There in verses 17 and 18, look
what it says. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
though I love, you know, it's a joy for people to confess their
faith in Christ by baptism. But that's not what we're sent
to do, but to preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. Not with wisdom
of words, lest the cross of Christ should be ineffectual, not have
any power to it. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that are perishing. It's foolishness. But unto us
which are saved, it is the power of God. I want to give you seven,
or excuse me, five reasons, five reasons why we preach the gospel
and why we believe the gospel. Anyone who's ever heard a God
called preacher, One anointed of God, sin of God, gifted of
God, blessed of God, knows that his message is different than
what's being preached in today's religious circles. And it's always
been that way. It's always been that way. Now
you keep First Corinthians, look back over here at Acts chapter
17. Let me show you exactly what
I'm talking about. This has always been this way. Always you know they They accused
our Lord of being Beezlebub and But I tell you something if it's
true, it's not new and if it's new it's not true So if anybody
comes up with something new other than the gospel, it's not true
can't be true But look what it said here in verse 18, Acts chapter
17. Then certain philosophers, you
know that the Greek was just full of philosophers, of the
Epicureans and of the Stoics, absolutely opposites in their
philosophy. Diametrically opposed to one
another in their philosophy. Encountered Paul, and he's in
the marketplace every day preaching. They encountered him, and some
said, what will this babbler say? Call him a babbler. What will this bass, this lowlife
say? Others some said, he seems to
be a set of fourth or strange gods, because he preached unto
them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought
him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine
whereof thou speakest is. When you first learn the Gospels,
learn the grace of God, and learn that Christ is all your salvation,
that's what you hear most places you go. And this new doctrine
whereof thou speakest, for thou bringest certain strange things
to our ears, And that's what happens when you start preaching
the gospel. You bring certain strange things
to men's ears. And that's what happened here.
And here's another thing that a preacher of the gospel will
do. He'll encourage you to bring your Bible. And for you to follow
along and learn what we're saying. And look exactly what the scriptures
have said about it. That's why we always want people
to bring their Bibles. Most places, they don't want
you to bring a Bible. Cause they ain't gonna use them anyway.
Most places don't even use them anymore. And that's why you know,
he said, old Paul said, you know that he went in every Sabbath
day and reasoned with them out of the scriptures. And he said,
these were more noble than those at Thessalonica, the Bruins were,
because they searched the scriptures daily whether these things were
so or not. So that's why you bring your
Bibles. And I tell you, it don't bother me a bit for a person
to check up on me. In fact, I like it when people
follow in their Bibles. I seen a preacher here recently
that come to service, didn't even bring a Bible with him. Why in the world would a preacher
go to a service and not bring a Bible with him? If all he's
gonna do is hear and listen. What's a preacher without a Bible?
What's a preacher without a sword? And I don't care who's preaching.
I want my Bible. I want to go where they're going.
I want to see what they're saying. Right? They says turn to such
and such. I want to turn to such and such. And I'll tell you what, the attitude,
and I'll tell you this, and get on into my message. The attitude
that people have towards the gospel, and toward the man who
preaches the gospel, reveals an awful lot about them, a lot
about them. And all of you can attest to
the fact there's a steady, steady, steady decline from truth. There's an awful, awful decay
in religion that it's become rotten, that it stinks. But there's
some things that are constant. God's truth is constant, never
changes, it's truth. God's truth is constant. And
I tell you, the gospel is constant. You hear it, it's constant. And
there ain't no use in the world trying to keep up with what's
going on in this world, and the reason being, just like today,
almost every building or every congregation or so-called church
has two services a day in the morning. One they call it for
traditional. They say it's for the traditional
service. Now I don't know what that means. I guess that means
for old folks. And then they have contemporary,
the next service. Now what in the world would you
have two services with two different titles and what does contemporary
mean? What does that mean? Keeping
up with man and his needs or his wants or his desires? Is
that what it means? What is contemporary? That means
that you can come sit and drink Coca-Cola and wear your shirts?
Does that mean you can come and just, you know, wear a sleeveless
t-shirt? Come to the end and the preacher
gets up and does away with his tie and put him on a golf shirt?
And a pair of jeans? Is that what it means to be contemporary?
