The title of this message is,
The Apostolic Preaching of the Gospel and Missions. I want to begin by reading the
first portion of the text that we will be looking into in this
final session. Acts 13, beginning in verse 13,
now Paul and his companions set out to sea from Paphos. and came
to Pergamum in Pamphylia. Now John left them and returned
to Jerusalem. Now going on from Pergamum, they
arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they went
into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading of the law
and the prophets, the synagogue officials sent to them," referring
to Paul and his companions, saying, If you have any word of exhortation
for the people, say it. Now those words, the word of
exhortation, refers to a sermon. It's used also at the end of
the book of Hebrews. And what follows now, beginning
in verse 16, is the first missionary sermon preached by the apostle
Paul that we have recorded in the book of Acts. So in some
ways, this is like Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. It was
the first sermon of the church. It stands as a model sermon. An entire chapter is devoted
to Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost that we would see
the importance of the preaching of the gospel. Well, this is
now Paul's sermon, much like Peter's sermon on the day of
Pentecost. It is the first recorded sermon
on the mission field by the apostle Paul. So now in verse 16, Paul
stood up and motioned with his hands, saying, and you who fear God, listen."
And by the way, that's the way a preacher talks. He must be
heard. He is not stroking his chin and
saying, well, it seems to me. No, he speaks with boldness and
confidence, and he says, you need to listen to what I have
to say. Verse 17, the God of this people, Israel. chose our
fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land
of Egypt. And with an uplifted hand, He led them out from it. For a period of over 40 years,
He put up with them in the wilderness. When He had destroyed seven nations
in the land of Cana, Canaan, he distributed their land as
an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years. After these
things, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they
asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a
man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years. After he had removed
him, he raised up David to be their king, concerning whom he
also testified and said, I have found David the son of Jesse,
a man after my heart, who will do all my will. From the descendants
of this man, according to the promise, God has brought to Israel
a Savior, Jesus." What the New Testament teaches
about the work of missions is that it is primarily advanced
by the preaching of the gospel. The New Testament knows nothing
of any other form of missionary endeavor that has as its primary
thrust the preaching of the Word of God and the planting of churches. All other missionary strategies
are but secondary to what is primary, and that is the preaching
of the Word of God. It is the proclamation of the
gospel that is the tip of the spear in all missionary endeavor. There are many other missionaries
supporting strategies. There may be Bible translators,
but it is ultimately to support the preaching of the Word of
God in the language of the people in the planting of churches.
There are pilots who fly Bible translators to remote places
around the world, but it is for one ultimate purpose. that there
would be the preaching of the Word of God in that place and
the planting of churches. There may be professors who go
to distant lands and train nationals in ministry on the mission field,
but that is subservient to what is primary, which is the preaching
of the Word of God. Men are to be taught and trained
in seminaries so that they would go forth and proclaim the gospel
and plant churches. The Puritans said that the preaching
of the Word of God is the primary, ordinary means of grace. That is what we find in the book
of Acts. I often hear people say, we want to have a first
century church. Great, that is a worthy goal
in many ways. So read the book of Acts and
what stands out to you. Now many things stand out, but
what is primary, even a blind man could see it. It is the preaching
of the Word of God. The apostles to a man were preachers. They were charged in the Great
Commission by Jesus Christ Himself to preach repentance for the
forgiveness of sins. Do you know that if you take
the book of Acts, that one out of every four verses – let me
say that again – one out of every four verses is a sermon, or the
equivalent of a sermon, with an entourage of people around
The title of the book of Acts was originally called the Acts
of the Apostles. I think it is better titled the
Preaching of the Apostles, because that's what the book of Acts
contains. In the 28 chapters of the book
of Acts, there are no fewer than 19 major sermons or addresses
that are recorded. There are eight sermons by Peter,
one sermon by James, one sermon by Stephen, nine sermons by the
Apostle Paul, five of which we would consider to be an actual
sermon for our defenses of the faith. Twenty-five percent of
the book of Acts is the preaching of the apostles and their associates. No wonder The first century church
was so powerful. It was literally baptized in
the preaching of the Word of God. And yet today, tragically,
there is so little preaching in churches here, and there is
so little preaching abroad. In church today, we have canceled
Wednesday night preaching. We have canceled Sunday night
preaching. We have shortened Sunday morning
preaching. Bible conferences are but a thing
of the past. Is it any wonder that there is
so little preaching on the mission field, because there is so little
preaching in sending churches? Preaching has become devalued.
