Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. This is what the old writers
called the funeral chapter. It's probably chosen more than
any other to be read and preached on at funerals because it deals
with that death and that new life. But I want to talk to you
this morning on this subject. at the very beginning of this
chapter. And I'll be reading to you the first four verses.
But my subject is this, the gospel wherein we stand. That's what Paul said. The gospel
wherein we stand. Now listen to this. 1 Corinthians
15. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel. The gospel. which I preached unto you, which
also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are
saved, if ye 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." And then
in verses 5 through 7 he tells us that this resurrection and
this death and these facts which he has preached to them, All
these things concerning this man and concerning his death
and concerning his resurrection were witnessed by not only the
11 faithful apostles, but he was seen after his resurrection
by over 500 other brethren at one time. Now, in these verses
we are taught plainly, I believe, that the preaching is the utility
or means that God uses to call chosen sinners to faith in Christ
and repentance from sin. And the Apostle Paul was a preacher.
This is what he did. He began all of his letters the
same way, talking about this preaching, telling them that
he was separated unto the gospel. telling them that his life was
isolated, sanctified of God for one purpose. God separated me,
He said, from my mother's womb for this purpose, to reveal His
Son in me that I might preach Him among the heathen. He was
a preacher. He spent his life preaching.
He suffered to preach. He didn't campaign. He didn't
protest. He didn't organize and he didn't
consolidate. He preached. That's what he did. He contemplated, he studied,
he prayed in order to preach. He lived and sacrificed everything
that he might preach. That's what he did. That's all
that he did. He didn't have a sideline. He
preached. He preached. And he wrote this
church at Corinth and he told them again. He said, I preach
to you the gospel. and you receive this Gospel,
and you stand right now in this Gospel, and you'll be saved by
it if you stay put and are not moved away from this hope. You see his leading statement
there in verse 2? A lot of folks don't believe this. I'm hoping I can be as clear
and as plain and as candid to you. I want you to at least understand
what I'm saying. I have no power to convince or
convict, but I do have a responsibility to communicate these things."
Listen to this leading statement. He said, "...by which also ye
are saved." Can you believe that? Our Lord gave His apostles the
Great Commission and He said, "...go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel." He that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved." That's what Paul's talking about right here. By
which also you're saved. Sounds to me like this gospel
is a pretty important thing. Sounds to me like it's a necessary
thing. God calls sinners to life and
faith in Christ by the preaching of the Gospel. And every time
this Gospel is preached, sinners are called to Christ. They're
called. Sometimes it's a general call.
Sometimes it's just a call of this man and this voice. But
whether you recognize it or hear it or whether you don't, it still
calls sinners to Christ. It calls them to Christ. The
Gospel is not an offer. The Gospel is not an invitation,
strictly speaking. The Gospel is a declaration.
It's a proclamation. It does not leave men wondering
what God will do, what God is going to do about this and what
God is going to do about that. When you hear the Gospel, you'll
cry out with Israel, men and brethren, what shall we do? What
are we going to do? When you hear it. When you hear
it. The scope of this gospel is universal. Go ye into all the world. Our
business as a local church is to preach this gospel. We don't
have any other business. That's the business. Preach this
gospel. Where? Wherever God will open
a door. Preach it. Preach it. Not just
in Walker Creek. Not just in Taylor. Anywhere
we have an opportunity to preach. God opens doors, affects a door. We've got people from this church
right here, from the preaching, from this pulpit in Australia
that's listening to this gospel. In California. All over the place. Indiana. I get letters and mail
from people all over who listen to this. This is the only preaching
they have. Our business is to preach. It's
to preach. I don't know sometimes if we
really get a handle on that. My business is not to reform. I'll tell you when you'll reform
when you see Christ. You'll reform. Your life will
change forever. But it's not going to change
until that. This country is full of churches. I have an article
in there by Milton Howard. I hope you read it. But this
country is full of churches whose goal is to reform society and
the more they labor to do it, the worse society gets. Am I
telling you the truth? You know it's the truth. There's
never been a day that has as many churches and as much religion
as our day. And there's never been a day
when society was any lower than it is today. My business is not to educate.