Is that all we consider about God being? That God, is He contemporary? How are we going to worship God?
How are we going to approach God? I know that God knows us
and sees us just the way we are, but when we come to worship Him,
let's come with the very best we got. Come dressed for it. We're doing this corporately.
Let's honor Him. Let's glorify Him. Let's act
like He's God, and we're just worms sitting here, privileged
to be in His blessed presence, and He'll come in among us. I'll
tell you what, but here I told you there's some things that's
constant. Let me give you five of them. Man is still a sinner
before God. That ain't never gonna change
until God winds this world up. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only Savior of sinners, no other Savior. Nothing else will save
a man than Jesus Christ. God's Word has not changed. I don't care how many Bibles
they can translate and how many modern versions they can come
up with, how they can take God and make him effeminate and take
the he and that out of it, but I'll tell you, God's Word has
not changed. Forever, oh Lord, thy Word is settled where? In
heaven. He said heaven will pass away,
earth will pass away, but there's one thing that'll never change,
and he said, that's my Word. And God's way of saving a sinner,
saving a man, has not changed. God saves a man. God's got salvation
through the Lord. And the way God saves a man has
not changed one bit. Not changed one bit. And the
gospel, the gospel is still the power of God to save. Ain't that
right? Huh? Now let me give you five
reasons why I preach the gospel. First is this, for the glory
of God. That'd be the first reason why
we preach the gospel. Psalm 115 says this, not unto
us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name. Be glory, huh? Oh, listen. God said, I will
not give my glory to another. And we just read that all these
things that God does, he does it. The way he saves a man, the
way he keeps a man, the way he teaches a man, the way he treats
the world and everything about it, is that no flesh shall glory
in his presence. And the scriptures tells us,
in Man's chief end, Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy
Him forever. Huh? You know, if you glorify
Him here, you'll enjoy Him forever. Huh? And I tell you, the scriptures
tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, whatsoever you eat, whatsoever
you drink, do all to the glory of God. And let me show you something
over in 1 Peter chapter four. Look over in 1 Peter chapter
four. Let me show you something over here. You know, God called us. He said, you see
you're calling, brethren. He said he chose the foolish,
chose the weak, chose the lowest, chose a bunch of nobodies. Nobodies. You know, We're not more than
people who believe we can't spell church without you. Oh yes, we
can spell church without you. Oh yeah, oh yeah, we can do that. That's no problem, is it? You know, here's another thing,
talking about glorifying God. You know, it's glorifying to
God for us to take the lowest place. to not never, ever put
ourselves forward. Like we got all the answers.
We got all the wisdom. We got all the, no, no. But look
what he said here in 1 Peter 4 in verse 11. He said, if any man speak, let him speak as the oracles
of God. Let him use the word of God.
He's saying what God said. And then let, if he speak and
let him, if he ministers, let him do it as of the ability which
God given. Everything, what have we got
that God didn't give us? What gifts do we have that God
didn't give us? If a man has any ability at all,
God gives it to him in spiritual matters. And this bring the reason
that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ
to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Whether we're
singing, Whether we pray, whether we preach, whatever it is, it
must be motivated by a desire to glorify God. They asked old
John the Baptist, and I'll tell you what, he was a powerful preacher. They said, who are you? He could
have said, I'm the greatest prophet that's ever lived on the face
of the earth. That's what Christ said about him. He said, oh,
listen, I'm a, I'm a, God called for I'm really something. I'm
a great prophet and I've baptized lots of people. But no, no, you
know what he said? He said, I'm just a voice. That's
all I am. I'm a voice. Cry it out. What are you saying, John? All
flesh is grass. The flower of death withereth. The wind blows on it and it goes
away. He said, that's what you are.
