Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now, Paul gave an
exhortation in chapter 14 on the importance of preaching the
gospel clearly and understandably The importance of a service that's
conducted decently and in order. And then the Spirit moved Paul
to remind the Corinthians of the gospel that he preached to
them. The gospel he preached to them.
Verse 1, he says, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel. Now listen to me, there's only
one gospel. There's only one gospel, THE
gospel. Now men have imagined all kinds
of doctrine and have preached all different sorts of messages
that they call the gospel. But scripture says the Lord Jesus
Christ went about teaching in the synagogues, preaching, teaching
THE gospel. Just one, the gospel. He said
unto those he sent forth, go ye into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. The gospel. Paul told the Galatians,
I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called
you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is
not another. But there be some that trouble
you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that
which we have preached, let him be accursed. Men will say, well,
you believe there's only one gospel. What about all the other
religions and all the other gospels? God said through Paul, though
we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than
that which we've preached unto you, let him be accursed. That's God speaking. That's God
speaking. That's not the opinion of a man.
That's God speaking. The gospel is God's gospel. It's
promised in all the scriptures, and it's concerning His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to Romans 1. I want you to
see this before we go further. Romans 1, and look here at verse
1. Paul said, He said, Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God. It's the gospel of God. He said,
which he had promised afore, beforehand, by his prophets in
the Holy Scriptures. All the Old Testament Scriptures
are the gospel of God whereby he promised all His people salvation
in these Old Testament Scriptures. And verse 3 says, and it's concerning
His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the Gospel. The Gospel
is not the message of morality and the message of you doing
something to make yourself accepted of God, which is 99% of what's
preached. The Gospel is concerning His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And God's chosen method of delivering
the gospel is through preaching. Declaring the gospel through
preaching. Paul said, Moreover brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. I
declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. Now again,
preaching is not just one method God chose to use. Preaching is
the method God chose to use. How then shall they call on Him
of whom they not believe? How shall they believe in Him
of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written. There's the
Old Testament Scriptures again. As it's written, How beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. God said, I will provide you
pastors after mine own heart, which shall feed you with knowledge
and with understanding. Before departing from here, I
had one man tell me, he became so delusional, he told me, he
said, I don't think Christ preached the gospel. He didn't go over
where preaching the gospel, and he said, I don't think we have
to be preaching the gospel like we're doing in our day. Can you
believe that? Somebody told me that. Listen
to the scripture. After that in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God. After God in His wisdom
showed that this world cannot know God, throughout the ages
He showed that. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Through preaching, God
works faith in His people. He says there in verse 1, O brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which
also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also you're
saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless
you have believed in vain. Those that God irresistibly calls
by His grace through this message, They receive the gospel, they
stand in the gospel, they're saved by the gospel, and they
continue unto the end trusting the Lord Jesus through this gospel. That's God's irresistible grace
at work. Those who do not hold out to
the end, those who go backwards, go way backwards, they merely
made a profession which was all of themselves. But it was not
the irresistible grace of God. Those that God calls, they continue
to the end. That's what he's saying there.
And the preacher that God sends, that God uses, he saved the exact
same way. He says there in verse 3, For
I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received. Now let me ask you this, your
mail carrier that brings your mail, does your mail originate
with the mail carrier? Does he write down what he will
and put it in an envelope, put it in your mailbox? Well, the
message God's preachers preach do not originate with the preacher. They merely deliver the message
that God would have them to deliver. The same message by which they
themselves were saved and God made them to receive it. Now
that's just so. So today I want to declare to
you that which I also received. I want to declare to you the
gospel that I also received. I didn't receive it like Paul
did. He was saved directly by Christ. But I did receive it
through the preaching of the gospel and I want to give you
what I received. through the preaching of the
gospel. And the next two statements, Paul concisely defines the gospel. This is what every child God
saves, receives, and believes, and by which we're saved, right
here. 1 Corinthians 15, 3. How that Christ died for our
sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that
he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Now, the gospel
is concerning Christ's death according to the scriptures.
How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Now there's almost everybody
that claims to preach the gospel, that claims to preach Christ,
will say Christ died for our sins. But that's not what Paul
said. Paul said how that Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures. Not according to
man's ideas on how Christ died. According to what God says. According
to how God says it. There's not many that preach
that. Now at this time, New Testament scriptures were not written yet.
He's talking about Old Testament scripture. He's talking about
the Old Testament. Jesus answered some people one
day. The Lord said to them, He said,
you do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. Do you
know the Old Testament Scriptures? A man's not going to be saved
who does not know the Scriptures. Because the Scriptures bear record
of Christ. And God's going to save through
a witness. for a witness. When they came
to arrest Christ, Peter drew out his sword, you remember,
and he cut the soldier's ear off. And the Lord Jesus said,
Peter, do you not know that I could right now call to my Father and
He would send me twelve legions of angels? He said, but then
how would the Scriptures be fulfilled which they must be? They must
be. And it says there that everything
that happened, Everything that happened, everything that was
done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.
