We turn this morning to Galatians
chapter 1. I wish to read a few verses as
an introduction to our study for this morning and again this
evening. I'm departing from our regular
exposition in 1 Thessalonians in the morning and from Psalm
1 in the evening for several reasons. Number one, they just
had me preaching so much out in California, I was not able
to make time to do adequate preparation upon those passages, and my preaching
would be very thin on both of them, and I would rather wait
until I could handle the next section of Thessalonians and
the first psalm more adequately, and with a sense that I was true
to the mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures, And then the
second reason, and even if that first one were not so, I think
this one might direct me to this course. Having had to preach
essentially the same message in five or six different places
during the past seven or eight days of ministry out on the West
Coast, I preached myself into conviction. And I suppose that's
a good sign. And probably a bad sign that
I needed to preach the same message about six or seven times to get
myself preached into a state of conviction on the subject
with which I was dealing when I was in California. So with
that there's a little explanation, I hope not an excuse. for diverting
from our regular course of study, I now want to read a few verses
in Galatians 1, which I trust will form a biblical framework
for our study in the scripture. Galatians chapter 1, verses 6
through 10. I marvel that ye are so soon
removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some
that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be a curse. As we said before, so say I now
again If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that he
have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or
God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should
not be the servant of Christ. The subject that was assigned
to me in this conference in California was couched in the form of a
question. The question was this. Is the
contemporary gospel the biblical gospel? Is the gospel by and
large believed, preached, accepted, and even in some cases loved
in contemporary evangelical circles? Is this gospel the biblical gospel? I want to break down the message
which I brought on the West Coast in a number of places. and preach
on that subject both this morning and again the Lord willing this
evening coupling with this evening's message or preceding it with
about a 15 minute report on some wonderful things that I believe
God is doing on the west coast And I trust it will be both to
our encouragement and to our conviction as we hear what God
is doing elsewhere. But I will bypass that in the
interest of time this morning and seek to move right into the
heart of this subject, couched in this question, is the contemporary
gospel the biblical gospel? I want to preface the answer
to that question by first of all reminding you of the tremendous
importance of this subject. We're not dealing with one's
views of eschatology, the doctrine of last things, or one's views
of baptism, or one's views of church government, all of which
are important biblical truths, and nothing is non-essential
in the scriptures. It's an insult to God to say
that any truth which God has revealed is non-essential. But the scriptures reveal that
there are truths which, in terms of weight and importance, some
are relatively more important than others to the salvation
of the souls of men. And certainly there is no question
of greater importance to the soul of every man or woman, fellow
or girl in this building this morning than this. Is the gospel
which I know and believe and preach and believe and love and
share with others, is it the biblical gospel? Why did the
Apostle Paul speak in such scathing terms here in Galatians 1, 8
and 9? Why did he say that even though an angel should come from
heaven with all the glow of the throne of God upon him and declare
a different gospel from that which Paul had already preached,
why did he say that the curse of God should be upon him? Why
did he reach into the Greek vocabulary and drag out of it the strongest
term available to speak of the terrible displeasure of God upon
a man, or an angel, or even the Apostle Paul reincarnate, preaching
a different gospel. Well, for the simple reason that
a different gospel, believed and appropriated, would lead
to the damnation of the souls of men. We live in a day that
doesn't like to think that what you believe has really much importance,
just so long as you believe it sincerely. But that's no more
true than to say what you eat doesn't make much difference,
so long as you eat it, sincerely believing it'll help you. You
can eat some food with poison scattered through it, and though
you may come to the table sincerely thanking God for the food, and
sincerely praying that it will be blessed to your body, and
sincerely chew it and swallow it, believing that it's for your
good, it'll leave you stone dead nonetheless. And sincerity won't
bleed the poison of its effect. And so with any message that
comes as a gospel. It is not enough that we sincerely
believe it. It must be the saving, healing
gospel, not the poisonous, damning other gospel of which Paul speaks
in this passage. So this is a question not just
for preachers. Though it was my privilege to
have some tremendously fruitful open doors amongst preachers
last Monday. Three and a half hours preached
to a group of preachers for an hour and a half and then answered
questions for two hours. As far as I'm concerned, the
most profitable investment of the entire week. But this is
not a question just for preachers. For as you sit here today, your
only hope as an individual sinner is the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And if you have embraced something