Who are you, John? Just a voice. Just a voice. But I'll tell you what this voice
says. This voice says, He, He, He must increase. He, Christ
must increase. And me, John the Baptist, gotta
go down, down, down, down, down. Gotta decrease. Folks don't like
to decrease. Isaiah saw the Lord and His glory
filled the earth. You know what he said? Glory
is me! Daniel's beauty turned into corruption. John, when he
saw the Lord, he fell as a dead man. You know why? When you see the glory of God,
you see that there's nothing for you but Christ and Christ
alone. All of God's glorious attributes
are revealed in the gospel. His love is glorified in the
gospel. You know this idea that Jesus
loves everybody and God loves everybody. That doesn't glorify
the love of God. That makes the love of God ineffectual. That makes it powerless. If he
loves everybody the same, Christ loves everybody the same, well
then that makes the love of God have absolutely no power at all. But when you understand that
God so loved the world, Jew, Gentile, bond-free, male, female,
every race, color, and creed on the face of this earth, that
he gave his only begotten son, and they lifted him up, like
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, lifted him up
high, that when you looked at him, you was healed. And I tell
you what, God commendeth his love toward us in that while
we were yet what? Sinners. Christ died for us. And I tell you, His mercy, His
mercy is glorified. Oh, I'll have mercy. Show me your glory. I'll have
mercy. Here's my glory, Moses. I'll
have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on
whom I'll have compassion. That's what He said. Oh, listen. His righteousness is glorified. Oh, the righteousness of God.
In the gospels, God reveals his righteousness, how he can be
a righteous God, and yet at the same time, righteously save a
sinner. If you ever learned that, that's
when you'll learn the gospel. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. And here's justice. God's a just
God. It's glorified. How is it glorified? By Him setting forth Christ to
be the propitiation, the mercy seat, the atoning victim for
our sins. Now listen to me, God must be
just. Everybody will say, God's a just
God. And what most of them when they
mean that is that He's gonna let me get by because I've lived
a good life. God is a just, God must be just. He must be. He may show mercy. He may. God is love and His love
must be expressed. And He is righteous and He must
punish sin. He cannot let sin go unpunished. He will by no means clear the
guilty. And the gospel comes along and reveals how all of
these attributes can be reconciled and brought together and glorified,
and that's in the death of God's blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the power of God. God's
power was manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ. Power to save,
power to... create the world, power, and
then he's the wisdom of God, showing how God can be just and
come down and take a sinner like us and justify us from all our
sin. How did he do it? He made Christ
to be us, to be a sinner in our room instead and bore our sins
in his own body on the tree. And the power of God was manifested
in his ability to do that. And then that sinner who sees
Christ and believes on him, God said, justified, righteous, righteous,
righteous. And then here's the second thing
why we preach the gospel. We're commanded to. God didn't
say, I'd like you to go and preach the gospel for me. No, that's
not the way it worked. We're commanded to preach the
gospel. That's what Paul said, Christ sent me to preach the
gospel. And we're commanded to preach
it. You know, he said, go into the
world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth,
and confesses his faith by baptism shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. And I tell you something, we're
commanded to preach the gospel if souls aren't saved, we still
must preach the gospel. You know, most preachers, all
they say is, we're here to get sinners saved. Well, if a preacher
could get a sinner saved, he'd do his dead level best to do
it, and they are. But if nobody's ever saved under
the sound of my gospel or the gospel I preach, that still doesn't
mean that we're not supposed to preach the gospel. Ain't that
right? We're commanded to preach the
gospel. I'd love to see people saved, but if they're not, am
I going to quit preaching? We still have to preach the gospel.
The results has nothing to do with preaching the gospel. And
that's what we're preachers in churches really mess up. They're
looking for results. They're looking for results.
The results have nothing to do with it. God told Ezekiel, said,
Ezekiel, go and stand and preach to this people. Said, you preach
to them. They don't understand everything
you're saying. He said, they're gonna hear you. They're gonna
listen to you. And whether they listen to you
or they don't. He said, that don't make any difference. You
just go and tell them. Huh? Just go and tell them. And
the ability or the inability of the sinner does not stop the
preacher. He's commanded to preach. God
took Ezekiel. You all know the story very well.
He took Ezekiel. Took him down to a big valley.
He said, Son of man, what do you see? He said, I see a valley. And that's full of dry bones.
There are very many of them, and they're very dry. Next thing
he said, can these bones live? You know what he said? Lord, you're the only one who
knows that. I certainly can't make them live. He said, well,
I'll tell you what you do. He said, you priested them dry
bones. Ah. Valley full of bones, a valley
full of bones. You know, when I was down on
the farm, I had a boneyard. I guess everybody that had a
farm had a boneyard. Cat die, cow die, horse die. You had a place that you drug
them off to. And the coyotes and the foxes and everything
come to eat them. Next thing you know, you grow
up there, just a big old pile of bones. And that's when he said, see
these bones? Can they live, Lord? I know it.
