Let's go to Romans chapter 1,
the book of Romans chapter 1. Thank you brother James for the
special music. The book of Romans chapter 1. This is how the book begins with
the author introducing himself. I say he's the author, really
the author is the Spirit of God. Every book of the Bible is given
by the Holy Ghost to men that God raised up and God taught
them the Gospel. of His grace, and then He gifted
them, He inspired them to write this, the various books to us. I'm not ashamed to say this is
the Word of God. I believe this is the Word of
God. I'm convinced it's the Word of
God and it's the only infallible record that there is. The writings of men, though they
may benefit us, though they may instruct us, And though they may be a blessing
to us, still they're the writings of men. This is God's Word. We must make much of God's Word
because it is His Word. It's not the words of this apostle. These words that he directed
to, first of all, the church at Rome, and indeed to all of
God's people. These are not the words of the
Apostle Paul. These are the words of God to
us. May God take his word and speak
to us tonight from these words that he gave to the Apostle Paul.
He speaks of himself. He says, I'm Paul. Never visited
the church in Rome. He's writing to them as you read
down through the first chapter. He desired to go and visit them
in order to preach the gospel to them. But it just, he informs
them who he is. He said, I'm Paul. We said this
morning, that's his Greek name. That means he's small of stature. I know lots of people think,
and I'm not sure whether they got this idea, they think he
was Saul before conversion and then God changed his name to
Paul. That's incorrect. Actually, his
name Saul, which means one who is greatly desired. God desired
him. God desired him. God didn't find
anything desirable in him, but God wanted him. And I tell you,
if God wants you, He's going to have you. God desired him. He's Saul. That's his Jewish
name. That's his Hebrew name, Saul. That's a bold name among the
Jews going back to the days of King Saul. But mostly the Apostle
Paul, you know his letters are addressed to Gentile churches
and so he uses by the instruction of the Spirit of God, he uses
his Gentile name, I'm Paul. He says, I'm a servant, I'm a
bond slave of Jesus the Savior, God who saves, the great Joshua,
the great Deliverer. His name is Jesus for He shall
save His people from their sins. He has His people. God gave them
to Him in covenant mercy and love. And His people and the
Savior have always been considered by the Father to be in union
with each other. He's Jesus. He's Jesus. He says, I'm a bond slave of
Jesus, of the Savior. He's God, my Savior. Nobody can save us but God, our
Savior. Nobody can do anything for us
except God, our Savior. He's got to be Jehovah. And He's the Christ. He's the
Messiah. He's the one anointed with the
Spirit of grace. He has the Spirit not in measure,
but in the fullness of His glory and His power. Then Paul says
he was called to be an apostle. He says, I was selected. I was
appointed an apostle, a messenger of the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
He says, I was separated. God set me apart. He did that
in a three-fold way before the world began in that election
of grace. God set him apart. God set him
apart at Calvary. He redeemed him out of mankind. You read there in Revelation
chapter 5, these are those that are redeemed out of. the nations
of the world, and then God separated him, God set him apart at his
conversion. I tell you, the people of God,
we're a separated people. Somebody asked me not too long
ago, do you live a separated life? I really didn't know what
they meant. I'm not separating myself from
sinful people because After all, I'm one of them. And I've got
to preach the gospel to sinful people. But I said, I'm a separated
person for sure. God separated me in old eternity
and said, you're mine and I'm yours. And He separated me at
the cross. He said, I'm redeeming you. And
then some years ago, He set me apart. by His Gospel, and He
taught the Gospel deep into my soul, taught my spirit, taught
my heart, separated unto the Gospel of God. The Gospel. Ever notice how the
Scriptures are so insistent that there's just one Gospel? Just one message of grace, just
one message of salvation, just one message that is really good
news. Good news. You know, every other
message, and I'm talking about, you know, secular news, even
if it's good news, it's not totally good news. There's just one message
that is totally good news, and that's the gospel of the blessed
God. It's nothing but good news. You
say, well, it's not good news to everybody. It's good news
to a Spirit-convinced sinner. It may not be good news to you. You see, this message of Jesus
Christ and His death and His resurrection, this good news
as our brother read to us from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul
said, I declare to you the gospel, how that Christ died. That's
what the good news is, how He died. How did He die? He died as the Savior. He died
as the sacrifice. He died as the sin offering. He died that God might be just
and the justifier of the ungodly. This is the only salvation that
matters. It's the only message that is
really just absolutely good news. There's no bad news about it.