other than that gospel, then no matter how sincerely you've
embraced it, it will poison you and slay you as much as the poisoned
meal, even though the one who partakes is sincere in his partaking. of that meal. So, this is tremendously
basic, first of all, for our own salvation. And if our motives
rise no higher than the selfish motive of saving our own skin,
we better be involved deeply with this question and seeking
to answer it from the scriptures, is the contemporary gospel the
biblical gospel? Then, it should be of deep concern
to us if we love the Church of Christ. For you see, the church
exists not only for her Lord to bring praise to him, but the
church exists for the sake of the world. God has put us here
as light and as salt, and we are to hold forth the word of
life as well as to shine as light, as we read in Philippians chapter
2. Therefore it must be of deep concern to us that that which
we hold forth is indeed and in truth the biblical gospel, that
as we pray and as more of us are involved in praying that
God will visit his church with a mighty visitation of his grace
and of his spirit, we want to know that the product we're setting
before the world is the product of truth, so that the spirit
of truth will be able to own it with power. And so this is
a very important question for us individually, for us corporately
as a church. And now, by way of introduction,
before we begin to deal with the question itself, I want to
ask and answer this very basic question. How are we going to
answer the question? We've asked the question, is the contemporary
gospel the biblical gospel? Now, how are we going to answer
it? Suppose I stood up here this morning and I said, uh, I want
to make a pronouncement to you people. Did you know that I'm
seven feet, six inches tall? That California air did such
wonders for me. And the California food was just
so scrumptious. And just standing around by those
tall palm trees and spending a day, uh, among some of the
tall redwoods and cedars and, uh, trees of that nature, why
it just had some kind of a magical effect. And I've grown to the
stupendous height of seven feet, six inches. And you look at me
and say, Pastor, now I realize there's been some time change
involved, and you've been weary and tired, and I don't want to
appear impudent, but you're not 7 feet 6 inches tall. And I say,
well look, I don't want to appear popish and pompous, but I am
7 feet 6 inches tall. And you say, Pastor, I know you're
not 7 feet 6 inches tall. And I say, but I know I am. And
so you begin to get a little red in the face, you know, like
a husband and argue a wife who aren't arguing, they're just
discussing, you know, when they say, but dear, I know. And she
says, but darling, I know. So we would have just a little
discussion. We wouldn't argue, but just discuss together whether
or not I was seven feet six inches tall. Well, then all of a sudden,
one of these young people here who's very brilliant and enterprising
and likes to be a peacemaker suddenly says, squeaks out his
or her little voice and says, I know how to solve the argument.
And so they run out into their daddy's car and they pull out
a little folding rule and they go over to the wall and with
a crayon that they pulled out of the nursery, they open up
this little rule that opens to three feet and they hold it up
and they put a little mark, and then they put the rule on that
mark, and up to six feet, and they call somebody who's tall
enough to make another mark, and then they say, now put it
up another, let's see, 18 inches, and put another mark. So, right
at 7 feet 6 inches high, they draw a line with a yellow crayon
on the wall, and they say, now pastor, you go over and stand
beneath the line, and we'll see if you're 7 feet 6 inches tall.
So I go over and I back against the wall, take a deep breath
and stretch up as high as I can, and lo and behold, you're right
and I'm wrong. I come out 18 inches shy of 76
inches tall. Now, suppose I were able to go
down into the streets of Newark and get 10,000 people who, by
some power of hypnosis, I could convince that I was really 76
inches tall. And after standing against that line and seeing
a gaping gap there between the top of my head and the line of
about 18 inches, I could convince these people that I was 7 feet
6 inches tall, and they all began to chant in unison, He is 7 feet
6 inches tall! He is 7 feet 6 inches tall! He is 7 feet 6 inches tall! Would
it change the fact that I've come 18 inches short? Suppose
I could get LBJ and all his cabinet convinced that I was 76 inches
tall. Men of tremendous weight and
importance in our national life. And I could have them all come
with somber, serious faces and sit in a council like they would
a security council meeting at the UN. And they all deliberate
and then they utter their declaration that I'm 76 inches tall. Why,
every one of you youngsters here has enough sense to know, when
Churchill is full of influence and the rest who are to behead
comes 18 inches. Added to that opinion, standard
of an inflexible rule, 7 feet 6 inches from the wall, I come
short. Now why have I taken that time
to use a rather grotesque and silly illustration? Well, that
what we would never do on a very unimportant creature is seven
feet six inches tall. We are tempted to do again and
again with the soul's well-being, namely issues of God's truth
and our relationship to that truth. How are we going to tell
if the contemporary gospel preached in evangelical circles today
is the biblical gospel? Well, some would say, let's get
all evangelicals together, and if they say it is, the fact that
they chant loud enough, the contemporary gospel, the biblical gospel,
the contemporary gospel is the biblical gospel. Does that make
the biblical gospel? The fact that we can get Dr.