at home, and no wonder that it is devalued on the mission field. We are sending everything and
everyone except preachers of the Word of God, expositors,
theological expositors, exegetical expositors who proclaim the Word
of God. So what made preaching in the
early church on the mission field so powerful? Well, number one,
it was the power of the Holy Spirit that rested upon and resided
within the apostles as they stood up to preach. And it was the
power of the Holy Spirit upon the listeners. But from a human
perspective, It was the kind of powerful preaching that they
brought that should capture our attention. It wasn't just that
there was preaching. It was that there was a certain
kind of preaching. In one sense today, we don't
need more preaching. We probably need less preaching
because there's so much bad preaching going on. there is a certain
kind of preaching that is so desperately needed to be recovered,
and we find it in these sermons in the book of Acts. If you want
to learn how to preach, read the book of Acts and catch the
fire of the apostles. And what we have in Acts 13 is
the first missionary sermon recorded in
Scripture, preached by the apostle Paul. And before we look at this,
I'm going to put the application right now. I want to tell you
how this sermon should affect you, hopefully to tune your ear
to listen to what we will have to say. Number one, as a result
of what we're going to look at, You need to highly esteem preaching
and preachers. Parents, you need to pray that
God will raise up your sons to be preachers. God had only one
son, and He made him a preacher. and he trained preachers. And
at the end of his ministry, he sent them out to preach. You
need to highly esteem the office of preaching, the ministry of
preaching, and your spiritual life will grow no further than
you're sitting under a steady diet of the preaching of the
Word of God. The Puritans used to say, if
you had one hour and could use it in one of two One, to sit
at home by yourself and read your own Bible for an hour, or
to come to church and sit under the preaching of a Spirit-filled
man who is well-equipped and well-prepared to preach the Word
of God, which one of those two would bring the greatest spiritual
good to your soul? And the Puritans said, it is
to sit under the preaching of the Word of God, where a man
has spent 20 hours digging into that text, excavating the gold
and the silver out of this passage, setting it before you so it is
clearly seen, bringing it with penetrating application to your
life in such a way that you are being sanctified and transformed. We need to highly esteem preaching
and preachers. Second, we need to prayerfully
consider, is God calling you to step out of your present employment
and to answer His call to preach the Word of God? Because that's
what we need, not only in the church in America, that is what
we need on the mission field, men who will preach like we see
in the book of Acts. Third, you need to carefully
critique how your missions, agencies that you support, how they are
closely connected to preachers and preaching, because every
missionary endeavor must ultimately lead to the pinnacle, to the
high mark of missionary endeavor, the preaching of the Word of
God and the planting of churches. If a missions organization is
not ultimately leading to and being merely a means to the preaching
of the Word and the planting of churches, it is a dead-end
street. And fourth and finally, you need
to support preaching, and you need to support preachers. You
need to support them with your encouragement. You have no idea
what a demanding task that it is. It doesn't take much of a
man to be a preacher. It just takes all there is of
him. You need to support Him with your prayers. You need to
support Him with your gifts and your financial support. You are
investing in God's chosen means and God's chosen messenger when
you come alongside a gospel preacher to help him carry out God's work. You are working in tandem with
God. Now, as we look at this sermon,
I want to make this observation, that in all the sermons of the
book of Acts, there are five primary pillars that uphold their
preaching, that run through their preaching. In some of these sermons,
you'll see three of the five. In some of these sermons, you'll
see four of the five, or two of the five. In this particular
sermon, we have all five. Here are the essential elements
of the apostolic preaching on the mission field, the apostolic
preaching of the gospel. So I want to start with the first
and just walk through this sermon and set before you now the five
essential marks of apostolic preaching of the gospel. Jesus is the fulfillment of the
Old Testament. The apostles most often began
their sermons in the New Testament by tracing the listener through
the path of the Old Testament to show them that everything
was leading up to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into
this world. In fact, the Old Testament was
a major highway laid by God to prepare for the coming of His
Son in the fullness of time, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, verse
16, Paul stood up, and by the way, that's the way a preacher
preaches. He stands up like a man. He's not sitting on a stool,
and he's not pacing around like a peacock. He is standing like
a man. and motioning with His hands,
commanding gestures, a commanding stance, and said, men of Israel
and you who fear God, listen. He commanded their attention.