I like what Brother Scott Richardson said years ago. He said, I haven't
heard any bad news ever since I heard the good news. And all the rest of the news
when it comes to you, it may be news as disappointing to the
flesh. It hurts you. It may even break
your heart. But I'll tell you what, the Gospel
of God's free grace in Christ Jesus, the good news that the
sins of God's elect are removed from us as far as the East is
from the West, that makes every bit of bad news to be bearable
by His grace. We've heard the good news. The
good news. It's the Gospel of God. There's
only one. It's not the Baptist gospel and
the Methodist gospel and the Catholic gospel. It's not the
Calvinistic gospel and the Arminian gospel. It's just one gospel. And we better find out what that
gospel is. I know this, there's a lot of
false gospels out there. You read in Galatians chapter
1, I tell you, the Apostle wrote to the Galatian people. He said,
I'm amazed that you're so soon removed from the Gospel. He said, you're listening to
another Gospel. Which, he says, isn't really
another Gospel. Because there's just one. And he said, if anybody comes
preaching any other gospel than the gospel I preach to you... He didn't just say, don't listen
to him. He said, let him be damned. That's
what he said. Because they're lying on God. They're trying to steal God's
glory. There's just one gospel. It's
the gospel of God. It's the Gospel. Throughout the Scriptures, God
is so insistent upon this. The Savior said to His disciples,
when He said to them, I'm going away. Remember, Brother Thomas
said, we don't know where He's going and we don't know the way.
He said, I am the way. You know what that means? There
isn't another way. There isn't another way to God.
Well, I just believe if a man is sincere and they really are
serious and they do the best they can, well, they'll finally
wind up in glory. You're dead wrong. Our Lord Jesus said, I am the
way. You know what that means? There's
not another way. He said, I am the way, I am the
truth. Everything else is a lie. And if preachers don't preach
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, if they don't preach the success
of His work, if they don't preach that He really redeemed His people,
that He's the real Savior, They're lying. They're not telling the
truth. You say, preacher, you shouldn't
be mean like that. That's not being mean. That's
just being honest. Just being honest. You've got
to be careful what you listen to and you've got to be careful
who you listen to. Boy, there's a lot of lying voices
out there. There's a lot of people, a lot
of preachers who will lead you astray. And they'll use a Bible. And they'll use some of the same
words that we use. They'll talk about grace. They'll
talk about mercy. They'll talk about the love of
God. But that all boils down to just kind of divine wishes
for your good. Be careful what you hear. Because
there is only one truth that deserves to be called the truth. That's God's truth. What does this man say a little
later on in the book of Romans? Let God be true in every man
and wire. And that's me and you and everybody
else. That's why if you're going to listen to somebody... And
I know people like to listen to what they call Christian radio.
I can't stand it myself. But if you want to try it and
people like to listen to Christian gospel music and so forth, I
can't much stand that either because the men and women who
are singing that, they believe false gospel. But if you can
jump that hurdle, if you can stand it, whatever. But if somebody's not preaching
this gospel, they're not being honest with you, they're not
telling the truth. The truth. He said, I'm the way, I'm the
truth. I'm the truth. And he said, I'm
the life. I tell you what that tells me,
there's no life anywhere else. It doesn't matter what you're
talking about. Spiritual life, everlasting life, eternal life. There's no life anywhere else.
