Alright, let's take our Bibles,
please. If you turn to Mark chapter 2, Mark's gospel, the second chapter, And reading verses 13 through
17. Mark chapter 2. Our title this morning is, Christ
died for the ungodly. The ungodly. If the people today who are advocating
that Christ died for every human being who has ever lived or will
ever live on this earth, if they would try this statement out
for size, that the only person that Christ died for is an ungodly
person, Most of today's religion would excuse themselves automatically. For they do not and never have
considered themselves ungodly. Christ came and died for sinners. Well, what about godly people?
Well, what about them? They are a figment of men's imagination. They do not exist. Absolutely do not exist. Alright,
before I get too excited, I'm going to stop and we're going
to have a word of prayer and ask the Lord to open our eyes
to what we see in His Word this very day. Lord, thank you. that already
this morning your Word has been opened to
us in our Bible class. The songs that we have sung in
our worship indeed declare our precious Redeemer, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we trust the remainder of
our time will be to that same end, that we understand Acknowledge,
and far beyond that, we love the fact that Christ died for
the ungodly. Because if he didn't, he could
not have died for me. Oh, what a precious, blessed
Redeemer. Jesus Christ the Lord. Lord, we come now with our Bibles
opened into your presence. Though if we're in Christ, we've
never left your presence. But Lord, we've come in a conscious
way of understanding that you see everything that
transpires, you rule everything in this world, you control everything
there is to control. And therefore, your children
are the most blessed people this world shall ever see. We come
now to the Scriptures seeking to advocate this particular condition
Christ died for the ungodly. Lord calls us, each and every
one, to see ourselves as being in that exact case, ungodly. We beg your mercy upon us and
your help we implore. Amen. Now, Acts 2, beginning at verse
13 and reading through verse 17. Speaking of our Lord, and He
went forth again by the seaside, and all the multitude resorted
unto Him, and He taught them. And as He passed by, He saw Levi,
the son of Alphaeus, you'd probably know him better if I said Matthew,
sitting at the receipt of custom, and said unto him, Matthew is
collecting taxes for the Romans, plus whatever he gets out of
the deal. So he's sitting in some kind
of booth on a busy pedestrian way somewhere. And our Lord said
to him just two words, follow me. And Matthew instantly gets
up and follows Christ. And he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, as Jesus
sat at meet in Matthew's house, Now, if you read this in Matthew's
gospel, he ain't going to tell you whose house it is. But Mark
certainly enlightens us on the subject that it is Matthew's
house indeed. And there were a number of these
events having to do with these people that were collecting taxes
for the Romans. And the Jews despised these people. You can't imagine how much. And yet, our Lord is pleased
to go into their homes and have a meal and talk to them about
who God is and who they are and who Christ is. So it came to
pass that as Jesus set at meat in his house, many publicans
and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples. For there were many, and they
followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees
saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples,
How is it that he eats and drinks with publicans and sinners? Now
this man has already told you, in case you missed it, he ain't
no sinner. Never has been. isn't now and
never will be. He's righteous, but alas, it
is self-righteous, which ain't no righteousness at all. None
whatsoever. When our Lord heard what these
people were saying to His disciples, He said, they that are whole,
they that are well, Do not need the doctor, but they that are
sick. Now look at this statement. I
came not to call the righteous, but who to repentance? Sinners. Sinners of every strife and tribe
and color and whatever other divisions you can make out of
them. We'll stop at 17, and I want
to continue the reading now in Romans chapter 5. Romans, the fifth chapter. And
by the way, this is one of the places where we find this wonderful
statement that is so enlightening in regard to our Lord Jesus Christ. It's in verse 6, and it's the
last few words of that verse, Christ died for the ungodly. Now, people get upset when you
press that issue, explain that every son and daughter of Adam
are by nature ungodly. And nothing that man has done
for himself can deliver him from this state of being. This is
a work only God can do. It's a work that the Bible calls
being born again or regeneration. And we cannot birth ourselves
the first time, and we certainly can't birth ourselves the second
time. We're going to start at verse
6 and read through verse 11. Romans chapter 5, for when we
were yet or still without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. Well, what about all of those
people that lived before Christ died? Is there no hope for any
of them at all? Oh, indeed it is. God saved people
in the Old Testament. based on what the Lord Jesus
promised in the covenant that He would do for sinners. He is
so certain and confident that Christ will do exactly what He
promised, and nothing can stop Him, that He gave people His
grace and mercy in Christ before Christ ever came in the incarnation. I don't know what verse, but
I'm going to start at 7. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commended his love toward
us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now, I can't tell you for sure
if he died for you or not. But I know where you can find
out, it's in this book and on your knees before God. God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him, But if
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more, much more, I can't read, much more being reconciled,
we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, But we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement. And my margin renders that word,
reconciliation. And that is a word you've already
had in verse 10 of this very reading. In Romans 5 and verse
10, being reconciled. We shall be saved by his life,
by his life. Alright, let's see if we can
address this particular subject that is so vital and so necessary
to us to understand. Now, I've got some things out
of place I've got to rearrange. Let's see here. I've got some
printed scriptures and a few notes to keep me on track. If that's even possible, I don't
know. I change my question now. For whom is the gospel intended? Whoever devised this gospel.