Christian schools are just to come on to get people to fill
their queues and build organizations. And I tell you, you do a great
damage. I've got some teachers in here
that will swear to that. You do great damage to your child
when you put them in a Christian school. And I'm going to tell
you why. Because they're not going to live in that Christian
environment. They have to live in this world. And you learn
to live in this world when you go to school. You deal with real
people, real situations. You deal with this world as it
is. And that child slowly, as it grows up, begins to realize
how to live in this world. I'm not in the educating business. And this gospel call, this preaching
of the gospel, it's an unconditional call. There are no conditions,
qualifications, experiences, or feelings that I'm commanded
to give you to generate. You're dead in trespasses and
sins. That's how I see everybody I preach to, dead, until I get
evidence of why. And I tell you this, the gospel
preached, we're called to believe, not feel. Believe. That's what it says. He that
believeth. He that believeth. Sometimes
I feel it and sometimes I don't. But I believe it. I do believe. And the terms of peace set forth
in this Gospel are very simple. Absolute, unconditional surrender
to the King of Glory. Bow down. Bow down. And to accomplish His business
of grace, God allowed His Son to suffer indignation, humility. We talked about it in the Sunday
School lesson. Shame beyond our imagination. And then He raised
him up after those days. He raised him up and He set him
at the right hand of power and He gave him a name above every
name. And your knee is going to bow. It may not bow this morning,
but it's going to bow. It's going to bow. And your tongue
is going to confess. What are you going to confess?
You're going to confess that He's Lord to the glory of God.
He's Lord. He's Lord And God was right in
making him Lord. You're going to confess that
every tongue in heaven, earth, and hell is going to say that.
And I tell you this, when this call comes, you'll come bowing
or you won't come at all. You won't come at all. You'll
come submitting or you won't come at all. And if you don't
now in mercy and grace, you will then in power and fear. But either
way, you're going to come, and you're going to submit, and you're
going to bow. And I'll tell you this, that man's sin of God,
this embarrasses me even to say these things. I understand what
Paul was saying when he said, I say these things to my shame.
But the man's sin of God to preach this gospel is a man who carries
with him the authority of God. I know how that sounds. You think
it don't sound that way to me? You think I didn't wrestle over
these things? He carries with him the authority
of God. And this authority cannot be
obtained anywhere except from God. You can't go to a seminary
and get it. A church can't lay its hands
on it and give it to you. Only God can give this authority. And when He does, when He does,
the effects of it are eternal. It's eternal. And because it's
by divine appointment, what that man preaches is of eternal consequence. What if the Lord Jesus Christ
stood up here this morning? Stood right up here this morning?
Huh? Would you hear things a little
different? If He said the same words that I'm saying to you,
you'd hear them a little different, wouldn't you? Huh? Wouldn't be
none of that. Wouldn't be none of that. Wouldn't
be none of this either, huh? Wouldn't be none of those things.
No, a heavy weight would fall on you if the Lord Jesus Christ
were to stand here this morning and preach to you. A heavy weight,
a heavy weight would come with those words. I dare say they'd be more carefully
weighed, and I venture to say there wouldn't be no shrugging
the shoulders. There wouldn't be none of that. Boy, you'd have
them hands up. You wouldn't miss a word, would
you? But the Scripture says, we are ambassadors for Christ.
Listen, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in His
stead, be you reconciled to God. That's 2 Corinthians 5.20. Is
that how we listen? I don't care where you're at.
I don't care if you're here. over in Texarkana, down in Shreveport,
up in Kentucky. I don't care where you are. I
don't care who you are. When you sit before that man
who stands in this pulpit and opens this book and preaches
to you, you either believe that he's an ambassador of God, in
which case he stands in Christ's stead and preaches to you as
though God did beseech you by him, or else he's a false prophet. There is no in-between. He's
either up there on his own or he's up there as God's ambassador.
