you and I deserve to be paid.
He gave them to Him. forsaken of God in divine justice. And by that, Christ declared
God just. He honored God's law and magnified
His law and fulfilled His law so that the law has been given
what it demands and what it deserves. Everybody God saves has died
under the justice of the law because we died in Christ. And because Christ is God, he
declared that God is also the justifier. How can a sinner be
just with God? He sinned his son and his son
made his people righteous and he righteously fulfilled the
justice of God's law declaring God just and justifier. So you
see the righteous servant of God, the faithful servant of
God, He comes along declaring, this is what Brother Henry used
to say, he used to always say this, he said, since Christ paid
all that we owe to the law, we don't owe the law anything. We
don't owe the law anything. If you try to give the law something,
you're going to mess it up. You're going to mess up what
Christ already did. He gave the law perfection so
that his people don't owe the law anything. That's the best
news you'll ever hear when you find out what a total complete
failure you are at fulfilling the law. Christ Jesus is the
Lord our righteousness. And so the person, the faithful
servant of God, he didn't come just preaching the doctrine of
righteousness, he comes preaching righteousness as a person, the
Lord Jesus Christ. We don't come preaching some
intellectual New Covenant theology, we come preaching Christ Himself
as the Covenant. We don't just come preaching
a system to get you to learn the doctrine of election, we
come preaching Christ the elect. That's the difference. That's
faithfulness. That's declaring Christ as all.
If there's one thing that Brother Henry showed in all the messages
he preached, it's that he spent his time in his study seeking
a message from God that declared Christ is all. That's evident
from his preaching. That he didn't spend his time
idle, he didn't spend his time running here and there and trying
to be a social worker. He spent his time getting a message
from God for God's people. And that's what's required to
be a faithful servant of God. And not only did He teach me
faithfulness by preaching Christ is all, He taught me faithfulness
in a believer assembling to hear the preaching of Christ is all.
It's faithfulness for us as believers to assemble together to hear
the preaching of Christ our all. That's what it is to be faithful,
to come together to hear Christ preached. I told you just not
long ago, I said everything involved in this, from the pastor being
provided, to the pew being filled up, to us being able to hear
the message, to having the message and hearing the message, everything
about this is of Christ. We saw that in Ephesians 4. Well,
you know who taught me that? Brother Henry did. That's who
taught me that. The Lord used him to teach me
that. This is all of him. And there's nothing more important
that we will ever do than what we're doing right this minute.
Hearing Christ preach. Assembling together with brethren,
hearing Christ preach. And Brother Henry not only taught
me the importance of this by preaching this faithfulness to
me, but when he got so many infirmities after 54 years and he couldn't
preach anymore, then he taught it to me. by himself doing it. He went to Rocky Mount and started
assembling with the saints, hearing the gospel of Christ preached. When I was, on several occasions,
I had the privilege of preaching Christ to the man who preached
Christ to me. On several occasions. And every
single time I ever preached in Rocky Mount, infirmities and
all, Him and Doris were sitting right there on the left in that
second or third pew right there listening every time. And he
always came up and he always had an encouraging word to say
and a thank you for preaching Christ to me. And he was right
there assembling with God's people right up to the Sunday before
he fell and became ill. He preached this faithfulness
to me and then He showed it to me by Him doing what He preached. Christ is our life. And so this right here is the
most important thing believers do. Men like to say, well we
can worship at home or we can worship God out in the woods
and in nature and what have you. That might be so, but I can tell
you this, not at the neglect of this. Because this is where
Christ promised to gather His people together and be in our
midst and bless us with the Word. This is it, because this is how
He chose to save His people. Now secondly, Brother Mahan taught
me the importance of love. The importance of love. On my
first trip up here after we had sold our house and I had my truck
packed up and I was making the first trip up here, I was by
myself and I dropped my truck off and I flew back and then
Melinda and I drove the moving van and all that up. But on that
first trip up, as I was going, I kind of went to Brother Don's
first and visited with him in Danville and then I went up.
I went that way because I wanted to go up through Fairmont, West
Virginia because I knew Brother Henry was preaching there. And
so I went up there and I had a bunch of questions for him
and he graciously answered all my questions. I went over to
his hotel room and the last thing he said to me before I left was,
love them to Christ. That was the last thing. Love
them to Christ. Love them to Christ. On another
occasion when I was preaching in Rocky Mount, I preached on
Ephesians 4 about Christ assembling us together and through the preaching
of the gospel how He grows His body in love. And Brother Henry
met me right after the message and he was saying this in a whisper
so that the people on the back row could hear it. You know how
Brother Henry whispered. And he said, that's the best
message. The love of Christ for his people.