He said, preach to them. Okay, I'll do it. He started
preaching to a bunch of dead, dry bones. He said, tell them
bones to come together. Them old bones started rattling
and they all started coming together. Oh, all them bones got up next
to a whole bunch of skeletons. No flesh on them. No air in them. No flesh on their bones. A bunch
of skeletons standing up. Picture that in your mind if
you can. A bunch of skeletons. He said, Now, son of man, tell
them flesh to come on them. He said, Flesh, come on. Next thing you know, flesh started
getting on all them old bones. And that they're still dead,
man. They're still there, man. Maybe they're on the skeletons.
They got flesh on their bones. Lookin' like I look. Lookin'
like you look. And he says, now, son of man,
tell the air to come. Tell the spirit to come and breathe
in. And boy, when he said that, every one of them bones that
was dead was together, standing up, and they all come alive at
the same time. How'd that happen? Same way God
saves a sinner in this, by the gospel. We're preaching to dead
men. Huh? Dead men. And I tell you
what, Well, this is certainly a value of dry bones. In this world today, it's a value
of dry bones. You know, all men, we're talking
about being commanded to preach the gospel. All men are commanded
to praise Him. Let everything that hath breath
praise the Lord. All men are commanded everywhere
to repent. All men are commanded to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. You believe that? I believe I
can make that good. Look with me over in 1 John chapter
3. And this is what the gospel's
about. Look in 1 John chapter 3 and
verse 23. Look what he says here in verse
23. 1 John 3.23. Now this is God's commandment,
this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name
of His Son, Jesus Christ. Oh, you mean it's not left up,
you know, it's not left up to my free will? God said we're
commanded to do it. Huh? And love one another as
He gave us commandment. Now how in the world did we get
the ability to believe on His name? How did we obey that commandment? In the day of His power, He made
us willing. And I tell you what, every one
of you, every one of you, I know this, you sometimes question whether
you really believe the Lord Jesus or not. You question because
of the way I act, the way I think, the way I feel, the things that
go through my mind, even while I'm sitting in the service. You
say, how in the world could I know Christ and just have that go
through my mind? How could I be a believer and
me act that way or do this and do that and do something else?
Well, you ain't gonna give up your
profession over it, are you? No, no. Well, I've done some such. You gonna quit believing? No.
That's why we need him. That's why we call on him. That's
why we look to him. And then all men are commanded
to obey the gospel. And all men are going to end
up standing before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account.
And here's my third reason why we glorify God. We preach the
gospel because it alone, the gospel alone is the power of
God unto salvation. It alone is. The gospel is. Look what it says here in verse
23 back over here in 1 Corinthians. Look what it says here. We preach Christ. We preach Christ
crucified. Unto the Jews a stumbling block.
Why do they stumble over it? Because they got Moses. They
got the law. They got their own righteousness.
And unto the Greeks it's foolishness because they got all of their
worldly wisdom. But look what it says, but unto
them that God called, whether you're a Jew or whether you're
a Greek, Christ becomes everything to you. Christ becomes everything
to you. And let me tell you, I want you
to look over here in Romans chapter 10 with me. You know men, men
cannot trust a Savior they don't know nothing about. Men can't call on or trust a
Savior they don't know anything about. Men can't trust an unrevealed
Christ. And that's why there's so many
false professions in this world. They just tell people to trust
Jesus and they don't ever tell Him who He is. They just tell
people, you know, that Jesus loves them and they let it go
at that. They tell them that Jesus is
a wonderful teacher And he's a powerful man and a great prophet.
