I invite you this morning to
turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter 1. I thought as I read this text
to title it exactly the way it first appeared to me. The Gospel
in a Sentence. The Gospel in a Sentence. Something that's ever on my heart
and mind as I prepare to speak to you, to be as plain and simple
as I can be on whatever subject I feel led of God to bring. A
message not understood is no message at all. It's no message
at all. Just a waste of your time and
a waste of mine. A message that only raises more
questions and leaves men guessing about what was said cannot inspire
us to worship. We can't worship our God, and
we can't find in that kind of a message any reason to trust
in his son. And a message which does not
lay a foundation leaves men to build on same. It lays no foundation. It just leaves men to build on
shifting sand. Paul said to the church at Corinth
that when he came to them, he was determined not to know anything
among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. These were
wise men. This was a a country in general
that was known for their wisdom, for their libraries, for their
poets, for their science. And all of, they were modern
thinkers. They were known for that. And
Paul knew that. And when he went there, he was
determined he wasn't going to talk about those things. He was
determined to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. During the Christmas season,
men and women, they get all sentimental. They get themselves all worked
up into a religious frame of mind. They watch all these religious
movies. You all have your own favorite
ones you watch this time of year. Well, men and women do that,
natural men and women, and they get themselves all worked up
into a religious frame of mind, and everywhere you go, You see
these evidences of men and women celebrating the coming of Christ
into this world. You see nativity scenes. They're all up and down the road.
We drove plumb across Texas yesterday. I've never seen so many nativity
scenes in all my life. They have plays. A lot of the
churches, I notice things on their signs that advertise that
Christmas plays by the young students in the church. There's
movies on, Christmas movies, and there's decorations, and
there's special services. Yet the truth is, in all of this
getting worked up and all this religious mind and all of these
things, the fact of it is, is they know nothing of his preexistence
as God. This tiny baby that they're going
out there and getting all sentimental about, laying in that manger,
is God Almighty. He's God Almighty. They don't
know anything about that. They don't know anything at all
about His pre-existence as God. In the beginning, God. That's
talking about that little baby. God. He's God, our Savior. They know nothing about His pre-existence
as God. They know nothing of His office
as the Christ. They're celebrating the coming
of the Christ child, and they don't know diddly about who the
Christ is. What is the Christ? Who is the
Christ? They know nothing of His office
as the Christ. They know nothing of the nature
of this God-man mediator. He is bone of our bones, flesh
of our flesh. He's ever with a man, and yet
you can say the same thing about God. There's no distinguishing
the man from the Godhead. He's in one person. One person. They know nothing of his accomplishments
as a man. What's the significance of his
coming? Why did he come? Who is this man? Why did he come?
They know nothing of his accomplishments as a man. They know nothing concerning
his life, his death, or his resurrection. They know nothing of the significance
of his being at this present time at the right hand of God. And nothing concerning his sure
return and the awful judgment that will follow. The Lord saw in the woman at
the well a thousand generations when he said to her, you worship,
you know not what. You worship, but you don't know
what you worship. You don't know what you worship.
Now, I'd rather you leave this place angry and shaken down to
your very roots than to leave here smiling, still clinging
to those old sentimental false hopes of religion. I'd rather
you just get mad and throw a songbook at me. I want you to hear and
understand that the only reason why I come up here every Sunday
and preach to you. I want you to understand what
I'm telling you. And until you do, you'll never
worship God. You'll never find any hope in
Him. You'll never know what it is
to have a hope that extends past the grave until you understand
what it is I'm preaching to you. We're told of men and women in
the scriptures standing at the judgment still arguing, still
arguing about their works and their will. Standing there at
the judgment, standing before the Christ, standing before His
judgment seat, standing there, still arguing with Him. We've
cast out demons in Your name. We've done many wonderful works
in Your name. We've preached in Your name.
And on and on and on it goes. He said, depart from me. Now
listen, you that tried to do good. That ain't what he said.
