of God. What is the gospel of
God? Romans chapter 1. I don't know that you had an
opportunity to meet a dear elderly lady who was here this morning,
Mary's mother. I enjoyed meeting her and talking
with her a little bit, an aged saint of God who used to come
here many years ago and listens to all of our services and it
was just a delight to meet her and to visit with her a little
bit this morning and I'm so thankful that she was able to come that
you brought her this morning and we rejoice in the goodness
and grace of God that he's given to her. She's from southwest
Michigan over that direction. I guess she's going back this
week but it was so good to meet her and to listen to her talk
a little bit about years gone by when she used to come here
especially the Bible conferences and some of the older preachers
that I'd never had an opportunity to meet, Brother A.D. Mews and
Brother Barnard and several others. It was good to see her. Let's ask God's blessing on the
service now. Again, we beseech you to be merciful
to us and grant our petition that the spirit of your grace
would be with us, that he would anoint me and give me just the words
to say. that would exalt our God and
be instructive and beneficial to, Lord, your dear adopted children. Oh, how we long to be a blessing
to and a comfort to and a teacher to those that you have set apart
from old eternity to be your own. The people you've loved
with an everlasting love, a people that you've redeemed by the Lord
Jesus Christ, called by the Spirit's awakening voice. We thank you,
Father, that you have said, fury is not in you. You took out all
of your fury and your vengeance upon our sins when you dealt
with that one who is our substitute. And not one drop of wrath shall
ever fall upon your children. Oh God, we bless you for such
a wonderful and marvelous gospel, the message of good news, a finished
redemption and a finished reconciliation and everlasting righteousness
brought in by the obedience unto death of our Lord Jesus. Lord, we thank you that he is
our high priest And he is our high priest who ministers on
our behalf with feeling. He's a sympathizing high priest,
for he is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. Such is the
nearness of your people to the Lord Jesus that we are considered
as one. We're united to Him forever. And we rejoice in our standing,
O God, before You and the Lord Jesus. We're thankful that in
Him we have no sin, we have no transgressions, we have no iniquities. For He, by His bloody death,
purged us of our sins and he has been raised from the dead
and he's seated in the heavenlies and there upon the throne of
grace he governs all things to fulfill your everlasting purpose
and to work all things for good for your people. Lord, as we
go into the preaching part of this service, we ask you that
you'd be with us. I've asked you to anoint me.
Now, Lord, I ask you to anoint these who sit before me and those
who are watching. Give, oh God, an understanding
of your word. May the gospel of God find a
welcome lodging within our hearts. Lord, prepare us to receive the
message tonight. It is with thanksgiving that
we come before you, ever mindful and thankful for your loving
kindness, your tender mercies, and your graciousness unto us. For Jesus' sake we ask these
things. Amen. Romans chapter 1, verses 1 through
4. First of all, the writer, the
inspired writer who is the Apostle Paul, he introduces himself And
he says he's a servant of Jesus Christ. He's a bond servant. The Lord has saved him by his
grace. The Lord sought him and found
him. While this man was on his way
to arrest anybody who believed the way of grace, the way of
Christ Jesus. was going to Damascus. The Lord
crossed his path. He had an encounter with the
living God that he never got over. Let me tell you what salvation
is. It's having an encounter with
God. It's when God deals with you. The other men who were with him,
if you read of his conversion experience, the other men, they
didn't understand what was going on. They had no idea because
it wasn't happening to them. But the Lord, he had set this
man aside back in old eternity to be a recipient of his grace.
And this was the, that time appointed for love, as it says in Ezekiel
16. This was that hour when God said
to him, live. I passed by thee, and I said,
live. And that's what happened to this
man. God called him. God taught him
the gospel. God broke him. Oh, it's a blessed
day when God breaks a sinner. When God strips a sinner and
then robes him in the garments of salvation. When God kills
a sinner and then makes him alive. That's what it says there in
1 Samuel 2, the Lord kills and the Lord makes alive. He first of all brings us down.
And then he brings us up. That's always God's way of dealing
with us. And so he brought this man down,
and then he raised him up. He washed him. He robed him. And then God called him to be,
as it says here, an apostle. He's one of the Lord's specially
called men. One of the apostles has died.
