My subject this evening is the
Gospel and the words I want to use as the title come from Romans
1 9 For God is my witness, whom I
serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that
without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers."
It's those words in the gospel of his son. That's what our subject
is this evening. I was torn between reading Romans
chapter 1 and Galatians chapter 1, and on balance I read Galatians
chapter 1, but I could have read Romans chapter 1, because again,
Paul is very concerned to set forth this great gospel the Son
of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness. This
is his great desire and it comes strongly in this chapter, verse
16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, it is the power
of God unto salvation. And it seems to me it's very
important in our day to talk about the Gospel. In a sense,
if you say the Gospel, it might be that everybody feels they
understand it. We all know the Gospel very well,
we know it back to front, but it's quite important to state
certain things about it. Now, I do acknowledge this is
a very big topic. because you could argue, as we
do here, that the gospel is in all the scriptures. So we can't
possibly cover that tonight, but what we can do is certainly
say some very key things about the gospel, because it's so vital. It's the center, isn't it? The
centerpiece of what we're all about. The church is all about
the proclamation of the gospel. That's why Jesus Christ came. And I looked at the word. It's
quite interesting to go into words. I enjoy looking into words
and meanings of words. And, of course, this comes from
the old English. They used to say Godspell, going
way back. And the first part of it comes
really from the idea of good. and those who know German know
that the German word for good is gut and in Old English the
first half of the word is Old English for good. And Speil was
telling or speaking, in German it's Spiel, it's an old English
word. And it's good speaking, good
message, good news, good tidings, all those things. So we understand
why we have that English word. It's good, I think, that we have
a unique English word for it, but we need to understand what
the word means. because it's the word that's
used to translate a Greek word. The Greek word is euangelion,
which in English we translate as evangel. The evangel is the
good news, and so usually the word evangelion is translated
gospel in the New Testament, and we can have some confidence
when we read that that's what we're reading about, it's one
and the same. And in Greek, it's the same thing. Good news, good
tidings, good telling, you know, glad tidings, a good message,
good speaking, all those, they are the same. and sometimes it's
worth looking into these words just so we get the nuances entirely
correct. And of course, essentially, the
good news is the coming of Christ. Whatever else people think it
is, social gospel or whatever else they might dress it up as,
essentially it's the coming of Christ. And every aspect of that
coming, the miraculous coming, that life he lived, The things
that he did, especially the things that he said, they're the key
in the life of Christ. And of course the way he was
treated by men, that awful death and all the significance that's
in the death of Christ, the very way he died, how he died. to
be that perfect sacrifice for sinners, and how we know that
so much of the Old Testament, particularly from Leviticus and
so on, pointed to it, that passion that was set for Christ and his
death for sinners upon the cross. But we think also of that resurrection. He was perfect. Death could not
hold him. The Holy One could not see corruption. He was risen,
triumphant, glorified. That wonderful ascension went
into heaven. We know that in such way he will
return. Now he's ascended and he's glorified
at the right hand of God and we know from Hebrews that there
he ever lives to intercede for the saints. If you're a saint,
Christ intercedes for you. And you know from Romans 8 that
we have the Comforter here now helping us with those sighs and
groanings that cannot be understood. We have one who helps us to pray
now. We're so well provided for. This
is the Gospel. It's a message of salvation.
It's a message of hope. This is what the Church needs
above all things to know. And it's in Him alone. Most of
all, what we would say is God has spoken. The great misunderstanding
now of what is truth, what is revelation, we in our country
have multi-faith, the basis of multi-faith, is that all religions
are valid, and that we, in a sense, they all point us to God, and
it's kind of a supermarket, you know, you go and pick which breakfast
cereal you want, But that is a lie. Now, we as Christians
must be generous and loving towards others, we must not be full of
hatred, we must be tolerant, because if we want freedom of
religion, which we've had in this land, then we must accept
that other people must have freedom of religion. and you can't separate
the two, or you end up in a tyranny, you go back to, you only have
one religion. Charles II, everybody's got to
conform to one religion, or to Queen Mary, we've all got to
be Roman Catholics. We have, by the grace of God,
in a society where, because of the Puritan revolution, these
things were changed. And great things happened in
our land, happened through Parliament. Now going in reverse, sadly,
we live in a nation where we've had the Gospel, and we thank
God for that. So we have this great Gospel,
and the Gospel is essential, because the situation of man
is not what you will be taught at school and taught everywhere
else, that we're getting better, we're getting more enlightened,
more intelligent, we're discovering things. the basic facts of these
in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1 and we must ever remind ourselves
because Paul is talking to them and he says to the Ephesians
you have be quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins where
in times past you walked according to the course of this world and
he goes on you had your conversation in all sorts of evil and wicked
things but then we see that God in his mercy has come by the
gospel and brought light and truth but the situation of all
men is they are lost that is not the spirit of our age There
were those who would get very angry if you said this sort of
thing to them, that we're all sinners and we're lost. They
would say, that's a terrible, hateful thing. All you Christians
are awful people. But this is the reality. And
it is, for those of us who have used our eyes, it's the reality.
