I feel so comfortable here that
this is where we vacationed. Last year we came up and spent
the week. That's comfortable, isn't it?
It sure is. Bruce, thank you for that message.
My, what a blessing. If God would enable me this morning, I want to take a very familiar
verse of Scripture and show you the glorious Gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So turn with me to Matthew 1.
And I want to look again at just one verse this morning, verse
21. Let me just say quickly thank
you for your hospitality. We just absolutely love you,
Teresa and I. Verse 21, And she shall bring
forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins. Now according to the text here,
an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and brought him a message
from the Lord, from God. That's what the gospel is. It's
a message from the Lord. It's a message to and for sinners,
to God's people. The gospel message, good news. Good news. Isn't it good news?
It is if you're a sinner. Jesus Christ shall save His people
from their sins. That's good news. What an outline for gospel preaching. I love to find verses where the
outline is just done for me. It just preaches itself almost.
Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people
from their sin. Paul started his letter to the
church at Rome talking about this gospel which is concerning
Jesus Christ. The gospel is concerning Him.
Paul wrote, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an
apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He, God, had promised
afore by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning His
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And from beginning to end, in
this blessed holy book, it's about Him. It's become a little
cliché. I heard it years ago. I love
to say this is truly a hymn book. Not H-Y-M-N, but H-I-M. It's a hymn book. It's about
him. Why, even his name declares who he is. Jesus. Jehovah is salvation. Savior. He's the Anointed One. He's the Messiah. The Christ. And the good news of the Gospel
is concerning Him. This Jesus who is the Christ
has come for a specific purpose. What's the purpose for which
He came? He shall save. Not He shall try to save. Not
He wants to save. Not that He's made salvation
possible. He shall save. So simple. You know the gospel,
God's gospel was never meant to be hard to understand. It's
impossible to believe unless God does a work of grace in your
heart, but it's never meant to be hard to understand. Men just
hate it. Won't have this man rule over
me. He shall save. He's going to
most definitely save somebody because He shall save. He's a successful Savior. He's a saving God, a saving substitute,
a successful mediator. The God who sent this Gospel
message is not a God who simply made salvation possible. He shall save. The first words that comes forth
from this heavenly messenger is Jesus. Savior. He shall save. And so sad, but for the most
part, the Gospel message has been lost today. Just a handful that preach the
truth. And the popular message imagined
today to be the Gospel, as you all so well know, is that God
loves everybody. God the Son died for everybody
and God the Holy Spirit wants and is trying to save everybody.
Oh friends, that couldn't be further from the truth. That's not what this God-sent
messenger said. He says that Jesus Christ shall
save. He shall save. He's going to
save a particular people. How do I know that? Because it
tells me right here, He shall save His people. His people. Salvation is not universal. Salvation
is particular. He shall save His people. The angel didn't say, He shall
save everybody. He's going to save His people. I know you've heard these things,
but it won't hurt us to hear them again. If God loves everybody,
and Christ died for everybody, then everybody is going to be
saved. Right? Is there any for whom He shed
His precious blood that will be in hell? If God loves everybody and yet
some of those whom He loves will perish, then what does God's
love have to do with our salvation? If God loves everybody and yet
some are still lost, then the love of God doesn't mean anything.
Why can't men see that? Because God hasn't opened their
eyes. If God doesn't secure the salvation,
of His people, lost forever. And none whom God loves shall
be lost. No, not a one. That's to declare
God to be a failure. That's to declare that His love
is ineffectual, ineffective. And if Christ died for everybody
and yet some of that number are still lost, then the death of
Christ doesn't mean anything. There'll be none in hell for
whom Christ died. I haven't been pastoring all
that long. The Lord called me a little later
in life than most. I think about Bruce and Paul,
been faithful pastors for so many years. But something that
you learn pretty quick when folks find out you're a preacher or
a pastor, well, they just come out of the woodwork, don't they? Recently a man told me that he
believed that God made salvation possible to all. He distinguished
that by saying He made salvation possible to all who will believe. And that sounds good, doesn't
it? I mean, he added the part, you've got to believe, which
is true. But I told him, if that's true,
then salvation is attained and accomplished by man's believing
and not God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. You see, my problem, Aaron, is
I could not come. And I would not come. until God made me willing in
the day of His power. If a man comes to Christ and
believes on Him, then a work of grace by God has already been
done in his heart. And isn't it amazing how religion
just has an answer for everything that refutes the glorious gospel
that you and I love? That same fellow argued that
he believed that salvation is by God's grace, but that he had
to choose and he had to decide to accept God's grace. Oh, that
just crawls all over you, doesn't it? Because it's not true. He had to believe in order to
receive the salvation that God has made possible. What does
God's Word say? God's messenger tells us in this
text, He shall save His people from their sin. He shall be a
Savior, not just make their salvation possible. He's a Savior and He's
going to save His people. I want you to notice secondly
that His people are going to have to be saved from something. That's very important. If a man
is drowning and you pull him out of the water, then you saved
him from drowning. You saved him from the water.