He committed suicide, Judas. I know that the other men hurriedly
got together and said, we've got to have a replacement. And
they picked the wrong man, because God's right man had already been
determined, and it was the apostle Paul. God called him to be an
apostle. Notice that last statement of
verse 1, separated unto the gospel of God. That's really, that's
what a preacher is. He's separated to the gospel
of God. This man This man who had devoted
himself, who was zealous in false religion, in works religion,
God set him apart to preach His truth. To tell people who God
is. To tell people what they are.
And then to tell them about the Lord Jesus and His work of redemption. That's why God set him apart.
God made him a preacher. God made him a preacher. And
every preacher tells the same story. I mean, every preacher
called by God, every preacher called by the spirit of grace,
every preacher that is instructed in the things of God, they all
tell the same story. They all tell the same message.
They've all got the gospel of God because God teaches them
and God burdens them. You've read many times throughout
the Old Testament prophets about the burden of the word of the
Lord. And that's what God does. He
still does that to preachers today. There's a burden upon
us and we have to preach this message. We've got to exalt Jesus
Christ and we denounce free willism. We denounce false religion and
we preach the gospel of the grace of God, the gospel of God's glory. We preach Jesus Christ. Successful
Redeemer, not one who's frustrated, not one who came and tried to
do something or other, and maybe or maybe not his work was successful. It all depends upon whether the
sinner lets him save him. No, no, we preach the Savior
who successfully did away with the sins of his people, the Savior
who satisfied God. The Savior who was the substitute
for all the elect of the Lord, who actually put away our sins
and saved us. This is the gospel all of God's
preachers preach all over the world. It's the same message. It's one of the very refreshing
things about going, when you travel, go into another Sovereign
Grace Assembly where the saints of God gather and the Lord has
a man there preaching the truth. You walk in and it's like you're
among family. It doesn't matter where you are.
It doesn't matter what part of the country you're in, because
it's the same saints of God, just the faces are different,
but they believe the same gospel as you do, and you're embraced
as family, and the gospel that is set forth from behind the
pulpit. So that's what I've been hearing
all along. It's so refreshing to hear the
same message from another voice in another location. That's because
God teaches all of his preachers the same gospel, the same message,
the gospel of the grace of God. Now, of this gospel, he then
says this. Look at the second verse. And
you notice this is a parenthetical statement. That is, he's separated
to the gospel of God, and then he says, which he had promised
afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. That's a parenthetical
statement. gives us a little information.
What he's saying to us is this gospel of God did not just appear
on the scene with the appearance, the visible appearance, the physical
appearance of the Lord Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem's
manger, but this gospel of God, why, it was set forth back in
the Old Testament. That's when this gospel's promised.
All of the Old Testament prophets said, He shall come. He's coming. They all looked for Him. They
all lived in expectation of His first coming, like we live in
expectation of His second coming. We wait for His coming. We're
excited about the fact that the Lord Jesus is coming back and
He's going to take all of His people home to glory. Well, all
of those Old Testament saints, they were excited and they lived
in anticipation and in expectation and in the good hope that Messiah
is going to come. What if he'll come now, they'd
say to one another. And throughout all of the Old
Testament, all of the Old Testament books, all of the prophets of
God said, he shall come. Throughout all the Holy Scriptures.
Now, having said that, then he goes right back to the subject
of the gospel of God. In fact, without doing any damage
to this portion of scripture, we can read the last statement
of verse one and connect it to verse three. And we'll just for
right now, leave out that parenthetical statement. What's the last four
words of verse one? The gospel of God, verse three,
it concerns his son. Jesus Christ our Lord, which
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. It tells
who he is. This gospel has got to do with
a person. The gospel of God has got to
do with the person, the Lord Jesus. And he begins by setting
forth his real humanity. He's the man Christ Jesus. He's made of the seed of David.
