Well I want to start a new series
on the gospel defined in the epistles, we've been quite a
long time in the Old Testament with Ecclesiastes and the Song
of Solomon and so I want to do some, not a one epistle systematic
exposition of it but a series of individual sermons of the
gospel defined, the true gospel that God has revealed defined
in the epistle What does the gospel mean? What does the word
gospel mean? The word gospel means good news. Good news. Good news about what? What is it good news about? It's
good news about peace with God. Peace with God. God, who is the
creator, the sustainer, the holy and just supreme being of the
universe. It's about being at peace with
God, when by nature we're not at peace with God. Now, some
listening to this might object, ah well, that's because you presume
that there is a God, but you know. lots of people think that
there isn't there was a an advertisement on the side of London buses just
not many years ago now and it was endorsed by Richard Dawkins
and his fans and it said along the side of London buses there
probably isn't a guard so therefore don't worry go and enjoy yourself
that was what it said on the side of London buses is there
a guard? you say well I don't know about
this oh yes there is Look at everything around us and you
see what you know from the earliest age. The youngest one of us knows
that things that work and do things are designed. They're
designed. And yet the one thing that you're
disallowed from saying in the scientific community and the
world of scientific work these days is anything to do with intelligent
design that says God created things. That is absolutely forbidden
by them. It's the one thing that is utterly
forbidden. I intend to produce some articles
over coming weeks, when I can get round to it and put enough
time aside to focus on it, to counter the popular media presentation
of what they call the proven fact of godless evolution, the
proven fact of materialism and scientism and rationalism. Those
things these days are overwhelmingly popular. They're overwhelmingly
popular. Not because they're true, or
rigorously defendable, because they're not. Do you know why
minds of the like of Professor Brian Cox, I've already mentioned
Richard Dawkins, even Professor Stephen Hawking, who primarily
doesn't deal with evolution of life forms, he looks more at
the cosmos. These great minds, as the world
and science, and I must say they're cleverer than me, I wouldn't
stand up against them in any battle of who's the best physicist,
not at all. But there's one reason they believe
that things just happened without any God and that the one thing
you can be sure of is that there is no God the scriptures tell
us, this very epistle tells us in Romans 1 verse 28 they did
not like to retain God in their knowledge it isn't because they
can scientifically prove that these things put themselves together
like a mansion resulting from an explosion in a builder's yard.
That's what they say effectively. No, it's because they didn't
like to retain God in their knowledge. Why do you think they didn't
like to retain God in their knowledge? Answer? Because if there is a
God, then I am accountable to that God. I am accountable to
God who is holy for what I am, therefore I prefer not to retain
God in my knowledge. I don't want to be accountable.
I don't want to think that when I die I will stand before the
judgment seat of a supreme being and be judged for what I've been
like. And it's not because science proves that these things evolved
and that we don't need a God, it's because I don't want that.
That's why they're in that position. I tell you, I hope to put more
into this over coming weeks, not in sermons but in articles
that I intend to write if you could have the slightest understanding
of how utterly impossible it is that any one living thing
arose from a random collection of atoms. Do you know what the
basic equation is that they say? They say that if you have light
and you have an enormous number of random atoms and you give
it enough time, enough time, billions of years, life is bound
to result. Do you know that's absolute nonsense,
utter and complete nonsense. Without Holy Spirit enlightenment,
though, mankind in its natural state will always remain blind
and will always believe an incredible lie. Again, Romans 1.25, they
changed the truth of God into a lie. Is that not what they're
doing? The very days in which we live,
they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and
served the creature more than the creator. They say we came
from slime and from all sorts of other life forms. They worshipped
and served the creature more than the creator. Who is God?
Blessed forever. You know, scientists in the past,
if you go back to people like Isaac Newton, and Michael Faraday,
and Robert Boyle, and all of these eminent scientists who
in their day were head and shoulders above most of what we see today,
in terms of where they were starting from and what they discovered,
do you know? All of them. believed in God. Isaac Newton
said, I feel like a little boy walking along a beach picking
up pebbles and marveling at them at the wonderful things that
God has made. Michael Faraday was a lay preacher
in his local church and yet nearly everything in this house all
around us and the things you use every single day results
from his discoveries on electromagnetism. They were men of faith. Now,
why do true Christians believe that God has made all things?