He said, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never
knew you. I never knew you. My text is 1 Timothy chapter
1, verse 15. The gospel innocent. This is
a faithful say, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sinners. I have three things
I want to call your attention to this morning. I want you to
understand a little bit of something about the say, the faithful say. And then I want you to see the
son. And then I want to show you a
sample. All of these things are right
here in this verse of scripture. So first of all, let's examine
the saying. There's all kinds of sayings.
I hear saying, my mother used to quote to me old sayings all
the time. God helps those who help themselves. Anybody ever heard that? I've
heard that a hundred times when I was growing up, especially
when they started out with the welfare system. God will help
those who help themselves, you know. That's directly opposite
of what this text declares, isn't it? Huh? He helps people who
can't help themselves. He came to save sinners. God
sees the good in men. You ever heard that saying? He
just sees the good in you. I don't know how that can be
when there's none good but God. I had a preacher tell me this
and insist on it. And I called him on it. And when
we went and read the scripture, he never quoted it again. But
he took this little portion of scripture and he made that his
message every time he got in the pulpit. God not willing for
any man to perish. If that was so, nobody would
perish because he's sovereign. He's God. He does all his pleasure. If God wasn't willing for any
man to perish, he'd never perish. He'd never perish. And there'd be no reason for
judgment, and there'd be no reason for hell. Here's another thing
he used to say. God wants everybody to be saved.
He wants everybody to be saved. If that were true, everybody
would be saved because he does what he wants to do. Doesn't
he? Isn't that what he said? He said,
here's the difference between me and your God. I do all my
pleasure. That's the difference between
the living God and the God of this world. The living God does
everything that pleases Him. He's almighty God, and He does
as He pleases. He has predestinated us unto
the adoption of children, now listen, according to the good
pleasure of His will. Now God does everything that
He's pleased to do. David said He does it in the
earth, He does it in the seas, He does it in all deep places.
I was thinking about that last night as I saw that tornado on
the weather channel rolling up I-30 down there in Dallas, killing
people one right after the other, destroying homes and just mowing
that place down like a big bush hog. Was that just random? Is that
what we think these things are? They're just random? Do we not
see God behind these things? Do we not see that tornado as
the finger of God and these hurricanes? Nothing's out from under his
control, my friend. Everything's under his control. If that were not so, you'd have
good reason never to go to sleep again. But I can sleep, and the
reason I can sleep is because I know him who sits on the throne.
And I tell you this, if he's put the bullseye on me, there's
nothing I can do about it. He'd take me out with a little
germ you can't even see in a microscope. What about this saying? If you
accept Jesus as your personal Savior, you're saved. Well, I don't want to ruin your
ideas and throw cold water in your face, but His office as
Savior has nothing to do with your acceptance of Him. He's
Savior whether you believe or not. He's Savior whether you're
saved or not. He's still Savior. It has nothing
to do with it. The fact is the work was done
some 2,000 years before you was ever born. And the work was ordained
before the foundation of the world. These are all sayings along with
hundreds of others, but they're not faithful sayings. They are
not faithful sayings. There is a faithful saying. It
is faithful because it was given by our faithful God. Listen to this, 1 Corinthians
1 verse 9, God is faithful, by whom you were called into
the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He said to the
church at Thessalonica, the very God of peace sanctify you wholly
and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now watch
this. Faithful is he that calleth you
who will also do it. Faithful. John said, I saw heaven
opened and behold a white horse and he that sat upon him was
called faithful and true. And Paul said this, let God be
true and every man a liar. A faithful saying originates
from our faithful God. If God said it, you can write
it down, that's, it's the truth. And I know we can all sit there,
well, how can that be? Can that be election? It's not
fair. I asked all them questions first
time I ever heard. I didn't understand election.
I didn't understand predestination. The only thing I understood was
that it was in the word of God. I was positive I didn't have
a right understanding of it. But here it is, and I want to
know what it means. And I had all these questions.