He's introduced that way back in Matthew chapter one of the
seed of David. This is tracing his earthly lineage. He is of the tribe of Judah. He is that one who was set forth
through all the Old Testament scriptures. Here's the promised
one. the one who's the man, Christ
Jesus, born in Bethlehem's manger, grew up learning at the feet
of his mother and learning from his, we'll call him his stepfather,
Joseph, and learning from the Holy Ghost. He'd say, I don't
understand how he could grow in wisdom and in stature. I can
understand growing in stature, but I don't understand how the
God-man could grow in wisdom. I don't either, but there's a
lot of things I don't understand. I don't understand how he made
the world out of nothing, but I believe it. I believe it. And
I believe this one who entered into this world 2,000 years ago,
born of a virgin, she was conceived or he was conceived, the Savior,
in the womb of that virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost,
he took He took our nature into union with Himself. He is really
the seed of David. He was a real man, a real young
man. He grew into be a teenager. He
was talking about Isaac a while ago, being 16 years of age. Our Lord Jesus grew up. He was
a teenager who lived in absolute perfect obedience to every law
there was. In fact, when he was just 12
years old, he went to Jerusalem, talking with the religious experts,
talking with all those who were skilled in the things of the
Bible. He's asking questions. He's absorbing knowledge. This is the real man. And all
the while he's growing in wisdom and in knowledge, he's growing
in stature, he's growing into a fine young man. Always obedient
to his mother and to his stepfather. And always obedient to and well
aware of the purpose for which he was in this world. He came
to save, that's why God sent him. There are some very foolish,
foolish preachers who say things like Jesus didn't really know
what he was here for. Well, don't bother to listen
to those fools. He knew exactly why he came. He knew who he was. He knew what
his mission was. He said, I always do those things
that please God. He told His disciples, my meat
is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work. I know why I'm here. I know who
I am. I know why I'm here. Why, He
was here to save. He was here to reconcile. This
is the gospel of God. This is the good news. It's the
good news of this man, Jesus Christ. This man who was perfect. This man who never broke any
of the laws of God. He was perfect in every way,
inwardly and outwardly. Because we know this, a man got
us into this mess. And we're in a mess, sure enough. A man got us in it. It's gonna
take another man, a perfect man, to get us out of it. And lo,
he has come. He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. But wait a minute, he's more
than a man. Verse four, and declared to be
the son of God with power. How so? According to the spirit
of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Oh, he's man. He's 100% man. He's a man in
every single way with this great big exception. He had no sin
and he did no sin and he thought no sin and he imagined no sin. He's the perfect man. But in
addition to that, He's the Son of God. No wonder we bow down and worship
Him. He's the Son of God. He's one
of the three. He's one of the Godhead three.
And He's all of the Godhead we'll ever see. You see Him, you've
seen the Father. That's Philip said to him in
John 14, if you'll show us the Father, we'll be happy, be satisfied. Just show us the Father. The
Lord Jesus said, Philip, I've been with you three years. Don't you understand? When you
see me, you see the Father. And when we see him, we'll see
the Spirit. He is all of the Godhead. Bodily, that's what the scripture
says. There in one body, in that man,
Jesus Christ is the totality of God. I know he was an infant, but
when Mary and Joseph looked into the face of that infant, they
were looking into the face of God, weren't they? Of course
they were. No wonder when they took him
to the temple, after he had been named and circumcised and they
took him to the temple where Mary was to be purified, when
Simeon saw him, the Spirit of God spoke to that man and said,
that's the one you've been looking for right there, that baby. That's
him. That's Him. You're looking on the face of
one who's set forth in the Old Testament, and now here He is. You see, God had promised Simeon,
you're not gonna die till you see the Lord's Christ. And Mary
came in, Joseph with her to present their offering, and she's holding
that baby. Just a little fella. Look like
every other baby. He didn't have a halo around
his head. Isn't it a shame that even our
minds sometimes think about the pictures of Jesus, and that's
what comes to our mind, a picture of here's a little baby with
a halo around. This scripture doesn't say that.
He's a baby like all the rest of the babies. Hundreds and thousands
of Jewish babies was brought to the temple. What's so special
about this baby? This baby is the Son of God.