I'll tell you why. You see, It's not because I can
prove to you that they didn't make themselves, this is the
reason, Hebrews 11 verse 3, through faith we understand that the
worlds were framed by the word of God. How do we understand
it? How is it that we believe it
when others don't? By faith. by grace are you saved
through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of
God by this soul sight this sight of the soul it's by that that
we understand I look around you know Earth around, well the grass
isn't particularly green today, but you know sweeter green, skies
above softer blue, something shines in every hue Christless
eyes have never seen. But those that know Christ see
the hand of God in absolutely everything. It's not without
cost that we believe God. Do you know it's coming to the
day so many careers these days insist on conformity to the lie
of godless evolution before you can have a job. There are places
that are setting up to make it that schoolteachers cannot be
schoolteachers unless they will sign a pledge to say that they
believe in godless evolution. What an appalling condition this
world is coming to. Is it not ripe for judgment?
Really is. So, if there is a God, And of
course there is. What is he like? What is this
God like? What does he require? Where does
that leave me? and anybody else listening who
doesn't know him because you see the scriptures are clear
Hebrews 9.27 it is appointed unto men once to die but after
this the judgment and Hebrews 10.31 it is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God as a sinner bearing your
sins because Hebrews 12.29 our God is not was, is a consuming fire. So my first
point is the holiness of God and the sinfulness of fallen
man. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter
6. Isaiah chapter 6. You know the gospel shines clearly
throughout the book of Isaiah. Remarkable book. It's got as
many chapters as the Word of God has got books. 66. and in
it is the gospel throughout chapter six of Isaiah verse one in the
year that King Uzziah died I, Isaiah saw also the Lord sitting
upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple
when he was in the temple in Jerusalem Isaiah had a vision
of the Lord Jesus Christ we know it was Christ because in John
chapter twelve John tells us, Isaiah said these words when
he saw Christ's glory and spoke of him. This is Christ before
he came to earth. He's the manifestation of the
living God. And above it stood the seraphims,
angelic beings. Each one had six wings. With
two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and
with two he did fly. And one cried unto another, these
angelic beings, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,
the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door
moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled
with smoke. Then said I, the prophet Isaiah,
the holy man of God, the man who was going to speak to that
generation, the word of truth and the gospel of grace and the
judgment against sin. Then said I, one who surely,
surely he's in a good position, isn't he? No, he'd seen the Lord. Woe is me, for I am undone. I'm found out. I'm brought in,
plumb guilty, because I am a man of unclean bits. I'm a man of,
however good you might think I am as a prophet, I'm a man
of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. And how do I know it? Mine eyes
have seen the king, the lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphims
flew having a live coal and purged his sin symbolically. we get
a picture there of the holiness of God the God who has made all
things is high and lifted up and holy Moses at the burning
bush he sees a bush burning but it isn't consumed it isn't burnt
up and it's God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ come
to tell him to bring the people out of Egypt and there he's told
Moses take your shoes off your feet for where you're standing
is holy ground You're on holy ground. The holiness of God. The Israelites at Sinai, when
they came out of Egypt and the law was given, they shook with
fear and tremor. You say, oh, that's because they
were primitive people who, no, they didn't really know what
was going on. Oh, you read all about them. They were just as
sophisticated as people today. Just as sophisticated, just as
intelligent, just as much brain power. All of these things. They
were filled with fear and trembling at Sinai. Daniel, the prophet
in the scriptures, I think he's the one character that the scripture
never says anything negative about. You know, Job, all these
others, brought in clear. They've shown what they are.