So-and-so and Mr. So-and-so and Reverend So-and-so
and amass the great important leaders of Evangelical Christendom
and have them utter their proclamation. It must be. No, no. There's a
line on the wall by which we can tell. And once we look at
that line and lay the gospel up alongside that line, we can
afford to stick our fingers in our ears to every other voice. For the scripture says in Isaiah
8 in verse 20, to the law and to the testimony, if they speak
not according to this word, it is because there is no light
in them. There may be many doctors' degrees
upon them. There may be much influence surrounding
them. But, O dear men and women and
visitors and friends among us this morning, God says there
is but one ruler by which we put the mark on the wall and
to which we bring anything that professes to be the gospel of
Christ, and that rule is the rule of the Word of the living
God. The Holy Scripture And whatever
does not match the rule of Scripture, the Apostle Paul said is to be
utterly rejected, even though an angel, bright with the glow
of the throne of God, stands amongst us. We are to reject
his message if it doesn't measure up to the line on the wall. So much then for the importance
of the question, is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel? So
much for the matter of how we're going to answer it. Now let's
move into the heart of the question by asking four or five little
questions. And I think this morning we'll
probably only get to the first two. Question number one. Is the contemporary gospel, the
biblical gospel, is it fails to build on a sound doctrine
of God? Is the contemporary gospel preached
and believed in most evangelical circles today? Is it the biblical
gospel if it fails to build on a sound doctrine of God? In order
to help you to answer that question, I want to refer you to several
portions of scripture in the book of the Acts of the Apostle.
Certainly, whatever you might think about the evangelistic
message and methods, of anyone else, you have a high opinion
of the message and methods of the apostles. For the apostles
are the peculiarly commissioned representatives of the Lord Jesus.
Ephesians 2.20 says the very church is built upon the foundation
of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief
cornerstone. Now as you trace out the evangelistic
methods of the Apostles, in particular the Apostle Paul, or from Acts
13 onward, you have the record of his missionary journeys, you
will notice that whenever Paul came into a given town, in most
cases he would immediately go into the synagogue. Will you
notice in Acts 13, this is a specimen example, but you'll find this
in many other places, Acts 13 Shortly after Paul and Barnabas
are set apart by the Spirit through the common consent of the church
at Antioch, they are sent forth by the Holy Ghost, verse 4, and
depart into Seleucia, and from thence they sail to Cyprus. And
when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God, where?
In the synagogue of the Jews. Where did they preach it? In
the synagogue of the Jews. Verse 14, When they departed
from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the
synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down. And after reading
of the law of the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue said
to them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation
for the people, say on. Then Paul stood up and, beckoning
with his hands, said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God,
give audience. The God of this people of Israel
chose our fathers, exalted the people, and then he goes down
through and gives something of the history of Israel, culminating
his message with the message of the person and work of Jesus
Christ, as the only savior of sinners. Now, what you find in
Acts 13, you'll find in Acts 14, and in the other passages,
that Paul's evangelism, when he went into a town where a synagogue
existed, was directed to that synagogue, was based upon an
opening up of the Scriptures to prove that Jesus was the Christ,
that He was the long-promised Jewish Messiah. Now, When Paul
would go into a synagogue and begin to preach, what could he
assume? Well, he could assume that there
was a structure of certain tremendously basic and vital truth. He could
assume, first of all, that these people in the synagogue who were
either Jews, who had been scattered abroad during the dispersion
of the Jews and gathered in these different synagogues in Gentile
nations, or they were proselytes, people who had come out of the
Gentile heathenism and had identified themselves with Judaism. Therefore,
he could assume that they had, number one, a basic understanding
of the God of the Bible. They may not have had a spiritual
apprehension of that God, a spiritual love for that God. Many of them
did. But whether they did or did not,
they subscribe to the truth of the God of the Old Testament
Scriptures who is set before us, first of all, as the God
of creation. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. They understood that God stood
above them as creator, and they beneath him as creature. They
understood the doctrine of the fall. They may not have had an
inward personal revelation of their own wretchedness. Paul
was a classic example of this. As a Pharisee, he was self-deceived. But of the truth of Scripture,
that mankind was a fallen race of people, this they knew. He
could assume that they believed the doctrine of revelation, that
God can communicate to man. That's why they met in the synagogues,
not primarily for sacrifice or worship as they did at the temple,
but, as we found in that passage, for the reading and explanation
of Scripture. Someone would read the scriptures.
