I invite your attention to 1
Corinthians chapter 15. My text this morning will be
from verses 1 through 8. My message is titled, The Gospel. This 15th chapter of Paul's first
epistle to the Corinthians is the longest chapter in this book. with good reason. He's dealing
with a difficult subject. He's giving some new instruction
on it and so therefore he has gone to quite some detail to
explain the subject. And he teaches regarding the
resurrection at the last day for us who die as believers in
the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Paul introduces the doctrine
of the resurrection of believers by declaring the resurrection
of Jesus Christ as a vital part of the gospel of the Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. If there is no resurrection,
there is no gospel. It is not simply that Christ
died for our sins, but also that he was raised. Now Paul writes
here to those whom he calls brethren, and in the Christian usage of
this term, this includes sisters also. It is a generic term, and
therefore when Paul speaks to these whom he addresses as brethren,
they are his sisters also. We will here consider The four
verbs used by Paul in describing his relationship to the gospel,
and these are applicable to every gospel preacher. Four verbs Paul
uses here in verses 1 through 8 in describing the gospel, but
let me read this passage to you, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 8. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, that's the first verb,
which also you have received and wherein you stand, by which
also ye are saved if you keep in memory what I preached unto
you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto
you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried,
and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."
Brother Mitch, he's going right along with your message this
morning, comfort from the Scriptures Notice how Paul is here emphasizing
the scriptures in what he sets forth unto us. He continues in
verse 5 that Christ was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve.
After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once,
of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some have
fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James,
then of all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen
of me also, as of one born out of due time." Now let us consider
the four verbs Paul uses here in describing the gospel and
his relationship to it, and in setting forth my relationship
to it, and the relationship of of every minister of Jesus Christ
to the gospel. What is it? First of all, the
gospel declared. Second, the gospel received. Third, the gospel delivered. And fourth, the gospel summarized. So let's consider this first
point, the gospel declared, in verse 1 and 2. Paul says, moreover,
brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto
you. Notice, I'm going to declare
what I've already preached. Which also ye have received,
and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep
in memory what I have preached unto you, unless ye have believed
in vain. Now, Paul here declares the gospel
which he previously preached. It is not enough to preach the
gospel once and say, now I can preach something else. Paul said,
no, no, no. I'm going to preach it to you. I did. And now I'm going to go
back and declare it. And I come back every Lord's
day. What do I do? I declare to you
the same gospel I've already preached to you. It is a multifaceted
subject. We will never plumb its depths. We will never scale its heights.
We can never circumvent our way all around it. It's much too
big for all that. And so we come back every Lord's
Day, and we declare what we've already preached. We're somewhat
like a musician with a guitar, and his guitar has only one string. And all he can do is pluck that
one string. In the goodness of God, He can
take that one string and make a beautiful melody from it. He
can do it, we cannot. But all we do is just pluck that
one string. Every time I come in, it's the
same guitar, same string. I'm going to declare the gospel
to you that I have already preached. Paul says, I declared it. I want
you to consider here seven points in that one first sentence there.
He says, regarding the gospel that it is literally good news
or glad tidings. That's what the word means. Good
news. I've got good news for you today.
What is it? The gospel. Well, yeah, that's
kind of being redundant, is it not? Yes. Good news. That's the gospel. It is glad
tidings. And it is especially the good
news, the glad tidings, of God, Satan, condemned sinners through
the blood and righteousness of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's good news. I believe you
will agree with me. That is good news. Well, it's
worthy to be preached and then worthy to be declared and declared
and declared and declared. Then consider that it is the
gospel, because there's only one. There's only one. It is distinct from what Paul
calls any other gospel than that which I preached to you. So,
there's more than one gospel in the eyes of men, but in the
eyes of God, only one. This is the gospel. Paul even
goes so far as to say If anyone comes to you and preaches any
other gospel than that which I preached to you, let that man
be accursed." That's rather strong language, Paul. This is a very
serious subject. This is a very serious subject.