Daniel, or possibly Enoch as well, but Daniel, we never hear
a negative word about Daniel, but when Daniel had his vision
of the one who is clearly the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ,
he falls at his feet in fear. Why? Because he's seen the holiness,
the altogether difference. Habakkuk says in his prophecy
that God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and cannot
look upon sin. And we saw when we did Revelation
a couple of years ago the sight of God in Revelation in shining
purity and holiness and how the constant theme of the then sinless
beings before him was to fall down in praise and adoration. You see, natural men as we are
natural as we are we tend to think that God is just like us
thinks like us feels like us judges like us Psalm 50 says
this Psalm 50 verses 21 and 22 this is God speaking you thought
that I was altogether such a one as yourself but I will reprove
thee and set them in order before your eyes now consider this ye
that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to
deliver. That's God speaking. Anybody
listening to this who thinks you can treat God lightly and
flippantly, this is what God says. Consider this, ye who forget
God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver.
God is not like man. He is altogether holy. Isaiah
55 verses 8 and 9. Does God think like us? My thoughts,
says God, are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. and my
thoughts than your thoughts. No, God is not like us. God is
holy. God is separate. God is pure
in righteousness. Man is sinful and corrupt and
contrary to the very nature and being of God. And how did we
get like this? By Adam's sin in Eden, right
at the beginning, there on probation, Adam sinned. Adam disobeyed God. Adam chose his way. Adam, for
the sake of love for his wife, committed sin that he might be
condemned with his wife. And so we read in Romans 5.19,
by one man's disobedience, that's Adam, many, all his progeny,
all the human race, were made sinners. And the judgment in
the court of the justice of God God says this, the soul that
sins, it shall die. Why? Is that not a bit harsh? No. The nature and justice of
God demands it. It does. We read that God is
angry with the wicked. Who's the wicked? those who reject
him, those who say no God for me. God is angry with the wicked
every day. Look at Romans 1 verse 18, you
only have to turn back a page. Romans 1 and verse 18, for the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it to them. They're
without excuse. They've seen it. There's an indictment. Romans 1, the whole chapter,
is an indictment on mankind in all ages, but never more so than
the day in which we live. You just listen to the news every
single day and it's a complete spitting in the face of God.
It's a complete shaking the fist in the face of God. What God
says by Paul in Romans chapter 1 is his indictment of the very
society in which we live. They did not like to retain God
in their knowledge. It's never been more so than
it is today. Sodomy, all kinds of perversion
that we're all supposed to think is wonderful on the grounds of
diversity. The self-centered behavior we
see everywhere. Oh, don't point your finger at
the big corporates and the rich people and this, that and the
other. Every last one of us, every, every, every last one
of us, from the most evil, conniving twisted person in power, down
to the most innocent looking little child. We're all the same.
Perverted, self-centered behavior, deceivers, corrupt. It's not
just the sins that men do by nature, but it's by what we are
by nature. It's just our very nature. We
are sinners. Romans 2 goes on to expose the
hypocrisy of religion, the Jews thinking that they were all right
because they were Jews, and others thinking that they are absolutely
fine and they don't come under the judgment of God. And then
we get to Romans 3 and we started reading at verse 10, though if
we'd had time we would have started earlier. But it shows that all
of us are sinners. Look at verses 10 to 18 of chapter
3. This is what God's word says. It doesn't matter what you think.
It doesn't matter how good a person you think you are. It doesn't
matter what good kind acts you've done for other people. This is
what God says. There is none righteous. No, not one. How many? None. None. None. That's what God says. There is none that understands.
and none that seeks after God, none that thinks by nature on
the things of the living God. We will not have this man, they
said of Jesus, to rule over us. They're all gone out of the way
and together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
oh so and so does good things, true good things the things that
God counts good there is none truly that doeth good their throat
is an open sepulcher and with their tongues they've used deceit
the poison of asps is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood destruction
and misery are in their ways and the way of peace have they
not known there is no fear of God before their eyes. Is the
indictment not absolutely clear? There's the charge sheet read
out before the bar of divine justice and it's us, all of us,
by nature, are accused. Do you have an excuse? Look at
verse 19. Now we know that whatever the
law of God says, and remember the law was only given in the
time of Moses, It was, in the days of Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob and all of them, there was no law given then. It was
only when they came out of Egypt that the law was given. But what
is the law for? The law is to define what sin
is. The law is to make clear what
sin is. The law didn't just suddenly
arise and change things. It defined that which was always
the case of what God regards as righteousness and sin. What
the law says, it says to those who are under the law. That's
all of us. That every mouth may be stopped. What's your excuse?