Someone would then explain the scriptures. These people were
steeped in the concept of the doctrine of creation, the doctrine
of revelation. They knew that God was holy and
could only be approached on the basis of sacrifice. Now, I don't
want to make the case of being sure of attention. Well, this
could be assumed when Paul goes to a synagogue. Where did he
start in preaching? Did he start with Jesus? Did
he stop at Nazareth, one of the Old Testament scriptures? No.
You know where he started? Turn to Acts 14 and you'll see.
Acts 14 and verse 8. He comes to the
town of Lystra and here a man is healed by the peculiar gift
God had committed to Paul and to his companions. And because
they are polytheists, the worshippers of many gods, they figure, well,
they must have dropped down out of heaven. So they give them
the name of their gods. They call Paul Mercurius, because
he was the chief speaker, and Barnabas, Jupiter. Now, when
the apostles heard this, verse 14, they rent their clothes and
ran in among the people, crying out and saying, Sirs, why do
you do these things? We also are men of like passions
with you, and we preach unto you that God loves you and has
a wonderful plan for your life. You see, our country has been
inundated in the past three or four years with the evangelistic
pattern and program initiated by Mr. Bill Bright, the head
of the Campus Crusade for Christ, to be commended for their zeal
and the rest. But his four spiritual laws have
become almost the line on the wall by which we're to judge
evangelism in our day. And the four spiritual laws begin
with this pronouncement. You come up to the average American
pagan. They say, have you heard the
spiritual laws? Just as there are laws that operate in the
physical world, there are laws that operate in the spiritual
world. And if you say no, well, would
you like to hear them? Yes. Law number one, God loves
you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Is that where
Paul starts? By telling these pagan people
at Lystra that God loved them? Did he start with the doctrine
of the love of God? No, he didn't start there. He
started where? Here it is. You should turn from
these vanities unto the living God who made heaven and earth
and the sea and all things that are therein. He started with
the basic doctrine of what? Creation. Creation. God made. Then where did he move? Look at verse 16. Who in time
past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Two doctrines
here. Doctrine of the absolute sovereignty
of God over the world that he made. What explains the activities
and the movements of nations? God suffered them so to be. God suffered them so to be, he
not only created heaven and earth and all things therein, he controlled
everything in his world. And then you have here also the
doctrine of the forbearance of this God, though he created us,
though he coverns us. He has borne long with us in
our rebellion and in our sin. Verse 17, the doctrine of the
benevolence, the goodness of God, nevertheless he left not
himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain
from heaven, etc. You see where Paul started? He
knew that to speak of Jesus, forgiveness of sin, justification,
pardon, would be to speak religious mumbo-jumbo unless it could be
rooted in and built upon a foundation of a sound doctrine of God as
creator, as sovereign, as sustainer, as the great benefactor to his
own creation. Now in Acts 17, you have the
other example in the book of the Acts of this same principle. Paul is standing upon Mars Hill. And by the way, those commentators
who say Paul was sinning when he evangelized this way don't
understand the Bible and are speaking foolishness when they
thus speak. Paul had a purpose for doing
what he did here. He's standing with these Athenian
theological and philosophical beatniks. These were the hippies
of the first century. I wonder if they had welfare
statism there. I've often wondered how these
guys They've got enough food to eat, for it says in verse
21, for all the Athenians and strangers that were there spent
their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some
new thing. Well, how in the world do you get bread on your table
if all you do is stand around hearing some new thing and telling
some new thing? This has often bothered me. Maybe they had,
well, I won't say who, for their president to help give a dole
to everybody. But be that as it may, this crowd,
able to stand around doing nothing but hearing and telling some
new things, Paul confronts them and is going to give a declaration
of the message of God. Now, where does he start? Well,
he starts in verse 22 with a point of contact by saying, as I pass
by, beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription
to the unknown God. You've got a God here, a God
there, a God there, then you've got this inscription to the unknown
God, the unknowable God, the God that we can't, uh, we can't
set before our own minds or the minds of others clearly. He said,
alright, whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you. All right, he's going to declare
some facts about God. Now, where does he start? He
doesn't start with the love of God. He doesn't start with the
salvation of God. Where does he start? God that
made the world and all things therein. He starts with the doctrine
of creation. God made the world. Now where does he go? He goes
to the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Seeing he is Lord, he
is the despot, the mighty controller, the sovereign ruler of heaven
and of earth. God's the creator. God's the
ruler of all his creation. dwelleth not in temples made
with hands." He speaks of the immensity of God, the incomprehensibility
of God, the spirituality of God. You can't confine him to a temple
Verse 25, he's not worshipped with men's hands as though he
needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all
things. He speaks of God here as the
author and sustainer of all life. He speaks of him as the father
of the nation, as the one who sets the bounds of the nation.