And then the Lord taught me some things. He taught me that a thing
is not true because I understand it, it's true because He said
it. We start to hear Him work our way back instead of starting
to hear Him work our way forward. A faithful saying originates
from our faithful God. Secondly, it comes to sinners
via faithful men. He tells us in verse 11, preceding
our text in 1 Timothy, that the glorious gospel of the blessed
God was committed to His trust. It was committed to Him because
God counted Him faithful. Isn't that what Paul said? We're
stewards, 1 Corinthians 4, 1, of the mysteries of God, and
it's required of stewards that a man be faithful. Faithful to
God, faithful to the scriptures, faithful to the doctrines of
Christ, and faithful to the souls of his hearers. There are, in the midst of great
apostasy, we're living in a day of great apostasy, a great falling
away. In the midst of this great apostasy
and anti-Christ religion, there'd be some who are faithful, some
who are declaring the truth. I didn't say they were loved
by this world or accepted by this world. Our Lord said if
you were of the world, the world would love His own. He'd love
them. He'd take them under His wing. He'd send them money. He'd
support them. He'd send them out. that you've been chosen out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you. I didn't say they
were accepted by this world's approved religion. I'm going
to tell you something. You cannot preach the truth and
be faithful to the gospel of Christ and fit in with the religion
of this world. And whoever says they can, they're
a liar. They're a liar. You can't do
it. You can't do it. There are some who are faithful
messengers of God whose message is to be heard, believed, and
rejoiced in. All right. There's a faithful saying. A
faithful saying. And this faithful saying is worthy
of your acceptance. It's worthy of all acceptation. All right. Secondly, what is
this faithful saying? What is it that's been given
to His church and given to these faithful witnesses? It's the
message of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Preachers are
not recruiters. That's what men think they are.
They're sent to enlist men and women into a great army of God. I listened to a man go on and
on and on the other day on TV about enlisting volunteers into
this great army of God. One of the old saints was preparing
for battle, and he cut out this great army out of Israel, and
he was going to go down there and just stomp a mud hole in
them Philistines. And God said, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You got too many men. And so he cut them down by half.
And so he still, he got a pretty good crowd there. He was ready
to go. And God said, you still got too many. He cut them down
to a handful. Now he said, you're ready. God
don't have any need for an army. What's he need an army for? Huh? He don't need an army. He took
11 men and turned the world upside down, it says in the book of
Acts. Huh? What's he need with an army?
He don't need a great army enlisted for him. We're not recruiters
sent to enlist men and women into the army of God. Christ
single-handedly created the world. He alone came down and bound
Satan, and by Himself, it says, He purged our sins, ascended
into glory, and sat down at the right hand of God. He did that
by Himself. What need does He have of an
army? The Scripture said, By Him all things consist, and without
Him not a sparrow can fall to the ground. Yet all I hear today is about
men and women coming to rescue God from failing to accomplish
His purpose. Preachers are not recruiters
and preachers are not repairmen. It's not their mission or commission
to go around and fix everything that's wrong in your life. Fix everything that's broke.
Preachers are sent of God to point men and women to Christ.
The only way your life is ever going to get fixed is if you
look to Him. You look to Him. To tell this ignorant religious
world that the promised one has come. He's come. And my friend, no matter what
your problem is, sin is at the root of it. Job said, the root
of the matter is in me. All this big discussion going
around about he did that and you had to do this. Now, fess
up to it, Job. There's sorry comforters around
him. Job said, well, he said, I'll tell you this, the root
of the matter's in me. It's in me. What's that mean? That means we got rotten roots.
Rotten roots. Sin entered and death passed
upon all men. And yes, our lives are different
and our problems vary, but the reason is the same, in Adam all
die. Everybody our Lord healed didn't
suffer the same illness. You ever notice that? All these
folks that he healed, they didn't all suffer the same illness.
Some were blind, some were half, some were lepers. Others had
palsy and paralysis. Some couldn't hear. And yet the
root cause was the same. They were sinners. I don't know
if you remember this, but our Lord said to a man sick of the
palsy, He said, Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee. All
them Pharisees come unhinged. Who does He think He is forgiving
sins? It's one thing to heal a man,
it's another thing to tell him that his sins be forgiven him.