How can we understand the world we're in? It's full of violence,
of hatred, of crime. of all sorts of terrible evils
in our own land every day on the media. We read of all the
wicked things people are doing, being brought to court for. It
says the word of God. You're dead in your trespasses
and sins. That is the human condition. That's true of all of us. And
God reveals it to us. That is the beginning of the
Gospel in our souls. The beginning of the gospel is
not, oh, I love Jesus and I've put my hand up at a meeting and
I've gone forward. The beginning of the gospel is
that you know you're a sinner and you know you have a need.
Because that's God's order. God brings that truth to you
first of all. But we thank God that there is
a message of hope and salvation, because Christ has come. We are
without hope, you see, verse 12 of Ephesians 2, that in time
At that time, in the past, you were without Christ. Outside,
no Christ. Therefore you were aliens from
the commonwealth of Israel, the people of God. Strangers from
the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world. I did speak on this not so long
ago, on the whole topic of hope. And we know that hope is not
this vague wishy-washy way we use words in our language today,
I hope to get the bus, or I hope that it's... A hope is an assurance,
something you truly believe in. When people say, I hope for heaven,
it's an assurance of heaven. When we say people are without
hope, we're not saying something soft. We're saying something
extremely powerful. And that is the condition of
people around us. That's why we need a gospel. And I said the gospel is in all
the scriptures. I'm not going to attempt to set
that forward tonight. Mr Sand does that so often for
us, but it's good to look at one particular passage. If you
go to Isaiah 61, and the opening verses, when Jesus went into
the synagogue at Nazareth, and you know that's his home town,
and they would have known him, This was the passage that he
went in and asked for the book, the scroll, and this is the passage
that he read on that occasion. We read this in Luke 4. The spirit
of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings, that's the gospel, good tidings unto the
meek. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort
all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give
unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might
be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that
he might be glorified. Christ is there and he reads
this in Luke 4. He's identifying himself with
this. This is messianic. He was that one. He said, today
this is fulfilled in your sight, said Christ, if you read it in
Luke 4. These things are before you.
And they were impressed, amazed at his words, but they said amongst
themselves, isn't this Joseph's son? Isn't this the carpenter's
son? Elsewhere we read that he said,
these brothers and sisters, are they not with us? And they questioned
amongst themselves, and they said, well, the prophet is not
without honour in Israel, said Christ. But he then pointed out to Gentiles,
who God had blessed and incensed them, and they took him out and
they were going to throw him over a hill but he was able by
the power of God to walk away from them. They rejected him.
They rejected what Christ was saying because he said this is
fulfilled in thy sight and of course when Christ came he fulfilled
so much prophecy. So much of the Old Testament
was bound up, fulfilled in Christ. You can't understand the Old
Testament without Christ. And you can't understand, as
it were, the New Testament, we say this so often, without the
Old Testament. I mean, there are questions you may know. We
don't bother reading the Old Testament. That's all passed
away. We've got the New. We just want
to know about Jesus. We have the whole Word of God.
The whole Word of God testifies, doesn't it, to the Lord Jesus
Christ. God the Spirit has revealed this. How can we reject any of it?