Everything they did. Now, every promise of the Old
Testament, every type in the Old Testament, every prophecy
recorded in the law, in the prophets and in the Psalms is concerning
the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus Christ and they all
had their fulfillment in Him. Everything in this Old Testament
book is concerning Christ and what He would accomplish by His
death. Let me give you some examples. In the Scriptures, in the Old
Covenant Scriptures, God said they would hate Him though He
had done nothing wrong to anyone. Psalm 69 verse 4 said, They that
hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head.
Those that would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully,
are mighty. And then in John 15, 24, Christ
said, If I had not done among them the works that no other
man did, they had not had sin. But now they have both seen and
hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that
the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, they
hated me without a cause. You see, the sin he exposed,
the sin that Christ exposed, the men that hated him were not
the harlots and the publicans and the immoral sinners. It was the folks in religion
that hated him. And the reason they hated him
is because his works, being so perfectly obedient to God, exposed
their supposed law keeping as nothing but a sham. It showed
that none was righteous, no not one. That's why they hated him.
That's why men in our day won't preach Christ. If churches started
preaching Christ and Him crucified, Christ would reveal that everything
they had done in religion whereby they thought they were made righteous
or holy and more holy was all a vain show. And men will not
do that. They hate Christ because He's
righteous, and they're not. That's exactly right. According
to the Scriptures, He'd be brought before the assembly of the wicked,
and they'd pierce Him on the cross. Scripture said, dogs have
come past me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me.
They pierced my hands and my feet. Then in Matthew 26, verse
57, They that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas,
the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. There was the assembly of the
wicked. We're not talking about some of the hell's angels, some
biker gang. We're talking about Pharisees
and scribes and the Sanhedrin. We're talking about the highest
up in religion, the wicked assembly. And then saith he to Thomas,
after he was crucified, he said, Thomas, reach thy finger here
and hold my hands, where they have pierced me. Reach your hand
here and thrust it into my side. Be not faithless, but believing.
The Scripture said that's what they would do. It said that's
what they would do. They would bring him before the
assembly of the wicked and then they would pierce him, nail him
to a cross. Scripture said he'd be smitten
and he'd be spat upon. It's even down to the least little
detail. Isaiah 50 verse 6, I gave my
back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the
hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. And then
in Mark 14, 65, It says, "...as He hung on the cross, some began
to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him,
and to say unto Him, Prophesy! And the servants did strike Him
with the palms of their hands." According to the Scriptures,
it said He'd be crucified between two transgressors. Isaiah 53.12
says He was numbered with the transgressors. Numbered with
the transgressors. Luke 23, 33 says, when they were
come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified
him and the male factors, one on the right hand, the other
on the left. There's so much more we could
go through. So much written in the scriptures.
He was mocked of men. Psalm 22, 6 said that. Matthew
27, verses 39 through 44, you find it. He gave him gall and vinegar
to drink. Psalm 69, 21 said that's what
they'd do. John 19, 29 said that's exactly
what they did. He heard his own prophetic words
repeated to him in mockery. Scripture said he would. He did.
Intercession for his enemies. As he hung there on that cross,
he said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Scripture
said he'd do that. They cast lots for His coat because
the Scripture said they would. Not a bone was broken. Psalm
34 20 says, He keepeth all His bones and not a bone of His is
broken. They came there, these self-righteous
holy men said, we better get them down off the cross. If we
don't get God off the cross, we're going to break the law.
And we can't break the law. God won't receive us if we break
the law. So let's get him down off the cross. And so they came
to the two male factors and they broke their legs and they come
to Christ and they said, he's already dead. And they didn't
break his leg because it was written. It was written. Now
here's what Paul preached without fail though. All that's so, but
here's what he preached without fail. God said his death would
be for the sins of his people and that he would heal them.
by His death. Isaiah 53, 4. Look there with
me. Isaiah 53, 4. It says in Isaiah 53 and verse
4, Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, Yet
we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he
was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. You see, that substitution, that's
a vicarious suffering. That's Christ going to the cross
to lay down His life for a people. That's Christ bearing the sin
of a people, bearing the judgment of a people, satisfying justice
for a people. That's Christ going to the cross
for somebody in particular. Who are they? You know how you
can tell that it was a particular people that God chose. Here's
how you can tell. Just like you learn everything
else. Look into Christ on the cross. Here's how you know that
it was a particular people only that Christ died for. Here's
how you know. Look here. Verse 5 at the end says, With
His stripes we are healed. Everybody Christ died for, He
healed. Everybody Christ died for, He
saved. Everybody Christ died for shall
be saved and shall not perish. Is everybody in the world...