Do you believe this book teaches that God speaks to men through
a man? That's what it teaches. That's
exactly what it says. Time and again it says. The Thessalonians
believe it. Paul said, I know your election
of God because when I preach to you, when I preach to you
the gospel, It didn't just come in word only. It wasn't just
another man like there at Mars Hill where they gathered to either
hear or see some new thing. It wasn't like that. When they
heard him, they heard him. It was just as though God spoke
to them. He said, I know your election
of God. I know your election of God.
It didn't come in word only, but it came in power and it came
in the Holy Spirit. And when God speaks through a
man, He strives with a man. And when His message is resisted,
when His message is resisted, they in turn resist the Holy
Spirit of God in whose power He stands and preaches. Can I
make good on that? You bet I can. Listen to this.
This is over in Acts chapter 7. Stephen, he was a preacher. And God separated him and he
put him over here in the Sanhedrin, the most feared council of religion
that's ever been. came down to where Stephen was,
and God anointed him with the Holy Ghost, and that man stood
and preached to them. And he went all the way back
to their beginning and began to show them the fallacy of their
religion. Began to show them that it could
not be that they walked in darkness, that they were wrong, that they
were going to hell for what they believed, and causing others
to go to hell for what they preached and what they stood for. And
finally, he gets down to verse 51, filled with the Holy Ghost. He said to that great council
of the Sanhedrin, he said, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost. Huh? When did they do that? Every
time they ever heard the Gospel preached. As your fathers did,
so do you. Their fathers did the same thing. Because the preacher stands by
divine appointment and authority, his gospel becomes an urgent
responsibility. And unfortunately, this gospel
leaves men without excuse. It's not my desire. It's not something in me that
just wants to keep separating and dividing and whacking and
cutting off. That's not it. That's not why
I stand up here. It's not my desire to see anybody
leave this congregation. I don't say anything to intentionally
make you angry or upset, but the gospel I preach is offensive. It just is. It just is. It does make people angry. It
does make people upset. And even if you will not have
it, it's still my responsibility to tell you. And if I've done my job, and
I fear this more than anything, waking up in judgment and one
of you, somebody that I've preached to in my lifetime, pointing their
finger at me before God and saying, he didn't tell me that. He didn't
tell me that. He didn't say that. He didn't
teach that. I'll tell you like Paul, I'm
not going to shun to declare unto you the whole counsel of
God. And if it cuts you off, it cuts you off. If it cuts off
your mama, it cuts off your mama. If it cuts off mine, it cuts
off mine. That's just the way it is. I
have a little tiny bit of hope for my father. After 50 years
of religion, he heard the truth. And God bowed him down. And he
listened to the gospel and he gave evidence of rejoicing in
the gospel and he was baptized after 50 years in religion. But my mother never did. She
hung on to those old ways and that's old religion. If it's
good enough for my mama, it's good enough for me. If I've done
my job as I've been taught, no man in that day can point his
finger at me and say he didn't tell me the truth. I told you. And I do not have the power to
convict or convince, but I do have a responsibility to tell
you the truth. And I've told you the truth.
And when I have, you're accountable before God. I want you to understand
that. Excuses won't undo it. It won't
undo it. Resisting won't undo it. They
resisted. They stopped their ears. When
Stephen was preaching at That account I gave you a while ago,
when he gets down to the end, they stopped their ears, they
gnashed their teeth, and they ran on and began to bite him,
get him dead before he could say one more thing. Why? Because
they were accountable before God. They were guilty before
God and they knew it. They wanted his mouth shut. And
they went down there and Paul held the coat of them while they
stoned him. The gospel will be believed and received. or God
will hold you accountable, he that believeth not shall be damned. And I tell you this, how men
wiggle and squirm to get out of it, that's just your opinion. I like to have a nickel for every
time I've ever heard that. That's just your opinion. They wrinkle up their brow, and
they talk about that being an opinion, and then he turns his
back and excuses himself by saying, that's just your interpretation.