Some parts may be harder to read than others, even as Peter says
about some parts of Paul's epistle. But you value them, as Peter
did Paul. He valued him very highly. God
has spoken. That's really also what we're
saying. The good news has come. God has spoken and he has spoken
most perfectly, we read in Hebrews, through his Son in these last
days. who is the express image of God. We should be without
any doubt of God's intents and purposes. Not all people will
embrace this. Now we have books, don't we,
in the New Testament called the Gospels. They weren't actually
called that in the original autographs. Often their title was taken perhaps
from the opening words. Mark's Gospel in particular,
we see the beginning of Mark's Gospel, which says, the beginning
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now the first
four books are called the Gospels, but they are really accounts,
aren't they? Testimonies, eyewitness testimonies
of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, it's the
beginning of the Gospel, I'm setting forth, starting here
to set forth the gospel of Christ, and Mark's intent was to say
that the person and works and words of Christ, they were the
gospel. In all its intent, not just a
narrow bit, Sometimes you can go to churches and we preach
what they call the Gospel and it's a very narrow message. They
might have one verse, you know, like we often talk about John
3.16, which is a great verse and it's a great passage, the
discussion with Nicodemus there in John chapter 3. Some people,
they narrow it, they just have a few verses and they just present
certain things. But the Gospel is very wide,
isn't it? and God would open our eyes and our understanding
to all that he wants to reveal to us, all he wants to show of
his glorious truth. And it's not a system. We've
got to say that in our day. People think it's a system, you
know, you come to the Gospel, you come to Christ, you come
to the Alpha Course, or some other thing, and we'll process
you. You come to eight sessions, at the end of the eight sessions,
if you've attended them all, you fill up your decision card,
become a Christian, and then we bring you into the church,
and then we do this, that, and the other. That's dreadful. We do not process people. I have
to confess in the past, in my younger days I got involved with
evangelistic rallies and we processed people. People in queues for
this and queues for that. And I look back and it was a
great shame. It was a misunderstanding. Gospel is not some system. We
don't sell it. People think you've got to dress
it up. You can go into Christian book shops and you can get glossy
paperbacks and books and you can buy brochures and booklets
and all sort of how to become a Christian book, you know, like
a manual. That's wrong. We have the Word
of God. We don't need those things. People
think we've got to have that, we've got to have all the music,
we've got to have the CVs, we've got to have the videos, we've
got to go to big name people rallies, you can watch these
people that go on the God channel and so on, and they want you
to follow them, they want you to give money to them, they want
you to buy their books. We don't need those things. It's
not a system. It's the Word of God. The Gospel
is primarily the work of the Church. And again, people think,
well, we've got to take the gospel out, so we'd better form an organisation,
a society, or something. I won't mention any, because
I might upset people, but you know what I mean. But actually,
you're saying, well, the church isn't up to it. Sorry, I don't
think most of the Christian church is rather inadequate. You can't
actually take the gospel out, so we've got to do something
else. And I said, that's terribly wrong. The gospel should be preached
in the church. We preach the whole word of God.
That is the gospel. And the basis of the gospel and
going out is the church and our membership of it. And each of
us, if we're members of the church and we love Christ, we've got
to live that gospel. We've got to speak it. We've
got to make it known as we have opportunity. We invite people
in to come in and hear that gospel. and that is where gospel order
is, is in the church, where God appoints pastors and other officers
of the church that we might have gospel order. Again, that's the
spirit of the last 150 years, it's involved with the downgrade,
it's involved with a more Arminian and free will view of doctrine,
has led to some of these things. Now having said that, there is
a place for evangelists, that churches can send out those to
preach the word of God, that is quite legitimate, but they
are from within the context of a church. And we know in the
early church that the deacons had a great ministry. Stephen,
I think of Philip, went and spoke with the Ethiopian eunuch and
spoke very effectively with that man, such that he said, I do
believe in my heart, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
there was an imperative placed in that man's heart It's the
work of the church. And again, as I said earlier,
the strict Baptist view is that the gospel is all the scriptures. We love some of the other churches
who have many things in common with us, like the Presbyterian
brethren. We can share many things with us, but they narrow things. They say that, for example, the
role of the Christian's life, living the gospel, is the Ten
Commandments. But we believe it's the whole word of God. Did
not Jesus say, if you love me you will keep my commandments?