He speaks of him in verse 28 as the God in him whom we live
and move and have our very being. Do you see what Paul does? He's
going to evangelize these first century pagans, and he begins
his evangelism with a sound doctrine of God. Then and only then can
he begin to build the great truths of redemption and forgiveness
and man being reconciled to God through the death of his son.
Then he concludes his message with the summons to repent in
the light of the coming day when they will stand before this God
in judgment, whose judgment will be administered through his beloved
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, is this just a matter of
playing with words, dear ones? We're in a battle, I'm convinced,
more and more, and this is a life-or-death battle. We have in our midst
this morning a missionary couple who are the proofs of this battle,
and I hope Doug and Joyce don't mind me mentioning this, just
to let you know this is a real thing. When you insist that you
do not come to modern 20th century pagans, and that's what we are
in this day. For the evolutionary hypothesis,
or the evolutionary lie, has so permeated every structure
of society, every discipline in the academic world, that though
once you could assume that the average American, on creation
and the doctrine of God all over the world, you can't assume that
anymore. If we come, Starting with, starting,
you know what we end up with? End up with those things that
are reflected in the hymn of our day. Hymnody, the songs of
any given period of the church, are perhaps one of the most clear
indications of the level of the life and worship of that church.
For what is singing? Singing is the reflex action
of your concept of God and the truth. That's what singing is. And what is the mark of the modern-day
hymnody? What's the mark of the modern
songs that are the big hits in our evangelical circles, that
are the oft-played favorites over WFME? What are they? Songs that leave you with something
of the consciousness of the breathless wonder who is God? No. Songs that have the tawdry, sensuous
note of a nightclub, sprinkled with a little flavor of deep. We don't find songs like that
tremendous hymn of Binnie. Eternal light, eternal light,
how pure that soul must be, which placed within life's burning
light, shrinks not but with calm delight, can live and look on
thee. The spirits that surround thy
throne may bear that burning bliss, but surely that is theirs
alone. For they have never, never known
a fallen world like this. How shall I, whose native sphere
is dark, whose mind is dim, before the ineffable appear, and on
my naked sphere bear the uncreated being? See the problem? How can
I come before a holy God? And the answer there is a way
for man to rise to that sublime abode, an offering in the sacrifice
of Holy Spirit's energies, an advocate with God. These, these
prepare us for the sight of holiness above. The sons of ignorance
and night may dwell with the eternal light through the eternal
love. You see what we've done in our
day? Instead of setting God before men in all the glory and power
and majesty of His sovereign being, until man sees himself
undone, crushed before the weight of divine holiness and sovereignty,
and then setting the Lord Jesus in all the glory of his person
and the perfection of his work as the one who can bridge that
terrible chasm so that men draw nigh with breathless wonder at
the revelation of grace. What have we done? We've dragged
God down to where man can cuddle up to him, dripping with his
sin and leaking with his pollution and feel at home with the deity. So we have our cute little songs
about we have a wonderful guest in our house who makes our home
a heaven every day. And if someday you should decide,
just let him in and he'll abide, this wonderful friend in my house. Now you see dear ones, the root
of this is that the gospel that these people have embraced was
not built upon a sound. Just that foundation. When Paul
said in Acts 20, 21, a verse that we'll be looking at in more
detail tonight, but I want to look at it for a moment with
you this morning in this connection. When he said in Acts 20 in verse
21, perhaps we ought, first of all,
look at verse 24 so that 21 can be set in a larger context. But
none of these things move me. Neither count I my life dear
unto myself, that I might finish my course with joy. And the ministry
which I have received of the Lord Jesus now notice. to testify
the gospel of the grace of God. Paul said, my testimony was of
the gospel of the grace of God. Now, how did he testify the gospel
of grace? Well, he tells us in verse 21.
