In the first chapter of Romans,
Paul has this to say to those whom he writes, So much as in
me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome
also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is
written, the just shall live by faith. As much as in me is,
I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. For it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth. To the Jew first. and also to
the Greek. Paul says elsewhere, woe is me
if I preach not the gospel. And he opens this very letter,
this epistle to the Romans by describing himself as Paul, a
servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto
the gospel of God concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord. How much the gospel meant to
Paul. He was separated unto it. The
purpose of his life was for him to preach the gospel.
God set his hand upon Saul to be named Paul and said, you're
going to be my servant and you're going to preach this gospel.
And through the preaching of this gospel, many of my people
will be delivered from their sins, many will be saved, many
will be added to the church. And God sent Saul to this nation
and to that nation and worked mightily through this gospel.
such that Paul could say and say from experience and say because
he knew it that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it
is the power of God under salvation now that statement was no theory
to Paul he did not know that because the scriptures stated
it He did not know that simply because he'd experienced it himself. But he'd seen God save hardened
sinners from amongst many nations, many tribes, many kindreds and
tongues, all sorts of people, all sorts of hardened sinners,
blind heathens. Greeks, Romans, idolaters, he'd
seen many who knew nothing of the truth, who by nature hated
the truth, come to hear this gospel and be shaken to their
foundations, be brought to nothing. and be brought to cry out unto
God to save their souls. And he's seen God save them. He's seen the remarkable change
that this Gospel wrought. And he's seen the contrast between
the power and the deliverance of this Gospel with that religion
within which he was brought up. This was a religious man by nature. a Jew, a Pharisee of the Pharisees,
brought up knowing the Scriptures, brought up knowing about the
Mosaic Law, brought up knowing the Oracles of God, brought up
knowing about the priesthood and the sacrifices. He was well-versed
in the Scriptures, he was well-versed in the religion of the Jews.
He knew the truth in the letter. And yet he knew that the power
to save in the Gospel eclipsed all that he had come to know
in the natural mind from the scriptures, from the priesthood
and from the sacrifice. All that religion he was brought
up with was in the end powerless But here when he met with Jesus
Christ on the road to Damascus, and was sent forth with his Gospel,
here he saw the power of God, which shook him and changed him,
and with which he went to preach, and by which he saw sinners,
hardened sinners like you and I, people in darkness, blind
fools, come to see the truth and come to bow down at the feet
of Jesus Christ and praise his name for what he did freely by
grace for his people when he came into this world of darkness
when he came into this world of sin and was rejected by men,
spat upon, despised, beaten, bruised and nailed to a cross
and slain upon a tree. Christ came and gave himself
for sinners. He gave himself a sacrifice for
his people's sins that he might take it away and deliver them. and Paul knew the power of what
Christ had done and the power of the message which declares
what Christ had done. I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. Well, why not? Because there's
nothing to be ashamed of in a gospel which freely takes dead sinners
out of darkness and brings them into the light. Which takes the
dead and makes them to live. Which takes the guilty and makes
them clean, perfect, without fault. There's no shame in this
gospel. It's wondrous, it's wonderful. It's the greatest message which
has ever been declared in this world. I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ. But there are many who could
join in with that and many in religion today who would say
well I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I love Jesus. I love the gospel. Who in reality do not know what
Paul knew, and do not know the Gospel that Paul knew, and do
not know the Saviour that Paul knew. They speak of the Gospel,
they speak of Jesus, but do they know the Gospel? You may speak
of the Gospel, you may speak of Jesus, but do you know Jesus? And do you know the gospel? And
can you really truly say that it has been made the power of
God unto your salvation? Just what is the gospel? Everybody speaks of the gospel
but what is the gospel? Well firstly it's defined as
being the gospel of Christ. I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. Or as Paul says in fuller terms
in verses 1 to 3, he's called, he's separated unto the gospel
of God concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord. The gospel is
defined, it is definitive. It is a message concerning God's
Son, Jesus Christ, and what he has done to save his people from
their sins. It is not merely referred to
as the Gospel. This Gospel, this Evangel, this
Glad Tidings, this Good News of God is not just the Gospel,
it is not just the Evangel, it is the Evangel, the Gospel, the