If a woman is perishing in a fire, and you
run in and pull that precious lady out of the burning house,
then you saved her from the fire. To be saved, you have to be saved
from something. And that is the gospel message. Jesus Christ saved His people
from their sin. That's the gospel, just plain,
simple and amazing. And it would be an amazing feat
to pull a drowning man out of the water and revive him. And it would be an amazing, marvelous
thing to pull a lady out of a burning house, but to save a sinner from
their sin. It's more than amazing. It's
more than wonderful. It's more than marvelous because
only one man could do it. Just one. One mediator between God and
man. The man Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation. That Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. He's going to save them from
their sin. Now, I'm going to make a deliberate
statement here, and I want you to listen to me. I've thought
about this a lot. No sinner will ever be saved
by somebody telling them that God loves them. No sinner will ever be saved
by someone telling them that Christ died for them. I have a friend who I used to
be very close to, and time and providence and the purpose of
God have separated us now. That happens a lot as you get
older. Several years ago, a mutual acquaintance of him and me found
religion. He didn't come to Christ, he
found religion. That's two different things, isn't it? And he looked
at this friend of mine who was a pretty I'll use the word rambunctious. That's kind. He was something
else. And he looked at my friend and he said, the Lord loves you and
died for you. And my friend, lost as he was,
was at least honest. And he looked him in the eye
and he said, I'm sure sorry about that. And the fellow was somewhat caught
off guard. Why are you sorry? He asked.
He said, I'm sorry that somebody I don't know and somebody that
I don't believe in loves me, died for me, for I just don't
care. You see a sinner who is dead
in trespasses and sin? Just don't care. Doesn't care
if God loves them or not. Don't care if Christ died for
them. Why? Because they're dead. They
don't care about anything. A dead, dog-rich, could care
less if Christ died for them. Christ loves them because one
who's dead don't care about anything. And instead of telling men and
women that God loves them and that Christ died for them, I'm
telling you friends, we need to warn sinners of the impending
doom that awaits those who will not repent of their sin. John the Baptist. That great
prophet, that great forerunner who came to prepare the way of
the Lord did not come saying, God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for your life. John did not preach and proclaim
to sinners that Christ died for their sin and that because of
that they needed to make a choice and decide to give Jesus their
heart. What was John's message? Turn
over a page to Matthew chapter 3. Look at verse 1. In those days came John the Baptist
preaching. John the Baptist was a preacher.
And he came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying,
here was his message, repent ye. For the kingdom of heaven
is at hand." And what was the result of this kind of preaching?
True gospel preaching always has the same result, the same
effect. When God makes His message effectual
to the sinner, look at verse 5, "...and then went out to him
Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around about Jordan,
and were baptized of him in Jordan." confessing their sins. What was John's message? It wasn't
God loves you. It wasn't Christ died for you.
It was repent. The Kingdom of God is at hand. And one day as he baptized in
that river Jordan, John pointed I'm sure some folks say, who's
he pointing at? What's he pointing at? He's pointing,
he said, behold, the Lamb of God hath taken away the sin of
the world. At the age of 30, our Lord Himself
left His job as a carpenter and He became the greatest preacher
to have ever lived. Jesus Christ was a preacher.
And he was a good preacher. Oh my! Turn over another page. Matthew chapter 4. You may not
have to turn. Look at verse 17. From that time, Jesus began to
preach and to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
In Mark chapter 1, His message was repent and believe. In Luke
13, his message was repent or perish. And if a sinner doesn't repent, friends,
and believe, he's going to perish. Proclaiming and preaching the
Gospel is not telling men and women that God has set His affection
upon them. As a matter of fact, that's the
assurance that comes after believing. Right? Paul writing to believers
said, nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ. Nothing can separate us from
that love of God which is in Christ Jesus. That's the believer's
comfort. That's the believer's assurance. I love to hear how Christ loved
me. He loved me. He died for me? Oh, I'd love to hear it. But that's not what brought me
to Christ. Oh, that is a blessed truth for
those who've already repented and believed. The proclamation
of the Gospel is that Christ came into the world to save sinners.