That's what's special about him. This baby is the Savior. This
baby is the Sovereign. This baby is the Creator. This
baby is the Preserver of all things. And even when he has
been held in his mother's arms, he was giving his mother strength
enough to hold him. and the sustenance and nourishment
that he received from her breast milk, he himself had made her
body in such a way that she would provide nourishment for him. No wonder we read in 1 Timothy,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. God came down here. Can you grasp
that? God came down here. Not one like
God, not one that was not an angel that God sent, but God
came down here. And that ought to tell us something
about what a mess we were in. If God came down here to save
us, we must have been in a big mess sure enough. If only God
could lift us up. If only God could deliver us. If only God could pull us up
out of the miry clay and set our feet on a rock. And we's
in bad shape sure enough. I don't wanna hear your free
willism. I don't wanna hear the decisionism. I don't wanna hear
any of that. I don't wanna hear about baptismal
regeneration. I wanna hear about the gospel
of God. The good news of what God did
for man. God purchased the church with
his own blood. Well, you can't say that preacher.
Oh yes, I can. That's what the apostle Paul
said in Acts chapter 20. He said to those preachers, he
said, feed the church of God, which he purchased with his own
blood. Whose blood was that? That's
the blood of God. and God's blood satisfied God. The scripture says it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. It satisfied God to bruise him. This God man, it satisfied God. Everything justice demanded was
on the line right there at Calvary. And our Lord Jesus laid down
his life. He died, he suffered, he bled. He died at the hands of justice. And everything a holy God demanded
was met by King Jesus. God was satisfied. A lot of people
have trouble with that scripture that says, where God says, he
has no delight in the death of the wicked. What does that mean? It means he has no satisfaction
in the death of the wicked. He has no satisfaction in the
death of the wicked. That's why hell's got to be forever. because God's justice is never
satisfied. But you look by faith about 2,000
years ago to that one who died on the middle tree. and see him
suffering and read of him being wounded for our transgressions
and bruised for our iniquities. God punished him. God chastised
him. God put all of our sins on him
and then punished him in our stead. That's why God says, there's
no fury in me. All my anger has been exhausted
in the bosom of the son of God. That's the gospel of God. He
died for our sins according to the scriptures. The gospel of
God. It concerns this man who is God. The God man. What is the gospel
of God? Well, the word gospel means good
news. We know that, it means glad tidings. And I'll tell you when the gospel
will be good news to us. It will be when we have a little
understanding of the bad news. It's only as we can grasp the
bad news that we will appreciate the good news. What's the bad
news? The bad news is sin. That's the bad news. And I'm
not gonna sugar coat this. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And it isn't just what we do.
It's not just the wrong that we do. Sin is what we are. It's in the
heart. It's in the nature. It's part
and parcel of us. We're born that way. We're born
with a sin nature. That's the reason, you know,
when your kids are little and they begin to learn a few things,
begin to learn the rules that you lay down for them and those
of you who are school teachers, you know, you deal with this
all the time. Kids breaking rules. You don't have to teach kids
to lie. You don't have to teach kids
to twist the truth. I hear people talk about politicians
and they do this. They put their own, we use this
word, they put their spin on it, S-P-I-N. Well, that's putting
his spin on it. Hey, we've been doing that since
we learned how to talk. All of us been, that ain't nothing
new. Well, that candidate or whoever
it is, that's just his spin on it. Yeah, I know. You recognize
it because you've been doing that all your life. Nobody had
to tell us how to put a spin on things, where we look good. We got that by nature. We just
perfecting it. And you don't have to teach kids
to steal. You have to teach them to share.
All these things. The reason for that is sin. The
bad news is sin. Sin is what we are, and therefore
this sin that we are leads to the wrong that we do. That's
why the Lord Jesus said, out of the heart proceed all of these
things, murders and adultery and fornication. It all comes
out of the heart. Sin the condition. Sin has robbed
us. It has robbed us of fellowship
with God and communion with God. God said to Israel, your sins
and your iniquities, they've separated you from me. Sin's the bad news. But you see,
the good news of the gospel of God will never be good news to
us unless the Spirit of God teaches us something about the bad news.