And that he'll help you if you'll trust him, he'll help you. If
you got trouble in your marriage, come on over here to our church
and we'll have marriage. We'll counsel you in your marriage
and Jesus will straighten your marriage out. You ain't got no
money, you ain't got no money and you're having financial troubles,
come up here and Jesus will straighten them out for you. But they never
say anything about who he is. Men can't trust a Savior that
they don't know anything about. Look what it said here in Romans
chapter 10. Look here in verse 13. You all
know this. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now that's true. That's absolutely true. But here
he asks this question. How then shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed? How are you going to call on
the Lord and be saved if you don't know the Lord you're calling
on? Huh? If you don't know who he is,
how are you going to believe on somebody you don't know nothing
about? That's what he's saying. And how shall they believe in
him if nobody's told you anything about him? If you ain't heard
nothing about him, if you ain't heard the truth about him, how
can you trust him? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? Huh? God said, please God by
the foolishness of preaching to save them they believe. And
how in the world are they going to preach Christ? How are they
going to understand and preach the gospel except they be sent? And how beautiful are the feet
of them that preach the gospel of peace, bring glad tidings
of good things. But look what he says, but they've
not all obeyed the gospel. Isaiah said, Lord who has believed
our report, our preaching. So here's how things happen.
This is why we say you need to come hear the gospel. I don't
know how many people has come to me and asked me to baptize
them and they didn't know anything about Christ, didn't know anything
about anything, and I've always told them, just wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait. You know why? Faith comes comes
to where you are, comes to your understanding, comes to your
heart. Faith comes to you. How does it come? By hearing. Hearing, hearing, hearing. And
hearing by what? God's Word. God's Word. And I
tell you, men must know who He is. Who is Jesus Christ? God manifested in the flesh. He by himself purged our sins
and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. What
did he do? He put away sin once in the end
of the world by the sacrifice of himself. And I tell you, our Lord said,
I must suffer, I must die, and I must rise again. Why did he
do it? Why did he do this? that God
could still be just and justify that man who believes on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said this in Galatians 2.21,
he said, I do not frustrate the grace of God. I don't make void
the grace of God. I don't frustrate it, I don't
make void the grace of God. If righteousness come by the
law, by doing anything at all in this world, then Christ's
death was vain. You try to be justified by works,
try to be justified by morality, try to be justified by anything
that you do, act or anything else, the cross of Christ will
be of none effect to you, none whatsoever. And who did he do
it for? Did he do it for every man on
the earth? No, no. He said, I'm the good shepherd,
and I lay down my life for the sheep. Huh? I lay down my life
for the sheep. He said, no man takes it from
me. I have the power to lay it down. I've got the power to take
it up again. You know, he said, you know, he died for his elect.
That's who he died for. Romans 8 29 says, for whom he
did foreknow. whom he did foreknow, who he
had a great and infinite knowledge of. Them he also called. Them he also justified. Them
he also glorified. What shall we say then to these
things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? You know why? It's Christ that died. Christ
died, so who's going to lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
There's no condemnation to them that are in Christ. As many as
were ordained to eternal life, what did they do? They believed. If you're one of God's, mark
her down, you're going to believe one of these days. You're going
to come under the sound of the gospel and you're going to believe.
You're going to believe. And I tell you, well, there's
a remnant according to the election of grace. And where is our Lord
now? He sits, sits right now at the
right hand of the majesty on high. That's where he sits. You
see, the gospel reveals the first and foremost, the person of Christ.
When it says here, we preach Christ, he's talking about the
person of Christ. You know, when you talk about
the person of Christ, what can you say about Him? You want to
know God? The only way you can know Him
is in Jesus Christ. Huh? God, you talk about His
person. He was 100% man, sinless man,
blessed man, glorious man, perfect man, God-honoring man. Man who loved God with all his
heart, loved his people as himself. And then he reveals the work
of Christ. Christ, we preach Christ. Then the sixth thing
he said, he is crucified. What he did. You deal with his
person. If he wasn't who he was, if he
wasn't God manifest in the flesh, if he wasn't sin of God to bear
our sins in his own body on the tree, if he wasn't sin of God
to die, as a common criminal on a cross outside Jerusalem
and was buried and rose again the third day. God sent him to
do that. God sent him to do that. And the only reason why God accepted
his work was because of who he is. And the only reason God accepts
you and me is because of who He is and what He did. You can't
separate them. You can't separate them. They
always go together. Always. Always. And then fourthly,
let me give you this little point here. We preach the gospel because
men are going about to establish their own righteousness. Oh,
almost everybody took that. Look in Romans 10 again with
me. Verse 1. We preach the gospel because
man's going about to establish his own righteousness. You know, I've been around drunks. I've been around foreign women. I've been around
my own family. I lay in bed last night thinking
about how many of my family died without hope. I sometimes wake
up at night and there's my mother's face, just as clear as, it's
like I'm looking at her. No hope. No hope. Had a brother died at
57. No hope. I've got a sister involved in
Pentecostalism. No hope. I've preached the gospel
to them all. I've told them all about Christ.