Does everybody in the world believe on Christ? Obviously not. Does
everybody in the world pass from this life believing on Christ?
Obviously not. But it says here, everybody He
died for will, He healed them. They're going to believe Him.
You see, Christ succeeded in what He did. Romans 5, 8, Paul
preached this. He said, God commended His love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. He died for us. Much more than
being now justified by His blood. Not by our work, by His blood.
We shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were
enemies, We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Do
you see there how it says He did save, He did reconcile, He
did justify by His blood, and He did this when as yet His people
were enemies. That's telling you who the our
are for whom He died, those He justified, those He reconciled,
those He saved, those He shall save. For if by one man's offense,
death reigned by one. You couldn't stop death. You
couldn't do a thing about it. You didn't work the one who did
the transgression that caused you to die. It was by Adam. By one man's offense, death reigned
by one. Nothing you can do about it.
The good news is, the good news is, And they which receive much
more, they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. You're not going to have
a thing to do with it, you're not going to be able to stop
it, nor are you going to want to stop it. Because by the abundance
of His grace, by His gift of righteousness which He purchased,
which He bought, which He brought, which He gave, which He gives
freely, Life is going to reign by Christ. By Christ. See, the gospel is substitution. We were represented by one man
God created in the beginning who knew no sin and he was the
head and representative of everybody that would be born of him. That
was Adam. And there's one more. His name
is the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam. And He is the head
representative of everybody that shall be born of Him. This is
the gospel I'm telling you right here. This is the gospel. This
is the only message out of every religion in the world that does
not give the sinner at least something to do to be saved. This is the message that says
God is God, God saves, God saves whom He saves, God saves any
son, and God gives all the glory for it. This is the only message
that gives God all the glory for salvation. All of it. You know, every so many years
some nut job comes along and he's got some crazy doctrine
he's come up with and people just latch on to it and just
believe it like it's an ancient old message and it's brand new.
And yet, this is the message that's been from the very beginning
that God's declared from the garden. It's verified in our
history. It's why you have warring nations
today. It's why you have these different
Jew and Gentile, the so-called Jew and the Gentile. This is
history. This is his story right here. Yet men won't believe it. Did
you know that Andrew Carnegie, he read a story about a guy who
found a dinosaur. And he decided he wanted it.
And he had the money to buy it. So he wrote this guy, said, I
want the dinosaur. I want the skeleton. I want the
bones. And the guy wrote back. He said, well, the truth is we
only found one bone. And he said, well, I want it.
I want a dinosaur skeleton. Well, then just in a little while,
guess what happened? Somehow they found the old perfect
skeleton. And so he put this skeleton of
this big giant dinosaur in. Well, then somebody else wanted
one. So you know what he did? He just
paid and had one made and sent it to them. And then when he
built libraries all over the world, he just sent them another
copy and sent another copy so that they're all over the world.
And people think all those are dinosaur skeletons that were
found and they believe it. Many scientists say they found
these dinosaur bones that are billions of years old. We can't
even tell when a man was murdered that was murdered this month.
We can't narrow it down, and yet we can tell you when something
lived billions of years ago. I can tell you this, it wasn't
before Adam fell in sin, because until he sinned, there wasn't
any death in the world. It's as old as the world is,
that's all. That's all. Why do we believe
just anything? We won't believe the gospel.
It takes God to make you believe the Gospel. That's right. You believe anything and everything,
but it takes God to make you believe this. Let me show you
one more thing. We preach how Christ was buried
and rose again according to the Scriptures. Scripture said He
would be resurrected from the grave. And Jonah being three
days and three nights in the whale's belly was a type of it.
And Christ said that. Christ said that as Jairus was
three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the
Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth. He really died. Christ really died. You talk
about faith? What kind of faith do you have?
Is it this kind? You bear the sins of my people.
You bear the justice that my people deserve. You die. And you trust me, in three days
I'll raise you again. You got that kind of faith? I'll
lay down my life, I'll die and I'll trust you'll raise me in
three days. That's faith. That's faith. That's perfect faith. Christ
believed the Father. And the reason he said that it
was pictured in Jonah and it was so is because he knew he
would satisfy justice and he would finish the work and God
would be satisfied and God would honor his promise because God
is faithful. And Paul declared that very word. He declared him
victorious. He said he'd ascend to the Father. Psalm 68, 18 says, Thou hast
ascended on high. Thou hast led captivity captive.
Thou hast received gifts from men for the rebellious also that
the Lord God might dwell among them. Paul said he did it. He's victorious. Paul said he
ascended up on high and he led captivity captive. He took all
his people who were captives in bondage, in prison, under
the bondage of death, sin, and hell, and he took them out and
he led them to be his captives. And he made Satan his captive.