There's only one gospel, and Paul calls it the gospel. And
then third, consider that it is the gospel which I preached. And the fact that Paul here says,
I'm going to declare the same gospel I've already preached
to you, meaning that he never wavered from it. Henry Mahan
was a mentor to many of us young preachers when we were young. But I heard him once. speaking of
a church he had gone to preach in. He had preached at that church
many years earlier in his youth. And having not preached to them
for many years, he was telling us that he was glad to be able
to go back and preach. Same congregation. He said, you
know, other than the fact that some were departed after so many
years, it was the same church. meeting in the same building,
and Henry says, I preached from the same pulpit I preached from
many years earlier. And I asked him, did you preach
the same gospel? Yes, I did. Blessed is the man
who can say that when I first began to preach the gospel, I
preached it all the way through and I am still preaching it today. I have lived long enough to become
an old man. I began preaching in my youth,
and I look back over those many years that have gone by, and I see that some who preached
with me no longer do. Some have gone into this doctrine.
Some have gone into that gospel. Some have completely left the
faith. Blessed is the man who can say,
I'm preaching to you the same gospel I preached when I first
came to you. It's the same gospel and it is
the gospel. It is the gospel I preached and
it is the gospel you received, Paul says. You received it. How did you receive it? You received
it through faith in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Paul furthermore says, it is
the gospel in which you stand. We acknowledge the gospel of
Jesus Christ as our firm foundation for all that we believe and all
that we practice and even of our own lives. That's how important
the gospel is to us. It is our foundation. And bear
in mind that the gospel is Christ. Christ is the gospel. We stand
on Him and on the good news concerning Him. Then Paul says, it is the
gospel by which also you are saved. Now that does not mean
that the gospel saves you. The gospel is incapable of doing
that. It cannot. But rather, the theme
of the gospel, God uses the gospel to save sinners. God never saved
anyone through the preaching of anything else other than this
gospel of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Do you see why
it is so important? I come before you and it's to
do what? Preach the gospel. Why? I'm concerned
for your souls. The only way God's going to save
you is through the gospel. I therefore must preach it. I
therefore am duty-bound to preach it." Now consider also that Paul
adds two qualifications to being saved through the preaching of
the gospel. First of all, he says that one cannot be saved
through the preaching of the gospel unless you hold fast that
word which I preached to you. Now, King James Version says,
keep it in memory. The Greek word here means, it's
more than just remember it, you lay hold of it. You lay hold
of it. On the first day that you believe
the gospel, you grab hold of Jesus Christ. And if you'll grasp
Him to the very end, you'll be saved. If you let Him go, there's
no hope for your salvation. Paul says, you are saved if you
hold fast. that which I have delivered unto
you." Well, I've seen preachers over
the past 50 years of my ministry. I've seen preachers that once
preached the gospel but no longer do. And I'm sorry to have to
say that I've seen believers fall away. which means they never truly
grasped Christ. If you grasp Christ, he grasps
you. There is no ungrasping. But I've
seen so many that, as Paul says, you began the race. Well, what happened? Why'd you
quit the run? Why'd you stop the fight? I'm
saying to you that it is not enough that you believed the
gospel many years ago I want to know, what are you grasping
now? There was a, Ralph Barnard was
his name, you've heard the name. But he, in a conversation with a
woman one time, and I should add that she was in a church
that placed great emphasis on one's conversion experience. You had to have a certain kind
of experience. And from then on, the proof of
salvation was the experience. I know I'm a Christian because
I experienced it. I was there. I remember when
it happened. And they go through life talking
about their experience. So, this woman, and I believe
she evidently was a devout Christian, but She was not that familiar with
Rolf Barnard. She knew of him. He'd come to
preach to the church of which she was a member, and she said,
Brother Rolf, would you like to hear my experience? And he
said, no. He said it much more emphatically.
No. There's good reason for it. Many
people who had an experience had nothing more. Oh, they can
talk about what happened many years ago. I want to know what
you experience now. What are you grasping now? You are saved not because of
what you experienced long ago, but what are you experiencing
now? Are you grasping Him still today? If not, your experience back
then was worthless. You are saved if you hold fast. And Paul says, unless you believed
in vain, unless you believed in vain, giving mere mental assent
to the gospel will never save you. Back in my Bible college
days, every student was required to be involved in some kind of
weekly Christian service. And so, some were street preachers,
preaching on the street. Some were mission preachers and
some were this and that. There was a certain lady in the
school who was in what they called child evangelism. She and some others would gather
little children, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 years old or so, And they'd gather little children
around them every week and evangelize them. And I can recall her telling
some students that she liked child evangelism better than
street preaching and mission preaching and church preaching
because she could get more results. She could get more conversions.
What do you mean? All children are so trusting,
she said. Well, actually, the word was
gullible, but she said trusting. All you have to do is get them
to do the ABC gospel. Get them to confess. All have
sinned. Yeah, I believe that. All have
sinned. And believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved.