Except in this sovereign Christ. Except in a Christ who has all
power in heaven and earth. Except in this One who lived
and died and rose again and redeemed His people and reconciled us
to God and brought in everlasting righteousness. He's the only
life there is. Every other way is a way of death. The way of death. It's the gospel. The way. The truth. The life. That's what
the Savior said finishing that up there in John 14. He said,
No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. Are there any exceptions
to that rule? I used to be in school and teach
various rules regarding grammar and things like that. Teachers say things like this,
it's just a few exceptions to the rule. Hey, there are no exceptions
to this rule. You're not going to come to the
Father except through Jesus Christ as He is identified in the book. It's not whatever you think about
Jesus Christ. It says the Lord Jesus Christ
is set forth in the Word of God. That's how you come to God. And
He is the way, He's the truth, and He's the life. And He's the
only way to God. Mary is not the way. Some saint, somebody that got
sainthood by the Catholic Church That's your favorite saint and
you carry around a little emblem of them. That's not the way.
That's a way of death. Because the way of idolatry is
a way of death. That's nothing short of idolatry.
Well, don't be so hard on the Catholics. Hey, I'm hard on the
Catholics and the Baptists too. Because most all of them just
pees in the same pod. Because they believe salvation
is something that man accomplishes by his own will and by his own
way. They say, oh, my son or my daughter
has got into some particular religion. Listen, if it's a false
religion, it don't matter what the title of it is. It's still
a false religion. Just one gospel. And I'll tell
you, if God is so insistent upon this, don't you think we should
be too? It's called the glorious gospel
of the blessed God. Notice He says in the second
verse, which He had promised for by His prophets in the Holy
Scriptures, this gospel. It's not only set forth in type
and picture in the Old Testament, it's promised in the Old Testament. Right from the beginning. In
fact, right after the fall. We wouldn't have been shocked
if when God came to Adam and Eve, He said, that's it for y'all.
You're dead. I'm going to cut you off. I'll
never have anything to do with you again." But no, he came and preached
the gospel to them. Who was the first preacher of
the gospel? God Himself. Who's the author of the gospel?
He's the source of the gospel. He's the originator of the gospel.
And God Himself said to the serpent within the hearing of Adam and
Eve, After their transgression against God, God said, the seed
of the woman is coming. Oh, that's good news. He's coming. And this one, this
great deceiver, he's going to receive a death blow from this
seed of the woman. And then God proceeded to illustrate
the gospel when he killed animals and clothed our naked parents. I tell you, he took them fig
leaf aprons off of them, and he put them coats of skins upon
them, and I bet they said, oh, this feels good. Them fig leaves,
they didn't hide any shame at all. You can't hide your sin,
you can't hide your shame, you can't do anything about your
transgressions, you can't put them away, but God can. And He
can do it. If He does it, He'll do it in
a just and a righteous way. He'll do it in such a fashion
He doesn't compromise His law and His justice. God talked about
death as a consequence of sin and those animals. God shed their
blood. There's death. There's death. God didn't say, well, I'll just,
we'll pretend it didn't happen. Well, our thoughts of God are
far too low, aren't they? By nature, we just think so.
We have little thoughts about God. We sing that hymn, holy, holy,
holy. Most of us, most people who sing
that song, we don't have but a vague idea of the holiness
of God. But if God ever gives us a little
indication of what His holiness is, we'll understand the reason
why death has got to be the result of sin. God's holy. We're not going to let it get
by. I tell you, not one sin is going
to go unpunished. God can't do that. But He is
a God of love. Yes, sir, He is. God is love. But God is gracious. Yes, He
is. He is gracious. But God is merciful. Yes, He is. He is merciful. And God is holy. He's not going to by any means
clear the wicked. You die wicked, you'll be wicked
forever. You die unjustified, you'll be
unjustified forever. Where am I going to find grace
for my poor soul? In this Gospel of God. That's where this grace is to
be found. In the Gospel, notice verse 3, concerning His Son Jesus
Christ our Lord. That's where the good news is.
It's not in you kind of deciding you're going to do better. It's in what's already been done.
See, we don't declare this message of the Gospel that we declare.