Are you a sinner? That's the question. If you are,
repent. Repent. Remember, He shall save. He's going to save. He didn't
come to try. He shall save His people from
their sin. The preaching of the cross is
to them that perish its foolishness. I had a friend one time tell
me, he said, so what is it you believe? And I tried as condensedly
as I could to tell him. And he said, you really believe
that foolishness? It's foolishness to the world. Foolishness. But unto those which
are saved is the power of God. It's the power of God that takes
that stony heart. and plows it up and causes this
seed to fall on good ground. Oh, child of God, when Christ died upon that cross, I think
about it and I picture it in my mind. Oh, I see the horrific,
the horrificness of my sin. Yet where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. And there's no place where sin
abounded more than at Calvary. Oh, can you see? It was there
that the elect sinner's sin was put on Him. It was there on the cross where He who knew no sin, was made to be sin for His people,
that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Oh, I'm telling you, where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. There's an old song that says,
when He was on the cross, I was on His mind. on his mind and
on his heart. Isn't that an amazing, amazing
truth? Peter said in Acts 2, verse 23,
he said, him speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, he said, you
have taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain. But the wonderful message of
the Gospel is that what men meant It meant for evil, God meant
for good. And Jesus Christ was delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Peter said in Acts chapter 8,
repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out.
In verse 22 of that same chapter, he said, repent that the thoughts
of your heart may be forgiven. I was telling Bruce, we were
talking last night about some things, and I said, if I haven't
done it, I've thought it. And that word repent, oh my,
it basically means reversal. Repent means to change. Change your ways. Change your
thoughts. Change your God. Repent means to turn, to turn
from your way to God's way. Why? Because Jesus Christ is
the way. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone where?
To our own way. To repent is to turn from our
way to God's way. To repent is to turn from Satan's
lies to God's truth. Jesus Christ is the truth. To repent is to turn from death
into life. Jesus Christ is the life. And
no man cometh to the Father but by faith. The only way sinners can be saved. That's God's message to and for
sinners. Now look at our text again. I've got you in chapter 4. Turn
back to chapter 1. Verse 21. She shall bring forth a Son,
and thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins." Now, allow me to be Paul Harvey for
just a moment and give you the rest of the story. God the Son condescends from
His lofty and holy throne on high. That's an amazing thought
right there, isn't it? That He would take on flesh,
become a man. Why? Because Bruce, you're a
man and I'm a man. And he might die for his people. And he condescends from his lofty
throne of power, dominion, grace and mercy and love and he takes
upon himself that human flesh. Why? Because he's going to save
his people from their sin. And I love to say this, the infinite
became an infant. And the Scriptures say that he
grew and that he waxed strong in spirit and was filled with
wisdom and the grace of God was upon him and he lived a perfect
life of perfect righteousness. As our representative, as our
federal head and the substitute for his covenant people. Why?
He's going to save His people from their sin. He dwelt on earth and His friends
were few and His enemies were many and He was despised and
rejected of men. A man of sorrows acquainted with
grief. Acquainted with grief. And after
a little more than just three years of going about and doing,
the Scripture says, all things well. He didn't just do some
good things, everything he did was good. He did all things well. The Lord Jesus is at last delivered
into the hands of them that hated Him. And the Scripture says they
hated Him without a cause. There was no cause in them to
hate Him. Why? Because He was perfect.
Without sin. He knew no sin. And He's roughly
arrested in the garden as His disciples fled and ran. There again, Not long ago, a
man said, I wouldn't have ran. I'd have stayed right. Oh, you'd
have been the first one. If I'd have been there when they
crucified, I wouldn't have allowed it. Oh, yes, you would. You'd
have been crying, crucifying right with the rest of them. Despised. Rejected a man, a man
of salt. He's roughly arrested in the
garden as the disciples run. He's beaten beyond recognition
as a man. So much so that the Scriptures
say His visage was marred more than any man before that or after. But I'm telling you friends,
they don't even begin to compare with the soul suffering that
our Savior went through. Can you imagine all the sins
of all God's elect out of all time being put on Him? Oh my. As it were, He sweat great drops
of blood that fell to the ground. Oh, what suffering. We can't
even imagine. We can't enter into it. And not
only figuratively, but literally, men spit in God's face. Why does God allow these things? He's going to save His people
from their sin. Pallet declares to find no fault
in him. And Pallet's wife warned Pallet
and said, don't have anything to do with the condemnation of
this just man. Why even they had some kind of
insight into his perfect righteousness. And Pallet washed his hands.