Okay, I believe. And confess Him with your mouth.
Okay, I confess Him. Now, these are 6, 7, 8 years
old, and then she said, you're saved! Well, they had a mental assent
to the gospel and really had no idea what they were believing. Yeah, they're trusting. They
should not have been so trusting in that instance. It is not enough
to give mere mental assent to the gospel of Jesus Christ. To
believe in him is to trust in him. And if you have not trusted
in him with every fiber of your being, you have believed in vain. And it'll produce a difference
in your life. I've heard people say, I believe the gospel, but
I went back to my drunkenness or back to my wife beating or
whatever. Well, then you were not saved. If you can do such things in
an unrepentant manner, you believed in vain. If you believe the gospel
we preach, it makes a difference in your life and people know
it. Paul continues then with our
second point. That first point was the gospel
declared, now it is the gospel received. I delivered to you
first of all that which I also received. Now, the best commentary
on Paul receiving the gospel is found in Galatians 1 verses
11 through 12. Paul says, But I make known to
you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not
according to man. For I neither received it from
man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation
of Jesus Christ. This gospel that we preach to
you is not according to man in either its origin or its character. Men did not originate this gospel
and it is contrary to every gospel men originate. Christ's ministers receive his
gospel when he makes it known to them and makes them stewards
of it. When God gives his gospel to
preachers, they become responsible for it. They are stewards for
it. A stewardship is a very serious
matter. When I was stationed with the
Air Force in Germany, first sergeant came to me one day and told me
that He would like for me to become the barracks chief. So I said, okay. I became the
barracks chief. And there were men in the barracks
who outranked me. I was only a buck sergeant, but
he made me the barracks chief. Yeah, that sounds like a good
position. And then he lets me know, oh,
by the way, you've got some responsibilities with this. Oh, yeah, come with
me. So he gets his clipboard. We
walk into a locked room in the barracks. Then he goes and opens
up a locked fence, fenced in part. And he starts counting
blankets and pillows and all the rest of the equipment that
would be used by troops that were in the barracks. He had
a record of every blanket and pillow and whatever else had
already been given out to the men in the barracks. And he says,
now, Sergeant Parks, you've got this many blankets in storage
and this many blankets on the beds right now. And when your
days as barracks chief are done, you're responsible for that number. That number. Okay, that's rather serious.
Folks, we're dealing with the military here. And one day I noticed somebody
had broken in and taken a blanket or two. I will not say how it
was done, but those two blankets were replaced. This was near
serious. I did not want that first sergeant
to come in and count them up and say, hey, Moose, your short
two blankets, you owe us. No. It's a stewardship. I've got a responsibility. The
Lord has now made me a steward of the gospel. It's serious,
folks. There is an accountability involved
in this. Paul tells us that the gospel,
the glorious gospel of the blessed God was committed to my trust,
committed to my trust. God does not give the gospel
to a man he cannot trust, and he cannot trust in that man unless
he gives him faith. Paul says, he made me worthy
to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ and then gave
to me this gospel and says, you're responsible for it. I'm trusting
you with this. Paul says furthermore that God's
gospel was committed to me according to the commandment of God our
Savior. A commandment! Alright, there
are four commandments for every Christian. Love Jehovah your
God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Love your
neighbor as yourself. Believe the gospel of Jesus Christ
and love one another as I have loved you. And now to the gospel
preacher, there's a fifth commandment. Preach the gospel. Preach the
gospel. Paul says, we have been approved
by God to be entrusted with the gospel. Consider this, that which
is most important to God He trusts his preachers with
it. Paul says, necessity is laid upon me. Woe is me if I do not
preach the gospel. I have been entrusted with the
stewardship. Woe is me if I do not preach
it. What a serious matter this is.
I am blessed. I am blessed. when I step out of this pulpit
and folks, let me know, appreciated the message, you preached the
gospel. But if I should ever miss it, let me know. I'm sure
my wife will when I get home. It has not happened thus far,
at least not that I recall, If I should preach and it not be
the gospel, I will let you know. She will let me know when we
get home. She came here to hear the gospel.
If she doesn't preach it, or if she doesn't hear it, woe is
me if I do not preach the gospel. Do you see how serious this is?
Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. Paul furthermore says, I neither
received it from man. Why? Because it's God's gospel
and none but he can give it. Paul says, neither was I told
it because it cannot be given through the mere instruction
from men. God must give it. I can teach
the gospel to you. But unless God puts that faith
in your heart, you will never believe it. Paul says it came
through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus Christ was
revealed to Paul, Paul says, as one born out of due time.