Glad Tidings of Christ. And if your message, your Gospel
is not centred upon Christ, then it is not this Gospel. It is the gospel of Christ. The
gospel is not something abstract, something vague, something to
be guessed at. The gospel is not something that
is experienced by one person in this way and another person
in that way and everybody has their own variation of. There
is not a Catholic gospel and a Protestant gospel, a Baptist
gospel and a Brethren gospel, a Methodist gospel and a Presbyterian
gospel. There is not an Assemblies of
God gospel. or a Jehovah's Witness Gospel. There is one Gospel, the Gospel
of Christ. It's defined. And if the Gospel
that you follow, the Gospel you've received, the Gospel you proclaim,
varies in any way, shape or fashion from this Gospel as set forth
in the Scriptures, as preached by the Holy Spirit through Paul
at this time, then it is not the Gospel. The gospel is not
something we guess at or bring our own opinions to. It isn't
a collection of testimonies or subjective experiences. We all have our own lives and
we all have our own experience. And the gospel when preached,
when heard, brings about experience in the hearer. Every sinner saved
by this gospel has a testimony to speak of. Each sinner can
speak of how God met them in the way, of how God preached
unto them, of how God showed them their sin, of how God showed
them their need of salvation. We all have an experience. We
all can speak of how God showed us this in this way and showed
us that in another way and of how he made this particular passage
of scripture real to us. and how he gave us a view of
this. We all have our own experience but the experience flows as a
consequence of the application of the gospel. To speak of our
experience is not the gospel. We can preach a message and speak
of the consequences of the Gospel, of the experience of a sinner
under the Gospel, of how this person felt when they heard the
Gospel, and of how that person felt when they heard the Gospel.
The preacher might describe his own experience of the Gospel,
but if he does, however interesting, however helpful that may be in
its place, he has not preached the Gospel. The gospel is definitive,
it's defined, it is the gospel, the good news of Christ. The gospel is God's message to
man, to fallen man, to sinful man, concerning the person and
the work of his eternal everlasting son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The
gospel declares him It's a message of Christ. It begins, continues
and finishes with Christ. It brings the message of who
Christ is to the hearers, to the hearer. It brings the message
of who he is and what he's done. It leads the sinner unto Christ. And it ends with Christ. Keeping
the gaze of man. set upon Christ the Saviour.
The Gospel declares Him, it sets Him forth. And any message, any
Gospel, any claim of a Gospel which fails to set forth Christ
in all His fullness, entirely and throughout, and fails to
give Christ all the glory for the salvation of sinners, and
fails to set the gaze of people upon Christ is no gospel and
has no power to save. Many speak of the gospel but
set all the attention upon man. All the attention is upon our
decision to follow, our decision to follow Jesus. or our works
or our life in following Him. Many speak of preaching the Gospel
and all their speech and all their preaching and all their
teaching is centred upon the belief of the person and their
walk and what they do, what they must do, either what they must
do to earn salvation or what they must do once they've received
salvation. But whatever the wording, whatever
the subtlety, the attention is all set upon man. and there's
lip service paid to Christ. It's like, well Christ is over
there, he's done this, but now it's all about you. Such a message
is not the gospel and has no power to save. The gospel is
the gospel of Christ. I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. What is the gospel? Secondly,
the gospel is an objective message. The gospel itself is described
as the power of God under salvation. Paul states, I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it, the gospel, is the power
of God under salvation. And this is important to note.
He does not say in this that Christ is the power of God unto
salvation. Though of course Christ is inextricably
linked with the gospel. And as we read in 1 Corinthians
1. In that chapter he speaks of Christ as being the power
of God and the gospel as being the power of God. Christ cannot
be divided. But his attention here is that
the gospel, the message which conveys Christ is the means that
God uses to save. It is God's power to save. And
it is objective. It is not a subjective message.
It does not vary from one to another. but the message of the
gospel, which declares Christ, the gospel of God concerning
his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The message of the gospel is
the power of God under salvation. What's the power of God? The
Gospel is. For the Gospel in and of itself,
when proclaimed by the Holy Spirit through those whom he sends to
preach it, is the power of God unto salvation. And I'll repeat
that to underline it, because it's a point which is contended
with from all sorts of parties on all sorts of sides. However
subtly, the Gospel in and of itself, when proclaimed by God
the Holy Spirit, through those whom he sends to preach it, is
the power of God unto salvation. Now why do I emphasize that?