That's what you say. I read 2 Corinthians 5.21 to
a man one time. I wasn't trying to tell him anything
about it. I just read it to him. He said,
the Bible don't say that. And I said, sure it does. I went
on the truck, got the Bible out, and turned to it. I said, here
it is. Oh, he said, that's your interpretation. I said, no, that's
what it says. Huh? Brother Henry Mahan, things
got so bad at Pollard Baptist Church one time that this old
deacon stood up and he just decided that morning he wasn't going
to teach anything, he was just going to read. He was just going
to read the Scripture through the whole Sunday school hour.
And he got up and began to read Ephesians chapter 1. He got down
to about verse 4. And this old deacon stood up
all red in the face and mad and he said, that's enough! That's
enough! He said, I know what you're trying
to do. Henry said, I'm not trying to do anything. Oh yeah, he said,
you're trying to teach election. Henry said, I'm not trying to
teach anything. Oh, don't tell me. He said, you're not going
to stop mine until you say, I know what you're trying to do. You're
trying to teach election. He said, I'm not doing anything.
I'm just reading Ephesians chapter 1. He said, is election what
you got out of it? He said, that's what I got out
of it too. Because that's what he says. Not my interpretation,
it's what the Word of God says. He wiggles to one side and he
said, you just narrow-minded. But the fact still remains, our
Lord said, he that heareth you, heareth me. And he that rejecteth
you, rejecteth me. And he that despises you despises
me, and he that despises me despises him that sent me. His gospel
will be preached, and all those who hear it and believe will
be saved, and all those who will not hear it and walk away in
indifference shall be damned. Now, if I'm not called to God,
you don't have a thing on this earth to worry about. But if
I am, your soul hangs in the balance. That's your soul. That's what this book teaches.
And that's what Paul is talking about here when he tells them,
I declare unto you the gospel. The gospel. I live with this
woman. She's my wife. I love her. But
our relationship has nothing to do with my office as a preacher
and a pastor. I preach to her the same as I
preach to you. Her responsibility is the same
as yours. If I stand here in the power
of God's Spirit and declare unto you the gospel, and she says,
well, I'm not going to have that, the result is the same. It's the same. He said, I declare unto you the
gospel. Now the gospel is a person, the
Lord Jesus Christ, but it is no gospel at all apart from the
historical facts. that tell who He is and why He
came and what He did and where He's at at this present time.
It's no gospel at all. You can preach Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus. Go all up and down the line.
You can see Him on the signs. I can hear it in the preaching.
I can listen to it on TV. I turned a man on this morning,
and boy, he was actor. He was into it. Boy, he was going
and going and going, talking about Jesus. He didn't no more
know Jesus than a goat. Jesus is defined in the Scripture
as to who He is. Clearly tells you who He is.
Paul said to the Galatians, he was upset and angry. Men come
in and they say, I'm just not going to buy into that. Here's
what you need to do. It's okay what he's saying about
resting in Jesus for salvation, but now look, we've got a law
over here we've got to deal with, and this law is going to be your
rule of life. He was jumping up and down mad
when he wrote the book of Galatians. If you've ever read that book,
you'll agree with me. He was angry. He wasn't holding
a mild manner. He was upset. He was upset. And he told them, he said, you
be so much as circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. You
better get rid of that law. The gospel is a person, but apart
from these historical facts that tell who he is, why he came,
what he did, and where he's at, it's no gospel at all. Actually,
what separates Christianity from paganism? Are you listening to
me? What separates Christianity from
paganism is the record that God has preserved concerning His
Son. It's facts. One fact built up
on the next. It's facts from front to back.