People ask me, do I ever get nervous before I preach? And
the answer is no, I would be nervous if I could not preach,
and I would be nervous if people did not listen. So notice what
he says, beginning in verse 17. In verse 17 to verse 23, I'm
going to have to hydroplane my way through this, but what Paul
is doing is showing that Christianity is not a philosophical religion. It is a historical religion.
It's not conceived in someone's mind, such as Confucius or Buddha. but it is rooted and grounded
in history, in time, space, dimension, history. The other thing that
I want you to note as we go through this is how God-centered verses
17 to 23 are. And I would encourage, you've
already done this, I've taken out a ballpoint pen and just
drawn a circle around every time I see God, every time I see He,
every time I see I, when it refers to God, Paul, this sermon is
dripping with God. It's not dripping with the culture.
It's not dripping with the times. It is dripping with ancient times.
It is dripping with God, God, God, God. Paul is a big God preacher. He is what John Piper calls an
exaltational expositor. The preacher must be always exalting
the greatness, the grandeur, and the glory of God. You have
nothing greater to say than God. And what people desperately need
is God in your preaching. So in verse 17, the God of this
people Israel chose our Father. Stop right there. He… Paul begins
his sermon with the doctrine of sovereign election on the
mission field, preaching to unbelievers, just like Peter did on the day
of Pentecost, that Jesus was crucified according to the predetermined
plan and foreknowledge of God. And he concludes it with, as
many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself. That's where
Paul begins, with the absolute, unrivaled sovereignty of Almighty
God over the eternal destinies of all men and over the course
of human history. I mean, this is just Psalm 96.
Say, among the nations, the Lord reigns. That's the heart of our
message, the supreme authority of God. So verse 17, the God
of this people Israel chose our fathers, referring to the patriarchs,
and it began with Abraham, and this is a reference to chose
him for salvation. Abraham was living in the Ur
of Chaldees. He was a moon worshiper. He was
a pagan worshiper, lost in darkness,
and had no knowledge of God. And it was God who pulled him
like a brand out of the fire and chose him for Himself. The God of this people, Israel,
chose our fathers and made the people great. Who did? God did
during their stay in the land of Egypt. He made them great
in numbers. and with an uplifted hand, He
led them out from it. It was God who was the author
of the Exodus. It was God who parted the Red
Seas. It was God who fed them manna
by day. It was God who defeated their
enemies. It was God who steered them finally
into the Promised Land. It was all God. Verse 18, for
a period of about 40 years, he, referring to God, put up with
them in the wilderness. God was so long-suffering. He
was slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness towards His
own people, but it is God acting in human history. Verse 19, when
He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan. Who did
it? God did it. The battle belonged
to the Lord. It was God who was the mighty,
victorious warrior who went before His people and subdued their
enemies in the land of Canaan. And he, referring to God, distributed
their land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years. It was God who did this. Verse
20, after these things, he, God, gave them judges until Samuel
the prophet. Verse 21, then they asked for
a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish. It was God who
was doing this. It was God who raised up Saul
according to their desires. Verse 22, after he, God, had
removed him, Saul, it was God who raised him up, put him on
his throne. It was God who impeached him and brought him back down.