Well, what are the commandments of Christ? What did Jesus teach? Surely that's beyond the ten
commandments. So, if we love Jesus, we keep the whole word
of God. Perhaps some of these things
sound simple, but we need to understand them. They are what
we in this kind of church are about, why we are concerned about
distinctiveness. And this gospel is a gospel to
go out. It's not a gospel. Not to come
into a church and lock ourselves away. The doors are closed because
we're meeting, but we leave the gates wide open. In some chapels,
I've heard, when they have the meeting, they close the doors,
they close the gates. Basically, if people can't be
bothered to turn up by 11 o'clock, they're not welcome into the
service. That shouldn't be our spirit. We should want and desire
people to come in. Our Lord Jesus Christ at the
end of Matthew's Gospel said, Go ye therefore and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. There's a command of Christ.
This gospel has got to go out. The church has got to go out.
We thank God that the church does go out, despite men and
our weakness. We're not to hide in a way. Christ
said, let your light so shine before men. Does our light shine? That's the challenge to the believer.
When we're in our place of work or wherever it is, what is it
that people see? What sort of people are we? What
do we do? What do we talk about? The Gospel has to be seen. People
need to see that it's real. This is what our dear Lord Jesus
Christ expects. And when the apostles went out,
we read in the Acts, they went from village to village, preaching
the Gospel, is what you read. You read that particularly in
Acts 8 and elsewhere, that they took the gospel. What was it
that Paul took on his missionary journey? He took the gospel,
he took the fullness of it on those journeys. As I was saying
earlier, Paul's great concern was the gospel, the source of
that gospel, the truth of that gospel. There was only one gospel. He says, right at the beginning
of his great epistle to the Romans, he says, Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God. That's what being an apostle
is, separated unto the gospel of God which he had promised
afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. He's identifying
all that revelation that comes before Paul. That's what it's
all about. And what is this gospel? It's
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 from
the resurrection of the dead. And Paul is so concerned that
they understand these things. He says in verse 13, I would
not have you ignorant. He doesn't want me to be ignorant
of anything. He wants them to know. He wants them to know that
we have to preach this. In the Corinthian epistle, that
first chapter is all about the wisdom of God and preaching the
gospel in the wisdom of God. And it's that that comes to people. It's that wisdom of God that
enlightens people. that brings them into a knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we don't need to be thinking
of trying to, as it were, be manipulating people, or processing
them. We need to preach Christ. We
know that there was some confusion. Some said that I'm of Paul, and
some of Paul, and some I'm of Christ. He's concerned that they
know the truth. He says, he says, for Christ
sent me not to baptise, but to preach the Gospel. not with the
wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be of none effect. For the preaching of the cross
is to them which perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it
is the power of God." We preach Christ, we preach all of Christ,
we preach his words, we preach the cross, the necessity of the
cross. Paul says it's seen as the foolishness
of preaching but he says the foolishness of God is wiser than
men. Isn't that a great word for the
day that we live in when we hear things that people present to
us as truth and we thank God for that and how God has chosen
not the mighty men of this world, he's called people, Paul says
here, the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. No flesh or glory in his presence. We thank God that we have such
a great gospel and it comes in power. And it's lovely that we
see the use of that word in the New Testament. There are two
words for power, but this is the dynamic power word in 1 Thessalonians
1, verse 5. See, when the Gospel came, it
didn't come as a weak, miserable thing. The message that Paul's
got, this is the best message in the world, I believe. It's not just a take it or leave
it. Some people say, well, are you going to accept Christ or
not? Almost like it's some kind of transaction. But no, this
is what Paul says. Our gospel came, not unto you
in word only, but also in power, dynamic power. And in the Holy
Ghost, and in much assurance as you know what manner of them
we were among you for your sake. That's how the gospel came. It
came in power. There is power in the gospel
as we take it forth. So God does that. There's only one gospel and we
were reading in Galatians chapter 1 and it's very important that
Paul establishes that there's only one gospel. In our day there
are many gospels, not just the many religions, but many brands
of Christianity, and there are these false brands, you know,
the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, and all these things
that have come from America with terribly corrupted views of the
Word of God and of Christ. But what did Paul say of all
this? He said to the Jews, I marvel that you are so soon removed
from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another
gospel, which is not another. but there be some which trouble
you and will pervert the gospel of Christ." Well, these are words
for today. We live in a very similar day,
we face very similar problems. Paul says, but though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. We want
the truth. He says this gospel he's got,
he said, I certify you brethren, that the gospel which was preached