I know they're spiritual. And I know we're carnal. And
I know we twist them and turn them and overlook them and jump
on them and throw them in the dirt. But they're facts. Undeniable
facts. God destroyed this world with
a flood. That's a fact. You can't write
that off as a story. It's a fact. God dried up that
sea and took Israel across on dry land and drowned in Pharaoh
and his army. That's a fact. That promise of
God in the garden, that fall of man in the garden, those are
facts. They're facts. Facts witnessed
from the foundation of the world. Facts carefully preserved in
the Holy Scriptures. Facts declared, manifested, exampled,
and witnessed. Listen to this. Here's what Peter
told me. He said, We're not cunningly
devised fables. We didn't preach cunningly devised
fables when we made known unto you the coming of our Lord and
the power of His coming. We were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Eyewitnesses. John said this,
he said, that which was from the beginning, which we've heard,
which we've seen with our eyes, which we've handled of the Word
of life, for this life was manifested and we've seen it. We saw it. We stood there and saw it. He
said, my hands have handled him, John. I touched him. I touched
him. I sat in his presence and ate
fish and watched him eat fish. I watched him die on the cross.
These are facts, undeniable facts. And these facts are personal.
They have to do with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To Him give all the prophets witness. And it's who He is that
gives credibility and substance to what He did. This mealy-mouthed,
feminist Jesus that they preach today couldn't save a flea. He couldn't save a flesh. Well,
I believe in Jesus. That's not going to do you any
good. Not going to do you any good. I accept you Jesus as my
personal Savior. You might as well went out and
hired a valet. Because that's what you're trying
to make out of the Son of God. It's who this Jesus is. Huh? I tell you, I listen to people
talk and I wonder, they can't possibly have ever read the Word
of God. They couldn't say that and have
read the Word of God. The angels looked in amazement
when they saw that baby in that manger. This is God come into
the flesh. It's who He is that gives credibility
and substance to what He did. If He's not God come into the
flesh, He can't be Christ. Because man cannot satisfy and
God cannot suffer. But the God-man can save. The
God-man. Nothing less than God and man
in one person can substitute for a sinner. And in the spirit
and character of God, he can effectually resist sin, perfectly
obey the law, and satisfy its every demand. As a man, he can
suffer and die. As a man, John, he can be touched
with the feelings of your infirmity. You can pray and he knows what
you're praying. He's touched. There's not a husband or a wife
in here who can't identify with what I'm saying when I say you
can be touched. Sometime in your relationship,
you've touched her and she's touched you. He can be touched. He can be touched. Oh, he said, in these last days
God has spoken unto us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of
all things, and by whom He made the world, being the brightness
of His glory, and expressing the image of His person, and
upholding all things by the word of His power, when He by Himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on high. Now Paul said they'll come and preach another Jesus.
They will preach another gospel and they will have another spirit.
It is not just Jesus that saves. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ as He set
forth in the Word of God. And there can be no gospel preached
that is void of these historical facts preserved in the Scriptures. It says this over in 1 John 5,
And this is what I'm trying to push you to this morning and
press you to. This divine book is the witness of God which He
hath testified of His Son. This is God's witness to us. Listen to this in verse 10. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath
made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his son. Now you can talk about spiritual
understanding all you want to, this says what it says. You hear
the gospel, and you weigh the gospel, and you say, I won't
have it. You've made God a liar. You've made Him a liar. Ain't
that what that says? Because you won't receive the record.