He, God, raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He,
God, also testified and said, I, God, have found David the
son of Jesse, a man after my God's heart, who will do all
my will. This sermon just drips with God. It is saturated with God. Man is on the side stage. God is in the spotlight, and
all of the attention is being directed to God. God is directing human history,
and God is raising up according to His sovereign will. Verse
23, from the descendants of this man, referring to David, according
to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus. You know who the forgotten member
of the Trinity is? It is God the Father. Rightly so, we preach Christ
and Him crucified. And over these last decades,
the ministry of the Holy Spirit has been greatly highlighted. But the one who has been forgotten
is the one who is the architect of everything, the one who is
the author of the eternal decree, the author of the gospel, the
one who sent Jesus, and the one who is sending the Holy Spirit.
It is God the Father. But here in this sermon, God
the Father assumes His rightful place in this sermon. God the
Father is the infinite fountain from which everything is flowing
in the entire universe. So God is directing all of human
history to this climactic moment at the end of verse 23, as God
demonstrated His own love toward us, and that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son. It is God now sending His Son
on the mission of salvation to be the Savior. You know what
the word Savior means? It means the deliverer from destruction. It means the rescuer from ruin. And you ask the question, what
do we need to be saved from? And the answer is God. Every man must be saved, delivered,
rescued from the wrath of God that is revealed from heaven
against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. You don't
need to be saved from loneliness. You don't need to be saved from
singleness. You don't need to be saved from
a bad job. You need to be saved from the coming wrath of God
upon sin. And there is only one who can
save from God, and that is God Himself. And in the sending of
His Son, the mercy and grace of God triumphs over the judgment
and the wrath of God. Salvation is from God, through
God, from God, for God. That is what salvation is. And
there is only one Savior, and that is the One who said, I am
the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father
but through Me, the Lord Jesus Christ. So God has directed all
of human history from creation to the choosing of Abraham to
be the father of the great nation, to this moment when He would
send His Son, Galatians 4, for in the fullness of time. Verse
24, after John, referring to John the Baptist, had proclaimed
before His coming, and by the way, to prepare the way for the
coming of Jesus, God sent a preacher, an old-fashioned preacher. who
preached hell's hot, heaven's sweet, sin's black or white,
judgment is sure, and Jesus saves. God didn't send a puppet ministry
to prepare the coming of the Lord. He didn't send a flannelgram. He sent an old-fashioned preacher
named John the Baptist to prepare the way for the coming of the
greatest preacher who ever walked this earth. the Son of God, the
Son of Man. He preached a baptism of repentance
to all the people of Israel. Verse 25, and while John was
completing his course, he kept saying, what do you suppose that
I am? I am not he, but behold, one
is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy
to tie. What we see here in this first
main heading, and it is in many of the other apostolic sermons,
is that Jesus is the culmination of human history, that Jesus
is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, that Jesus
is the long and long-awaited One. Everything has led up to
this One Jesus Christ. And so as you and I send out
preachers, and as we preach ourselves, we must send forth preachers
who have this towering, transcendent view of God, that God is the
sovereign over human history, that history is His story, that
He is commanding the nations, He is raising up kings, even
reprobate kings, and He is lowering kings, and He is directing the