When you find out how bad and deadly the disease is, that's
when you'll appreciate the remedy. That's when you'll appreciate
the cure. Sin is our condition. And therefore
the remedy must come from him against whom we've sinned. It
must come from God. Our Lord Jesus was a preacher
of the gospel of God. The scripture even says that. Scripture says he came forth
preaching the gospel. He knew the cause of God. He knew the purpose of God, and
he went about preaching. I love the fact that he went
forth preaching, that he was a preacher of the same gospel
that I'm preaching to you tonight. There wasn't any difference,
right? There wasn't any difference. It's the good news. of what God,
through Christ Jesus, does for sinners. I said this morning,
the gospel concerns this person in a historic fact, a historic
event. The gospel, it is all about Jesus
Christ and something that he did, he's done it. The work is
done. You see, our message to sinners,
and we've got to get this across as best we can with as much clarity
as we can, but the Spirit of God has to teach everybody in
their hearts, if we're going to ever learn, the message of
the gospel is not sinner do, it's sinner, it's done. It's
done. Christ has done it all. and he satisfied God. This is
what most people don't understand. This matter of salvation involved
the satisfaction of divine justice. That's what Christ Jesus did
at the cross. Our Lord, he preached the gospel
of God. And our Lord Jesus gave instructions
to his preachers to preach the gospel of God. He told his disciples,
go in all the world and preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. Tell them
the truth. Be honest with them. Tell them right out of the Bible.
We're not sent to entertain. We're sent to preach. not preach
just anything, preach the gospel of God. Several years ago, I
had a man and his wife, they fell out with me. And they left
the church that I was pastoring on account of he thought that
we ought to have times of sharing. We all should share. We all should
have an opportunity to speak. And I said, well, the Bible talks
about a man standing up and preaching the gospel. He said, but we have
things to say too. Well, you just say them to one
another. But I said, we're not gonna have a time of sharing.
It says it, please God by the foolishness of God. preaching
to save them to believe. The Lord told, or the apostle
Paul said in first Corinthians one, the Lord didn't send me
to baptize, he sent me to preach the gospel. Now that does away
with anybody who believes in baptismal regeneration. It's not going to work. Because
Paul said, I wasn't sent to baptize, I was sent to preach God's gospel. That's what we're all about.
That's our cause here. What is 13th Street all about? We have a cause. And our cause
is to preach the gospel of God. That's the only cause we've got.
Now we do give money to help feed the hungry. And we send
hundreds of dollars every month. to help the needy in our community,
in the city of action. And y'all been doing that. We
continue to do that every single month and we're glad to do it.
But our business, our goal, our cause is one. We've got to understand our cause
is one. It's in fact, John Gill entitled
the book this way, The Cause of God in Truth. That's our cause. One of my favorite stories, give
this to you quickly, is over in the book of 1 Samuel. And
you know the story. David, you know David had seven
brothers. And these eight boys, the sons
of Jesse. Well, Israel went to war against
the Philistines. David's three older brothers,
the oldest brothers, Eliab and I forget the names of the other
two, just three of them were kind of drafted into the army.
So they were fighting on the battlefield against the Philistines.
Well Jesse, the dad of all eight boys, he called David in from
feeding the sheep out on the meadows and so forth and said,
I want you to take some food to your three brothers. See how
the war's going against the Philistines. And so David takes the food and
he goes to where the battle's being fought, but he doesn't
hear any battle going on. He doesn't, there's no shout
of warfare. There's nothing like that. He
gets there and all he hears is a voice that says, send me, send
me your champion to fight against me. David said, who is that? They said, oh, he's a big guy. He's one of the sons of Gath.