Because so many deviate. Paul here does not say that the
Spirit of God is the power of God under salvation. Although
we know that the Spirit of God preaches this gospel. And if it's not preached by the
Spirit of God through those whom he sends, it is just words. then the Spirit of God uses this
Gospel. But Paul does not call the Spirit
the power of God. His attention here is on the
Gospel, that which the Spirit uses, and that which concerns
Christ, and that which is God's to proclaim. The Godhead in all
free persons is concerned with this Gospel. It's God's Gospel
concerning His Son as preached by the Spirit. But it's the Gospel,
which is God's, concerning the Son, as preached by the Spirit,
which is itself the power of God. It is of course true, as
I've said, to say that except the Spirit applies this word
inwardly to the heart of His hearers, then they will remain
dead in trespasses and sins. But it's also true that the Spirit
of God never works in isolation. He uses the Scriptures, He uses
the Gospel. When the Spirit of God takes
a dead sinner and brings him to life, He speaks. Christ, through
His Spirit, speaks to the dead and calls them forth. And He
speaks through His Gospel. The Gospel is the power of the
Spirit. It is His sword, as the Word
of God is described as the sword of the Spirit. It's His sword,
which He uses to save sinners. To cut them up, to cut them down,
to bring them in, convicted of their sins before Almighty God. And then by which to quicken
them unto life in Christ. the Gospels, the sword, the power
of the Spirit of God. The Gospel itself as an objective
message is the power of God unto salvation and it is by the preaching
of this objective message that God is pleased to save sinners,
as we've seen before. For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Or as 1 Peter
chapter 1 verse 23 puts it, Peter there says that being born again,
not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of
God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as
grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass
withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of
the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. by the word of God that we are
born again and that word is preached by the gospel I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ for it is the power of God under salvation it's defined
the gospel of Christ it's objective it is the power and thirdly it
is effective it is the power Not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. Now we've
said before that in a world in which the powers of darkness,
the powers of Satan, have their grip upon the hearts of fallen
mankind, that it takes a power to deliver us from his grip.
It takes a power to deliver us from the power of sin. It takes
a power to deliver us from the power of death, the power of
the grave. How can you be saved? You who
are enslaved to your sin, you who are blind and in darkness,
you who are dead, you who are in the grip of Satan. How can
you be saved except a greater power be exerted? There must be a power to deliver
us from such power. And that power, God says, is
in his gospel. How are we to be delivered? What
is the power which brings deliverance? What power brings salvation? The gospel. It is the power of
God unto salvation or unto deliverance to everyone that believeth. It
is this power which saves. This gospel is effective. It does what it says it will
do. It saves. It delivers. There's no other power like it. There's no other power known
in this world like this power. And although to the world and
to the wise in the world, to the worldly wise, to the natural
man, although to the world, the gospel And the preaching of the
gospel, especially in this day and age, is something to be laughed
at. Although the gospel and the preaching
of the gospel is to the world and to the wise foolishness,
nevertheless, God says, it is his power unto salvation. The world laughs at the preaching
of the gospel. The world will laugh at you listening
to this message today. The world laughs when you go
to a place of worship. When the world is entertaining
itself. When the world on a Sunday entertains
and has pleasure and watches its sport and goes this place
and that place and does everything else but go with a few people
to sit in a quiet room and listen. to a preacher although the world
may laugh and the world does laugh and it persecutes and it
ridicules and it scoffs and it scorns although the world laughs
the reality is that the foolishness of that preaching in their eyes
is the power of God and God can take one of those captive in
the world captive to the thinking of the world waking up every
Sunday to go and watch his sport to go and drink to go and entertain
himself one captive to the thinking of this world that says here's
life here's pleasure here's happiness God can take such a one and show
him the utter emptiness and depravity of these things and of his life,
and of his nature, and of his sin. And though a man can have,
in the world's eyes, everything going for him, although a man
can have all the world's pleasure, the best job, the most money,
the nicest wife or husband, the family, the house, the car, all
things go in their way. Although a man or woman can have
all that the world would say is wonderful. Haven't they done
well? Haven't they prospered? You can
have all of those and be brought to nothing, be brought to desperation,
be brought to see the utter emptiness of it. and be brought to see
the time ebbing away, and the years going past, and you begin
to see the end of your life approaching, and you see that these things
that you've spent so much time grasping and seeking after, you
can't hold on to. You can see that soon you'll
be 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, gone, if you live as long as that. If you're spared some so-called
accident or tragedy that takes you away sooner, should you get
to old age, you can see that old age is creeping up rapidly. And what the world says is wonderful
and prosperous, you can see is nothing. It's going. You can't
keep it. And death stands in your way.