That's the best subject to preach on right there. And he taught
me that. Where does God's servant get
a heart of love? He had a heart of love. Brother
Henry, he preached the love of Christ. He preached Christ is
all. That's how he loved his people.
He preached Christ is all. It is so sad. and so hurtful
when a pastor's faithful, he studies and he's bringing the
message of Christ every single time and somebody says something
like, I just wish you'd do something to show us you love us. That's
a sad, sad statement because you can't show somebody you love
them any better than preaching Christ is all. And he not only
did it by preaching Christ is all, he did it by being sacrificially
generous so that this gospel goes forth and other pastors
were blessed and other churches were blessed and brethren were
provided for. I mean, gracious, abundantly
generous out of his own pocket, this man was. Where does a sinner
who comes into this world wanting to do everything for self and
looking out for number one, where does he get a heart of love like
that? It's the gift of God. Scripture
says the fruit of the Spirit is love. It's the fruit of the
Spirit. Go to 2 Corinthians 5 and look here, 2 Corinthians
5 and look at verse 12. Paul said, we commend not ourselves
again to you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf. He's
talking about himself and the other ministers. He said, we're
not commending ourselves to you, but we're giving you an occasion
to glory on our behalf. We're giving you an occasion
to defend us to the enemies that speak evil of us. That's what
he's saying. That you may have somewhat to answer them, which
glory in appearance and not in heart. For whether we be beside
ourselves, it's to God. Or whether we be sober, it's
for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth
us, it compels us, it grips us, and holds us, and moves us. Because we thus judge that if
one died for all, then we're all dead. That means everybody
Christ died for, our old man of sin was crucified in him.
When He died, our old man died in Christ. That they which live,
those which are born again of Him now, should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose
again. Wherefore, henceforth know we
no man after the flesh. The flesh is the old man. The
flesh is the corrupt nature we got from Adam. And right here,
Paul, when he speaks of the flesh, he's talking about those that
glory in appearance, in the outward appearance. And so he's saying
here, we don't know any brother or sister after the flesh anymore.
Not as a Jew or a Gentile, not as a male or a female, not as
rich or poor. And we especially don't condemn
our brethren when they sin because of their flesh. Why do we not
condemn one another? Because we know in Christ that
old man already died. He's already been condemned and
crucified under the justice of God. And look here, wherefore
henceforth know we no brother or sister after the flesh. Therefore
if any be in Christ, he is a new creature. He is a new creation.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new and all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself
by Jesus Christ and given us this ministry of reconciliation.
Our fleshly man still sins. The fleshly man and our brethren
is going to sin. Don't ever act like you're just
so disappointed that somebody did something sinful and offended
you. That's foolish. They're a sinner just like you
are. Really, if I act like I'm just so disappointed in something
you did and so surprised by it, basically I'm saying, I would
never do that. That's what I'm saying. That's
such a self-righteous attitude. But we're not disappointed and
we're not surprised by it because we know we're still flesh. But
we don't know each other after the flesh anymore. We know that
old man's been crucified and we know that God regards that
brother as a new creation. And if Christ put his sin away
and God remembers his sin no more, how dare I point the finger
and condemn him because of his sin? Right? So we don't do that. We bear with one another's faults
and shortcomings and sin. That's love. That's being constrained
by the love of Christ to live unto Christ. That's what that
is. When I was 19, I was in college
down at Louisiana Tech. And one night, me and a buddy
of mine, we were supposed to be studying for an exam. But
we went up to this creek, put out crawfish traps, and now we
was going to study. Our plan was we was going to
build a fire and we was going to set around and study in between
running these crawfish traps because we wanted to have a crawfish
boil that weekend. But we got up there and we built
the fire, set the traps out and I put my speakers out on the
toolbox of my truck and we started listening to Brother Henry preach
the gospel. And we started running traps in between listening to
him preach the gospel and we didn't study at all. But that's
the night, the first time I heard Brother Henry preach the sovereign,
unchangeable love of God out of Hosea. That beautiful picture
of Hosea and Gomer. and showed that Christ's love
for His people can't be changed. We're the bride, His elect are
the bride of Christ and we played the harlot just like Gomer did
against Hosea. And when nobody would redeem
us, just like Gomer was on that slave block and nobody would
redeem her, she was just a whore and nobody wanted to have a thing
to do with her. That was me and you. And yet Christ came forth
just like Hosea. He came forth and He said, I
love her. He bought her, he redeemed her, and he took her home. And
that's what Christ did for us. And God taught me the love of
Christ. He taught me the love of Christ. That was worth a whole
lot more than studying for an exam. I don't discourage the
young people from studying for an exam, but that was a whole
lot more needful. A whole lot more needful. Christ,
and I'll tell you this too, I had that on cassette tape and I played
that more, so much it broke, the tape broke. And I've recommended
that sermon to more people than any other message. If you get
a chance, go listen to it. The Sovereign Unchangeable Love
of God. I guarantee you it will be a
blessing. He preached the whole first side of the tape and then
it switched over and he said, and now here's my text. And then
he went to preaching his text. And it was excellent. And you
know it was the love of Christ that compelled Brother Henry
to preach the way he preached in simplicity. He preached glorifying
Christ because he had a love for perishing sinners. He wanted
to see sinners brought to Christ, shut up to Christ. So he abased
the sinner and exalted Christ. And he preached repetition. I can't tell you how important
that is. When you make a point, repeat that point. Repeat it. Repeat it. Don't take for granted
somebody got it the first time you say it. Repeat it again.