And the Lord said that you may know that the Son of Man hath
power on earth to forgive sins. He saith to the sick of the palsy,
Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house. That's in Matthew
9, 1 through 6. What ails this world is sin,
the judgment of it, the influence of it, the power of it, and the
effects of it. It's sin. And the only good news
for sinners is that Christ came. Christ came into the world to
save sinners. To save sinners. To do for dying
sinners what they could not and would not do for themselves.
God gave to Him a people. That's how this salvation began. God gave to Him a people. And
His coming was to save those people. Listen to what it says. They
shall call His name Jesus. That word means Joshua. For He
shall save His people from their sins. You reckon He did? That's why He came to do it.
You reckon He accomplished that? Most people, when they hear about
particular redemption or election, they get a vision of God choosing
certain individuals. Passing by thousands of innocent
men and women who want to be saved but can't because they're
not elect. That's not the vision. Here's
the vision. Picture Adam's race doomed and
damned by the fall, all without exception. None good, none righteous,
no fear of God before their eyes. Their mind, enmity against God. By nature, the children of wrath.
Paul said, the law is spiritual, but I'm carnal. I've been sold
unto sin. Get that picture in your mind,
that election will look good. It'll look good. God didn't choose from among
the innocent. but from the damned and doomed
race of man. And were it not for lichen, this
world would not have survived the garden. This world paints
a picture of babies and infants and small children being innocent
and sinless before God. And then they grow up, and all
of a sudden, they reach that age, whatever it is. I've never
really heard what the age is. I'm sure somebody out there defined
it, but I've never really read anything that defined it, but
they do talk about this age of accountability when all of a
sudden you become accountable before God. And then they have
to choose what path to go down, whether to stay on the path of
righteousness and innocence or go down this other path of sin. But God paints a different picture.
I read it to you a while ago in Psalm 51. He said, I was shaping
an iniquity, and conceived in sin. Psalm 58.3, he said, the
wicked are estranged from the womb. They're alienated, withdrawn
from the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born, speaking lies. Rather than leave Adam's race
to the just and righteous condemnation of God, God chose a people out
of this doomed race to save for the glory of His name. The faithful
saying is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
helpless sinners, dying sinners, vile sinners, and any other thing that you
can picture in your mind to describe what a sinner really is. Men
and women who can cry with Paul. Oh, wretched man that I am. Can you say that in your heart
when you pray before God? Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Is that how you see yourself?
Is that how you see your nature, a body of death, tainting every
good thought you ever had? You start out, Paul said, I would
do good, but the good that I would, I don't do. How come? Because
this vile nature pollutes it before you can even get the thought
out of your brain. It's already polluted and corrupted. He told the Pharisees and scribes,
he said, I'll have mercy and not sacrifice, for I'm not come
to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Well, preacher, how do you know
who God's elect are? Or for that matter, how can they
know if they're elect or not? Because they're the only ones
out of Adam's doomed race who will take their place under the
wrath of God and justify God in their own condemnation. Now,
you find a man that does that, and I'm telling you, he's given
a strong evidence that he's a child of God. He's a child of God. David said, I will confess my
sins. I'll own up to them. And I'll
do it that God may be justified in His Word and clear of all
wrongdoing in His judgment of man. Over in the book of 1 John, in
chapter 1, Brother Clay brought out some things to us concerning
these scriptures. I'll just quote them to you.
It says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us. That man who says, I'm not a
sinner, I'm not a sinner. I'm past all that. I'm up here
on this plateau. Whatever his reasoning is, he's
went through some kind of sanctification by a second work of grace and
all this nonsense that Nazarenes and all those people preach.
If we say, if that man says we have no sin, he deceives himself. And the truth is not in him.
