Keep your Bibles open. There's
the book of Romans chapter 3. I've titled the message this
morning. What advantage is there in preaching? What advantage
is there in us meeting together here week after week and doing
what we do in preaching the gospel? What advantage is there in that?
Now chapter two, the book of Romans, Paul showed us there's
no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. We're all sinners,
whether we're related to Abraham through Isaac or not, we're all
sinners because we're all related to Adam. That's where we got
our sin nature from. And we're nothing but flesh. And nothing about the flesh,
nothing that we have done or haven't done in the flesh, nothing
about who we're related to in the flesh, can make us less sinful. No matter who we are, no matter
what we've done, we are nothing but sin. That's total depravity. That's what we Calvinist Tulip
people, we believe and preach, total depravity. We're sinful
through and through, nothing but sin. Now the Jews, Paul is
talking about Jews and Gentiles here, but this goes further than
just Jews and Gentiles, who's related to Abraham through Isaac,
who's not. The Jews represent religious people. The Gentiles,
they represent the heathen, who don't have any religion at all,
or if they do have religion, it's false religion. And this
is what Paul's been teaching us, being a religious person.
who observes religious ceremonies, who comes to religious services.
That does not make a person less sinful or more righteous. It
doesn't make them better than anybody else. And being a heathen,
who doesn't have any religion at all, or a person who's just
steeped in false religion and idolatry, that doesn't make a
person more sinful or more unrighteous. Now, I want to be sure that I
apply this to us here. week after week, coming to these
services where the true gospel of God's grace in Christ Jesus
is preached. Coming here where the truth is
preached, not false doctrine, but where the truth is preached,
the truth of God's scripture. By God's grace, I can say that's
true of this place. But coming here, being a part
of this congregation, giving some mental agreement and a sense
that this is the gospel, this is where I'll be, this is where
I'm gonna throw my support behind. That doesn't make us less sinful
as people that go listen to a false prophet, or people have no religion
at all, take Sunday morning to sleep in. Coming to hear the
gospel, just the fact of physically coming to hear it, that does
not make us more righteous. But somebody that doesn't have
any religion whatsoever, because this is the point I'm trying
to make, nothing that we do in the flesh can make us more righteous,
can contribute to our righteousness. Absolutely nothing, nothing. Now, Paul anticipates an objection
that the Jew would make to this truth. The Jew says, then what
good does it do me to be a Jew and observe these ceremonies
that God's commanded me to observe? God's given us the law, what
good does it do me to be a Jew and try to keep that law? Just
like someone here may say, well now wait a minute, If you're
saying it doesn't make me more righteous or more acceptable
with God, what good does it do me to come here three times a
week and hear the gospel preached? If making such a sacrifice of,
you know, getting up early on Sunday morning and making a sacrifice
to work all day and struggle to get here on a Wednesday night
when I'm, you know, just whooped. What good does it do me to learn
all these, when I'm a child, to learn all these memory verses
and to learn these truths that are being taught me if it won't
make God more happy with me? What good does that do? Wouldn't
I be better off just being like a heathen then? You know, it
sounds to me like I have more fun in the flesh if I just do
that. Like Brother Henry said, if I just go live like hell.
Now Paul tells us, now wait a minute, wait a minute. There's a huge
advantage to this. And I hope all of us understand
that, but especially our young people. I want you to understand
this. There is a huge advantage to hearing the gospel of God's
grace preached and being taught these truths. Look what Paul
says here in verse 1 of chapter 3. See, this is the objection
he knew somebody would make. What advantage then hath the
Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? You know, somebody's
going to ask, well, you know, why did I bother observing these
ceremonies? Why did I bother being circumcised,
you know, the eighth day? Just like somebody here might
say, You know, why bother coming? Why bother coming here if it's
not gonna make God happy with me, you know? Wouldn't I just
be better off? And Paul said, no, no, no, no,
there's a huge advantage. Verse two, much, what advantage
is there? Much, every way, chiefly because
unto them, because that unto them were committed the oracles
of God. Now that word oracles means the
utterance of God. It means the words that God spoke. It means your Bible that you're
holding in your lap. The Holy Scriptures. This book, it's just that big. This book
contains absolutely everything that Almighty God has to say
to sinners. Everything. This book contains
everything that we need to know in order to be saved, in order
to know Christ and trust Him. For many, many, many years, from
the time of Moses to the time our Lord came, the Jews had that
advantage. They had the scriptures and the
Gentiles didn't. The Jews had the prophets. The
Gentiles didn't. The Jews had the tabernacle and
the priesthood. The Gentiles didn't have that.