Namely, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But whoever devised this gospel
that is presented from Genesis to Revelation in our Bibles, give us, in those statements,
clear understanding of how this gospel came to be, of what it's
designed to do, and who it's designed for. And it behooves
us then to pay careful attention to this as we go through these
things. There are no telling how many common mistakes
that are made when it comes to understanding this book and its
message. A number of us can testify to
this fact, that we were brought up in the Baptist religion, but
what we find in our Bibles now, we could not see then. Could not see. And I've been
in more churches than you have, and I can tell you it's universal,
almost. Almost universal. It doesn't
matter what denomination. or anything, whether it's in
the North, South, East or West, that's nothing to do with it.
Nothing to do with it. We have in America lost the message
of grace. It's gone. It's gone. Yet preachers use
the word like they understand it plainly and clearly, and I
tell you, they do not. You cannot do what you do and
understand the grace of God. It cannot be done. Some people
think of the gospel as an improved law, you know, a law that's easier
to keep than the Ten Commandments and all the other commandments
that made up the Old Testament. Some people view the gospel as
being an easier system of salvation by works. And if this Bible is
not plain on that subject, I have no hope for you. If you have a problem with this,
about this salvation by works, read the second chapter of the
book of Ephesians, the first ten verses. It will solve that
for you right handedly. Thirdly, some people view the
gospel as a mixing of Old Testament and New Testament. Mixing Moses
and the law with Christ and the gospel. Now, Hebrews does a marvelous
job of blasting that view clean out the door. And there are plenty
of other places in our Bibles as well. Alright, so I'm going
to turn, if you'd like to, I'll invite you to, Luke's Gospel,
chapter 4. Can you turn while I talk for
just a minute? The Lord Jesus, referring to the chronology of
Luke chapter 4, the Lord Jesus has begun his public life and
ministry some months, or perhaps as much as a year, before the
event that we're about to read about in Luke chapter 4. And these reports of what Christ
has done in such and such a synagogue, Capernaum was His favorite place,
that was His headquarters after the time that He left Nazareth.
But in many other places, sometimes out on a road, I don't guess
they had highways, but wherever He was and wherever people were,
Our Lord spoke to them the truth concerning Himself and the truth
concerning themselves. So here in Luke chapter 4, our
Lord has been gone now. He lived here for virtually the
first 30 years of His life. At about age 30, He began His
public life and ministry. And He's not been back since
beginning that, and now He's coming back. His own half-brothers
and his sisters were in this congregation. Relatives. Had to have some relatives. But
here our Lord is coming back to Nazareth. And I'm sure that
place was as full as it had ever been. Now, beginning at verse
16, And our Lord came to Nazareth, Luke 4.16, where he had been
brought up, and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue
on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. They bring to him in verse 17,
I'm satisfied that this is not a book like this is a book, but
it's rather a scroll. But that's neither here nor there.
They delivered to him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And when
he had opened this scroll, unlike some other preachers I can think
of, who claim you don't need to study to preach, you know,
they just close their eyes and open their book and the Bible
and wherever it's open, that's where it's supposed to be. Well,
I know one thing for sure, it ain't the method of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He never exercised the miraculous
when the ordinary was right in front of Him. Do you understand
what I'm saying? Our Lord doesn't need these things. Goodness, He could have quoted
the whole thing. Verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel. There's our word, gospel. Christ is anointed to preach
the gospel. And it is to preach the gospel
to whom? To the poor? Now, I know you
can't hear the word poor without thinking of the literally poor.