of me is not after man. I haven't invented this. This
is in some human fabrication, you know, people around us, I
mean, there was this nun, they kept putting ex-nun, they put
on television, and her thesis, she got weeks of programs, was
that Christianity was invented by Paul. It wasn't really what
Jesus brought and taught, but what we read today as Christianity
was all invented by Paul. Paul says, I certify you that
it's not of me. That's what Paul says. For I
neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. That Christ revealed it to him
and he found that when he actually got to Jerusalem and he mentions
he met with Peter, met with the other Apostle James, James the
Less and others, he found that that which Christ had revealed
to him was the Gospel that they believed. As Peter says, it was
one and the same gospel. Why? Because it came from the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it's amazing. People didn't
know who Christ was until that Damascus Road appearance. Whenever
people say to you, when that light appeared to him, he said,
who are thou, Lord? He had no idea. And Christ came and so
quickly revealed so much to Paul. He was termed for a fierce opponent
of the Gospel. We were talking just now in there
about a fierce opponent of the Gospel. And I said, well, he's
like Paul. God turned Paul around, he became a fierce opponent to
the great champion of the church. By the grace of God, it's a wonderful
story, a wonderful example of the power, the dynamic of the
Gospel, is the life of the Apostle Paul. Nothing can compare with
this. It's not what the world thinks. It's not what the world
thinks. It thinks we're all rather holy and we come in here to feel
good because we want to be good before God and want to, as it
almost be, you know, be in church means that we've got more chance
to get to heaven and we please God by being here. And you see
that in lots of religions. Lots of religions are works religion.
If you're a Muslim, you've got to eat the right way, you've
got to wash the right way, you've got to wear the right clothes,
you've got to say the right things, you've got to cut your hair the
right way, and the rest of it, to please God. But we don't do
any of it. We don't please God with any
of those things. in terms of salvation, because
it's all in Christ. What we have to do by faith is
we have to embrace Christ and see we have all in Him. Now when
we know Him, when God has worked in us, when there is newness
of life, yes we walk to walk so as to please Him. That should
be the motivation of our life. That's a very different thing.
That's not that we own salvation. On the contrary, it should evidence
that we know what salvation is. We're trying to live out A life
that's been renewed. We've been saved in the Christ.
The world thinks the gospel and religion is all about doing things.
Doing things to be good. Doing things to please God. Doing
things perhaps to help us get to heaven. That's certainly what
Romanism has a lot of, doesn't it? You've got to go on pilgrimages
and you've got to do penances and 101 different things to please
God. You've got to pray to saints.
Why don't you pray to Christ? Christ says, come unto me. We
find praying to saints in the New Testament, every saint, and
there were lots in the New Testament, who were these saints? They point
to the Lord Jesus Christ and we thank God for such a gospel. Paul says it's my gospel and
of course it's Christ's gospel. God is saving a people. We believe
here in sovereign grace. It's not a popular doctrine.
People think it's much better to believe in a doctrine where
it's up to you whether you choose Christ or not. And if you choose,
not so well, that's your choice. But man is lost in his sins. He's in a desperate condition.
How can he choose? Rather, our gospel is this, that
God, in his great love and mercy, will save a people. we don't
know who that people is, we do not understand this, but we do
believe he has revealed that he has a people who are precious
to him and that were chosen in Christ from the foundation of
the world that they should be saved and in that purpose God
has sent Jesus into the world, but not one will be lost. If
you believe in free will, you are believing a position that
as from today you have no knowledge or assurance that any one person
from now on will be saved. It could be that nobody else
is ever saved. What assurance have you got that people would
accept Christ? But the Word of God says that
Christ will save. It's what Christ says to us.
That lovely chapter, John 10, I can come back to this lovely
chapter. We were talking this morning
with the children in the meeting. We talked a little bit about
sheep, a bit more about sheep, because children like that and
understand. And you know something about
sheep. And the people would have understood that when Jesus spoke.
He did speak in terms that they could understand. They would
have understood sheep and shepherds. And I remember talking, we were
out on a walk, talking to a shepherd once and he said about sheep,
he said, oh, they're very difficult sheep. If they can get their
head caught in a fence, they'll do it. And if they injure their
leg, they'll do it. And if there's a hole, they'll
fall down it and all the rest of it. If there's a hedge, they
get stuck in it. He says they're very difficult people to look
after. And that's part of what Jesus
was saying, you know, that God loves them. But the shepherd,
again, if you know a shepherd, Certainly in the East, they look
after their sheep. I think I've mentioned before
that they love them. The sheep know them and know
their voice. I think I've mentioned on occasion when I was out in
a wild place and I saw some animals running around and they seemed
to be coming towards me and I didn't know quite what they were. Then
suddenly I heard a bell and a call. And right below in the valley
was a shepherd. This is in the wild part of Yugoslavia.
