Romans, chapter 1. and declared to be the Son of
God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection
from the dead, by whom we have received grace and apostleship
for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name, among
whom are you also the called of Christ, I love this verse
right here, to all that be in Rome, beloved of God. Everybody
that's a saint in Rome, every believer, beloved of God, called
to be saints. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God
through Jesus Christ for you, for you all that your faith is
spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness,
whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his son, that without
ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. making
request if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous
journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to
see you that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the
end you may be established, that is, that I may be comforted together
with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to
come unto you, but was let hitherto that I might have some fruit
among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am a debtor
both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise
and to the unwise. So as much as in me is, I am
ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first,
and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the
just shall live by faith. You look with me back here in
Romans chapter 1. This is a message that I preached
down at College Grove. Kim sang, my heart burned within
me. Boy, I tell you, our hearts burned
within us down there this weekend. Oh, you never heard such preaching?
Oh, it was just, God so blessed it. So blessed it. I want to
bring a message out of verse 16 and 17, where the apostle
said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to
the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in the gospel, for
in the gospel, is power of God, is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live
by faith. I want to bring five clear points
of the gospel, five clear points of the gospel. The apostle says
here he's not ashamed of the gospel. Whether he was in Rome,
whether he's in Jerusalem, whether he's in Corinth, wherever he
was at, he wasn't ashamed of the gospel. He wasn't ashamed
of Christ crucified. He wasn't ashamed of the cross.
And you got to realize at the time that the way this man was,
the Jews, when he was out preaching, the Jews, they had Moses, they
had the law, they had their own righteousness. So they thought
the preaching of Christ and Him crucified in the cross and Christ
dying for sin was foolishness to them. They didn't need it.
They had a righteousness of their own. They had the law. They had
Moses. And then the Greeks, they had their philosophy and they
had more gods than you could count. And almost all of their
gods were half man and half God. That's the way they were. They
had all these mythical creatures, all these mythical people, and
all these great heroes. And so when Paul come and said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel, He's preaching to people that
had God, they had a hope. And so when he come along preaching
Christ, and that there was a substitute for sin, a sacrifice for sin,
and that this is the only way God could save a sinner, was
through the gospel, through what Christ did. You can imagine how
radical it was to most people when they heard it. And I'll
tell you what, he wasn't ashamed of the sacrifice of his Lord.
He wasn't ashamed of the fact that it took God in Christ to
save a sinner. That Christ died for sin. Most
people don't care about sin. They're not interested in sin.
They're only interested in what they can do to be accepted of
God. But there are lots of people preaching the gospel. and believe
a gospel that I would be ashamed of. I'm ashamed of a freewill
gospel. I'm ashamed of a works gospel.
I'm ashamed of a gospel that produces self-righteousness.
I'm ashamed of a gospel that teaches people that holiness
is something that you can do, that salvation is a cooperative
effort. I'd be ashamed of a gospel. that
says you can be saved way back there under a false message under
an arminian message and then you learn later you just learned
the doctrines of grace but you're saved back here by a false message
and then you hear the right message the true message the gospel of
the free grace of god and then you say all i've done is i just
i just learned a little bit more That's not the way it's done.
Either the gospel saves a man or he's not saved. And so I,
you know, and God helping me, I want to give you five clear
points of the gospel. And these points that I'm going
to deal with are essential, essential that the Holy Spirit reveal.