course of human history to its grand crescendo and the Son of
God. That's the kind of preacher you
want to get behind. That's the kind of preacher you
want to support. That's the kind of preacher that
you want to send, a God-centered, God-exalting preacher. Now second, beginning in verse
26, the second main heading Jesus was crucified for sinners. The apostles preached that God
sent His Son into this world, not merely to be an example,
though He was, not merely to be a teacher, though He was,
not merely to reveal God to us, though He did, But He sent His
Son into this world to go to an old rugged cross on Golgotha,
there to be lifted up, to be crucified, to bear the sins of
His people, to shed His blood, and to make the only atonement
for our sins. So verse 26, brethren, He's addressing
fellow Jews when He says brethren. They're unconverted Jews, sons
of Abraham. Abraham's family, and those among
you who fear God, they were God-fearers, they just were not gospel believers
at this point. The message of this salvation
has been sent. Everything was about this message
of salvation, which is in the gospel. And if you ask, what
is the gospel? The most succinct summary of
the gospel, euangelion, which means glad tidings or good news,
the heart of the gospel is the person and work and terms of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the sum and the substance
of the gospel. He is the alpha and the omega
of the gospel. If you want to witness to someone
about the gospel, you need to make a beeline to the Lord Jesus
Christ and speak of Christ, who is the Savior. In verse 27, he
now begins to talk about this coming of Christ into this world,
for those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing
neither Him, referring to Christ, nor the utterances of the prophets
which were read every Sabbath. And these utterances of the prophets
were all prophecies of the coming of Christ, beginning in Genesis
3, verse 15, and extending all the way down to the book of Malachi. These were all prophecies and
types and pictures and foreshadowings of the coming of Christ, the
entire sacrificial system, the high priest and the sacrifice
made, the intercession, the day of atonement, the scapegoat.
the sin offering, in all was just but a visual picture of
the person and work and terms of Christ. And as they sat there
and heard the utterances of the prophets, they did not recognize
Christ, and they did not recognize that even their rejection of
Christ and their condemnation of Christ was fulfilling the
prophets who said, that He would be rejected by men, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief, who grew up before us like a
tender shoot. All of our sins were laid upon
Him. We all, like sheep, have gone
astray. Each one of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord
has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him. Their eyes
were blind. Their ears were deaf. Verse 28, And though they found
no ground for putting Him to death, of course they did not.
He was the sinless Son of God. Even the demons recognized He
is the Holy One of Israel. Pilate said, I find no fault
in Him. They asked Pilate that he be
executed. And this word executed is a very
strong Greek word, and it means to be demolished. It means to
be destroyed. It's referring to a public, gruesome,
violent execution, death on a cross. Verse 29, when they had carried
out all that had been written concerning Him. Every nail they
drove into His hands, every thorn was crushed into His brow, every
mistreatment that they inflicted upon Him. the parting of His
garments, the very words that He would say, My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me, was all in fulfillment of prophecy
that was recorded throughout the annals of Old Testament Scripture. And so when they had carried
out all that was written concerning Him, down to the very most minute
detail. And by the way, these prophecies
were carried out not by Jesus, not only by Jesus' own followers,
but by His enemies who had the most to lose by their fulfillment. It shows that even the reprobate
is in the hand of God to carry out God's eternal purpose and
plan. And so they preach the cross.