The reason for that being is that when Jesus Christ revealed
himself to man upon this earth, Paul was a legalistic Pharisee
and a vigorous opponent to the gospel. The Lord saved him afterward
and it is though Paul says, after he had already ascended into
glory, he appeared to me. When did he do that? On the road
to Damascus. When he's struck down and he
says, who are you Lord? And he heard those words he did
not want to hear. I am Jesus. I am Jesus. Oh, it would have
been so much better if he'd heard, I'm Gabriel. It would have been
so much better if he'd have heard, I'm Abraham. But no, it's Jesus. And he appeared to Paul. Now,
Jesus does not physically appear to every preacher. But he does
reveal himself in his word to every man who is called of God
to preach the gospel. We are entrusted with it. Oh,
I have to preach it, folks. I have to preach it. I've had
people ask me, Moose, how are you doing in Montana? And I tell
them, I am blessed to pastor a church that loves the gospel
and the man who preaches it, and I'm trying my best to preach
it. Woe is me if I do not. I'm sure
that if I went to preaching something else, you'd send me someplace
else, and you should. Woe is me if I do not preach
the gospel. We now come to the third point.
where we consider that the gospel received will be the gospel delivered. I delivered to you first of all,
which I also received. The gospel is by delivery. I have three apps in my phone
that let me know of every delivery that's coming to me by the three
major carriers of mail and freight. And they give me alerts. You
have a delivery coming today. Should be there by such and such
time. Well, I make deliveries. And I make a delivery that comes
from God. Did not come from that store,
this business. I have received something and
I must deliver what I received. There's a stewardship again involved
in this. I received something, it's not
mine to just keep. I've got to deliver it. God requires
that we deliver this gospel that we received. The gospel received
from God by his preachers is to be the gospel delivered to
them. How do they deliver it? through preaching. Our brother
Mitch stood before us this morning and made a delivery. I'm standing before you right
now and I'm making a delivery. I receive something, then I deliver
it. Christ's preachers deliver the
gospel to their hearers first of all. Now yes, we do preach
doctrine to you. You people are very doctrinally
sound and that's both with regard to the doctrine and also to the practice. But our practice is governed
by our doctrine and our doctrine is governed by the gospel we
believe. We deliver the gospel first of
all. I would hope that everyone who
ever heard me preach for the first time can say he preached
the gospel. First, he preached the gospel. Now, we preach the gospel first
of all and then we preach also doctrine, but we preach the doctrine
as we preach the gospel. Now, there are many preachers
who preach their doctrine first of all and preach the gospel,
not at all. If you can find a man who's going
to preach his doctrine, you can rest assured he's not going to
preach God's gospel. Consider now the fourth point
the gospel summarized. In verses 3 through 8, in four
statements regarding Christ's death, burial, resurrection,
and appearances. Now first of all, the death of
Jesus Christ. Christ died for our sins according
to the scriptures. Consider here four points. First,
death is the penalty for sins. For the wages of sin is death
and therefore the soul whose sins shall die. You have sinned. you are sin, you will die unless
you can know for certain that Christ died for my sins. Death is the penalty for sins. Every sin will bear the penalty
of death and either you will die for your sins or else Christ
died for your sins. But someone has to die. Someone
must die for the sins he has done. And none but believers in the
gospel can say Christ died for our sins. He did this as our
representative and our substitute As our representative, he fulfilled
God's law in every jot and tittle. And then God took the sins of
all his people and laid them on Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ
bore those sins, my sins, the sins of all God's people, bore
them to Calvary, and there on Calvary for three hours. in the darkest darkness the world
has ever seen. In that severe transaction that
was performed for three hours, he was stricken, smitten of God,
and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace
was upon him. And you are not saved unless
you know for certain Christ died for your sins. Christ died for
our sins, Paul here says. Furthermore, he did so according
to the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures.