And God, you see. by his gospel, take you in your
prosperity with all that the world promises and gives you
and all that Satan with his deceptive lies promises and gives you and
show you that it's nothing and show you the desperation of your
state and show you your sin and your enmity against God and your
hatred of God and your hatred of man and the iniquity within
and bring you to your knees and bring you to say, well there
must be a God, there must be truth, where can I hear what
is true, and bring you to seek out the gospel. He can bring
you to go and ask, well, where can I hear the truth? He can
bring you to set foot in a church, in a meeting, where you think
you may hear the truth. He can bring you to search out
the books and to buy a Bible and to read. He can bring you
to go on the internet and listen for messages of the gospel. He
can bring you to hear. And he can bring you to that.
which is the power of God unto salvation and if he does should
he bring you to there you'll discover that that power is greater
than any power that you've ever seen ever known or ever had it
is the power of God unto salvation foolish to the world But unto
us which are saved it is the power of God, for the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. Yet unto
us which are saved it is the power of God. God uses this,
it's his means by which he will save. He said before this world
was created, I'm going to send my son into this world because
man will fall and rebel against me. but I will show forth my
grace, my mercy and love in front of all the world by sending mine
own son as a sacrifice for my people. I will slay him in the
place of them, I will judge him instead of them, I will shed
his blood instead of their blood and I will make known what he
has done unto them and I will bring them to here and I will
deliver them from their sins. and wash them clean and cause
them to hear and cause them to follow and separate them from
darkness and bring them into light I will save he purposed
it and he preaches it and it is his power under salvation
the power of God this power is attested to in many ways throughout
the scriptures in many places Paul speaks of it here the power
of God as the gospel In Matthew 22, 29, Jesus spoke unto Simon,
said, unto them, ye doer, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the
power of God. Do you know the Scriptures? Do
you know the power of God? Oh, you may know of the gospel.
You may know the gospel concerns Jesus. You may know it speaks
of the death and the resurrection of Christ, but do you know its
power? Do you know that gospel in truth
and its fullness? Do you know that savior? Do you
know who it was that died upon the cross? In what does your faith stand? In what does your faith stand?
Do you claim to have faith? Do you trust and rest in something?
Do you hope for salvation in the end? In what does your faith
stand? Does it stand in the power of God? Does it stand in Christ
and his gospel? Paul in writing to the Corinthians
says that he preaches the gospel unto them. that their faith should
not stand in the wisdom of man but in the power of God the power
of God I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is
written the just shall live by faith Oh you need faith, oh you
need faith if you're to be saved, but where does your faith stand?
If it stands in the power of God, if it stands in the gospel,
if your faith is centred on Christ, then your faith is centred on
that gospel which brought in the righteousness of God for
you. because that's your great problem as a sinner that you
stand before Almighty God as a sinner full of sin full of
corruption full of iniquity in need of righteousness and you
have no righteousness and you have no means of producing righteousness
And the great wonderful message of the Gospel is that this great
need that we have is answered in Christ in the Gospel. Why is the Gospel the power of
God under salvation? Because therein in the Gospel
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. in the gospel
your need of righteousness is answered god has a righteousness
which he has made known in his son through the death of his
son He took his son and he slew him. He judged him against, according
to his eternal standard, his own character of righteousness.