They had many advantages. And the chief one was they had
the word of God. Now we know from reading scripture
that many of them did not believe it, but they did have it. They did have it. And that's
a huge advantage. See, all the Gentiles had was
the light of nature. I mean, anybody can just look
at creation and know something about the majesty of God, can't
they? The wisdom of God in creation. You just can't help but see this
is the majesty and wisdom of God just by looking at nature.
But when you look at nature, you can't see how God can save
a sinner. You can't see how can God be
just and justifier. You can't see that by looking
at nature. You only find that in the word of God. And the Jews
had that. And the Gentiles did not. And
that was a huge advantage. But you know, we have a bigger
advantage. I mean, let's not kind of be
hard on the Jews while they had the word of God. Most of them
didn't believe. Do you know us here? Hurricane Road Grace Church. This little group of folks has
a bigger advantage than the Jews in the Old Testament ever did
have. See, all they had was the law
that they could not obey. We have the gospel, the gospel
of salvation in Christ without our works of the law. All the
Jews had were the ceremonies. They had these ceremonies that
they went through and most of them never realized how that's
a picture of Christ. They circumcised those baby boys
the eighth day. They didn't know that was a picture
of the new birth. Circumcision of the heart. They went through
the Passover, you know, feast every year. They had no idea
that this is in the blood of Christ. God can justly pass over
and not destroy his people because the blood paid for their sin.
They went through that ceremony on the Day of Atonement where
they killed goats and bullocks and rams and they had the scapegoat. They went through all these ceremonies.
They had no idea that the blood of bulls and goats could never
take away sins. This is just a reminder. This is just a reminder
that we're still sinners, that we need the sacrifice, which
is to come. All they had was the picture.
It was a shadow and they couldn't see. They didn't know how this
is a picture of Christ. But today we do. We don't just
have to have the picture. We have the real thing. Because
Christ has come and He's fulfilled the picture of all those types. He's shown light on all those
shadows. So now we see it's Christ. Now I see what this is pointing
to. It's Christ who saves His people. And the only way we can
know that, the only way you can find that out, is by the preaching
of God's word. You're not going to find it out
by sitting looking at nature. Last summer, Jan and I took a
trip out west and we just stopped everywhere and gawked at the
beauty of God's creation. You can gawk at that all you
want and still not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The only way you're going to find this out is if somebody
dares preach the gospel to you, takes the word of God and says,
this is how this points to Christ. This is how this reveals Christ.
Now you trust him. See, it's pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching, but save them that believe. Preaching. If you're going to hear from
God, you're going to find out how it is that God saves sinners.
You're going to have to hear it from the lips of a flawed,
sinful man. Now that man trusts Christ. That
man loves him. He's going to his best God unable
to be faithful to Christ, but he's a flawed, sinful man. But
if he's God's man, he's going to point you to Christ. It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now,
in type and picture, the gospel was preached to those Old Testament
Jews, wasn't it? In type and picture, the writer of the Hebrews
said, chapter 4, verse 2, as well as unto them. The gospel
was preached to them, but it was in type and picture and shadow. They did not see Christ as clearly
as we do, because Christ has come and finished the work. Our
Lord said, Abraham saw my day and was glad, but we have a more
clear revelation of Christ than even Abraham did, because now
Christ has finished the work. So having the gospel preached
to us, that's a big advantage. Oh, it's a big advantage. And
I would so strongly encourage you to listen to it, to pray
that God will enable you to listen, that He'll give you an ear to
hear, that He'll give you a heart to believe it. Pray that God
will enable you to hear. He'll apply the word to your
heart, because you have an advantage at hearing the gospel preached
that most people don't have. Well, what are some of the things
that are preached in this book? What are, what do the oracles
of God tell us about salvation in Christ? I looked up the word
preach or preaching in the scripture. So I want to give you five things
that are preached to us from the oracles of God. And you've
all, you've heard them all already, but let's look at them again.