Testifying, same word, both to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let me
ask you something. If repentance is a change of
mind with regard to God, His laws, His government, His claims,
His glory, His rights over me, how can you preach a change of
mind to God, His government, His laws, His glory, the purpose
for which He made me? unless you have first of all
spoken of God as the God of glory, the God of creation, the God
of law, the God who is worthy of my life and my devotion and
my love and my service. You can't preach repentance toward
God unless you first of all teach something about the God with
whom you're, with reference to whom you are to repent. So Paul
says, when I testify the gospel of the grace of God, I do so
in such a way that men realize that God himself is the end and
goal and central glory of the gospel. We begin with them and
we end with them. The gospel of scripture begins
with God and ends in God. For Him and unto Him are all
to Him. We've been talking for eleven
years about the plan of salvation. To Romans 11, He's been unfolding
the plan of salvation and when He's done, He says the whole
God of it all is this. Of Him. Through Him. Unto Him. are all things to whom be glory
forever and forever. So I submit that our hymnody
in our day is an indication that we've not been laying a proper
foundation in the sound doctrine of God in our evangelism. In the second place, I would
say that the climate of our worship indicate that we've not been
building a solid foundation of the doctrine of God. Our evangelism
is not producing worshipers. It's producing little activists
who work and run around like busy beavers doing lots of work
for Jesus. But it's not producing worshipers.
It's not producing people who know what it is to be enraptured
with the thought of the glory and the majesty Such hymns as we sang this morning
are out of place in many, many churches. Why? Because they don't
say anything about what we get from God. My God, how wonderful
thou art! Thy majesty, how bright, how
glorious is thy mercy seat in depths of burning light! Yeah,
but what do I get? Well, just be quiet for a while
and forget what you get. You were made to worship God.
You were made to know God. You were made to be lost in God! Put your hand down from its gimme-gimme
grasping position, put your face in the dirt and on the dust,
and do what you were made to do, worship this great, this
mighty, this glorious God. So I ask the question this morning,
is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel? If it fails
to build on a sound doctrine of God, I asked you that question,
and then I directed you to the lion on the wall, the Word of
God, the evangelism of the Apostle Paul, who, when he could not
assume what he could assume in the synagogue context, did not
begin, essentially, with those central doctrines of the gospel,
the cross, the person of Christ, salvation in his name, But he
began with what I like to call the supporting doctrines of the
gospel, the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of the sovereignty
of God, the doctrine of the majesty of God, the doctrine of man's
utter dependence upon God. Oh, you say, oh, this is just
a bunch of theory. No, it isn't. And I'm not even going to try
to get to the next point because the clock is beating me, and
I'll just amplify this a little bit more than I'd planned. You
kids in high school, you want to be a witness to your friends?
You know where you've got to start? You've got to start right
where Paul started at Lyster and at Athens. But the average
buddy of yours, girlfriend in high school, doesn't have a clue
about the fact that God, the sovereign, eternal God of the
Scripture, created the heaven and the earth. They've been brainwashed
into the theory of the Big Bang. It just happened. Boom, there
it was. What about them? They just happened.
Back billions of years ago. The little wiggle of the little
amoeba in the little pool of wine. Boom. Just happened. Here they are. Here they are. They don't have any biblical
concept of God as creator. That's why they have no sense
of identity or morality. The whole substructure of any
concept of purpose in life is rooted in this. I've been made
by God with a purpose framed by God. The whole basis of morality
is the God who made me has told me what to do and what not to
do. I better get with it and find
out what he said. You people seeking to witness
to your friends at work, neighbors. Most of them don't have a clue
as to the biblical doctrine of God. The ignorance of scripture
in our generation is absolutely appalling. The tests that are
taken of kids coming into Christian colleges. Now, if ever you find
some knowledge of the Bible, it would be from kids who apply
to Christian colleges, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you think so? They
come many a lot of Christian homes and Christian churches,
but the inmates, most of them can't even write out 67 books
of the Bible. Can they? They don't know what creation
is taught. Absolute ignorance. Scripturism. We've reiterated
so astute in the new morality of the most basic truths of Holy
Scripture. So you've got to start with, for God's sake, Genesis
1-1. You are created in the beginning. who are beginning to perhaps
think for the first time about such matters as Christian education.