He took the sinner If you're in Christ believer, if you have
this faith in this gospel, he took you and he slew you with
Christ and he laid your sins upon Christ and he made Christ
to be your sin as you were crucified with him and he judged that sin
and those sins according to his righteousness. That you should
be clean and you should stand before him perfect. What makes
the Gospel so effective, so powerful? Because the righteousness of
God is revealed within it. That makes it powerful. Here
is a message that declares that though all men are sinners, though
all fell in their father Adam into sin, death and ruin, though
we've all inherited sin and death from our father Adam, though
we're born sinners, that we are daily at enmity with God. Though man in his fallen nature
stands guilty before God, hating God, hating men, hating authority,
hating any rule over him, though man hates and hates and hates,
and is deserving of God's eternal wrath and damnation, though that's
where we are, though that's where you are, nevertheless, in the
gospel, God in his great love, his mercy, God in his delight
of showing mercy, sent forth his son into this world to a
place called Golgotha, the place of a skull, and allowed men to
nail him to a tree, that he should stand in the place of his people
and take their sins away. He sent His Son to take His people's
sins away through His own death, to deliver them from the judgment
which they deserved, and yet which He drank, and to bring
in for them, through that death, through the shedding of His own
blood, the righteousness of God. He brought in for them a righteousness
which has no beginning and no end, the everlasting righteousness
of God. And He freely gives it to them
by grace. And this justifying righteousness,
the righteousness of God, is that which is revealed in the
Gospel. Which is why the Gospel has power
to save, because it answers our problem. It takes away our sin
and makes us righteous. not just sinless but righteous,
not just undoing what we've done but making us as though we are
God. Absolutely perfect. Righteous. This gospel is that
which reveals two men you see. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ says Paul, a son of Adam. Because the Gospel of Christ
reveals another man, the last Adam. And this son of Adam, who
inherited his sin and death from Adam, in the Gospel, by the work
of the last Adam, is made to be a son of God. There's two types of men, and
the Gospel makes them known. by nature you and I are the offspring
of the earthly man Adam and we inherit all his sin and we inherit
the condemnation which is its consequence but if through the
Gospel God by that Gospel God by the Word of God causes us
to be born again by the Spirit of God we will be born again
as those who have life as those who are the offspring of Christ,
the last Adam. We are of a new manhood, a new
life, a new progeny with the righteousness of God. Has God done that for you? If
he has, then you will know what Paul means when he says that
this is the power of God. Because God has done this for
you. The gospel is the power of God
under salvation. It's elective. It's God's. It's God's gospel. It's God's
gospel to devise, to plan, to enact, to bring to pass, to preach,
to apply. It's God's gospel. Paul does not write, I am not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of man under
salvation. But he writes that it is the
power of God under salvation, not of man. It is God's. The gospel is God's. It is his
message concerning his work in the person of his son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. who died to save His people from
their sins. The Gospel was God's to purpose,
God's to perform. It is God's to proclaim and it
is God's to apply. Consistently and repeatedly throughout
its message the gospel clearly sets forth the salvation of that
people of God, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world. God has a people that he chose
in his son before this world was ever made and God determines
to save them. And if you're ever brought to
hear this Gospel and God uses it to save you, it's because
God had you in His mind, in His heart, before ever this world
was made. He'd chosen you by name and He'd
said, before ever the world was created, that person, you, I
am going to save. And when Christ went to the cross
he took your name upon his heart if you're his and he took your
sins and felt your sins and felt the anger of his father's wrath
against your sins in particular because he loved you. and He
gave Himself for you. O believer, if He died for you,
it's because He loved you before ever you thought of Him, before
ever you knew Him, before ever you cared for Him, before ever
you turned to Him. It's not your gospel that saves,
it's not your decision that saves, it's not your will that saves,
it's God's. It's Christ, when he suffered,
he suffered knowing you, knowing your sins, loving you, giving
himself for you, before ever you were born. before ever you
turned away, before ever you trod underfoot his blood, before
ever you despised him and shut your ears to him and scoffed
at the preaching of the gospel, before ever you laughed with
your friends at the foolishness of the gospel and the foolishness
of Christians. He loved you and bled for you
and died for you. And in time, long-suffering he
came with his gospel and preached it unto you and delivered you
The gospel sets forth the salvation of that people chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world who have been predestinated
unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. He wanted to save his people. If he saved you it was to the
pleasure of his will. These people are described in
the scriptures as God's sheep, for whom Christ laid down his
life, for whom he died, for he died for none else. He laid not
down his life for goats, but for the sheep. They are elected,
they are chosen, God purposed it. And they are saved not according
to their will but God's, as John chapter 1 makes plain. And as
John 15 makes plain, ye have not chosen me. But I have chosen
you. Should you ever be brought to