But there is a far greater poverty among mankind and among our own
generation and all other generations. There is a poverty of spirit. Spiritual poverty. And my Lord, if our Lord is not
on this earth at a time when this kind of religion, the Jews'
religion, is crammed full of this very thing, He came to preach the gospel
to the poor. He, that is God the Father, has
sent me to heal whom? The broken hearted. And this
ain't some girl or boy that's broke up with her girlfriend
or boyfriend or whatever. This is broken heartedness over
sin. To preach deliverance to the
captives. And there is no captivity that
equals religious captivity. And recovering of sight to the
blind. Now, our Lord certainly did open
some blind eyes physically in this world, but if you'll take
some time today and look at John chapter 9, the fellow that was
born blind, And Mr. Hawker suggests that
there was no such thing as an eye, and that socket is empty. Now, if you want some fly-by-night
guy to come along and give you sight, go right ahead. But if
you're born blind, you've got to create what doesn't exist. And our Lord is certainly equal
to that. He made everything that was made.
And He certainly made this man eyes to see. Recovering of the
sight to the blind. But before the chapter is over,
our Lord runs into this guy again. And in the meantime, Lord, he's
been scalded, I know telling how many times, by the Jewish
Sanhedrin. They'd bring him in for questioning.
They'd ask him. Then they called his parents,
and then later on they called him back. And every time they
talked to him, he got bolder and bolder and bolder. He said,
how come you want to know so much? Do you want to be his disciple?
And this was before he was an actual disciple. The recovering of sight to the
spiritually blind. and to set at liberty them that
are bruised by sin. Now, I'm just going to tell you
in case you don't know, and I can't imagine you're not knowing, but
this chapter also has some results of what Christ has just said.
These people found out that we don't like what He's saying.
We don't like what He's preaching or what He's teaching. And by the time he used two simple
little illustrations, one was the healing of Naaman the Syrian
from leprosy, and the other was in Elisha's day, I believe it
was, the widow, what was the name
of that town? Sarepta. And after that statement,
about Sarepta. They were so incensed that they
lost all restraints. They forcefully thrust him out
of the city, took him to the brow of a mountain near where
that city was sitting, and tried to throw him off that cliff head
first. And our Lord simply walked right
through the middle of them and left. He went right back to what
he had been doing, back to another synagogue in another place. This, my dear friends, is the
state of affairs right now in today's religion. This county is overrunning with
it. Our state is. Our nation is. Our world is. And if you cannot see this, if
you can listen to religious people spout their garbage, and it just
doesn't do anything for you, you ain't heard nothing yet. Nothing. To be saved is to love the Lord
Jesus Christ and serve Him with all our heart. And when he's insulted and lied
about and slandered, and if my dictionary up here was better,
I'd tell you a few more words. I tell you, we're in desperate
times. I've got a large family. Many
of them have died, but there's still a bunch more. And to this day, not one of them
has heard a thing I've ever said. I've preached at a bunch of funerals
in my family. And I've tried to do exactly
what I try to do here, to tell you the truth about God, about
ourselves, and about salvation. But it hasn't taken. And I cannot make them take it.
I've passed out tracts and everything I can think of, but to no avail. Now, a long time ago, they weren't
very religious, but I've noticed as they got older, they get more
and more religious. I guess we begin to think about
leaving this world instead of making our fortune in this world. So the mission of our Lord Jesus
Christ has to do with His coming as
a Savior for sinners. And the covenant under which
He came is not the Old Testament covenant. It's not the covenant
of law. It is the wonderful, blessed
covenant of grace. I'll risk it. How about Hebrews
chapter 8? Hebrews chapter 8, we begin to
read at verse 6. Hebrews 8, 6. Speaking of our
Lord Jesus, but now has He obtained a more excellent ministry by
how much also He is the mediator of a better covenant which was
established upon better promises. What was the old covenant based
on? Our promises that we would keep
it and not break it. But you couldn't last ten minutes
if you really knew what sin is. It's a no-win situation. Nobody
can be saved that way except God himself. A new covenant established upon
better promises. For if the first covenant had
been faultless, then should no place have been sought for a
second covenant. If the first one worked, the
second one is unnecessary. For finding fault with them,
God said, Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their
fathers in the days when I took them by the hand to lead them
out of the land of Egypt. Because they continued not in
my covenant, and I regarded them not, says the Lord. For this
is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel. This
is spiritual Israel. And all believers are spiritual
Israelites, whether we like it or not. This is the covenant
that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, says
the Lord. I'll put my laws into their mind
and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and
they shall be to me a people. There ain't a thing said there
about if you're willing, if you're letting. That is bunk. Pure hogwash. They shall not
teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least to the
greatest. For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins, and their iniquities will I remember
no more." Wow! No more. In that he says a new
covenant, he has made the first one old. The Ten Commandments
are out of date. You heard me. You cannot keep
the Ten Commandments. You never have. And you can live
to be as old as Methuselah, and you never will. Here's what he says. A new covenant. means that he made the first
ode. Now, that which decays and waxes
old is ready to vanish away. Now, if you have a dating system,
that's a bad word, not looking for a girlfriend or boyfriend.