It isn't something that's going to happen or something that's
going to happen in association with you. That's not the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news of
somebody and somebody's work that he's already finished. That's
what the Gospel is. It's a record. It's a record.
of something that's already taken place. The gospel is not God's
done all He can do and now you've got to do the rest. That's not
the gospel. The gospel is not Jesus wants
you to have a good life if you'll just let Him have His way. That's
not the gospel. The gospel is not if you'll just Open your heart's door to Him.
Oh, He'll be a Savior to them. That's not the gospel. The gospel
doesn't start with an if. The gospel is a statement, a
fact, of that which has already happened. Go back 2,000 years ago. You see that man hanging on that
middle cross? You see Him all bloodied, and
you see the Son blotted out, and you hear that man crying,
ìMy God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?î And youíre taught
to understand He died bearing the sins of all of His people. And God whipped Him. God beat
Him. God scourged his soul and pleased
the Lord to bruise him. And he come out from that darkness
and he said, it is finished. With a loud voice, he bowed his
head. He gave up the ghost. Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit. And it's done. There's the gospel. There's the gospel. The gospel
is not what will you do with Jesus. The gospel is not Jesus
walked all the way to Calvary for you. Why won't you walk down
the aisle for Him? That's not the gospel. In fact, the gospel isn't even
about you. It's about Him and what He did. And this world doesn't have any
idea of that. This is the most ignorant religious
generation I reckon has ever lived. Just don't know anything. You see, this is the answer to
that age-old question, how can God be just and justify the ungodly? And I'll tell you, we'd go through
all eternity scratching our heads and saying, don't know. Can't figure that out. We would,
except for the fact that God has given us the answer. It's
the Gospel concerning His Son. It's the Gospel that's all about
His Son. Who is His Son? Jesus Christ
our Lord. Jesus the Savior, Christ the
Anointed One, our Lord. He doesn't want to be Lord. He's
already our Lord. You don't make Him Lord. You
bow to His Lordship. But God made Him Lord. God has
made that same Jesus whom you crucified. Peter said to those
folks there on the day of Pentecost, God's made Him both Lord and
Christ. He's the Lord. who was made of the seed of David. There's His humanity. You can trace His humanity back
all the way to David, all the way to Abraham. As a real man died on that cross. But He's got to be more than
man. Though He was a perfect man, a sinless man, He's got
to be more than just made of the seed of David according to
the flesh. He's got to be declared to be
the Son of God. If anybody denies His deity,
they're going to perish. Because nobody can save us but
one who is God. He's got to be equal with God.
He's got to know what God demands and he's got to be able to render
to God everything he requires. You can't do that. That's the reason it's so foolish
for somebody to say, I've made my peace with God. Well, bless your heart. Who are
you to speak face to face with the great I Am? God's consuming
fire. You can't make peace. Peace has
already been made by the blood of His cross. I know who the
peacemaker is. He's Christ Jesus, our Lord,
who was made of the seed of David, but He's declared to be the Son
of God with power, by the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection
from the dead. If you read through the book
of Acts, and I wrote this down somewhere in my notes, and I
left my notes a long time ago. I can't even remember this. I
wrote it down somewhere. Well, I'll never find it. But
in the book of Acts, you will read of the resurrection of our
Lord more times than in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Did you
know that? I think it's 17 or 18 times I
forget. I read them all Friday. This is the message of the book
of Acts. The book of Acts, the theme of
the book of Acts is not the love of God. Though the love of God
is seen in the book of Acts, in the giving of His Son, and
in His Son's work of redemption. But the word love isn't even
used in the Book of Acts. You know, it's just about generally
acknowledged in religious circles that the Book of Acts is the
transition book. It ties the four gospel narratives
and the epistles together. The Book of Acts. That's where
we get so much of our church policy, the way we do things,
and our evangelism. And in the book of Acts, you
will never read of any evangelist or any apostle ever saying to
anybody, God loves you. You don't read that in the book
of Acts. And I hear preachers all the time, they say things,
the book of Acts, that's our pattern book, that tells us how
we should do things today. Well, then don't go around lying
and saying, smile, God loves you. Because that's not what
the evangelists said. That's not what they preached. I'll tell you what they preached.