Essential that they do. The first clear point of the
gospel is this. The gospel is definitive. The
gospel is defined. Look there in verse 16. He said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's defined. It's
called the gospel of Christ. It's the gospel of Christ. It's
the good news of Christ. It's the good news that Jesus
Christ come into this world. And it's defined. The gospel's
not something that's vague. The gospel's not something that's
to be guessed at and try to figure out what it means. It isn't a
group of people getting together and giving testimonies of how
bad they were and how sinful they were and how wicked they
were and they let Jesus into their heart and now everything's
fixed up. That's not what it's about. It's
not a subjective experience. It's not us talking about our
subjective experience. The gospel's defined and it's
called the gospel of Christ. And I tell you, look back up
here in verse 1 with me. Look what it says here. Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. Now listen
to it. Separated under the gospel of God. God separated me under
the gospel. Now, just leave out that little
second verse. It's in apostrophes. And look
what it says here. I mean into parentheses look
what he says here now separated out of the gospel of God Concerning
his son Jesus Christ our Lord who was made of the seed of David. He is the Son of God He was the
Lord of glory But he became a man and was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh and listen to this and declared to be the
Son of God with power, with power. And then this gospel, this gospel
concerning His Son, He promised it. He promised, the first promise
in the Bible was concerning God's blessed Son. And then He promised
it in His prophets and He promised it in the Holy Scriptures. So
the gospel, the gospel is definitive, the gospel is defined, it's the
God's message concerning His blessed Son, concerning His person. Now when we talk about the person
of Christ, we're not talking about somebody that stands and
begs and pleads and wants to do something, is not able. When
we talk about the person of Christ, when I, and I've used this illustration
before, when we describe a person, if somebody was to ask me to
describe Bruce Daley for instance, I would not tell him what he
looks like physically, I would describe him as he is in his
nature, in his character, how he treats people, how he reacts
to people, and I would describe a person. I would describe his
character. I would describe his idiosyncrasies. He got plenty of them, but what
I'm telling you is, if you describe somebody, you describe the person,
their nature, their character, their personality. And when we
describe the Lord Jesus Christ, we describe a person who has
a personality. He was full of power. He was
full of grace. He was full of pity. He was full
of mercy. He was full of love. He was full
of truth. He was water. He was bread. He's everything
we need. God said that everything we need
was in His Son. And this is My Son in whom I'm
delighted. So we describe a person. A person
that loves all how he loved. A person who's got the willingness
to do something. The person who not only has the
willingness to do it, but he has the power to do it. He has
the ability to do whatever God said he'd do. And then we describe
his work. You know, he had a work to do.
He came here not to do anything for himself. He came here to
do something first and foremost for God. That's where people,
you know, when they say they come here to do something for
man, he did do that. But the first thing he had to
do is he said, Father, I've glorified your name. Everything Christ
come here to do, he come to bring glory to his father's name, to
honor his blessed father. And he said, Father, I've glorified
your name on the earth and I finished the work. And you know what the
work was? Thou hast given him power over
all flesh, that thou should save as many as thou hast given him. And then that's when he said,
Father, I finished the work. That's when he says, now, Father,
glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Now, let me say something about this work. And I mentioned this
the other night. You know, People say, well, I'm trusting
the finished work of Christ. You know how many people's going
to perish, believe in that? It's not the, I don't trust the
finished work. You know what I trust? I trust
Him who finished the work. That's the difference. A lot
of people say, well, I trust the finished work. I'm trusting
Him who finished the work. And here's the difference is,
there was three men on those crosses, three men on them crosses. You know how many people's crucified?
But our Lord Jesus Christ, It's who it was that was on that cross,
not how long he was on it. It's not how much blood was shed,
but it's whose blood was shed. It's not only that he died, but
what he died for and why he died. And so our Lord Jesus Christ,
we're trusting Him who did the work. Those other two fellows
died, both of them died, but they didn't do anything. They
didn't have no power to save. They weren't sinless. They weren't
righteous. And so this gospel is defined, it declares God's
blessed Son, it sets Him forth. And I tell you, any gospel, any
gospel that does not set forth Christ, not in all of His, we
can never set Him forth in all of His fullness, but set Him
forth at best of our ability and what we know about Him. If
any gospel that does not set forth Christ is no gospel, And
it has no power to say. Has no power to say. And then
let me tell you the second point of the gospel. Second clear point. In verse 16 again. The gospel
is objective. For it says there in the second
verse, the second line there says, for it. It, what is? It, the gospel. The gospel's
objective. It is the power of God unto salvation. You see, the gospel is an objective
message. It's outside of us. It comes
to us from outside of us. It's not a subjective gospel.
It's gospel that we declare. It's a gospel that sends forth
Christ. It's a gospel that people look at, a gospel that they hear,
and it has a, and it's a, it's an objective message. And it's
the power of God under salvation. What is the gospel is? The gospel
in and of itself in the power of the Holy Ghost to those God's
pleased to send it is the power of God under salvation. The gospel
is that power of God. The gospel itself is the power
in that God uses to save sinners. God uses to bless us. God uses
to encourage us. God uses us to quicken us. And
you know, beloved, it doesn't say that the Spirit is the power
of God, but the Gospel is the power of God. But it's the Gospel
and the power of the Spirit, His sword that He uses to save
sinners. Look with me over in I Peter
chapter 1. It's the gospel that he uses to save sinners. It's the gospel in the hand of
the Holy Spirit. I told this the other night.