First look in the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter one. Here's
the first thing that the oracles of God preach. It's the uselessness
of our religious works. Ecclesiastes 1 verse 1, the words
of the preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. I love how
Solomon did not call himself King Solomon. He called himself
a preacher, a preacher. And he's telling us the words
of the preacher, the preacher, the Lord Jesus Christ. He called
himself a preacher because that's more noble and more worthwhile
than being a king. And here's what Solomon preached.
Look at verse two. Here's how he began his ministry. Vanity of vanities, saith the
preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What prophet hath a man of all
his labor, which he taketh under the sun? Now look over to chapter
12 of Ecclesiastes. That's how Solomon began his
ministry. Let's see how he ended it. Chapter
12, verse eight. Vanity of vanities, saith the
preacher, all is vanity. Solomon began and ended his ministry
preaching that all of our religious works are vanity. And that word
vanity, it comes from the root word meaning empty. That's all
of our works. All of our religious works are
empty. They're empty of goodness. They're
empty of righteousness. They're empty of anything that
would commend us to God. And it's a vapor of breath, just
a vapor of breath. Like on a cold winter morning,
you breathe out and you see your breath and then it's gone. It
just lasts a very short time. Nothing we do is lasting or eternal. And that's the message of this
whole book. This whole book tells us that
you and me, we are nothing but sin. Nothing. Everything we do,
think, say and are is sin. So all of our religious works,
they're filled with sin. There's nothing that we can do
to earn our righteousness and make God happy with us. There's
nothing we can do that can earn our way into heaven because all
of our works are vanity. They're useless. If you're doing
works, trying to earn a righteousness before God, trying to earn a
blessing from God, trying to earn your way through the pearly
gates, you're doing useless works. Useless. Listen to what Isaiah
said, Isaiah 64 verse six. But we are all as an unclean
thing. and our righteousnesses. The best things we've done to
commend us to God are filthy rags. Rags polluted with sin,
and we all do fade as the leaf. Right now, trees are budding. Trees are even blooming, you
know, and our neighbor's got some beautiful purple trees over
there. Janet just loves to look out
the window and see them trees. You know, they're just, oh, the
bloom of spring. Like that, that tree's gonna
look dead, all the leaves are gonna fall off, it's gonna be
winter. I mean, we're gonna turn around and like that, it's winter
again. That's our works of righteousness. They're empty of anything good
and they ain't gonna last very long. Here's how God describes
man. It's true in Noah's day, still
true today. This is the description of the
nature of man, Genesis 6 verse 5. God said that the wickedness
of man is great in the earth and that every imagination of
the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually. Everything
we think is evil. These things we think we can
do to make God happy with us is evil. It's as evil as the
worst criminal in the penitentiary. More evil, more evil. Look back
a few pages at Ecclesiastes chapter seven. You're the man after God's
own heart, David. God said, this is a man after
my own heart. Do you know what he said about himself? I was shaped in
iniquity, conceived in sin. That's what he had to say about
himself. Ecclesiastes 7, verse 20. There is not a just man upon
the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Not one. Not one. Hold your place there,
Ecclesiastes. Don't turn to this because we've
already read it, but let me read it again. This is something that
David wrote and Paul repeated in Romans chapter 3, verse 10.
As it's written, there's none righteous. Well, now, you know
me, I attend a good church, a Calvinistic church. I hear the gospel. No,
not one. No, not one. There's none that
understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way.