the point of crying out and willingly calling upon the Lord, your calling
is a consequence of His choosing. It's because He chose you. It's
because He sent His Son for you. It's because Christ died for
you. As 1 Peter 2 9 tells us, you are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people that you should
show forth the praises of him who have called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light. He's chosen a people and he's
given his son for a people and he saved his people. It is the
gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. The power is not in us, not in
our works, not in our own righteousness, not in our will, but in God. This is why when Paul speaks
of being sent forth to preach, he knows as a preacher the power's
not in him. We have this treasure in urban
vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not
us. It's the gospel which is the
power. It's not me the preacher, Paul
says. It's not my knowledge. It's not
my persuasion. It's not my eloquence. It's this
gospel. I'm but an urban vessel. But
God put this gospel in me and speaks through me that the excellency
of the power may be of God because this is excellent. We are saved
by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of
righteousness. And as 1 Thessalonians 1 5 tells
us, our gospel came not unto you in word only. but also in
power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance as ye know
what manner of men we were among you for your sake. We were nothing
but we gave our all for you because we came with this gospel and
you knew its power. Because it's God's and it's his
power and he saves whom he will. And finally, it is the power
of God unto salvation. It's not the power of God to
make a kingdom in this world, to make a people in this world,
a community in this world, which is better, more moral than around
them. It's not the power of God to
save this fallen world's social ills. It's not the power of God
to heal you from your earthly illnesses and disease. Whatever
God may do by grace from time to time to one or the other in
this manner or another, the gospel's purpose is to save. eternally. It's to deliver you
from the disease of your sin. It's to deliver you from the
death, the consequence of your sin. It's the power of God under
salvation. It's to set you free from the
captivity of your sin. Because the Gospel declares the
redemption of Christ. The redemption price that he
paid for his people with his own blood. The ransom. They were a people held captive,
held hostage to sin and Christ came and paid a ransom price
and said set them free. Or they were a people as it were
as slaves. Servants of sin with a master
called Satan. were slaves and one needed to
set them free, a redemption price needed to be paid. Well Christ
came and paid that price and the price was his blood and when
he paid it that people were set free. I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel saves and it does
so because Christ laid down his life for his own in order to
redeem them from their sins. His own blood was the redemption
price he paid to deliver them from death and to secure their
freedom. His own blood, his own body. He offered up his own body and
his blood as depicted. in the bread and the wine. His
body was broken, his blood was shed. He paid the price for both
our sin in his body and took it away and was consumed and
burnt as it were outside the camp. The carcass was taken out
and burnt and he paid the price for our sins. Those things that
flow out of our fallen heart, he paid the price. He shed his
own blood. to wash away all our sins. He gave His body and His blood. Now what are you sheltering under?
What are you coming unto God with? What are you pleading before
Almighty God when He stands demanding righteousness? Do you point to
your decision to follow Christ? Do you point to your own works
and moral upbringing? Do you point to your own moral
standing? Do you point to a turning of a leaf? Do you point to your
attendance at church? Do you point to this work or
that work? Or do you, knowing that you're
a sinner through and through, fall down on your knees and point
to a saviour? who broke his own body, whose
body was broken under the wrath of God and whose blood was shed
and say, there's my plea. Oh Lord cover me with that blood,
cover me within and without like the ark of old was covered within
and without. Shelter me from the storm under
that blood. Peter says, for as much as you
know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things of silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot. That's what redeemed us, that's
what brings our salvation, that's what brings the forgiveness of
sins. Christ in Luke 5 said, but that
ye may know that the Son of Man have power upon earth to forgive
sins. He then said to the sick man,
arise. Well, what gave Christ the power
on earth to forgive sins? His death did. His shed blood
did. It's because he was going to
that cross that he could forgive the sins of those people. And
it's because he shed his blood upon that cross that he can forgive
your sins and my sins. Why? Because of the gospel. Have your sins been washed by
this blood? Has God made you in Christ to
be the righteousness of God? Has he made known his salvation
unto you? Can you say with Paul, I am not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto
salvation? Can you define your gospel? Is
it Christ's? Is it God's? Is the gospel that
power which saved you? Has it been made effective unto
your salvation? Are you truly delivered from
your sins? Are you washed? Are you cleansed?
Are you righteous? Did God choose you in particular? Do you know that? Can you stand
and say, I'd have never chosen him. I was never following after
him. I never sought him, but he sought
me. He chose me. He elected me. And in so doing, he redeemed
me. He has set me free. The truth shall set you free. Lies will never do, but the truth,
the gospel, will set you free. Oh, can you cry out with Paul,
as one who knows the effects, I, I am not ashamed of the Gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation, and it
has saved even me. Amen.