All of the apostles preach the cross. You're not a preacher
if you don't preach the cross. Paul would say later in 1 Corinthians
1 verse 23, we preach Christ crucified. He would say in 1
Corinthians 2 verse 2, for we determine to know nothing among
you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They preached His
sin-bearing, wrath-absorbing, sin-pardoning, righteousness-securing
death upon the cross. Acts 4 verse 12, when Peter stood
before the Sanhedrin, Peter said, there is salvation in no other
name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be saved. They were bold as a lion. as
they preach the cross. Spurgeon said, no preacher preaches
so powerfully as when he stands at the foot of the cross and
proclaims the death of Jesus Christ, who was lifted up to
die in the place of hell-bound guilty sinners. Him who knew
no sin God made to be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him, the great exchange of the cross,
the worst about you and me, our sin, transferred to Christ, the
best about Christ, His perfect righteousness transferred to
us. It is the great exchange by the
invisible hand of God at Calvary. 1 Peter 2, 24, He bore our sins
in His body upon the tree. 1 Peter 1, verse 18, you've been
redeemed, not with corruptible things inherited from your futile
way of life, but with blood, precious blood, as of a lamb,
unblemished and spotless. We have been bought with the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what these apostles were
proclaiming and preaching, verse 32, and we preach to you. Please
note, they didn't share. They preached. They heralded. They declared. They announced. That's what preachers do. Listen,
if you're a barber and you don't cut hair, you're not a barber. If you're a taxicab driver and
you don't drive a car, you're not a taxicab driver. And if
you're a preacher but you do not preach, you're just a life
coach. You're just in the way. God has
called men to preach. And that is what He says in verse
32, and we preached to you the good news of the promise made
to the fathers, that there would be a Deliverer, that there would
be a Savior who would come from the loins of David, who would
come from the loins of Abraham, who would come into this world
on a mission of redemption and salvation. And He now gives cross-references. Great preachers show that the
whole rest of the Bible affirms and supports what I am saying
right here, that the whole Bible speaks with one voice. And so
you go to cross-references, just like the wings of an airplane
upholding the whole plane. So these cross-references going
out in every direction, upholding the truth of what is being preached. So verse 33, that God has fulfilled
this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus. I mean, there's power just even
in saying the name Jesus, which means Jehovah saves. He
was God in human flesh come to save. as it is also written in
the second Psalm, and he now quotes Psalm 2, you are my Son
today, I have begotten you. It's referring here to the resurrection,
and it's referring to the incarnation, and it is showing that the earth
metaphorically, was like a mother's womb. And when He was raised
from the dead, metaphorically, it was as though He was begotten
and came forth from the earth to be alive. Verse 34, as for
the fact that He raised Him, referring to Jesus, He, God the
Father, raised up Him, God the Son. This is a Trinitarian sermon. from the dead, no longer to return
to decay. He has spoken in this way, and
he now quotes Isaiah 55 and verse 3, I will give you the holy and
sure blessings of David. Those promised blessings that
were given to David in 2 Samuel 7, 11 through 14, in Psalm 89,
that they would come through David
from God and be realized in the greater Son of David, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Verse 36, for David, after he
had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep.
That's a euphemism for death, because believers, it's as though
our body is just laid in the grave, and when we look at the
body, it's as though we are asleep. But The Spirit, the real person,
goes immediately into the presence of God. What did Jesus say to
the thief on the cross? Today you will be with Me in
paradise. 2 Corinthians 5 says, to be absent
from the body is to be present with the Lord. So His body fell
asleep. His soul did not fall asleep. His soul was never more alive
than two seconds after He died. as he awakened in the very presence
of God. and David at the end of verse
36 was laid among his fathers and underwent decay. This shows
that Psalm 16 was not talking about David. Ultimately, because
David's body is still in the grave, and it is decayed down
to only the bones remain. No, Psalm 16, which speaks of
one who will awaken in the presence of God speaks of the Lord Jesus
Christ, verse 37, but He, Christ, whom God raised, did not undergo
decay. What we see here is that Christ
is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Second, Christ was
crucified And I actually skipped quickly because I'm looking at
this clock. I just realized Christ was raised from the dead. We are saved by the cross. The
resurrection is the validation that the death of Christ was
sufficient to atone for our sins, and that God the Father has accepted
the death of Christ on our behalf as payment in full for the debt
that we have incurred for our sins. And so not only did they
preach the cross, but they preached the resurrection And that is in verse 29 and in
verse 30, and it was so certain in verse 31 that He appeared
to those who came with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. 1 Corinthians
15 tells us that He appeared to as many as 500 people at one
time. Most of those are still alive
at the time of this preaching, and it would only have taken
just one of those persons to step forward to say the whole
thing is a hoax. or for someone to produce the
body, it would have shut down Christianity in a heartbeat.