His name is Goliath. Well, what's he doing? He's challenging
us. He says, send me a fighter. If
he beats me, then we'll all be your servants. But if I beat
him, you'll all be the servants of the Philistines. David said,
how come somebody doesn't go fight him? He said, you don't
know how big he is. He's nine feet, nine inches tall. Nobody's going to go to war against
him. We're not going to fight against
him. David said, how long has this been going on? They said,
well, let's see, 40 days now. 40 days, and he issues the same
challenge every morning, every evening. David said, somebody
needs to go fight him. And then David's oldest brother,
Eliab, he said, what are you doing here? You're just a shepherd
boy. Are you out here to feed your
ego? You think you're somebody, don't
you? And of course, the scripture says, out of the abundance of
the heart, the mouth speaketh. He's the one who wanted to be
the champion, but he's too afraid to go fight Goliath. And David
said this. He said, what do I do? And then
he asks this, is there not a cause? Oh, that's such a good question.
Is there not a cause? Isn't there something bigger
than us here? Here's a man defying God. Here's a man defying God's people. Here's a man who's laid down
a challenge. Send me a warrior, send me a
fighter. Isn't there anybody, isn't there
anybody here alive who'll go down and fight him? And then David turns to the rest
of the soldiers and said, which one of y'all is not gonna go? Somebody needs to fight this
man. Somebody needs to stand up. There's a cause. There's something worth fighting
for here, boys. Word comes to King Saul that
young David's there. He's not a very tall fellow and
he's a young guy, just a kid, just a teenager probably. King
Saul goes to David and David said, I'll tell you what, I'll
go fight him. What? You're just a shepherd
boy. I'll fight him. There's a cause here. King Saul said, well, all right,
put my armor on though. And Saul, of course, was head
and shoulders above everybody in Israel. He put his helmet
on David. I'm sure it covered his eyes,
you know. I can just see David being, all
this armor of King Saul put on. David walking around, he said,
this is not gonna work. He cast it off. I said, well,
what are you going to do? He said, I'm going to take my
staff, I'm going to take my shepherd's
back, and I've got a good sling. I'm good at it, too. Well, you're
no match for this guy. He said, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. I
killed a lion one time, had one of our lambs in his mouth, I
grabbed him by the beard. I got the best of him. I whipped
him. I killed him. I rescued that lamb. He said,
and the Lord give me strength. He goes down to the brook and
he picks up five smooth stones. It's nothing fancy here. You
see, we don't use weapons of carnality. The world says, oh,
you got to use that armor. Oh, you need to use that. You
need all that polished brass. No, just the simple gospel. And David runs, he runs toward
Goliath. And Goliath starts running, starts
walking toward him. Goliath says, am I a dog? Am I a dog that you come to me
with a staff? You don't even have a sword. David said, I come in the name
of the Lord God of hosts. And I'm going to kill you today.
And I'm going to take your sword and cut your head off. and all
the Philistines gonna be conquered. By the way, for those of you
who have Josephus, Josephus, the Jewish historian, has some
interesting things to say. Because Josephus says it when
this man, Goliath of Gath, when he said, am I a dog? Then Josephus
says, this isn't inspired, but I thought it was kind of interesting.
Josephus says that David, David came back and he said, no, you're
not as good as a dog. And that's when, that's when
Goliath said, may my God Dagon, that was his God, remember? May
my God curse you. Well, his God just to stump anyway. It was nothing. And David went
after him and David took one stone. He put it in that sling. Let's it go. You know, there
is no record that the giant lost his helmet. See, some people
say the helmet fell off. That's the reason the stone hit
the forehead. The Bible doesn't say that. I
think, I think that stone, it was sent forth with divine power,
went right through the helmet into his forehead, just knocked
him plumb out. And then David ran and he grabbed
his sword and he cut that giant's head off. Is there not a cause? That's
what David said. Is there not a cause? You're
just a kid. You're nobody. I know I'm nobody,
but my God is King. And there's the cause of God
in truth. Somebody's got to stand up for
what's right. And I'll tell you, David's a
picture of our Lord Jesus there. Because our Lord Jesus, He has
conquered that great Goliath. who is the enemy of our souls,
even Satan. Our Lord Jesus dealt a fatal
blow to him on the cross of Calvary. He cut his head off. And our Lord Jesus, just like
David, he rescues his lambs, from the jaws of the lion who
goes about seeking and may devour. If you're saved by the grace
of God, a greater than David rescued you from the jaws of
the lion. That's the gospel, you see. That's
the gospel of God. Is there not a cause? And that's what we're about here.