And they bolted off to this shepherd because that was where safety
was, where security was. And I read John 10 much more
understanding in the light of that experience. I'm sure people
who understood sheep and were in rural communities would understand
what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying. It's a very lovely picture
that we get here in this particular book. He says, I am the good
shepherd. Verse 14, I know my sheep and I'm known of mine,
says Christ. There's nothing vague, nothing
hit or miss. Christ says sheep, does the Father
knoweth me? Even so, know I the Father, and
lay down my life for the sheep. And he said, other sheep have
I, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring. Not they must come in. Jesus
says, I must bring. Christ is bringing in his sheep
through the Gospel. And they shall hear my voice.
And there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Therefore doth
my father love me because I lay down my life that I may take
it again. So we have this analogy of the
sheep and it's so helpful to us, isn't it? He says later on
in that chapter, my sheep hear my voice, verse 27, and I know
them and they follow me. Jesus knows them. The sheep hear
his voice. They hear the voice of Jesus.
They are drawn to it. They recognise it. And he says,
and I give unto them eternal life. They don't take eternal
life. In some evangelistic meetings you have to come and beg for
it and ask for it. No, that's not the case. Sorry, that's not
the gospel, is it? He says, I give unto them eternal
life. It's all of God. It's not of
us. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Isn't that a
lovely truth? Talking to John Eubank earlier,
you know, John's not well, he needs assurance, and we were
reminding him of some of these things, and he was warming to
them. It was good. It was encouraged. John, you know, the Lord loves
you. Whatever you feel like, the Lord loves you. He will never
leave you, never forsake you, nothing, even if you pull up
out of his hand, even in our moments of great weakness, God
loves us. And there is a calling. People
are very offended at this. They don't like the fact that
we say God calls people, and it's only the power of God that
calls them. They get very cross, and I tell them, sorry, but that's
what Jesus said. If you're angry, don't get angry
with me, because that's what I read. You know, in that great
chapter, John chapter 6, we often preach on that, it's so much
in that chapter. But we read in verse 44, this is what Jesus
said, they were murmuring amongst themselves. He said, don't you
murmur amongst yourselves? No man can come to me except
the Father which hath raised me. Draw him, and I will raise
him up at the last day. It wasn't that we were sort of
reading the Bible and we had it in our mind, well this sounds
interesting, I think this might be true, I think I might become
a Christian. No, but we felt drawn to him. Something happened. We read the words of Christ. We heard him speaking to us.
We were, as you were, drawn to him. And people were rather offended
that Christ did that. So we had to repeat it, verse
65. And he said, therefore said I unto you that no man can come
unto me except it were given unto him of my father. Where
does salvation come from? It comes from the Father. He
grants it. And then we read, from that time
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
That is in our day. You say this sort of truth to
people, they want to know. Jesus says to the twelve, are
you going to go away? Are you offended by me? Peter
says, where shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the
Son of the Living God. Where are we tonight? What has
God spoken to us? Where are we drawn? Where's our
heart? That's really what the Gospel
is saying. If these are the truths of Christ, are we drawn by them? Do we see him as the Good Shepherd? There's a real thing. Article
20 says there is a real change in a man. The Gospel comes, there's
a real change in a man. Something happens. Not that we
did it, It's what God does. This is what we believe. This
is sovereign grace. It's that will of God. And it's
part of God's perfect plan. Until we understand Christ, until
we know him and we see the truths of scripture, in a sense, we
don't really understand everything around us. People think that
we Christians are very narrow, and we've got a positive different
view and we're all up the spout on creation and science and this
sort of thing but actually I say it's the opposite because this
is as Paul says back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and chapter 2 this
is wisdom, real wisdom because now we understand the universe
you may not know all about it but you understand why it's there
and the perfections of it do you understand why this time
You understand why there is a purpose in things. How can you resolve
existence? People try, don't they? I used to have to read some philosophy
in my student days. It was awful. Have you ever tried
reading some of the philosophy or the existentialist Plato? It's ever such hard work, isn't
it? I'm sure you've found that. Why? Because they were grappling
And they were in error. The existentialist in the end
says, the only reality is what comes out the back of my head,
if I'm being a bit unkind about them, but that's really what
they're saying. Because how can I know anything? How do I know
you're real? Therefore reality is only how
I see it. But no, as a Christian, on the
contrary, we deal with something that's much more realistic. We
understand there is a purpose. it wasn't a big bang and a big
bang before that and multiple universities and all the stuff
that they now tell you but we believe that there was a time
when there was God in eternity and there was a time when God
created and time came into being and there will be a time when
God will send forth Christ and bring to an end where we are
now, this dispensation and then time will be no more and that's
our understanding the world would say we're mad Until you are in
Christ, until you know these truths, you cannot resolve existence,
you cannot resolve origins, you cannot understand why men are
so different from animals. The rounders, they tell you that
we're just clever animals. We're like dolphins or whatever.