But there was no body to be presented and paraded down the streets
of Jerusalem, because the body of Christ is enthroned at the
right hand of God the Father. And the witnesses spoke veracity
and truth and were willing, certainly with the apostles, to die a martyr's
death. because they knew that Christ
had been raised from the dead. A man may live for a lie, but
he will not die for a lie. And to a man, shoulder to shoulder,
these apostolic preachers preached the resurrection, even if it
meant their own martyrdom. And verses 38 and 39, Jesus offers
forgiveness of sins. So not only was He crucified,
and not only was He raised, but He offers forgiveness of sin,
verse 38. Therefore, let it be known to
you, brethren… By the way, that's the way a preacher talks. He's
not standing up there stroking his chin and saying, well, it
seems to me. You know, I just had this thought driving to church
today. No. He says, let it be known to you
that through Him, Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Every person in the entire history
of the world needs the forgiveness of their sins. Our soul is stained
with sin. The result of our sin is the
curse of the law, which is death. The result of our sin is it places
us under the righteous judgment of God. It is a terrifying thing
to fall into the hands of the living God. We desperately need
for our sins to be forgiven, and there is only one way for
our sins to be removed from us, and that is for our sins to be
taken off of us and to be placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He
was our scapegoat, and our sins now, through the death of Christ,
are removed from us as far as the east is from the west. You
can measure the North Pole from the South Pole, but you cannot
measure the east from the west. When you turn that globe, the
east keeps going further away as the west is chasing after
it. That's how far God has removed our sins from us. He has taken
our sin and placed them behind His back. where He can see them
no more. The Bible says He has taken our
sins and buried them in the depths of the sea, never to be recovered
again. The Bible says that He can remember
our sins no more. God said through the prophet
Isaiah, come, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be white as wool. You and I must
have the forgiveness of our sins, or we will suffer eternal damnation
in the flames of hell forever. And it is Jesus Christ alone
who offers us the forgiveness of sins when we put our faith
and trust in Him. 1 John 1, 7 says, the blood of
Jesus cleanses us from all sin. This is what preachers preach,
not how to have a better life, not how to get along better with,
not how to have a better vacation, how you may have the forgiveness
of your sins before a holy God in heaven. The last thing that
I want you to see is in verse 40 and 41. This is the fifth
and final mark of Paul's preaching on the mission field. It's very
simply this, judgment is coming. Verse 40, therefore take heed,
it's a Greek word, it means look on this carefully, pay close
attention to this. Do not turn away from hearing
this. Take heed so that the things
spoken of in the prophets may not come upon you." And the imagery
here is almost being overswept with a tsunami of what God is
sending if you do not receive His forgiveness. And what is
coming is an enormous wave of wrath and vengeance and fury. We live on a planet guilty of
cosmic treason against the Creator, the holy God of heaven, and there
is coming a day when God will settle all of His accounts. And so in verse 41, he quotes
from Habakkuk 1, verse 5, "'Behold you, scoffers.'" That's what
Paul is implying that those unconverted listeners are, you are but scoffers,
and marvel, be astonished, be amazed at this, and perish under
an ocean of the outpouring of the fierce judgment of God if
you refuse His Son, and if you refuse the free offer of forgiveness
You will perish eternally forever in a real place called hell,
a place of the lake of fire and brimstone with the weeping and
the gnashing of teeth, the place where the worm does not die,
that place of outer darkness, that place where the Lamb is
present to inflict the wrath Himself upon the unbelieving. He says in verse 41, and I close,
for I, God is the Speaker, I am accomplishing a work in your
days. In other words, right now there
is an imminent looming danger that is overshadowing your life,
a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe
it to you, and what they would never believe is their desperate
need for the forgiveness of sins and the imminent coming of the
divine wrath of God upon those who die in their sins." Goodness, what a preacher Paul
was. And what preaching like this
we so desperately need today. And this threats of judgment
only causes the love of God to shine all the brighter. This
message of wrath is like the black velvet backdrop upon which
God places the diamond of His saving grace upon, and it is