And he ascended. It says he gave gifts unto men. He gave some apostles and some
prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
for the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the
edifying of the body of Christ. And here's what Paul preached
without fail, who was delivered again for our offenses and was
raised again for our justification. You see brethren, there's one
gospel. There's one gospel. It's concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ and the death He accomplished for His people. That's the message
of Scripture. beginning and the end. That's
the message script. Now we got the New Testament. That's the
same message of the New Testament. It's just given to us more clearly
to help us see it all through the Old Testament. They complement
one another. You know, we We can sit and listen
to, I got you on my mind. We can listen to that all day
long. But it comes to Christ and His Gospel and we glaze over
and tune out. We got better things to do, bigger
fish to fry. We got something important like
a soccer game. We got something that's so infinitely
important like a picnic or go to the mall this afternoon. We're
thinking about that. Do you realize We don't believe
we're even going to die. We got a long time to think about
that. There's one gospel and we need
to hear it. We need to believe on Him. God's salvation is sovereign
salvation. That's the gospel. Scriptures
declare His death was appointed by God and it was voluntary by
our Redeemer. Sovereign salvation. He's in
control the whole time doing everything according to His eternal
purpose. Scripture says he died for a
particular people that God chose in Christ. That's the gospel.
Scripture says Christ didn't try to save, He didn't make us
savable. It says Christ saved His people
fulfilling all the demands of holy law, making a definite atonement,
putting away our sin. Seventy weeks are determined.
Scripture said, upon thy people, upon thy holy city, to finish
the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation
for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the
vision of prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Witness the New
Testament tells us he accomplished that when he said, it is finished. Scripture says every promise
of God are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's yay and amen. All the promises of God in him
are yes and in him an amen to the glory of God. To the glory
of God. How do I know if what I'm hearing
is the gospel? The gospel. How do I know if
what I'm hearing is the gospel? God said. to the law and to the
testimony. Right here. According to what's
written in this book, if they speak not according to this word,
there is no light in them. You start out and you say, well,
I don't believe that book's the Bible. Satan's got you. And you're
probably going to perish in your sin. God is probably going to
harden your heart. If you will not consent to the
truth that this is the Word of God, We got no basis to even
talk. You've been beguiled by Satan
worse than the biggest fool in this world, if that's the case.
But this Word is God's Word and the way you know what's true
is you take what a man says and you go to this book and you look
it up and you see, is that what's true? And listen, when you hear
me preach and you follow along in the scriptures that I preach,
don't just do it here. Go home. Don't you want to learn
more of what I said? I bet you in our jobs and whatever
it is we're going to build or whatever we're going to do, if
it's some new application and we really want to learn it, we
don't just listen to it one time and we go back to the desk and
open the book and we study it and try to figure out how is
this properly applied. Well, you don't do that with
something as important as eternal life either. You go back and
you read on it. If you want to learn more about
it, apply yourself. God said, you walk in the light
I've given you, I'll give you some more. But this is how you know who
gets the glory. God alone. And where is it written? Show me in the scripture where
it's written. I've given you all these scriptures today. I
can't possibly turn to them in the amount of time we have, but
I'll send you the notes, and you can read them, and you can
look them up, and you can see. I'll send you the notes from
the ones I didn't go through and show you. all through the
Scriptures. It looks like they went down
a checklist and said, well, now we've got to part his garments.
Now we've got to sit down and watch him. Now we've got to give
him gall and vinegar. Now is the time we're going to
have to bury him with the rich. All these things just right down
the list because God's in sovereign control. All right, brethren,
let's stand together. Father, we thank You. We had no interest in this Word,
no interest in this Gospel, no interest in these Scriptures.
And one day You pricked our heart and You gave us a desire to know
You and You continue to make us desire to know more of You.
Lord, we pray now that you would truly take this word and apply
it to the heart of some needy, lost, dead sinner. Make him live,
make him hear, make him draw near to you. Lord, you can do
that. We believe you will for all your
people. And we ask you, Lord, do it now.
If it's your will, do it now. We pray for our loved ones, our
children, Oh, how we pray for our children. Don't want to see
them get swallowed up in this earth like Korah and all his
band of rebels. Start looking like this world
and talking like this world and just carried away with the philosophy
and the vanity of this world, Lord. We ask you to ground them
in faith and call them and set them down at Christ's feet. Keep
them by your grace. Lord, continue to teach us. We
need to be taught. We don't know. We don't apply
ourselves as we ought. Make the things of this world
to become vanity to us. Make them become so unimportant
to us and make Christ become the all-in necessity we have
to have. Lord, we ask now you bless the
Word and do so in the next hour. Forgive us our sins, Father.
For Christ's sake we pray. Amen.