Told them all. But you know what they say? I'm
alright. I'll be alright. Don't worry
about me. I'll be alright. That's what
they always say. Don't worry about me. I'll be
alright. What makes you think you'll be
alright? What makes a person think they'll be all right? What
makes our children think that they'll be all right? What makes
our grandchildren that's grown, what makes them think they'll
be all right? What makes you or anybody else think they'll
be all right when they get to the end? It's not being all right. You
have to be perfect. You have to be righteous. You
have to be holy. Where do you get righteousness
at? Where do you get perfection at? Where do you get holiness
at? I don't want to face God and just say, well, I'll be all
right in the end. Oh, I don't want that to happen
to me. Uh-uh. There's a lot of people that
argued with Him and said, oh, Lord, when they got to Him and
faced Him at the end, they said, Lord, we've preached in Your
name. We've done women, family, for
works in Your name. We got a lot of souls saved in
your name. And you know what our Lord said
to them? Depart from me. Everything you did was nothing
but a work of iniquity. Depart from me. I never, ever
knew you. Oh, I didn't know who they was,
know what they did. But he said, I never had, I didn't
know you like I know them that I called and justified and glorified.
Didn't know you like that. But how does somebody going about
to establish their own righteousness by just saying, well, I don't
need Christ. I need his help. I need his direction. I need his, you know, I need
him. When I need him, I want to call on him and I want him
to be there. And I don't want to call on him
and I don't want to need him until I get in trouble. But all this said, he said, brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they
might be saved. Well, a lot of preachers are
saying God's going to save all of Israel. Is He going to drag
them out of the grave and save all them infidels that died in
the wilderness? That He killed all of them in
the wilderness? Killed 23,000 one day because they murmured
and complained against Him? No, but listen, he said, I bear
them record. He said, I'm going to go on record.
I'm going to tell you exactly. I know them because I was one
of them. That they have a zeal of God. That's what Paul said.
He said, I was zealous among many my equals. I even persecuted
the church of God. But their zeal was not according
to knowledge. It wasn't according to what God
said, what God's word said. Huh? How can you sell somebody's
not going about to establish their own righteousness? Well,
they'll tell you that they're doing something. They'll tell
you what they've done and what they're doing instead of what
God done and what God's doing. They'll say, you know, our church
is doing great things, but they don't say Christ did great things. When's the last time you heard
a preacher on the radio their own television or an advertisement
on the radio who mentioned the Lord Jesus Christ. They'll tell
you about what their church is like, how many services they
have. I don't care how you are when
you show up, just show up! And they got these folks going
about to establish their own righteousness. How do you know? Because it says in verse 3, they're
ignorant of God's righteousness, of how righteous God himself
is. Well, how do you know? Because
they're going about to establish their own. How do you know they've
established their own? They've not submitted themselves
to the righteousness of God. What's God's righteousness? He
said right there. Christ is the end of the law. Oh my, when you get to the end
of something, I was watching something the other day, a fellow
went zooming by and he got to the end of the road, that's as
far as he could go. He said, what am I gonna do,
I ain't got room to turn around here. Well I tell you what, when you
get to the end of the law, you want the law to be fulfilled
and the law's goal is Christ. And the law won't get you to
Christ. The law won't bring you to Christ.
Your works won't bring you to Christ. Your morality won't bring
you to Christ. The only thing that'll bring
you to Christ is the gospel. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to those that believe. Now you want perfection,
here's what the law says about perfection. He said in verse
five, for Moses described the righteousness which is the law,
that the man which doeth those, he gotta live by it, he gotta
live it. That's what people say all the time. Well, I tell you
what, if I ever get it, I'll live it. I won't be one of them
old hypocrites up there at church. A fella told me one, I've told
you this before, a fella, I invited him to service one time and he
was up on a ladder. He said, well, there's just too
many hypocrites up there. I said, well, just come on, join
us. He said, one more won't make any difference. Ain't that right? One more won't
make any difference. Next time somebody tells you
a bunch of hypocrites, say, well, come on, join the rest of us.