Preacher, do you really believe a man has to know and understand
election and predestination to be saved? No, I don't. I do not. I tell you plainly,
I do not. But let me be quick to tell you
this. If you're confronted with these things in the gospel of
God's sovereign grace, you'll bow to them or God will send
you to hell. He's not going to save any man
who rebels against the Word of God. You'll submit and come to
Him, and you'll submit to this book. You may not understand
it, but you ain't going to stand up and say, well, I just don't
believe in election. You made God a liar. What you
done? Well, I just don't believe in
predestination. You may not understand it, but
you better bow to it because it's in this book. I'll tell you that dipping into
Jordan didn't have a thing in this world to do with cleansing
leprosy. But if Naaman hadn't dipped in
that river as God told him to do, as His servant instructed
him to do, he'd have died a leper. Giving don't have a thing in
this world to do with being saved. It's just an evidence. Don't
have anything to do with your salvation. But Ananias and Sapphira,
it become an issue with them, and they lied to the Holy Ghost,
and they carried them out dead, one right after the other. And
you can go on and on and on through the Scriptures. There's just
no end to it. Circumcision. You didn't have
a thing in the world to do with being saved, but if Moses hadn't
circumcised that boy down there in the wilderness, God would
have killed him dead on a rock. You can write it down. I don't
care. You don't have to know all these things to be saved.
You have to know enough to rest your soul on Him, ever how much
that is. I don't know how much. It's more
with some than it is with others. Some of us were steeped in religion
and it took a lot to persuade and convince. Others of you weren't. My wife wasn't. She wasn't raised
in a home like that. She wasn't in church every day.
It seemed like it was a simple thing for her to understand.
It was a hard thing for me. A hard thing. I'm not going to
set limits on what you have to know, but I'll tell you this,
you're going to bow to this book. You're going to bow to this book. And I don't care how much it
crosses your tradition or your religious concepts, you'll surrender
to the Word of God or go to hell. That's just the way it is. This
gospel tells who Christ is, why He came, what He did, and where
He sits right now. He's the God-man mediator. God
ordained to come into the flesh, represent a people chosen of
God from everlasting. And He came to accomplish this
salvation. He, by one offering, Paul said,
sanctified them forever, made them blameless, took away their
sins. By His life's obedience, He provided
for them a spotless robe of righteousness. It says He obtained, obtained,
has it in His hand, eternal redemption for us. He did. By Himself purged
our sin. In Hebrews 9.15 it said He is
the mediator of the New Testament that by means of death for the
redemption of the transgressions, that were under that first covenant,
that old covenant of works, that covenant of law, they which are called might receive
the promise of eternal inheritance. And then he ascended up on high
and sat down as the reigning king of glory to see that all
for whom he died received their rightful inheritance. And these
facts, though they are few, they imply many. Paul just gives you
three things. Christ died according to the
Scripture. He was buried and He rose again
the third day. Just three facts, ain't it? But
those facts, how many facts do those facts imply? He died for our sins according
to the Scripture. He was buried and rose again.
His death implies satisfaction, does it not? It implies satisfaction. Romans
8.34, Who is he that condemneth? If Christ had died, that is satisfaction,
isn't it? By His resurrection, that implies
justification. Being delivered for our offences,
Paul said, and raised again for our justification. His resurrection implies a living
hope. He is the firstborn among many
brethren. And His burial testifies to the
reality of His death. How do I know he actually died
and not like the Learning Channel plays on there all the time,
he was just in a coma? How do I know he died? Because
they put him in a tomb for three days. Huh? You think they didn't watch him
to see if he was dead? You think they didn't take his
pulse? They wanted him dead worse than they wanted anybody on this
earth dead. testifies to the reality of his
death. And I preach the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, His eternal appointments, His offices, His work, His person,
God's purposes trusted to Him, in whom God first trusted. Redemption,
salvation, providence, creation, all things in His hands. And
when by the power of God you're persuaded of these things, you'll
receive the gospel. That's what Paul tells us. I
declared to you the gospel and you received it. How did I know
you received it? Because you rested in it and
you stood in it. Ain't that what he said? What
do you stand in this morning? That's my question. That's where
I've been going. What do you stand in? Do you
stand in anything? One day you're going to stand