You've all heard me tell this, I don't know how many times,
but years ago, 40 years ago, that's 40 years ago. I was figuring
up the time yesterday, Saturday. Yeah, yesterday. I
remember a Brett Mother of Mahan twice. before he ever came down
here. And the first time I went to
see him, he called me chubby and gave me, sent me home with
a book and said, read that book and you'll learn the gospel.
Well, I did. And I went back again about a
year later. It was just about this time in
the years in October. And Tommy Robbins and I was up
in a meeting up in West Virginia, Chapmansville, West Virginia.
We drove down to see Henry. And we're sitting there and Henry's
studying. Henry's sitting behind his desk. And I sit right in
front of his desk. And I thought, boy, I'm going
to show him how spiritual I am, how much I know, you know. I'm
going to show this fellow what I know. And I mean, this fellow's
been preaching, my goodness, I didn't know whether I was up
or down. But you know, you think you do.
There's nothing bigger when he's first born than a Walshman and
a young preacher. But anyway, I told Henry, I said,
I know it's the gospel, soaked in our tears. Henry stuck that
finger all the way across the desk in my face. He said, it's
just the gospel whether anybody ever sheds a tear. Whether I
shed one, you shed one, or anybody you're preaching to sheds a tear.
It's the gospel. That's the power of God unto
salvation. And boy, I took that to heart. I was so, you know,
he just laid me so low I couldn't even drive. I had to get somebody
else to drive. But I, you know, it just, but I, that's how, that's
how people get, thank God that there's somebody that'll tell
you the truth. And that's what I'm trying to
do today. The gospel is the power of God. The gospel is, whether
I cry, you cry, or we have anybody make any kind of a move, if anybody
comes to the front, if anybody raises their hands or says hallelujah
or nothing, that don't have nothing to do with how God saves a sinner.
It's the gospel that's the power of God. Look here at 1 Peter
1, verse 23. He says, Being born again, not
of corruptible seed, But of incorruptible. What's this incorruptible seed?
The Word of God. And oh, this Word lives. It's
living. It's called the living Word.
That's what it's called. It's the living, the Word of
God that's alive. That's what that word liveth
means. It's alive. It's alive. And not only is it
alive, but it abides. It stays. It's always going to
be. No, listen, all flesh is as grass,
and the glory of man as the flower that's in that grass. The grass
withereth, the flower, however how pretty it is, it just falls
away. But here's what the gospel does
for us. But the word of the Lord, it endures forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. YOU KNOW HOW LONG THAT GOSPEL
LASTS? IF GOD BLESSES YOU TO HEAR THE
GOSPEL AND IT BECOMES THE GOSPEL OF YOUR SALVATION, IT WILL LAST
AS LONG AS GOD DOES! Amen. Oh my. And it's by the preaching of
the gospel set forth by the power of the Holy Spirit objectively
that it pleased God to save sinners. Let me give you the third point.
It's definitive. It's objective. It's the power
of God. And then look what it says here.
The gospel is effective. Again, in verse 16, it says,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Now, for it, it's
objective. It's the gospel of Christ. It's
definitive. And then look what it says. It's the power. Take that word power. It's the
power of God unto salvation. You see, the power of God is
effectual. It's effective. It's effective. If you ever hear anybody say,
you know, God wants to do something. God would like to do something.
You've listened to somebody that done said the wrong thing. I
would like to let, you know, would you let God? The gospel
is effective. It's effectual. It truly, truly
saves. because it's God's power. And
this word power, if I'm not mistaken, and I asked those preachers if
this is so the other day, I said, ain't that word power the same
word as dynamite or dynamo? Say that right again. Dynamite.
And you know the gospel is so powerful, it blows up everything
that doesn't relate to Christ. It'll blow up your false profession. It'll tear your playhouse down.
It'll blow up your self-righteousness. It'll blow up every false hope
you ever had. I mean, it'll just blow it up. And when it gets through blowing
up everything that's not like Christ and true to Christ and
the gospel of Christ and the grace of God, there ain't nothing
left but a naked sinner before God looking to Christ alone.
I mean, it blows it up, don't it? Oh my goodness, it blew up
my little old playhouse. And I was so thankful that it
did. I don't want to stand anywhere
but in Christ and in the power of God. And there's no other
power like it. No other power like it. Yet multitudes
perish because to them it's foolishness. And I tell you, it's so powerful.
