I am speaking to you today from
the book of Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1. I hope you
have a Bible and follow along with me. is, if there is someone who is
truly interested and they were to ask me what to read in the
Bible or where to begin, I would tell them to begin in the book
of Romans. I would tell them to get a King
James Bible and begin in Romans chapter 1 and begin reading slowly,
carefully, and prayerfully. asking God to reveal the truth
to you, for no man can figure it out of his self. God must reveal it. Now, hopefully
there is someone listening right now who desires to hear the truth
of the matter, what God's Word truly says. In Romans chapter
1, beginning with verse 1, the Holy Spirit is speaking. through
a man named Paul, and he writes, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. Paul, he says. He doesn't refer
to himself as the most right, reverend, father, doctor Paul. No, just Paul. The Lord Jesus
Christ, speaking to his disciples in Matthew 23, plainly told them,
Be not called rabbi. For one is your Master, even
Christ. He said, Call no man father upon
the earth. One is your Father which is in
heaven. And the Scriptures forbids us to use titles such as reverend. Psalm 111 verse 9 says holy and
reverend is his name, God's name. Reverend means one who deserves
profound respect or awe. God alone is to be had in all
and deserves profound respect. So Paul begins this way. Paul,
simply, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle
or a messenger sent by Jesus Christ. Paul, called to be an
apostle. Someone once said, an old preacher
once said, No prophet ever applied for the job. The prophets were
not hired by men, except Balaam, that is, that false prophet.
The prophets were not hired by men. They were not trained in
a school and given a diploma of prophecy. No, they were called,
equipped, and sent by God himself. And the same with the apostles.
And the same with every true preacher of the gospel. And this
is how you'll know if God called that man. This is how you'll
know. The same way it was with the
apostle Paul. In verse 1, he continues by saying,
I'm called to be an apostle separated unto the gospel of God. Separated unto the gospel of
God. This is what separates true preachers
from false ones. This is what separated the true
apostles from many who claim to be so. It was their message,
their message separated unto the gospel of God. Now, Paul
was not a politician. He was not into politics. Paul
was not in the entertaining business. Paul was not a socializer per
se. But Paul was a preacher and a
preacher of the gospel. He said, I'm separated. I'm sold
out too. I'm taken up with the gospel. The gospel which he is about
to define in these few verses. In another book he said, now
there's another gospel There is some preaching another gospel,
but right now he is going to tell us what the gospel is. He
calls it here in Romans 1, verse 1, the gospel of God. The gospel, as with everything,
begins with God and ends with God, and all else in between. The gospel is not of man, by
man, or concerning man, or what man can do, must do, ought to
do for God or for Jesus. But the gospel, the gospel of
God, is the message of what God has done for some dead, helpless,
hopeless sinners. So Paul calls it the gospel of
God. It is God's gospel. He purposed
it, God the Son purchased it, and God the Holy Spirit applies
it. It is God's gospel. Paul says,
I am separated unto the gospel of God. He said, Woe is unto
me if I preach not the gospel, the gospel which declares who
God is and what God has done. All right, read on with me. In
verse 2 he says, It is the gospel of God which he had promised
afore by his prophets in the Holy Scripture, the gospel which
God promised before by His prophet. Now, the Old Testament is not
just a book or merely a book of Jewish history. No, the Old
Testament is His story or the story of the coming Christ, the
prophecies and promises concerning the Lord Jesus Christ who was
to come. Now, the apostles only had one
Bible to preach from, the Old Testament. They preached from
Old Testament scriptures, the books of Moses and the prophets
and the Psalms, and they preached Christ from those books. Christ
himself, when he was walking on the road to Emmaus with two
of his disciples. It says in Luke 24 that he began
in the books of Moses and in the Psalms and the Prophets.
Now that's the whole Old Testament. And it says he began to expound
unto them the things concerning himself. He said, they are they,
or that is the Old Testament book, are they which testify
of me. So this is an old, old gospel,
the gospel of the Old Testament. Yes, same gospel in the New is
the gospel of the Old. You see, the Old Testament types,
the Old Testament stories like the woman's seed, that's the
first mention of the gospel is when God Almighty preached to
Adam and Eve of the woman's seed which was to come. That's Christ.
Abel's sacrifice, Noah's ark, the Passover land, the serpent
on a pole. The whole Old Testament is a
picture of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament says someone
is coming. The Gospels say he's here. And the epistles and the revelation
say he's coming again. So it is God's gospel. It's the
old, old gospel, the Old Testament gospel. And verse 3 says, it
is concerning his, or God's Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. He says
it is concerning God's Son. Now again, the gospel is not
concerning what man must do to be saved. Man cannot do anything
to be saved. If you're lost, you can't save
yourself, can you? You must be found. Someone must
find you. If you're dead, you cannot give
life to yourself. Someone must give life to you
or quicken you, as Ephesians says. The gospel is not concerning
what man must do to be saved, but what Jesus Christ did to
save his people. That's what makes it gospel or
good news to hopeless sinners. Now, self-righteous, independent
religious folk don't need this gospel, but helpless sinners
do. The gospel, therefore, is concerning
God's Son. Who He is. Why He came. What
He did for His people. Who He is. Why He's God. That's
who He is. Isaiah 25 says, This is our God. He'll save us. Only God can. Why did He come? He came to save
His people. That's what He said over and
over and over. chose a people, elected a people,
gave them to Jesus Christ in a covenant before the world began,
and Christ came here to save those people. What did He do
when He got here? He saved them. Because Scripture
says when He was hanging on the cross, He declared these words,
It is finished. Christ saved His people. He did all God required of Him
to save His people. that righteousness they needed,
Christ fulfilled it, and he imputed it to them. They deserved to
die for their sins. Christ died in their place, in
their stead. So the gospel, the gospel, is
concerning God's Son, what he did. what he must do for helpless
sinners, which was made, the scripture says, of the seed of
David according to the flesh. This declares him to be who he
is, the right one, the true Christ, which the Old Testament scriptures
only can tell us about. Now, verse 4. We conclude with
this verse. In verse 4, it says, The gospel,
the gospel of God, the Old Testament gospel, which concerns God's
Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, declares Him, look at verse 4
with me, it declares Him to be the Son of God with power, according
to the spirit of holiness, according to a perfect or holy life, which
no man ever did live or ever can live, but only the God-man
did, and by the resurrection from the dead. God declared he
was accepted by raising him from the dead. Now, this gospel declares
him to be the Son of God with power. Power. How much power? All power. Oh, no, he's not just
a powerful man. He is power personified. He has all power. He said that
in John 17, verse 2. He said, All power. Thou hast
given him, or the Son, all power, power over all flesh, that he
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given me. Now, the false gospel tells men
what they must do with Jesus, or that they must do something
for or with Jesus. The gospel declares what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done for His people. Another gospel, or
the false gospel, says, you make Him Lord. Won't you make Him
Lord? The gospel declares that God
hath declared Him to be Lord. Another gospel, or the false
gospel, says, won't you let Him into your heart? Well, the gospel,
the true gospel, says that the King's heart even is in the hands
of the Lord. A false gospel says, ìHe can
if you let him.î The gospel says, ìI will and you shall.î Another
gospel says, ìHe cannot do it without you.î The gospel says,
ìWithout me, you can do nothing.î So this is Godís gospel. Itís
the Old Testament gospel. Itís concerning who Jesus Christ
is and what He did, and declaring Him to be the Son of God with
all power over all flesh. If you want this message on cassette
tape, write to us and we'll send it to you free of charge. Until
next Sunday, good day.