They are together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Not one. If we're gonna be saved,
somebody else is gonna have to do it for us, aren't they? Because
we don't have a work that can do it. Now I'm telling you, the
only place that you will hear how sinful you are is when this
word is preached. You go hear some false prophet
preach, he's going to puff you up like a balloon. He's going
to fill you full of all this stuff that you can do and tell
you how good you are. That's a lie. That's a lie. The only place you'll hear how
sinful you are is from a servant of God that don't care to offend
you. Because what I'm saying about you is true about me. I
know it's true about you because it's true about me. And that's
good. Oh, if you can find a man that
will tell you from God's word how sinful and wretched and vile
you are, what an advantage that is. Because the only time you'll
ever find out you have no hope of salvation is if somebody tells
you how useless your works are. And if the Lord will show you
that, if the Lord will show you that, now a preacher's gonna
preach it, but if the Lord will show you that in your heart, you know
what you'll do? You'll fall at the feet of Christ and beg Him
for mercy, and that's where salvation's found. Oh, it's an advantage
to hear how useless our works are in it. Otherwise, we would
think we've got some hope in something that we do. Vanity
of vanities Solomon said all is vanity. Everything's empty
and useless. So, you know what Solomon did?
He pointed people to Christ look there in chapter 12 again Ecclesiastes
verse 80 said vanity of vanity saved the preacher all is vanity
Everything that we do is useless of anything good or righteous.
So moreover because the preacher was wise He still taught the
people knowledge. Yeah, they're full of vanity,
but he still taught the people knowledge. Yeah, he gave good
heed and sought out and set in order many proverbs. The preacher
sought to find out acceptable words and that which was written
was upright. even words of truth. And here's
why even though we're full of vanity, he kept preaching these
words of truth. Because the words of the wise
are his goads and his nails fastened by the masters of assembly, which
are given from one shepherd. He kept preaching Christ, hoping
that he'd use those goads to keep that rebel on this path,
going to Christ. He kept preaching those truths,
hoping to just nail it down, just nail it down with one scripture,
just nail it down, to nail them to Christ, to fasten them to
Christ. Because if the Lord will make it so, they'll have eternal
life. And we need Him to do the work
for us because of the usefulness of our religious works. All right,
number two, look at the book of Luke, chapter four. And here's
what this priest, from this word, here's what the preacher preached.
The full recovery of lost souls in the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke
chapter four, verse 16. And he came to Nazareth, where
he had been brought up, and as his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read.
And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah,
And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was
written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach, to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to
heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord,
And he closed the book and he gave it again to the minister
and sat down. And the eyes of all them that
were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto
them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Now this
ought to tell you how important preaching is. The Savior, the
Lord of glory came to earth preaching, preaching. And this is his first
public, or first recorded public message. And in this message,
this is what the Savior preaches. The full and free recovery of
lost souls. When the Lord talks about the
acceptable year of the Lord, you know what he's talking about?
He's talking about the year of Jubilee. Every 50 years, they
had the year of Jubilee. Three things happened in the
year of Jubilee, every 50 years. In the year of Jubilee, every
slave was set free, every debt was canceled, and all lost lands
were returned to their original owners. Now here's what would
happen during these 50 years leading up to the year of Jubilee.
Maybe your farm fell on hard times and you had debts stacked
up so high that you couldn't pay them and the bank is just
right at the door. The wolf's right at the door
getting ready to foreclose and the year of Jubilee comes around.
All those debts are canceled. And you suddenly, immediately
become debt free, even though you never paid a penny of your
debt. You became debt free because the year of Jubilee. God said
the debt was cancelled, so it was cancelled. That's freedom,
isn't it? Maybe the year of Jubilee didn't
roll around before your farm got closed on. This is your family
farm. Your family's been farming this land since God gave the
Canaan to the Israelites, maybe three, four, 500 years. Your
family's been farming this land, and it's come down to you, and
now you're the one who lost it. You lost your family farm to
debts. You had a year of drought and
bugs and things that ate up all your crops. and the bank foreclosed
on your farm because you couldn't pay the debt. But when the year
of Jubilee rolled around, you got your family farm back. All
that family land was returned to the family. Everything that
they lost was returned to them. And then suppose in those 50
years, your farm got foreclosed on. You had these debts that
you couldn't pay, but foreclosing on the farm didn't pay the debt.