I just quoted from the 53rd chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah. Everything
that happened in the death of Jesus Christ was prophesied. Do you realize that there are
more than 300 prophecies of Jesus Christ the Messiah in the Old
Testament? Do you realize that most of them
involve His death? Do you not glory in the fact
that He fulfilled every one of them? He died according to the scriptures. Every prophecy concerning him
was fulfilled. Consider, second, the burial
of Jesus Christ. Now it's interesting that apart
from the writers of the four gospels, Paul is the only writer
in the New Testament who mentions the burial of Jesus Christ. He does so to declare the reality
of Christ's death. because the living are not buried. Christ died, he therefore was
buried. Then third Paul declares the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. He rose again the third day according
to the scriptures. Now let us here denote these
truths. First, the term he rose is better
translated He was raised because the verb in the Greek is in the
passive tense. Yes, he did rise. He said, take
my life from me. No, you cannot. No one takes
my life from me. I lay it down of myself and I
have the authority to take it again. Christ did raise himself,
but the emphasis here is upon the fact that God raised him
from the dead. The writers in the New Testament
repeatedly stress this truth that God raised him from the
dead. He was delivered up because of
our offenses. He was raised because of our
justification. What a glorious truth is in that
text that there when he was delivered up for our offenses, when he
died in our place instead as our representative and our substitute,
when God struck him for our sins, when he bore the punishment for
what he had done, for what we had done, he was not only dying, he was making an offering before
God. And in that most holy place,
the blood of the Lamb of God was sprinkled on God's altar
and Jesus Christ, in His death, justified us. The 53rd chapter of Isaiah's
prophecy Jehovah says, My servant, My righteous servant, shall justify
many, for he shall bear their iniquities. And when Jesus Christ,
in His glorious victory, loudly shouted, It is finished! God's
people were justified by His death. Therefore, God says, He
cannot remain in that tomb. I will raise him because he justified
his people, my people, therefore delivered up because of our offenses,
raised up from the dead because of our justification, because
of what he had done in justifying. Furthermore, he forever lives,
forever lives. Now there's a change in The tense
of the verb. In this instance, Paul says,
he died, past tense. He was buried, past tense. But now he says, he forever lives. Not past tense. Paul does not
say he lived. No, no, no. He lives. And there's
a glorious truth in this as well. He was raised in the perfect
tense, denoting an action that occurred in the past but having
everlasting relevance. Jesus Christ ever lives. Therefore, he is able to say
to the uttermost those who come to God through him since he always
lives, to make intercession for them, Hebrews 7.25. always lives. I have a priest I have a high
priest right now and he stands before God and the devil may
accuse me let anybody who wants to accuse me I'm guilty of all
the accuse and guilty of even more but every time an accusation
is made against one of God's elect Jesus Christ stands before
God and says, behold my wounds. Behold my wounds. And God says,
yep, I'm still satisfied. He ever lives to make intercession
for us. Our priest never dies. He always lives to make intercession
for us. Then third, He was raised the
third day according to the Scriptures. This is so glorious. Repeatedly
Jesus said, I'm going to die, then I'll be
raised the third day. He prophesied his own resurrection. The Scriptures prophesied his
resurrection. I can prophesy to you that I'm
going to die because I will. That prophecy will come true.
I would not dare prophesy to you that I will raise myself
or that God will raise me three days after I die. You'd call
me a fool and you should. Jesus said it. Go ahead and crucify
me. In three days I will be raised
from the dead and it happened just as he said according to
the scriptures. And then we consider the appearances
of Jesus Christ, six are here cited. He was seen by Cephas,
then by the Twelve, then by over 500 brethren at once of whom
the greater part remained in the present. Then he was seen
by James and all the apostles and then last by Paul. The point I would stress to you
is this, this very vital aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
his resurrection. If there is no resurrection,
there is no gospel. If there is no gospel, there
is no salvation. Was he raised? Certainly. It is one of the most provable
events that ever happened because of so many witnesses. Some may
say to Paul, yeah, but nobody can prove it. Paul says, oh,
he appeared to over 500 brethren at one time. I can tell you who
some of them are. There is no doubt about this
resurrection, folks. It was public. Now, this is the
gospel that I preach to you. This death, this burial, this
resurrection of Jesus Christ and not only his resurrection
but his appearances. There is no salvation for any
of us if we do not believe this. This is why this is so vital. Woe is me if I do not tell you
of the death and the burial and the resurrection and the appearances
of Jesus Christ and exhort you to believe. Do not leave this
building today until you know for certain that you have believed
the gospel. I have endeavored to the best
of my ability to preach it. I do it every time I come into
the pulpit, but I want you to be as serious about
believing the gospel as God's preachers are in preaching it. O God, our Father, I have done that which you required
I do. And I pray now that if it pleases
you, save some sinner through the
preaching of this glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray you do
this to your glory. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.