But it's patiently obvious we're not, aren't we? Anybody can see.
People are totally and utterly different to the other animals.
They try and make out, well chimpanzees have got a hundred words. They
can identify they want a peanut or an orange or something. You
can train your dog to do all sorts of things. But we are totally,
we are made in the image of God. Until you know that, you don't
understand people. How could you be a psychologist
if you don't understand that? We are so different, and yes,
we are complex, and we are spiritual. Man has a spirit. We've only
got to look around the world to know that everywhere and everywhere
they want to worship. They have a sense of worship,
they have a sense of God, because that's how they are made. It's
the beginning of wisdom, that's what Paul says, that's what the
Gospel is. my experience, it's not the end, people will tell
you, you're not a Christian, you've put the shutters down now, that's
you, you've decided to cut yourself off from reality. On the contrary,
you've just opened the door to that which is truly real. How
can we know? How can we know that God's dealing
with us? How do I know it's not all imagination? How do I know the Gospel is speaking
to me? It's a difficult question. Let
me say that in the beginning of this, as I said earlier, is
that we begin to see, because this is how God works, that there
is a God, we believe in God, and therefore we see that God
is righteous, God is holy, and we see that we are sinners. brings
that knowledge to us. We fear our sin. We see that
imperfection within us. It becomes a weight. But we also
begin, by the grace of God, through the Gospel, to see Christ. We
begin to see who he is and what he is. Pilgrim's Progress, when
Daniel had felt that burden, that weight, and he'd been up
the Slough of Despond, and he was wandering around with his
weight, and suddenly he saw the cross, he saw Christ, and that
great weight fell off him. It's something of that, if you've
read that, something of that sort of experience. And I remember
our dear brother Andrew Reynolds came here once and preached,
and it was a good word that he brought us from, Isaiah 55. He picked a very narrow theme,
but it was very telling, the way that he put it across. It
was just these words, Ho everyone that thirsteth. And that's, everything was in
there. He said, you've got to thirst.
People who aren't thirsty don't drink. He was saying to the children,
if you're not thirsty, do you drink? No, they were all going,
no, this morning. But if you're thirsty, you want
to drink, don't you? And Andrew said, this is of God. People become thirsty. There's
a work of God in their hearts. Then, Sister Spirit of God, come
ye to the waters. Christ said to the woman of Samaria,
I will give you water if you drink of this water. You'll never
thirst again. This is going to be like a fountain
welling up in you until eternal life. As we see there in John
chapter 4, He says, come ye to the waters. And this is what
Isaiah says. Come to the waters. He that hath
no money. You see, we don't need to bring
anything. We don't have to do something. We haven't got to
walk on our knees up some steps or whatever it is that people
tell you you've got to do or wear a hair shirt or whatever
it is. You haven't got to do any of
that. The Word of God says, come ye, buy and eat rich spiritual
things. This is the picture. Yea, come,
buy wine and milk. without money and without price. You can have all of it. The Gospel.
You can have all of it. Without money, without price.