So you sold yourself into slavery till the debt was paid. But when
the year of Jubilee rolled around, you were set free. That slave
was set free whether the debt was paid or not. You're free
because God said you go free. That's free, isn't it? Well,
this is what the Savior, he said, this day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. The year of Jubilee is fulfilled
in your ears. That's what Christ came preaching.
This is what he came to do for his people spiritually. You and
I have a debt, a sin debt against God that we can't pay. So God
paid it for us. Christ came and paid the debt
of his people with his own precious blood. Salvation in Christ is
a whole lot better than the year of Jubilee. Now, if you had a
debt you couldn't pay, and suddenly your debt was canceled, because
it was the year of Jubilee, wouldn't you be happy? I mean, whew, what
a relief. But in the back of your mind,
every time you see that person you owe that debt to, you're
thinking, I didn't pay that debt. I mean, it would kind of bother
you, wouldn't it? I didn't pay that debt. He'd be looking at
you like, you didn't pay that debt. The only reason I'm not foreclosing
on you is the year of Jubilee. Redemption in Christ is so much
better than that because in Christ, the debt's not just canceled.
It's not just swept under the rug. It's paid. It's paid by
the blood of Christ because he loved his people. He loved them
so much. He'd suffer and die for them
to pay their debt. This day is a scripture fulfilled
in your ears. Then 6,000 years ago, long before
any of us were ever around, Adam sinned. Our father Adam sinned
and we sinned in him. And when Adam sinned, we lost
everything. We lost everything. But Christ
came and he restored everything we lost in Adam. but better. See, everything in Christ is
better. When Adam sinned, we lost an
innocence before God. When Adam sinned, we lost a righteousness
before God. We became guilty because we sinned
in Adam. We lost a righteousness before
God, but Christ came to restore that. Only better. He restored it by being made
sin for his people. and making them the righteousness
of God in him. Now, that's a whole lot better
than what we ever had in Adam, because the righteousness, the
innocent standing we had before God in Adam could be lost, couldn't
it? And it was. Righteousness in Christ can never
be lost. He restored it better. When Adam
sinned, we lost fellowship with God. Before Adam sinned, he walked
with God in the cool of the day. I mean, I can't imagine I can't,
I just can't imagine. And it's always hard for me to
imagine how did Adam ever live with, how did for 900 years,
he lived with that. I used to be able to walk with
God and now I can't. He had a, don't you reckon he
missed that so much? I mean, what a misery that had
to be to him. But Christ came and he restored
fellowship with God. Peter said in 1 Peter 3, verse
18, 18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for
the unjust, that he might bring us back to God. And he did it
by his death, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by
the Spirit. Christ gave us fellowship with
God that we can never lose, because we are accepted in the Beloved. in the Beloved. And where is
our Beloved? At the right hand of the Father. Can't be lost. Now, you don't walk with God
in a bodily form every evening, but you can come before Him in
prayer. You can come before His throne of grace to obtain mercy
any time you want. It's better, isn't it? And then
when Adam sinned, we sold ourselves into slavery. Slavery to sin. If you think you're not a slave
to sin, for the next two seconds, try not to sin. We're slaves to sin. We have
to sin. We have to do what it says because
we're slaves to sin. But Christ came and he made all
of his people to be God's free men. because Christ took the
sin of His people. He took it away from them and
took it into His own body on the tree. And on the tree, He
sacrificed Himself to put that sin away so it has no more power
over you. It doesn't have the power to
condemn you. It doesn't have the power to keep you from seeing
Christ and believing Him and coming to Him. It lost all power. That's so much better than what
Adam had, isn't it? Because he could sin and sell himself into
slavery. But if Christ made you free,
you can never be brought back, made subject to the law, made
subject to sin again. He made you free. See, Christ
recovered all of his lost people. He eternally saved them without
their help, without one bit of help from them, and he gave it
to them all freely. Now the only place you'll hear
that good news of salvation in Christ without your works is
when this word is preached. Every false prophet will give
you something to do to make that work, to make Christ's sacrifice
effectual to you. The only place you'll hear of
salvation by grace through faith in Christ without our works is
the gospel. Now you can't imagine What an
advantage that is to hear it. To hear it week after week after
week after week. And I know there's somebody here
that has heard the gospel many, many, many, many times. I mean,
you could probably hear me say the next point and you know where
I'm going with it already. Couldn't you? Some of you could.