People say, what are y'all all about at 13th Street Baptist
Church? We're all about preaching the gospel of God. God's the
author of this gospel. God's the focus of this gospel. God himself is the one who established
this gospel, who sent his son into this world to die in the
stead of sinners. It's God himself who raised him
from the dead. It's God who promoted him to
be king over everything. Did you know that David, when
he is asking these questions about, is there not a cause?
Somebody said to him, you know what's gonna happen to a fellow
who kills that giant over there? David said, what? Said, he's
gonna get an abundance of riches. And the king's gonna give his
daughter to him as a wife. And he'll be exalted in the kingdom. David thought, I'm the man. I'm
the man. And our Lord Jesus, he has whipped
our enemy. Guess what? God's exalted him,
given him all the riches of his grace and given him a bride. Because Christ bought us with
his blood. He saved us by his grace. That's our cause. What's our
cause? The gospel of God. That's what we're all about.
We're not about doing a lot of things like other churches do.
We're not building hospitals. I read about these missionaries,
so-called missionaries that go into foreign fields. They're
gonna build a hospital and build this and build that. That's not
what God's preachers do. We preach the gospel of God.
That's our cause. I've got a cause. I got some
worth fighting for. There's some worth dying for.
That's what David said. And I'll tell you, it's the gospel
of God. It's worth supporting. It's worth attending to hear
it. It's worth praying about it. It's worth inviting people
to come and hear this. Yeah, we got a worthy cause. We exalting the Lord God of hosts. Other men are running God down.
We exalting God around here, bragging on the Lord Jesus Christ. We preach the gospel of God.
Who Christ is, what he did, The reason he did it, where he is
now. Well, this is the message of
the whole Bible. I wouldn't even say it's the
theme of the Bible. I wouldn't say it's the main
message of the Bible. This is the Bible. It's not a
part of the message. This is the message of the Bible,
the gospel of God. You preach anything else, you've
missed the message. You've missed the cause. We say,
well, we need to study the history of Israel. Only study the history
of Israel to learn more about the Lord Jesus Christ and His
work of redemption. That's the reason we study the
Old Testament. He's in the Old Testament, He's
in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, He's hidden.
In the New Testament, He's revealed. But He said, all the prophets
wrote of Me. That's what He said. That's why
every time we preach, whether it's Old Testament, New Testament,
we got the same message, the gospel of God. Well, let's close
in prayer. We thank you, Lord, for your
mercy to us, your grace to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we bless you for your gospel. The good news of God You authored
this gospel in old eternity. It's always been your gospel
because you've been forever. And you brought this gospel to
pass in time when you sent your beloved son into this world,
the God-man, this one who lived a life of perfection. and who died a death of satisfaction
to you. For Lord, he had to do something
for you before you do something for us. He had to honor you and
exalt you, and he had to pay the sin debt of all those you
gave him in the covenant of grace, and he did that. And he died
for our sins, and you raised him, and you exalted him, and
he's seated in the heavens right now. He's our exalted King. He's been awarded, He's been
rewarded with the riches, the riches of your salvation that
He gives to His people. And you've given Him a bride,
and He bought that bride with His own blood, and we belong
to Him. And Lord, your cause is our cause. And we take up the weapon that
you've given us, not carnal weapons, but we take up the weapon of
the gospel. It's nothing fancy. It's just
like a sling and a stone. We keep it simple. And Lord,
we put the stone in the sling and we turn it loose and then
it'll find its lodging according to your divine purpose. It'll
find its target. So bless all of us tonight. We're
so thankful that you've gifted us in this gospel. You've taught
us the truth. May we continue to be faithful
and stand for this gospel of God as long as we live, as long
as we have breath. Help us to preach this gospel.
These sayings we ask for Jesus' sake with thanksgiving. Amen.