Just come on, join the rest of us. You won't feel out of place. Ain't that right? Oh, listen. God's righteous and
established for perishing sinners by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me ask you a question, I'll hurry up. Can you find one person,
one person in the scripture, in the whole of God's Bible,
that was saved by their own goodness, saved by their morality, saved
by their works, saved by their baptism, saved by their giving
or tithe paying, tell me if you can find one person in the Bible
saved that way. I can tell you some who tried,
and they perished for their efforts. And Anas and Sapphira did. They
tried to get on the good side of the apostles. And both of
them died. Simon the sorcerer, he got in
his pocket, he seen those fellows, you know, Peter and them laying
hands on men, they receiving the Holy Ghost. And all he wretched
in his pocket and got out some money and he said, here, Peter,
let me buy that gift off you so I can lay hands on people.
He said, your money perish with you. You and your money boat
gonna perish. So you find folks that tried
to do it. There's one man, one man in history, in all the history
of time, that God accepted on his own merit. God accepted him
for his works. God accepted him for his obedience. God accepted him for his goodness. One man, that's the Lord Jesus
Christ. The only man God ever accepted.
And if you wanna be accepted of God, that's the only place. Accepted in the beloved. And
then let me give you my last point, my fifth point. We preach
the gospel that believers may grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh my, that's the only way we
can grow. Peter told him, he says, desire
the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. I tell you, have we ever grown
enough in grace? Do we know enough about the Lord
Jesus Christ? I want to know more, don't you?
Paul said, I want to win Him. I want to be found in Him. I
want to know Him. That's what he said. There are
those who feel they can serve and survive without God. They
say, well, I can worship God out there on the lake catching
fish. Well, you can, you can, if you're a believer. But if
you're not a believer, just forget, just go fish. There are those
who think they can survive without God. Our Lord said, my word has
no place in you. And there are those who have
little regard for the Lord Jesus Christ. They give him lip service.
I've seen a lot of that in the last year. How in the world anybody
can do without God, do without the gospel, do without the fellowship
of the sheep, for month after month after month
after month after month after month after month. I don't know how you can do it.
I can't do it. You know the sheep, The sheep,
sheep always are in flocks. Always in flocks. Over in Ireland,
Wales, Scotland, and England, they all them folks raise a bunch
of sheep. And when you see a bunch of sheep,
they all got different colors on them. They paint them. They
paint the, right above the tails, they paint them. You'll see some
blue, you'll see some green, you'll see some pink. And that
means that those sheep belong to some certain person. And when
they go out there to get them, the only ones you can get is
the ones that you marked for yourself. Well, the only one
God's going to get is the one He marked for Himself. And you know how He marked us?
With the blood and righteousness of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Huh? Ain't that right? But I want
to know Christ. I'll tell you why. That's what
we're here for. More about Jesus. What I know. More of His saving,
fullness, show. More of His love for me. Oh my. Gotta know Christ. I gotta win
Christ. I gotta have Christ. I don't
have to have a lot of things in this world. Just a little
food, a little bread, little clothes to keep my nakedness
covered. But I do have to have Christ.
Got to have Him. Got to have Him. Our Father, thank you for allowing
us to meet here this morning. Thank you for your word. Lord,
I bless you for the gospel. Bless you for the grace of God.
Bless you that you've taught us the gospel. We didn't know
the gospel. You taught it to us. You sent men to preach it
to us. Men who knew Christ, sought to glorify Him, left the results
in God's hands, and that's what we do. We leave the results in
God's hands. And Lord, we know that you'll
save your people. We know that you have sheep that
have to be called, have to be brought into the sheepfold. And
so Lord, we'll wait on you, we'll trust you, and we'll continue
to preach the gospel. until you spring in your sheep. And we bless you for Christ's
sake. Amen. Amen. Let's sing a couple of
verses of that, more about Jesus.