The gospel is that the power of God is so powerful and saves
and so effectual that it does not need my, your, or anybody
else's help. You don't have to cooperate with
God. It's God's power. It's God's
power. And what makes the gospel so
effective? What makes it so powerful? Look
in verse 17. For therein, in this gospel we're
talking about, is the righteousness of God revealed. From faith,
when you first hear the gospel, you believe. And then it goes
from faith, it continues by faith, and it'll end in faith. But this,
the righteousness of God revealed in this message. And here's the
message. Every soul on the top side of
God's earth. is a sinner. There's no doubt
about it. There's nobody here, I don't
think there's anybody in this building, I hope there isn't,
who would not admit to being a sinner. And one of the first
evidences that you believe the gospel is you know what it is?
begin to loathe yourself. That's one of the first evidences
of ever hearing the gospel. You begin to say, Oh, my soul,
what a mess I am. What a sinner I am. How in the
world can God save me? How can God be just and save
me? How can God stay God and save
me? How can God stay righteous and
save me? How can God be just and save
me? Well, that's what the gospel
tells us, how it's done. God reveals His righteousness.
And he reveals that the righteousness of Christ is the only righteousness
that there is in this world. And he reveals that he's righteous.
And here's what he did righteously. All are sinners, born in sin,
dead in sin, ruined by sin, ungodly with enmity against God, guilty
before God, deserving of eternal ruin and wrath. And yet God,
righteously, Send His blessed glorious Son in His great love. Send His Son into this world. And why did He send Him in His
world? To bear our sins in His own body on that tree. To be
the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty. And
He's the only one that can bring us to God. And that's where God
is righteous. God must be righteous. He cannot
save a sinner but not do it righteously. So how did He do it righteously?
Christ willingly, gladly, and joyfully said, Father, lay their
iniquities on me, bruise me for their sins, lay their wound me
for their transgressions. I'll bear their punishment, I'll
bear their sin, I'll bear their guilt. God made him who knew
no sin to be sin, what we are. And this is what I love about
it. Listen to me now. I have not got by with one sin
that I've ever committed or ever will commit. Not got by with
one of them. And yet I can stand here and
tell you that I have the righteousness of God. I'm as righteous as God's
blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because God righteously
punished His Son. Now He can righteously, when
we believe on His blessed Son, turn around and treat us as righteous
as His Son. Huh? Oh, listen, He carried our
sins away. Carried them away. They're gone.
Oh Beloved, He brought righteousness and He brought life and He gives
both of them freely to us by His grace. He gives us life by
His grace, He gives us His righteousness by His grace. She sang that song,
Grace is to blame for everything I have. Grace is to blame. Blame grace for what we have. Why are we justified? Grace. Why'd Christ die? You see, the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, he became
poor. That we, through his poverty,
gonna be around, turn around, be made rich. And this justifying
righteousness was revealed in the gospel. It's the power of
God to salvage it. It's the power of God. Oh my,
and I tell you what, when you're sitting listening to it, sometimes
it just absolutely just makes you come alive. It just absolutely
makes your heart and soul jump. It makes you, it enables you
when you're hearing the gospel to actually rest in Christ. And
let me ask you that, let me ask you that, when you hear the gospel,
When you hear the gospel preaching, you hear how God saves sinners,
do you, right then and there, while you listen to that, do
you find rest for your soul? Do you say, oh my, that's it!
That's it! For a little while, you're left,
you know, the world's gone and you're sitting there resting
in Christ. You're saying, yes, that's true. That's true. That's
why Paul says, I know your election of God, beloved. How do you know?
Because our gospel came unto you, not just in words, but it
came in power. It came in the Holy Ghost and
it come with much assurance. And you know when you feel the
most assurance is right when you're listening to the Gospel.
And when you get out of here and you go to work on Monday
morning or do whatever you do, your mind goes back to whatever
it is you have to deal with. But while you're here right now,
that Gospel does something for you that nothing else does. That's
why it's called the Living Word. It brings life to you. And then
not only is the Gospel It's definitive, objective, effective, but it's
also elective. Yeah, it talks about election
in the gospel. Look what it says, it's the power
of God, the power of God unto salvation. What do you mean it's
the power of God? That means that man's got no
power. It means man's not got the ability. All the power is
of God. It's of God Himself. You see,
the gospel is God's. It's His message. It's the message
of His Son, the Son of His love, the Son of His delight. It's
the gospel of His Son's work. And he came here and he says,
my hour's not yet. I must work while it's yet day.