Nothing. Nothing. Silence. You know no excuse will do. You
know that we're all, as it says, all the world may become guilty
before God. Guilty of sin before God. Condemned. Justly. Because that's what his
justice demands. His character, his nature, his
justice demands condemnation. We're deserving of divine wrath. We're facing punishment. And
what is the punishment that we face in our natural selves? It's
an eternity separated from all trace of the goodness of God.
What is eternity? It's outside of time, and therefore
timeless. forever. Jesus spoke, they say,
and I'm sure this is true, in his earthly ministry, while he
was ministering, Jesus spoke more concerning hell than he
did of heaven. That's true, that's a fact. Oh,
that God would show you, each of us, anyone listening, in our
hearts, in our conscience, our true status under the judgment
of his law and his justice, because that's where we stand. So then,
my second point, how should a man be just with God? How should
one who is a sinner, as we've just seen, be declared just with
God. Job 9 verse 2, how should a man
be just with God? Certainly not by law keeping
and living righteously. Really? Read verse 20, by the
deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight. You mean I can't get right with
God by deciding that I'm going to try and keep his law? No.
No. No. So there's something wrong
with the law? No, elsewhere he tells us there's
nothing wrong with the law. It's us. It's the weakness of the
flesh. We can't do it. By the deeds of the law, There
shall no flesh be justified in his sight. So what does the law
do? The law shows us what sin is. By the law is the knowledge
of sin. No, that's all the law does for
us. The law shows us where we are. We can't get into a position
of being counted just with God by keeping the law and living
righteously. So we're in a terrible condition.
Condemned and lost and without hope. but not without hope. For look at verse 21. Thank God
for Romans 3, 21. But now. But now. but in the face of that terrible
condition but now the righteousness of God the righteousness which
God requires the righteousness which is God and God must have
in any who are to share eternity with him the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested is made clear is demonstrated
is shown the righteousness of God that doesn't come by flesh
keeping law, that doesn't come by flesh obeying commands. The righteousness of God. And
is it something new that he's talking about? No. it's in all
the scriptures, it's witnessed by the law and by the prophets,
it's nothing new all the Old Testament scripture has testified
to the truth of it all of it from the very start read Genesis
3, it testifies to the truth of this right the way through
all the patriarchs and all the dealings with Israel it's all
speaking of this the righteousness of God without the law manifested
because it speaks of Christ Jesus himself said to the Pharisees
you've searched the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures
for you think rightly that in them you have eternal life these
scriptures are they which speak of me they speak of Him all of
the Old Testament speaks of Christ and what does it show us, verse
22 even the righteousness of God the righteousness of God
not filthy rags righteousness the righteousnesses as Isaiah
64 verse 6 says all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags horrible stinking
rags before him in the flesh, but God's righteousness made
over to his believing people by Christ's faithful completion
of the work God sent him to accomplish. Even the righteousness of God,
as it says in verse 22, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. All
believers all who believe, without distinction of any type, distinction
of race, of background, of status, all who believe, all of them,
there's no difference between them, from the mightiest to the
weakest to the most knowledgeable to the least knowledgeable, if
they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ they have the righteousness
of God how do they get it? it's by the faith of Jesus Christ
not their faith in Jesus Christ their faith in Jesus Christ is
what enables them to know it and experience it and apprehend
it what accomplished that righteousness for this people who are sinners
is the faith of Jesus Christ when he came and faithfully fulfilled
everything that the father had given him to do verse 23 for
all have sinned what's he talking about? look at the context all
them that believe, verse twenty-two for all that, I mean all without
exception anyway, all the world is guilty before God but, verse
twenty-three Them that have believed have sinned. All believers by
nature are sinners. There's not one of them any better
in the judgment of God than another. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. They've sinned. What is it to
sin? Sin is the transgression of God's law. That's how you
can define it. God has defined his law and sin
is the transgression of that law. it's offended his holiness. Sin has violated his commands
and his very nature. That's what these sinners, all
these sinners, all these that believe in their flesh, all have
sinned and violated his commands. I have, you have too if you're
a believer. Your very nature, you've gone
against the very nature of God. You've said, like a fool in his
heart, as Psalm 14 says, no God for me, there is no God. All
have come short of the glory of God. That's what to sin means. It's a term from archery. To
sin is to drop short of the target. The arrow didn't go far enough.