The crucified, buried, risen, exalted Savior. That's what they
preached. They said He's the Lord. He's
the Lord. He's a son of God, a son of God. He arose from the dead. Oh, how
vital His resurrection is. You read in 1 Corinthians chapter
15, if there be no resurrection, Christ be not raised from the
dead, our faith is vain. Our preaching is vain. We might
as well forget it if He didn't rise from the dead. But He did. He was raised from the dead. And the Scripture says the Father
raised Him, He raised Himself, and the Holy Spirit raised Him. He said, I got the power to lay
down my life and I got the power to take it again. And he did. And here's what the Apostle Paul
says that attested to the fact he's the son of God because nobody
can give life to the dead but God. And he gave himself life. This is the gospel of God. It's the gospel concerning his
son. It's the gospel of grace. And
you get down to around verse 16, Paul says, I'm not ashamed
of this gospel. I'm not ashamed of this gospel.
And he gets down to verse 17, he says, in this gospel, the
righteousness of God is revealed. You listen to these preachers
preaching this silly, shallow, false gospel. There's no mention
of the righteousness of God. Because they don't even know
what the righteousness of God is. And they have no interest
in knowing what the righteousness of God is. They're not interested
in justice being satisfied. All they're interested in, let's
all go to heaven. Jesus will take you if you don't
let Him. But it's in the Gospel that the
righteousness of God is revealed. How can I be right with God? That's the root word of righteousness,
is right. It went one way. Through the
substitutionary sacrifice of the Son of God. You can walk every aisle and
you can make all your decisions and you can go to these evangelistic
meetings and go to the front and say yes to a few questions
and shake the preacher's hand and go in the baptismal waters.
You can do that from now on. You won't know God. It's this Gospel. This Gospel
is the power of God unto salvation. And I'll give you this. The Gospel is a statement of
fact. It is a historical record. Something
that's already happened. And we believe that Gospel. And
if you don't believe this Gospel, that salvation, redemption, forgiveness,
and righteousness is only found in the Lord Jesus and His substitutionary
work, if you don't believe this Gospel, you're disobedient to
the Gospel. Look over with me and I'll give
you this and we'll go home. 2 Thessalonians. Well, we won't
go home. We'll sing first. They won't
go home. 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. 2
Thessalonians chapter 1. Look at verse 7. Who are troubled? Are you troubled? Troubled with the cares of the
world? Troubled by what you see around
you? Troubled by what's within you? That's the most troubling thing
to me, is what's within me. That sin. To you who are troubled,
rest with us. Anybody interested in rest? The
Savior said, come unto Me. All you that labor and are heavy
laden, I'll give you rest. There's something mighty soothing
about that, isn't it? I'll give you rest. To you who
are troubled, rest with us. When the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire,
taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what's going to happen.
Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord, from the glory of His power when He comes to be
glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe,
because our testimony among you was believed in that day." Have
you obeyed the Gospel? Have you obeyed the Gospel? Have
you believed the Gospel? God helped me to believe it.
Old John Newton wrote one time, He said, Lord, if I hadn't believed
the Gospel before, let me start believing it right now. Maybe I've been deceived. Maybe
I've just been in a fog all these years. Let me believe this Gospel now. I can't do a thing about yesterday
or 25 years ago. But I'll tell you right now,
Lord, let me believe this Gospel. And you know what? He's brought
me to believe this Gospel. This is the only way of grace.
It's the only way of salvation. It's the only way of reconciliation.
There's no righteousness to be found in anybody else or anywhere
else except in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything I need, everything
you need for this life, And even more so for the life which is
to come is to be found in the gospel of Christ Jesus. This
gospel concerning His Son. That's the reason we just keep
on preaching the gospel. Best message there ever was.