This better be a part of your thinking. How in God's name can
a Sunday school teacher in a half an hour a week and a preacher
in an hour a week seek to build biblical concepts of sin and
guilt, of the need of regeneration and redemption, when that child's
mind has been marinated five and six hours a day, Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. With a whole philosophy that
says, you're not basically evil, there are problems in the structures
of society and environmental conditions that make you what
you are. So thumb your nose at your environment
and kick your environment. But don't you ever feel guilty.
Not one word in the report on the last summer riots that laid
any blame at the feet of the rioters. Not one word! The whole
problem according to these brilliant men! politicians, sociologists. All the problems were explained
in terms of the environmental conditions. Not one word saying
that the man that went in with wicked hands and broke a window
and took a TV set was a criminal in the sight of God and of society. Not a word to condemn him. Why?
He was brainwashed. All of these great men been brainwashed
with the non-biblical teaching that your environment makes you
what you are and they don't know the simplest facts of scripture
that the heart is the thing out of which the issues of life come.
They don't know it! Don't know it! So how can they
feel guilt? You parents praying that your
children will come under Holy Ghost conviction? They'll never
get it under that kind of climate. And if a little arrow of conviction
begins to pierce the hide of their hearts on Sunday, it's
very gently and yet sweetly pulled out Monday through Friday. How can they feel any sense of
the binding nature of the moral law of God? They're taught from
week to week there are no absolute moral standards. The little phrase
that occurs again and again are the existing standards of society. So as the standards get lower
and lower, what's right and what's wrong changes. It's flux, a state
of flux all the time. How can they be brought to the
place where their consciences are honed to a razor-sharp sensitivity
of right and wrong as long as they're brainwashed by this philosophy? What's the root of it? It is
basic as the doctrine of God, our Creator. God, our Governor. God, the Sovereign Lord of men
and of history. And I submit that an evangelism
and a gospel that fails to build on that sound, basic doctrine
of God cannot be the biblical gospel. I had hoped to get on
to the second question. How I ever got through all five
in one night in California, I'll never know. It did take me an
hour and 45 minutes one night, but I didn't think I should try
that on old friends. On strangers, I got away with
it. Seriously, I hope, I hope this
is communicated this morning. For you see, dear ones, if your
response to the gospel has simply been in the context of all this
sentimental ooze about Jesus and forgiveness and the rest,
and you've never been gripped with those basic factors of the
character and nature of God, then maybe you've been eaten
poison. I say to those of us who love
the work of Christ and the work of His kingdom in this generation,
If we as a church are to stand together intelligently to establish
truth in the earth in our generation, this is the battle that's on
our hands. We're going to have to buck the whole tide of quick,
cheap jack evangelism and dare to claw on, starting with the
most elementary issues, and declare to our generation, in the beginning,
God created. And because God made us, he stands
over us as our sovereign, our sustainer, our lawgiver. And in that context, maybe we'll
begin to see some men and some women begin to be smitten with
a sense of the enormity of sin. For what a terrible thing for
the puny little creature to lift up his fist to the mighty creature. Maybe then we'll begin to see
some conviction. some brokenness, some true heartrending
before this great God. Well, let me just tell you the
questions I'm going to ask tonight to hope to come back. Is the
contemporary gospel the typical gospel if it fails to make the
proper use of God's holy law? If it fails to declare to men
how bad they really are? If it fails sound a clear note
of repentance if it fails to insist on the necessity of holiness
and obedience as the fruits of faith. These are some of the
questions that I hope to ask and answer tonight in our study. I trust you'll come, and I trust
you'll come prayerfully, that you might not go out and listen
for the chant of the multitude or for the voice of the authorities
But if you look at the yellow line on the wall, that's the
only thing that matters, that yellow line on the wall, to the
law and to the death.