And it talks about it's the gospel of God. It's of the Lord Jesus
Christ who came and lived and died and rose again. And why
did he do that? Did he do that for the world?
Did he do that for everybody in the world? Or did he do it
for a particular people? And we're talking about of God,
huh? Well, you know what the scripture
said, that's all we got to go by. thou shalt call his name
Jesus for he shall shall not want to not try to make a good
effort at it he shall save who his people from their sins herein
doeth my father love me why because i lay down my life for who not
a bunch of goats and he's going to turn into sheep you can't
make a goat become a sheep a goat's going to be a goat And he said,
I lay down my life for the sheep. And I know my sheep, and I've
known of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them, and they follow me. And you know that the sheep hear
the shepherd's voice. If you don't hear the shepherd's
voice, that means you're not one of the sheep. That's all
you can say about it. Y'all remember Herman sitting
there years and years ago. He was 75 years old. He died
when he was 93 and a half. And as many times as he said
out of the gospel, God only knows. But there was one day he heard
the voice of the Son of God. And he said, today I heard that
voice. I heard that voice. So you know
what he said? I heard the voice of the shepherd
today. And he says now, and y'all remembered, oh my soul, we all
about went to our knees. I was so thankful, so grateful,
75 years old. And you know that story about,
you know that they went out to look for people to work, six
o'clock, fella went to work and he worked 12 hours, got him a
penny. Fella went to work at nine o'clock, got down to six
o'clock, he got a penny. Fella went to work at noon, he
worked till six, he got a penny. Fella come in here at 11, and
works one hour, he got a penny. So the fella that starts at six
o'clock in the morning, works all day long, believes the gospel
for 50 or 60 years, and labors in the gospel for 50 or 60 years,
that fella that gets in at the 11th hour, gets exactly the same
thing as a fella that labored all day. That's what you call
grace. Yeah, that's what you call grace. Oh, everybody gets the same.
Oh, my. And this gospel, what I'm telling
you is, was God's to purpose. God's to purpose. God purposed
the gospel. The gospel is God's to perform,
not ours. And I'll tell you, thank God
it's not left up to us to perform. It's God's to proclaim. It's
God's to apply to the heart of a sinner and the mind of a sinner.
It's God's will and work to do that. And the gospel consistently,
consistently by its message sets forth the salvation of the people
of God, the people of God. I'm telling you what, that those
that are chosen in Christ, Ephesians 1, 4 said, according as he has
chosen us in Christ, when? Before the foundation of the
world. One of the preachers said down
there yesterday, I've never heard two better messages back to back
in my life, but I tell you, they, he said this, he said that, You
know they say Christ was crucified 2,000 years ago. He said, I beg
your pardon, Christ was crucified as the lamb slain from the foundation,
the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And you know what? That's what
the gospel does. It lets us know. It reveals it
to us. It teaches it to us that this
is what Christ, this is something that God purposed before the
world ever began. And when it come time for that
purpose to be fulfilled, He fulfilled that purpose. And His purpose
will always be fulfilled. And His purpose is for us one
day be glorified and just as sure as God's on His throne,
we will be glorified. And you know what? He laid down
his life for his people, those chosen in Christ. They're called
the sheep, they're called the elect, they're called the chosen,
the called, the people of God, the children of God, the sons
of God, vessels of mercy, jewels, precious, peculiar, particular. Oh, God's got a lot of names
for His people. And that's who He comes to save. And these are
the ones that the gospel declares who Christ died for. This is
God's work. It's of God. The gospel is the
power of God's to apply it to whom He will. Apply it to whom
He will. And thank God it's that way.
Ain't you grateful that it's not left up to us this morning
to try to talk people into something, to manipulate people, and devise
ways to get them to accept Jesus? Ain't you grateful we don't have
to do that anymore? Ain't you grateful that we've got an altar,
and this is why I said it here the other day, you can come to
Christ and not move a muscle. What a blessing, what a blessing.
Come to Christ, come into him right now, not moving a muscle.
Oh, ain't that something? You can go to Christ, and people
say, well, he took prayer out of the church. You can't keep
anybody from praying. How you gonna keep somebody from praying?