If we say we have not sinned, I've never sinned. You make God a liar. And His Word's not in you. But
if we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why? Because we have an advocate
with the Father. Jesus Christ came into this world
to save sinners, not to tell sinners how to be saved, not
to tell sinners how to save themselves. He said, with man, that's impossible.
There's no need to tell him because he can't do the work. But He
came to save sinners, to save them by way of substitution. That vile criminal and enemy
of God, Barabbas, He was set free because another was chosen
to die in his stead. I can almost see him in that
cell ready to go out and face that cross, face that suffering
and death that he knew he deserved. And the guards got outside and
said, you're free to go. I can almost see him standing
there with his mouth open. How can that be? Another was
chosen to die in your stead. But isn't that the story of ever
saved sinner? He was made a curse for us, as
it is written, cursed is every man who hangeth on a tree. He
died the just for the unjust. The Lord, the prophet said, The
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. By his suffering and
death the sinner's substitute satisfied the justice of God,
thereby saving all that was given to him by the Father, took away
his sins, paid his debt in full, and by way of his obedience the
sinner is made righteous. He has a righteousness before
God, pure and spotless righteousness, not self-righteousness. Not that
hypocritical righteousness that men talk about, but a perfect
righteousness in Christ. Jesus Christ is the federal head
and representative of all God's elect. God's elect were chosen
in Him, blessed in Him, made righteous in Him, and justified
in Him, and are all one with Him. And he who is our covenant
head and representative, being found in fashion as a man, became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And by virtue
of this obedience, he became the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. We don't go back to that law
looking for righteousness. We found it in him. In fact,
we found in Him a righteousness that exalted the law and made
the law honorable. Salvation for sinners is accomplished
in Christ, secured in Christ, and perfected in Christ. Peter said, neither is there
salvation in any other. All right. There is a faithful
Savior. And the gospel is that faithful
saying, and the gospel is concerning the person and work of Jesus
Christ. And then thirdly, God gives us,
Paul said, an example of this salvation. Look here in 1 Timothy
1, verse 16. Howbeit for this cause I obtained
mercy. that in me first, Jesus Christ
might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them which should
hereafter believe. They're no greater sinner than
a self-righteous Pharisee. His very presence denies the
gospel of grace. His doctrine denies the gospel
of Jesus Christ, our substitute and redeemer. Yet God saved this
Pharisee. He saved this man and brought
him to repentance and faith to make him an example, a sample,
a pattern of how God saves sinners. He went clear to the bottom of
the barrel, found the very dregs and the hole in the bottom of
the barrel and saved him first. That every sinner might find
hope in Him. Every sinner. If God will spare
the chief of sinners, where is the one in between that He won't
spare? All right. What think ye of Christ? You've heard the faith forsake. You've heard what the Sodomites
never heard. Our Lord said if they'd heard
what you Pharisees heard, they would have repented in sackcloth
and ashes. You've heard what the sodomites never heard. You've
heard what the princes of this world never heard. You've heard
that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners. Will you
take your place as the sinner? Huh? Will you take your place? Will you own up to your nature
and your practice and your will to sin? Will you look to Christ,
the sinner's substitute, the sinner's righteousness, the sinner's
hope? Or will you go back to the hog
pen? What are you going to do? You're going to do one or the
other. The gospel has consequences. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Let me say this in our clothes. If you toss this message
aside, if you disregard what I've just preached to you, I
want you to know this. According to Hebrews 10 verse
26, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. I don't care what you
give, what you do, what you say, what you are. You pass this up. You pass Christ. You disregard
Him. as he set forth by the Father,
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, just a certain fearful
looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. Those who despised
the law, Paul said, were taken out and put to death without
mercy. Of how much sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought
worthy who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God? Counted the blood
of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing,
and done despite under the Spirit of grace." Oh, may our great
God and Savior be pleased to give us a heart to know Him,
and knowing Him to look to Him, and looking to Him to embrace
Him, and love Him, and fall down His feet and worship Him. That's
what it means to be saved. That's what it means to be saved.
This is a faithful saying. It's worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners, of whom I'm chief.