the black velvet backdrop that causes the diamond to shine all
the more brightly. If all you do is preach the love
of God but never preach the wrath of God and the judgment of God,
you are not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are preaching
a… you are a pretender, and you are preaching a message that
damns. You must be saved from God. And that is what Paul is preaching,
and it is all in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is freely offered
to everyone here today. And there are still those among
us here today who have never made the decision to commit your
life to Jesus Christ. This is a step of faith that
everyone here today must take. And even as I have preached this
message, you have heard the truth about Jesus, who was sent into
this world by the Father to go to the cross, to die in the place
of sinners, to provide the only way of salvation. You have no
alternative way to escape what is coming. And God has vindicated
and validated and authenticated the death of Christ for sinners
by raising Christ from the dead. And Jesus is seated at the right
hand of God the Father, and He offers to you the forgiveness,
the pardon, the release from all of your sins. And if you
would believe in Jesus Christ this very moment, He would apply
the blood of Christ to you, and He would wash you and cleanse
you, and from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet,
and present you faultlessly before the Father in heaven. This Jesus,
who was born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, who bore
our sins on the cross, who was raised from the dead, who is
seated at the right hand of the Father, is the only Savior of
sinners. And if you have never taken this
step of faith, if you have never as an act of your will made this
decision to cross the line and to enter through the narrow gate,
I call you this moment to leave your sin behind, to leave the
world system behind, to come to Christ by faith and entrust
your soul and your life to Christ. Your spouse cannot make this
decision for you. Your friends cannot make this
decision for you. Your parents cannot make this
decision for you. Even God cannot make this decision. God, by His grace, will enable
you to do this. But you must come to the place
where you entrust, commit, surrender your life, your soul to King
Jesus. and submit to His authority and
to come under His lordship. And Jesus says, Him who comes
unto Me, I will in no wise cast out. He loves to gather in sinners
to Himself. He loves to receive them and
take them to the Father. He loves to wash away sin. He loves to bestow forgiveness
upon those who are unworthy and who are undeserving. You may say, you don't know how
great my sin is. You don't know how marred my
past is. You don't know how great is His
grace, and how great is His mercy, and how great is His love. Where
sin does abound, grace does much more abound. Just come to Christ
by the commitment of faith, and He will take you in and gather
you in. Repent of your sins. Turn to
the Savior, and He will receive you to Himself. Otherwise, you
will stand in the judgment without an advocate, and the books will
be opened, and every sin you have ever committed in the entirety
of your life, going back to your childhood, middle school, high
school, college, military service, God has kept impeccable books
and records Skeletons will come dancing out of closets on that
last day. Sins that you have long since
forgotten are permanently recorded in the books of God, and you
will face the record, so much sin, so much judgment, so much
judgment, so much damnation. And Jesus will say, depart from
Me, you who work iniquity. I never knew you. Do you understand the offer that
is being made to you right now, this very moment? And you may
never hear the gospel so clearly, plainly presented to you If you
have never committed your life to Jesus Christ, the Bible says,
behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, today is the day of salvation. I plead with you, commit your
life to Christ. You have no other hope. You have
no other way of salvation. You are perishing, and you will
perish eternally without Christ. But He has swung open the gates
of paradise this very moment, and He is ready to receive you
into His loving, gracious arms if you will but repent of your
sin and humbly come to Him by faith and say, Lord Jesus, have
mercy upon me, the sinner. He will say to you, you are forgiven. Go and sin
no more. May this be your day to enter
into the kingdom of God through the narrow gate that alone leads
to life. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, What a
joy it is to our hearts to hear the Apostle Paul preach the Word
and pour out his soul as he preaches Christ and Him crucified, raised,
offering forgiveness of sin to the worst of sinners and warning of a final judgment
on the last day. Father, may this be a day of
salvation. For so many who are here today,
we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.