You haven't got to do anything. You haven't got to buy it. You
haven't got to earn it. If you thirst. If God is working in
your heart. We mentioned those like the Ethiopian
eunuch. We heard Philip expounding Isaiah
53. He said, there's water. He had
a backpack. He said, can I be baptised? He
said, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart. Nothing,
therefore, was in the way. He was baptised. We see that
Lydia believed in the heart. She believed in Jesus. She was
baptised, the Philippian jailer. What must I do to be saved? Something
happened in his heart. He was baptised. God's work in
our heart leads to repentance. Now, a key question for us, we
have to all ask ourselves, ask myself, in this context, how
do we know, how do I know God's dealing with me? How do I know
I'm a Christian? Let me put this to you. Is Christ
precious? to you. Not, do you believe in
all the articles of the gospel standards, and do you read the
gospel standard magazine every month, and have you been brought
up in a strict Baptist church, and all that stuff. No. It's
this. Is Christ precious? And when Mr. McVeroe used to
preach, one of the things he often used to say, And I remember
many things that he said. He used to say of Jesus, a precious
saviour. Those who are here don't know
that. He said that so often. Christ was a precious saviour. That's it. Is Christ precious
to you? Does he really matter to you
above all else? That's how Peter felt when he
said that was the words of life. Where else can we go? That's
what was in Peter's heart. He said, I'll die for you. But
he was weak. So that was his heart. We can
criticise Peter, but there was a lot to admire in Peter. His
courage wasn't as great as his boldness, shall we say. But Christ
was precious to him. He's taken our sins. He set us
free. What more could our Saviour do? He's loved us. When you come
to know that He's loved you from eternity, you can't understand
it. But it's great to know that He has loved you. He's seen you
as one of those sheep. He came to seek and to save that
which was lost. You were lost and you've come
to know that you were lost and He's found you. He's come to
you and spoken to you. through the gospel. I've met
people and they're sort of, I was converted by Billy Graham or
whatever. Well you wonder, well what have
we got? My confession is, I was saved
by the Lord Jesus Christ, by his revelation to me. As a school
boy, I think I've said this before, I was in an RE lesson at school,
I don't suppose they're allowed to do this anymore, we were reading
Romans chapter 10, I don't know whether they would read Romans
chapter 10 in the school these days, but we had Christian RE
teachers, and we were reading these, and I had been thinking
of Christian things, but I was riveted by the Word of God. I
wasn't attending church, I read these words in Romans chapter
10. but what suffix the word is nigh thee even in my mouth
and in my heart that is the word of faith which we preach that
if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead
thou shalt be saved for with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation
And I found I did believe in him. There was a time when I
didn't really. I was drawn to him and then I
thought, I believe. This is real. I am a sinner.
And God led me then to repent. Remember repentance doesn't come
before salvation. You only need to repent when
God is working on your heart, saving you. When God brings a
knowledge of sin. Now you need to repent. But it's
when God is working. Now we have this doctrine, one
of our great five points is irresistible grace. God comes. It's his work in our hearts.
I've heard and seen people who hate that doctrine. They say
it's an awful or wicked pernicious doctrine. They hate it. But it's
a wonderful doctrine. It's a doctrine of great hope,
great comfort. that it's God who's worked in
my heart. It's not just me, a mental assent. I haven't just worked
this all out for myself, read the scriptures and worked out
how the gospel works and I've accepted it. God has saved me. It was his work because he loves
me. We've talked about Romans. There's
that lovely little commentary by Stuart Olliott. We've just
got another copy of it. But he calls that book, his commentary,
he calls it the gospel as it really is. And we've looked at
Romans 1, and this is the gospel as it really is. Now, the world
and Satan hate the gospel. If God is working in your heart,
they hate. People try to respond. They'll hinder people as much
as possible. Oh, but if we feel our sin, we
have to press. We have to know Christ. We have
to see this. It's in our hymn book, isn't
it? Some funny hymns like Joseph Hart's in, but God loves the
sinner. Part is, the sinner is a precious
thing. Isn't that a remarkable statement?
But it's the truth. It's not until you know you're
a sinner, you know God is dealing with you, savingly, in your heart. Well, if we feel such things,
we must seek the Lord Jesus Christ. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Call upon him while he is near. That's not preaching
free will, that's setting forth the gospel as it really is. It says, Paul, you know, we don't
persuade men. We're not seeking to do that.
We have a gospel that came by the revelation of Jesus Christ. So we thank God and we remember
that those words from Romans, chapter 1 and verse 9, it is
the gospel of his Son. Amen.