But you don't believe. And you know you don't believe.
But you keep coming, you keep coming. What I just described
to you was Frank Tate as a teenage boy. I mean, I could just sit
there, I knew what Henry was gonna say next. But I didn't
know God, didn't know Christ, didn't trust Christ. But what
an advantage is to keep hearing the gospel. If God's gonna save
you, this is the way he's gonna do it. This is the way he's gonna,
what an advantage to be in a place where God saves his people. Alright,
here's the third thing, Acts chapter 10. This is what's preached. This
is the oracles of God. Peace with God. Acts chapter
10, verse 34. This is Peter coming preaching
to the Gentiles. He liked preaching to them Jews.
He liked them Jews. He had trouble with the Gentiles.
Now the Lord is saying, preach to this Gentile. And here's what
Peter preached to them. Acts 10, verse 34. Then Peter
opened his mouth and said of a truth, I perceive that God
is no respecter of persons. There is nothing about our flesh
God's gonna respect. Who we are related to, who we're
not related to, what we've done, what we haven't done brings no
respect from God. God is no respecter of persons. Jew or Gentile, but in every
nation, he that feareth him, I don't care who he is, what
background it is, in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh
righteousness is accepted with him. The word which God sent
unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ,
he is Lord of all. Peter says, I'm coming to you. This is the Oracle's God preaching
peace by Jesus Christ. And you know it. You know it. You know, because you've heard
it preached. Verse 37, that word I say, you know, which was published. How was it published? By preaching
throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism
with John preached. Peter said, this is the oracles
of God. This is the way I'm preaching to you. Peace by Jesus Christ. Now I'm telling you, every single
son of Adam struggles with this. How can I have peace with God?
I mean, we want peace. I mean, people just are so starved,
so desperate for peace. I mean, there's just a, I mean,
there's a whole conglomerate of things trying to do something
to mask the symptoms and make you think you have peace. But
especially peace with God. How can I have peace with God? Every human being inherently
knows this. There's a problem between me
and God. And the problem is me. The problem
is my sin. The problem is not with God.
The problem is my sin. I've got to do something to make
up for it. Everybody knows that. I'm angry. I'm angry with God because God
demands perfection that I can't produce. By nature, I'm angry
with God because He won't accept me. He won't accept the best
I can do. No matter how good I do, I still
have this problem. I don't have peace with God.
I know I haven't earned it. I'm just like the rich young
ruler. What can I do to inherit eternal life? I know I haven't
done it yet. God won't accept the best that
I can do. That makes me angry with God. That makes me want
to be separate from God. And God's angry with me every
day. I know He is because He said in His word, He's angry
with the wicked every day. And ain't nobody more wicked
than me. And that weighs so heavily on my mind, on my heart. How can I have peace with God?
I see other people have peace with God. I see and I hear people
lying on their deathbed and they're in perfect peace. They're not
panicking. How can I have peace with God? Well, the oracles of
God tell us. Peter says, we preach peace with
God through the blood of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have peace with God through the sacrifice of Christ. The
blood that Christ shed on Calvary's tree removed all of the sin that
made God angry. It took away all the sin of God's
people that made God angry. If Christ died for you, God's
not angry. Make good news, He's not angry
with you. You have peace with God because of the blood of Christ. There's nothing for God to be
angry about. And when the blood of Christ
is applied to your heart in the new birth, you're given a new
heart and you're not angry anymore either. Now you submit. Now you
surrender. I'm telling you, when two parties
are at war and somebody surrenders, there's peace. God gives his
people a heart. When he applies his blood to
our hearts, we are given a new heart and we surrender. We surrender
to God and there's peace. Now it is such an advantage to
be in a place you can hear how it is you can have peace for
your soul. How you can have peace in your
heart because you have peace with God. Then here's the fourth
thing. Look over at Acts chapter 13.