People that ain't got tongues, they can't talk, can pray. Ain't
that right? But oh my, God's to apply. And then my last point, my last
point of the gospel is this. Gospel is redemptive. Paul said
he was ashamed of the power of the gospel because it's the power
of God. Fifth point. Unto salvation. The gospel actually
saves. It really, truly saves. And you know why it saves? Because
Christ laid down his life to redeem them, to pay their sin
debt. to pay God for all their iniquities
to pay God the redemption means to pay a debt and then it means
to ransom get that debt pay that ransom get that property you
bought and our Lord Jesus Christ bought us and paid for us with
his precious blood and he's going to have us if he shed his blood
he's going to get you if he redeemed you and that's what we're talking
about the gospel is the power of God unto salvation Oh my,
he suffered the wrath, the full, full wrath of God against sin. He drunk the cup of God's wrath
dry. And oh, then there by his blessed
death and the shedding of his blood, the shedding of his blood. You see, you all got a bloody
religion. It don't take blood to cleanse you from your sin.
God has to have some blood to cleanse you from your sin. And
God would, and because of the death of Christ, God would justly
deliver His people from death and sin and condemnation and
give them eternal life in Him. He took His own blood and entered
into the holy place and obtained eternal redemption for us. It's
an amazing thing. that God takes the blood, the
blood of His blessed Son, and applies it to black, black-hearted
sinners, and washes them with white as snow. But that's exactly
what He says He does. How can blood take someone that's
black with sin, wash that blackness away, and make them white as
snow? But He does. And you know, a believer understands
that. He understands that. Look over in 1 Peter 1.18. You
know, that's why I said, in whom we have redemption. We have redemption
through our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's got a, instead of saying
redemptive, price on it. Redeemed for one-fourth or one-eighth
or one-twenty-fifth or something, it's got a redemptive price on
it. And that's what you do. You do that to save money. Well,
our Lord Jesus Christ and God did do not anything. He paid
the full price. He took His own blood and He
shed His own blood and in that blood God took all the wrath
of God, and His blood consumed all the wrath of God against
us. And His blood put all our sins away, and God said, I'm
satisfied. And if God's satisfied, and Christ
is satisfied, the thing that will satisfy us is when we know
that God is perfectly satisfied, then we can rest entirely and
completely once and for all in what Christ did. Huh? 1 Peter 1.18 And then I'm done. Forasmuch as you know, this is
what you know, that you were not redeemed, not paid for, not
ransomed with corruptible things. That's silver and gold. Boy,
bring in your money. Bring it on in here. I'll tell
you what. Bring your money in here. God'll
bless you, you know. I'll tell you what. If you'll
send me, if you'll send me so much a month, God'll bless you. God'll save you. No. Silver and
gold's never saved a soul. Silver and gold's never paid
for one sin. Look what he says here. from
your vain, vain manner of life. That's what conversation means.
Vain manner of life. How did you come to this vain
manner of life? You received it from your fathers.
You just do what your fathers did. We heard this song the other
day. It said, if it's good enough
for Granny, it's good enough for me. If it's good enough for
Daddy, it's good enough for me. You know, this old time religion,
if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. My dad
is sure not good enough for me. But look what else he goes on
to say. But this is what you were redeemed with. With the
precious blood of Christ as the Lamb without blemish and without
spot. Now listen to it. Who truly was
ordained, predestinated before the foundation of the world.
But listen to what happens. But was manifest in these last
times. For who? You. Who he redeemed. Huh? Oh my, thank God for the
gospel. Thank God for the gospel. What
a blessed, blessed gospel we have. It's definitive, it's objective,
it's effective, it's elective, and it's redemptive. Huh? It
works. It'll work. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed,
glorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we bow our hearts here
before you, bless in your glorious name, praise in your holy, blessed
name. What a salvation you've provided
for us. What a glorious salvation. Oh
Lord, thank you that you've got the power and the willingness
and the ability to save sinners like ourselves. And Lord, not
only do you save us, but you save us forever. And you work
always, work in us, always are pleased to speak to us through
your precious word. And we bless you that we're able
to call on you, have access to you through him. And Lord, we
ask that you'd cause this gospel to be effectual today, today,
in the hearts, in the lives of those gathered out here, that
you'd cause it to be that way. You're the only one who can.
I know they heard the words of a man today. But may they have
heard the word of God himself, God's word, the voice of God.
We ask these things in Christ's blessed name. Amen.