You've come short of the target. We've come short of the target
of God's righteousness in our nature. Short of God's glory. What is the glory of God? His
character. His nature. His being. His holiness. His power. His omniscience. His omnipresence. His omnipotence,
everything about him. And how have we done it? In the
things that we think, in the things that we say, in the things
that we do. Every single one of us. And the
result? Condemnation. Condemnation. Before the throne, you know when
Jesus says, I will say unto them, depart from me. you who do evil,
you've done evil I never knew you, depart from me, condemnation
under the sentence of eternal death and hell in our natural
fleshly condition but but look at verse twenty-four he's still
talking about them that believe them that believe they've all
sinned but they're all justified freely by his grace all of them
that have believed are all justified freely by his grace justified
means cleared of their sin debt cleared of their sin debt imagine
you owe a debt you're declared bankrupt you go to the courts
that determine the case and they look at your accounts and they
look at the creditors and the debtors and and they work it
out and it comes out a very very mechanical mathematical result
and you're declared bankrupt you've got nothing you owe this
amount of money and the record says that you will stay in that
state until you have paid it but as far as the sin debt to
the law and nature and being and justice of God is concerned
all them that believe it says here though they be sinners and
fall short of the glory of God are justified freely how? by his grace by his grace grace
God's riches at Christ's expense free grace, free grace justified
freely without payment, without money, ho everyone that thirsts
come, buy says Isaiah 55 come to God without money and without
price, buy freely without having the means yourself to pay for
he has done it freely by his grace sovereign grace God's grace
God's determining who should be the
object of it and what determined it what motivated it before the
beginning of time was it not the love of God that God looked
and God in love chose a people in Christ he hasn't swept the
sin under the carpet and said oh it doesn't matter no no he's
actually cleared it. He's actually paid the debt to
his justice and his nature. How has he done it? Through the
redemption. Redemption? That's the money
you pay to get something back. When you've put it into the shop
that will lend you money against the value of goods that you've
given them. You've got some jewellery and you need some money and you
go to the pawn shop, the P-A-W-N shop, and they say, oh, I'll
give you £50 for this, but you need to buy it back for £55.