before God. On what are you going to stand? Are you standing on some old
experience? Are you standing on some feelings
that you had? What do you stand on? Paul said,
I preach to you the gospel. I told you who He was. I told
you why He came. I told you what He did and I
told you where He's at. Can you stand on that? When you
can, you believe. Not until. Can you rest your
eternal soul on Him? Huh? How do I know when you do
that? Because you'll turn loose everything
else. Until then, you're going to do this. I worked construction
all my life. I used to walk up really high,
hundreds of feet in the air. And I tell you, if I could hang
on to a string, I felt safe. You'll turn loose of the string
when you stand in him. You'll turn loose. You'll turn
loose of those experiences. You'll turn loose of that old
religion. That old religion will just be dumb. You'll just turn
it loose. What's the difference? What's the difference? Why do
we defend these things? There's no room in the gospel
for straddling the fence. Was it Amos, some of these old
timers may know better than me, I'm just trying to call this
off the top of my head, but was it Amos that said, how long halt
you between two opinions? He said, if Baal be God, serve
him. If God be God, serve him. Choose you this day whom you'll
serve. That's what you do when you hear
the gospel. If that old God of religion,
if He's God, go serve Him. Sign up. Sign up. And I tell you this, there's
no reason to play games here. There's no reason to defend professions
and experiences. There's no reason to defend men
and churches that have nothing to do with the issue. The issue
is, what's your hope? See, Satan, he loves to just
dangle things. And if you take this away, you
dangle something else. And if you take that away, you
dangle something else. All through Paul's ministry, all he ever
got done was taking the things that Satan dangled and whacked
them off. Am I telling the truth? He said, I told you every day
I was here, I preached to you these things of God. I declared
to you the whole counsel of God. And that counsel is all in Christ.
I declared it to you. I declared it to you in tears."
And he said, but I know this. The day I leave, he said, the
wolves are going to come in and they're going to take over. They're
going to take over. When you stand before the living
God and all the facade has been stripped away and all the smoke
of religion is gone, it's just you and God. Where's your confidence? Where is your confidence? I'll
tell you this, you've heard the Gospel. I've told you these past
months, salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is in Christ. I don't
have a righteousness, I have His. Now let me ask you something,
do you trust Him? Do you trust Him? Are you willing
to turn loose of all and hang the weight of your soul on Him? Can you say in your heart that
song we sang a few minutes ago? On Christ the solid rock I stand. Huh? And then look around and
say all other ground is sinking sand. Can you say that? If you
can, you're a believer. You're a believer. Can you sing? T'was grace that taught my heart
to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed. Can you sing that? Can you stand
and sing from your heart? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Can you sing that? If you can, you're a believer.
Now here's what Paul told these folks. He said, I preach to you
the gospel because that's what preachers do. And I didn't preach
it as an invitation and I didn't preach it as an offer. He said,
I declared unto you the gospel. And you received it. You heard
it. And he said, you'll be saved
by it. You stand in it. You stood in it. You said, this
is so. This is right. And you took a
stand in it. Now, he said, you'll be saved
by it if you can keep it in memory and not be called away. not be
called away, not be shifted from this to that and something else. Listen to the Hebrews chapter
3 verse 14. He said, We are made partakers
of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto
the end. He said, Christ is the Son over
His own house, whose house are we if we hold fast to confidence
and the rejoicing of the whole, firm unto the end. And this is
my confidence. This is my assurance. You can
find it over in Philippians chapter 1. It's one of Winston's favorite
Scriptures. Verse 6. Finding a fellowship
in this Gospel, he said, Thank God for my fellowship in the
Gospel with you from the first day to the last." And he said,
this is my confidence. My confidence is in this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in me will perform
it unto the day of Jesus Christ. He crossed my path with the preacher. And that man told me the truth.
And I received it. And I stood in it. And I'm still
standing in it. And by God's grace, I keep on
standing in it. That's what Paul's talking about.
That good work began in him. He's going to keep right on performing
it. He ain't moving. He ain't moving. And he told
those he preached to, he said, beware. Don't you leave this
foundation. Don't you leave Christ. Don't
leave him. Because all the fullness of the
Godhead is in him. And you're complete.