The oracles of God preach the forgiveness of sin. Acts 13,
verse 38. Be it known unto you therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man, the Lord Jesus Christ
has preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him, all that
believe are justified. They're made free of all sin
from all things from which it could not be justified by the
law of Moses. Now, this is what we preach.
When we preach the oracles of God, there's the forgiveness
of sin through the Lord Jesus Christ. Not because sin is ignored,
not because sin is swept under the rug, but through the sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know why God forgives the
sin of his people? You know, if I do something ugly
to Jonathan, he's going to forgive me. Because for better or worse,
you know, I'm his brother. He's kind of stuck with me. He'll
forgive me. He'll remember it, but he won't
bring it up. He's kind of stuck with me, you know. That's not
why God forgives sin. He's not stuck with his people.
You know why God forgives the sin of his people? The blood
of Christ took it away. So there's no sin left to charge
to him. The sin of God's elect has all been blotted out by the
blood of Christ. So it doesn't exist. And God
forgives the sin of you, of his people. Because Christ satisfied justice
for you. God will never punish you in
hell because Christ suffered it for you. He suffered it for
you. See, that's so much more glorious
than saying, well, God will just accept the best you can do, and
He'll ignore the things you did wrong. You know, the good that
you did outweighed your bad. You still have a lot of bad,
but you know, if the good that you did outweighed it, you know,
then we'll kind of ignore it. The fact that Christ justified
you, made it so that you have no sin, that's much more glorious,
isn't it? And we have that through the
Lord Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice. Now one more, 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. The oracles of God declare this.
It's the power of the gospel of God. The power of it. Verse 23. But we preach Christ
crucified. We preach what Christ accomplished
when he was crucified. Not to the Jews, not to the religious
people. That's a stumbling block because it takes away all their
religious works. Under the Greeks, that's foolishness. That just doesn't make sense.
But in them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ,
the power of God and the wisdom of God. This gospel of Christ,
the gospel that we preach, has the power to give spiritual life
to any sinner, Jew or Gentile, religious or heathen, Paul said in Romans 1 verse 16,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. I preach it everywhere
I go. I'm not ashamed of it. You know why? It's the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. To the Jew first,
but also to the Greek. And the giving of spiritual life
is a supernatural thing by the power of God. The gospel is preached. and dead sinners suddenly live.
They may have heard that same gospel preached many times and
suddenly they live. Now that can only happen by the
power of the gospel. They cannot come from me talking
you into doing something. It's the power of the gospel. we hear, we're at least able,
in a place, we're able to be in a place where we can at least
hear the gospel with these ears. That's a huge advantage over
somebody that never had the opportunity to hear it. Isn't that an advantage?
At least you're near the power of God that's able to save you.
You're here in the oracles of God, the word of God, which is
able to make you wise unto salvation. That's an advantage, because
if you're around it, you know what just might happen? God just
might save you. In spite of yourself, God just
might save you. You're sitting here trying to
think of anything in this world that preacher's saying, can he
go on forever? And in spite of you trying not
to listen, he gonna make you hear and give you life. All right,
quickly back to Romans chapter three. Now somebody's gonna say,
all right, preacher, I see what you're saying. I see what you're
saying about this gospel, about the oracles of God, about what
we preach. But you know, so many people
hear the gospel and don't believe it. Most people don't believe
it. Looks to me like we're wasting
our time. Nobody believes. I mean, nobody
believes. Seems like. It looks to me like
we're just wasting our time. You preach and preach and preach
and preach to these people and look what they do. You're wasting
your time. Paul says, oh no, we're not. Paul anticipated that
objection too. Look at Romans 3 verse 3. For
what if some did not believe? Many of those Jews out in the
wilderness, they didn't believe. What if some today do not believe?