That's the sort of thing that they will do. When you go back
and you pay your £55 to get your thing back, you have redeemed
that thing, you've bought it back out of the condition that
it is in, of being removed from you. Well, Christ has paid the
debt of his people. Christ has paid the ransom for
the liberty, the freedom, you are free to go. When the court
of justice in this land declares somebody not guilty of the offense
of which they're charged, they will say, the judge will say,
you are free to go. You are free to go. Christ has redeemed his people
the redemption, he's paid the ransom the payment of the sin
debt and all of it is accomplished by Christ Jesus when in the election
of God the father put a people of his choice into union with
his son before the beginning of time people chosen in him
before the foundation of the world when he put them into betrothal
of marriage with his son, eternal marriage he then counted everything
that his son did as being the works of those people and by
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus by the faithfulness of
Jesus Christ in his earthly life when he came and fulfilled the
law and bore the sins of his people and paid the ransom debt
of his people all of his people were counted as being in him
every single one of them, and actually made, not pretended,
made the righteousness of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. When
we see Fiona baptized this afternoon, what is it saying? It doesn't
do anything spiritually in terms of make somebody saved who was
not saved, it doesn't do that at all, but what it does do in
the burial in the water and in the coming up out of the water
it is just a personal testimony that when Christ died my just
penalty for my sin under the requirement of the law when he
died I died there. And when He rose from the dead
to newness of life, I rose in Him to newness of life, so that
everything that He has counted before the justice of God, I
am counted before that same justice of God, all accomplished by Christ
Jesus, with no contribution whatsoever from me, none whatsoever. You see, verse 25, God has set
forth the Lord Jesus Christ. He's You know, again and again
in the lifetime ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, we hear on
occasions this voice from heaven. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. This is my beloved Son. Hear
ye Him. Listen to Him. He is the one
who came down from heaven with the words of eternal life. Listen
to Him. God has set Him forth to be a
propitiation What's a propitiation? The word means the same as mercy
seat, the place where God is gracious and forgiving to his
people, the place where the anger and the just wrath of God against
sin is turned away, where satisfaction is made, to offended justice. And look, it's through faith
in his blood. It's apprehended by faith. That soul sight, which is the
gift of the Holy Spirit to his believing people, looking to
the lifeblood of Christ as a lamb that paid sin's debt for the
people united with Christ. So righteousness is declared
and demonstrated. Here is God's righteousness for
people who are sinners declared and demonstrated righteousness
for remission of sins that have passed. What does that mean?
Well I'll tell you simply. This is what I believe that means.
It's talking about the Old Testament saints in heaven under the first
covenant, under the Old Testament covenant. You remember in Revelation
chapter 12 there was war in heaven between Michael and his angels
and between the devil and his angels and what were they fighting
over? The Old Testament saints. They were fighting over those
who'd gone to heaven, and Satan was saying, but they shouldn't
be there, justice is violated. And it was only when Christ came
down and visibly demonstrated the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, when he was actually as the Passover Lamb crucified
at Calvary, that Satan was defeated there and he was furious and
went away and had to admit that he'd lost Christ's death remitted
the sins of the Old Testament saints just in the same way,
verse 26, to declare, I say, at this time too, now in this
age, his righteousness it applied to them and it applies to us
now any that believe now that he might be just you see God
remains just just God, a just God and a saviour, Isaiah 45,
21. He doesn't stop being God, he
doesn't stop condemning sin, he doesn't stop exacting the
full penalty of the law for sin, but in the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ he justifies those who are sinners, the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. Or that's the gospel. How should
a man be just with a holy God? That is the gospel. That's how.
By Christ Jesus accomplishing righteousness and satisfaction
for the offended law of God through his substitutionary atonement.
That is the gospel that I've declared to you here again. You
know it. and to anybody else that might
be listening. Back in Acts chapter 8 and I'm closing with this so
don't worry I'm not going on much longer Acts chapter 8 and
verse 36 sorry verse Verse 34, the Ethiopian eunuch
is returning from Jerusalem and he's got a copy of the scriptures
by Isaiah and he's reading it, he's reading it out loud and
miraculously God brings Philip to him and the eunuch says to
Philip, of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or some
other man? Then Philip opened his mouth
and began at the same scripture and preached unto him, Jesus. That's what I've sought to do
this morning. I've sought to preach unto you, Jesus, the salvation,
the righteousness of God, which is in him. And as they went on
their way, they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, see,
here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And he said simply this, Philip
said, If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God. And so he baptized him. the Holy Spirit revealed to that
eunuch while Philip preached Jesus and the satisfaction of
divine justice accomplished in him and he gave the eunuch faith,
eyes to see and to believe that and say well I believe that I
believe he did it for me and the sign that I do is that I'm
going to be baptized so here's some water Can you give me a
good reason why I can't be baptized? And Philip says, well, if you
truly believe, you may. Well, I truly believe. So he
baptized him. And that's what it is. That's
what it is. Baptism in itself doesn't save
or do anything. But it's the sign that you're
saying, I have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.