I'm talking about today is 629 of 14. Alright? If you have a
dating system in your Bible, some of us do and some of us
don't. It's called a chronology. And
in the margin, they'll post dates for certain, sometimes a whole
book of Scripture, sometimes a section. But in regard to Romans
chapter 8, we're talking about A.D. 64. A.D. 64. Anno Domino. in the year of our Lord, 64.
Alright? Jerusalem has been under Roman
rule for a long time, and they have six more years to go. Because in A.D. 70, the Romans
tore that massive temple down to just nothing. Nothing. People fled the city,
fled the whole province, trying to escape the wrath of the Romans. So he says, that which decays
and waxes old is ready, ready to vanish away. Do you know, since A.D. 70, the
Jews have not offered the first sacrifice, nor the first amount of blood? They have no temple. They have
no altar. But worst of all, they have no
God. The mission of our Lord Jesus
Christ is purely and only a mission of mercy and grace. The gospel
itself is always directed to sinners. The gospel gifts are for the
spiritually dead, the spiritually blind, and the spiritually captive. And this gospel has but two commands. It is repent and believe the
gospel. Repentance and believe the gospel. The glory of the gospel is to
save even the chief of sinners. You remember 1 Timothy 1.15,
Paul said, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom He said, I am chief, the chief
of sinners. A preacher so-and-so is too bad
a sinner. God would never be able to save
him. Well, if you knew a little bit about your own heart, you
might wonder if He saved you yet. Here are some wonderful wonderful
things pertaining to this precious gospel. Luke 19.10 tells us that
the Lord Jesus lived to seek and to save that which is lost. And he always does as he pleases. He's never been defeated. Then our Lord Jesus is said to
have risen from the dead. for our justification. He ascends
to glory in order to dispense gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious
also. The Lord Jesus presently lives
in heaven. And what is he doing? Well, first of all, he's doing
everything he pleases. The other one is, he's interceding
for his people. He's praying for us. And God
has promised to answer his every prayer. Here are some gospel blessings.
Elect in grace, effectual calling, adoption, and regeneration. Surely it would be wisdom on
any lost sinner's part to accept this distasteful doctrine of
the gospel. The reason it is wise, it is
the only means available to genuine honest-to-goodness sinners. We
are to be accepted of God on the ground of honesty, which
means that we're saved the same way as the dying thief on the
cross, the same way as robbers and murderers and adulterers
and prostitutes, and you just name the list. It is to confess
before God that which he reveals of us to ourselves. And this gospel is also on the ground of safety, laying hold of the promises of
God. It's also a ground of expediency. This message that the Bible calls
the gospel is tailor-made. Now, I don't know what tailor-made
clothes were like, but this gospel is tailor-made for sinners and
nobody else. It changes our mind and attitude toward God
Himself. This precious influence of the
gospel that sanctifies the soul of the sinner, it inspires, invigorates,
inflames all whom it saves without question. Without question. Are you better off today as a
believer than you were some years ago as an unbeliever? This gospel produces the only
genuine, real, honest to goodness gratitude. Grateful to God that
He'd show mercy. to a hell deserving sinner like
me. It promotes a readiness to forgive
others. It provides motivation to serve God in this world. To look back over many centuries
It is easy to prove this final influence of this gospel. It breeds zealots, martyrs, missionaries, and saints. And you can't have those things
any place else. except in Christ and in the gospel. Christ died for the ungodly.