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
You know, those people hear the gospel and they don't believe.
Does that mean God's not faithful to save his people? We preach
the gospel, somebody doesn't believe it, they're not saved.
Does that mean the gospel does not have the power to save? Oh
no. Paul said, God forbid that we'd
say such a thing. Verse four, God forbid. Yea,
let God be true and every man a liar. As it's written, that
thou mightest be justified in thy sayings and mightest overcome
when thou art judged. If some don't believe, the problem
is with sinful man. The problem is not with God.
Man's the liar. Not God. God is just and right
in everything that he does. Everything. And man's a liar
in everything he does. I believe it was Brother Todd
Nyberg who said this in the conference, and I cannot amen this strongly
enough. If God damns me, That's a horrible
thing to even think about. But if God names me, I know this,
he's going to be just when he does it. He will be. And if God
saves me, he's going to be just when he does it. Because everything
God does is right. Every single time God saves a
sinner, he's right to do it. Because the sacrifice of Christ
put their sin away. The sacrifice of Christ justified
them. And when God damns a sinner, he's gonna be right when he does
it because they refuse to trust Christ. If I go to hell, if you
go to hell, it'll be your fault and my fault. It'll be my fault.
Won't be God's fault. It'd be my fault. And if I awaken
glory in Christ's likeness, that'll be all God's doing, won't it?
That'll be all God's doing. So what advantage is there now?
and hearing the gospel. I want to close with this. I
want to drive this point home, especially to our young people.
And I'll give you one of my very favorite Henry Mahan quotes.
What advantage is there now in being raised under the gospel,
hearing the gospel, being taught the gospel? What advantage is
there now? You just remember this. I hope
you always remember this because it's true for our children. It's
true for us adults. Let's always remember this. We
are not better We are not better. We're not better than anybody
else. We're not better than the heathen out there with no religion whatsoever.
We're not better than the freewheeler out there, just as free will
and man's worst as he can be. We are not better. But we're
better off. But we're better off. Paul says
that, look at verse nine. What then? Are we better than
they? No. No, no, no. In no wise. For we have before proved, both
Jew and Gentile, that they're all under sin. We're all under
sin. We're all sinners who need a
Savior. But if I could hear the gospel. of God's grace. If I hear the gospel of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ, mercy and grace is found in Christ,
run to Him. Trust Him. Quit your works and
trust Him. Quit trying to please God and
follow His feet and beg Him for mercy. I'm a whole lot better
off if I consistently hear somebody preach that to me. a whole lot
better off. Now, I know you cannot make yourself
believe on Christ. I understand that. You may believe
the things that we're saying are true and the things that
some false preachers are saying is not true, but you can't make
yourself believe Christ. But I tell you what you can do.
You can beg God for mercy. You can beg God, give me the
faith to believe Christ when somebody dares preach to me the
oracles of God. You can be sure, can't save yourself,
can't give yourself faith, but you can be sure that you're in
a place where the gospel is preached. It's the power of God unto salvation. And like I said earlier, you
just never know. God just might save you. He saved a rebel like
me. I haven't lost hope for none
of you. I really haven't. It's the power
of God unto salvation. I cannot believe I preached this
long, but I hope that's a blessing to you. Let's bow together. Our Father. How we thank you
that you have preserved these oracles of God, your words, the
words of mercy and grace and salvation to sinners by pointing
us to the Lord Jesus Christ. You wrote a book to reveal your
son to us. And Father, I pray that as it's
been preached this morning, that you might take your word and
your power, the power of your spirit, and apply it to each
heart here. Father, we beg you to forgive
our sin, that you would forgive those best works of righteousness,
those best religious things that we've ever done, that you'd forgive
us of them, that you'd give us faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
that we'd be found in him. Father, it's in Christ's sake,
for his glory we pray, amen.