You know how you watch those TV messages of Brother Henry,
especially if you read his transcribed notes, you'll hear him just repeat
it over and over and over and over. And eventually, by God's
grace, we get it. But it takes repetition. That's
so important. That's so important. That's what I've heard people
comment on. that Henry did more than anything
else is how he repeated, so that you got it. And he paused and
gave you time to get it. And that's needful. And he preached
with urgency for a verdict. He wanted to shut you up to Christ
and compel you to cast all your care on Christ. Because sinners
are perishing. This might be, and he experienced
having folks he preached to for the last time. Thought they was
going to have many more Sundays to hear the gospel and went home
and that was it. Didn't get to come back and hear
the gospel. That will teach you something about preaching with
urgency. Not wasting sinners time. Preaching
with urgency. Preaching Christ. Well lastly,
here's the most important thing I learned from Brother Henry.
Christ is all. This is the most important thing
I learned from him. Christ is all. He is all. That day in Fairmont, in addition
to saying love him to Christ, he said remember Christ is all. He's all. Just consider the titles
of Christ from the scripture. I'm just going to give these
to you. When I send out the notes, if you want them, I've got the
scripture references here with it. But listen to this. Christ
is the last Adam. Just as Christ made His people
die in our sins and perish, Christ saved His people from our sins.
He's the last Adam, the last representative. He's our advocate
with the Father. He's the Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and end, which is and which was and which is to come,
the Almighty. He's called the Amen, the faithful
and true witness. He's the Ark. He's the Apostle
of our profession. He's the arm of the Lord. He's
the author and finisher of our faith. He's the author of eternal
salvation. He's the beginning of the creation
of God. He's God's beloved Son in whom
the Father is well pleased, who God commands us to hear. He's
the blessed and only potentate. He's the righteous branch. He's
the bread of life. He's the captain of our salvation. He's the chief shepherd. We're
thankful for Brother Henry, but Brother Henry was an under-shepherd.
Christ is the chief shepherd. Brother Henry couldn't have done
anything without the chief shepherd. He's the Christ of God. He's
the consolation of Israel. He's the chief cornerstone. He's
our counselor. He's the creator. He's the day
spring, the deliverer, the desire of all nations, the door, the
everlasting Father, the first begotten, the forerunner, the
glory of the Lord. He's God. He's God blessed. He's the Good Shepherd, the Governor,
the Great High Priest, the Head of the Church, the Heir of all
things, the Holy One, the Horn of Salvation, the Great I Am,
the Image of God, Emmanuel, Jehovah in whom is everlasting strength.
He's Jesus for He shall save His people from their sin. He's
our Prophet. He's our King. He's the King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's the Light. He's the Master
and Lord of the believer. He's our Son, our Shield, our
Strength, our Song, our Passover, our Peace, our Propitiation,
our Portion, our Pearl of Great Price. He's the Way, the Truth
and the Life. No man comes to the Father but
by Him. He's the Resurrection. And that's
just to name a few of the titles He goes by. And men want to preach
something else. You could preach just what I
just gave you and preach for the rest of your life and never
get off this subject. Christ is all. He's all. Brethren, do you believe Christ
is all? In Him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily and ye are complete in Him. That word complete means the
same thing, is the same word as all the fullness. What he's
saying is, as fully as Christ is all the fullness of the Godhead,
that's how fully you are complete. That's complete. That's complete. He's made us accepted in the
beloved. The question is not, do you accept
Jesus? The question is, does God accept
you? That's the question. and it's only in Christ. He's
the one thing needful. That's what I learned from Brother
Henry. I'm very thankful to God for him. I pray God bless you.