He washed his hands and he said, I'm innocent of the blood of
this just person. If you want him dead, he said,
you see to it. And you know what the people
said? His blood be on us and our children. Crucifying. In unison together, they said.
Crucifying. And I tell you, the testimony
of Scripture speaks of that free will that religious men and women
are so proud of. We're told that Pilate delivered
Jesus to their will. Now that says something about
our will, doesn't it? Pilate delivered Jesus to their
will. Do you know what the will of fallen men and women will
do? It will kill God if He can get His hands on Him. Now I hear
men and women alike say things like God would never violate
man's free will. Oh, I'm telling you friends,
you better hope He does. You better hope He does. Because
our will is in bondage to sin. They parade and they drag our
precious Lord through the streets of Jerusalem. They make Him carry
His own cross. And some might say, well they
did get the man to help him there along the way. You know why they
did that? Because they were afraid he was going to die before they
could get him to gog off his heel and pull up chairs and watch
him die the horrible death of the cross. That's the only reason
that they helped him. They thought he was going to die right there. And he's brought to that Mount
Calvary and he's nailed to the cruel cross. Why? Because He's
going to save His people from their sin. And suffering all
the undiluted anguish and pain of hell itself, He cries, My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He'd always been with the Father.
Always in perfect communion and fellowship with Him. But now
He's forsaken. Why? He's going to save His people
from their sin. Why is His loving Father forsaking
Him? Oh, glad you asked. He's paying
the sin debt of His people for He will save them from their
sin. The wages of sin is debt and
He's paying that debt. Oh, I remember one time as a
young man, I got myself into some financial trouble, man.
I just, I thought, someone said, you've got good credit. Wish
they hadn't told me that. I tried it out. It wasn't so
good after a while. But I had a truck payment that
I could, oh, I'm telling you, it was a burden every month to
make that payment. And I got behind and I finally
scrounged up the money one day to make the payment. And I went down there to the
bank and relieved as I threw that money on the counter and
the lady was punching her computer and kind of shook her head and
I thought, oh my, they've already turned it over to collection
or something. And she said, Mr. Edmondson, said, this loan's
been paid. My dad went down and paid that
note off. I didn't know it, but I sure
rejoiced when I found out about it. He's paying the debt of sin
for his people. Oh, my. And you know, for the
longest time, I didn't know it. Christ is doing for His people
what they cannot do for themselves. He's dying the just for the unjust
that He might bring them to God. That's the only way you can come
to God. He's got to bring you. Just like He did that lost sheep. Isn't that just the most beautiful
picture? I can just see that shepherd
taking that lamb, putting it on his shoulder, and taking it
back to the fold. What's even a more beautiful
picture than that is my Good Shepherd taking me and putting
me on His shoulder, taking me back to the fold of God. And as Christ drinks the full
condemnation of that cup which could not pass from His lips,
He must drink it. and drink it dry, he did. And
he cries with the last breath that God gives him. And he says,
it's finished. What's finished? He paid the
debt of sin for his people. He laid down his life. No man
could take it. He gives up the ghost only after
his work is accomplished. And the gospel, the good news
for sinners, is just this. Nothing else needs to be done.
What must I do to be saved? Nothing. What? I've got to do
something. No, nothing. It's all been done.
It's all accomplished. Mr. Edmondson, your loan is paid. Access to God is now opened. The veil in the temple has been
rent in two and now I can come boldly into the throne of grace
and find mercy and help in time of need. And I'm so needy. Man, I'm so glad I have access,
aren't you? You have access to God. Why? Because He shall pay for the
sins of His people. Oh my. Thou shalt call His name
Jesus. For He has saved His people from
their sin. The debt's paid. The debtor's
discharged. I didn't get another late notice
on that loan. You know why? Because it's paid. The thunder at Mount Sinai is
silenced. The cup of God's wrath has been
drank dry. And God's no longer angry with
the chosen sinner. And whom Evan used to be angry
with every day. Not angry anymore. Why? Because now I'm as perfect
as Christ Himself. God has seen the travail of His
soul and is satisfied. Oh, that's another good word,
isn't it? Satisfied. Thou shalt bring forth a son.
He's David's son, yet David's Lord. He's the Son of Man, yet the
Son of God. Not another one like Him. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
Savior, Redeemer, Christ, God our righteousness. For He shall save His people
from their sin. Amen.