Several years ago, I rented a videotape, watched a
movie. I don't often do so. Someone
had recommended this one. I believe it was called The Color
of the Rose. Some of y'all may have seen it. And it was very
interesting. The scene was in the dark ages.
The primary actor was Sean Connery. He was a monk who took care of
the libraries in a Roman Catholic, what they call them, abbey. And
he was moving from one place to another. And the whole thing
was focused on these monks who were traveling to a specific
place. for great, great, great theological debate. And they
were going to settle great, tremendous, tremendous issues. And at the
conclusion of the movie, they showed the picture of this great
assembly of monks, better called monkeys in my opinion, but they
were monks. And they were about to settle
this great issue in this abbey Or Abbott, I guess they called
him. Maybe Abbott, I don't remember what they call him. Doesn't matter.
He's the fellow with the funny costume. He stood up, and all
his pompous seriousness, and he said, now today, we're going
to debate a question. A question which will change
the course of humanity. A question which must be settled. And after a long speech, he said,
the question is this. Did Jesus or did he not own the
clothes that were on his back? Now, silly, stupid, insignificant
as that is, it's a pretty good picture of what passes in the
name of religion for profound theology. It's a pretty good
picture of what goes on in most churches, in most congregations,
in most Bible colleges, in most seminaries, what goes on in most
pulpits right now. Men are standing before men,
eternity bound men and women. debating matters of nonsense,
of utter insignificance, while the souls of men are dropping
off like flies into hell. He said, well, Pastor, that doesn't
happen in our day. Not so long ago, some friends
of mine went to visit a A church, they moved to another area, and
they went to hear a man who claimed to believe free grace. He got
all the doctrines lined up, got them right down the road. And
they went in on Sunday evening, and he was in the midst of a
series of over 100 sermons. He was preaching from Pilgrim's
Progress. Now, Pilgrim's Progress is pretty good, but that's not
what I'm sent to preach. Another friend of mine contacted me,
this has been several years ago, one of these real great leaders
among Reformed Baptists, these legalists, intellectual fellows
who like to appear to be giant brains, you know, they like to
impress with knowledge. He spent six months, they'd just
gotten a series of tapes, whole big drawer full of them, series
of tapes, six months of sermons on Christian biblical economics. I'd take care of that in one
word, pay your bills. It don't take long to settle
that. Fellas preach lengthy series on the family and the home and
husbands and wives. Oh, we love that. We love that.
We love that kind of stuff. It makes us pop our suspenders.
After a while, we get looking around, well, I'm a pretty good
husband. You know, old James, he might be lacking, but I'm
pretty good. Sure wish he'd been here to listen to that. I've
got a few things I need to straighten up, but you know, we love that
kind of nonsense. We like it because it makes our
proud flesh swell mighty big. I want you to turn with me this
morning to Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20. And I want you to hear the message.
Without question, the apostle Paul is the preacher's pattern.
He was the apostle to the Gentiles, that's us. God called him in
an amazing, miraculous way, gifted him for the work he was to do,
honored him with revelations made known to no other man who
lived upon this earth or has lived since then upon this earth.
God used this man, Paul, to write 14 of the 27 books of the New
Testament. That's a pretty good record.
That's a pretty good record. This man was outstandingly used
of God. His message, his ministry, and
his methods ought to be carefully studied and constantly imitated
by every man who stands, as I do this morning, to speak to eternity-bound
men and women in the name of God Almighty in the stead of
Jesus Christ. God blessed and used Paul as
he blessed and used no other man in history. Every preacher
ought to seek to follow his example. Now, there is no way to briefly
sum up the ministry of such a man other than by using his own words
to do so. And he made two statements, two
distinct statements, which give us an understanding of his message
and his ministry. The first is found here in Acts
chapter 20. The Apostle is giving farewell to the elders at Ephesus
and he is telling them what he had done in the three years he
had been there. He says in chapter 20 and verse
26, wherefore I take you to record this day. I am pure of the blood
of all men. If you go to hell, it won't be
my fault. If you go to hell, you won't be able to say, Paul
came to town, he didn't preach truth to me. You won't be able
to say, I came in contact with this man who knew God, but he
wouldn't tell me about it. He said, I am pure from the blood
of all men. And I take you to record this
day. You who are yet without Christ, I've been preaching to
you for 18 years. And I'll meet you at the throne of God and
declare to you I'm free from your blood. If you go to hell,
it's in spite of what you've heard. If you go to hell, it's
because you stopped your ears and ran headlong to destruction
and were not heed the word of God. I'm pure from your blood. Now read on. Here's how I'm pure
from it. For I have not shunned to declare
unto you all the counsel of God. I have not shunned to declare
unto you all the counsel of God." Now Paul declares, frankly, that
neither the fear of man, nor covetousness, nor the love of
money, nor the desire for approval, nor ambition, nor anything else
kept him from preaching the full purpose, counsel, and redemptive
glory of God revealed in Holy Scripture. That's what he said.
And I said, well, what does Paul mean? I have not shunned to declare
unto you all the counsel of God. Does that mean that he began
at Genesis 1 and went through Revelation 22 and expanded to
them every word in Scripture? Not at all. Does that mean he
taught them clearly in those three years every doctrine taught
in Scripture? Not at all. Does that mean he
gave them every moral, spiritual precept taught in Scripture?
Not at all. What does that mean? That means
that as often as he stood before them in those three years, constantly,
unceasingly, faithfully, in the power of God, with boldness,
he declared to them the message of Holy Scripture. the message
of Scripture. And every man who is called and
gifted of God to preach the gospel will declare the message of Holy
Scripture every time he stands to preach. And those who claim
to be called of God must be responsible to their hearers and at the ball
of God to declare the message of Holy Scripture every time
they preach. It'll come as no surprise to
you to understand what that message is as it's revealed in 1st Corinthians
chapter 2 in verses 1 and 2. I want you to look at it. Here's
Paul's second statement. Here he explains by divine inspiration
what he means when he says, I declared unto you all the counsel of God. 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse
1. And thy brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency
of speech. That is, I didn't come to impress
you by the way I talked. I didn't come to make you look
at me and say, boy, oh, he's a smart cookie. I didn't come
to you so you go and say, what a fine learned theologian Paul
is. I didn't come to you with the
excellency of speech or of wisdom, with philosophical reasonings. with logical, inductive, and
deductive persuasion. No, no, no, no. I didn't come
to you that way. My persuasion and my power did not lie in the
logic and brilliance and training of human flesh. I deliberately
put those things aside, declaring unto you the testimony of God. What? Declaring unto you the
testimony of God. This is the testimony of God
Almighty in all the scripture to every man. For I determined
not to know anything among you. That's a big statement. That's
a big statement. I have folks ask me curious questions
about every form of nonsense in the world. I get letters,
email letters, handwritten letters, telephone calls, conversations,
and folks want, they want to ask the most ridiculous questions,
they want to chase after the most ridiculous theories, and
Paul says, I've come, and I've declared to you the testimony
of God, and I've determined not to know anything among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I hear a lot of preachers. I
listen to a lot of preaching. I read a lot of what men write
and preach. And I'm gonna be as honest as
I can be with you. I'm gonna be as honest as I can
be with you. And I'm not talking now about
the Armenian free will heretics. I don't even listen to those
idiots. And you ought not to either. I don't pay them one
smidgen of attention. I'm talking now about men who
claim to believe the doctrines of grace, what men call Calvinism.
Men who claim to be in what they call the reformed tradition.
I'm so sick of the reformed tradition, I want to throw up when I hear
the word. I'm not interested in defending the reformers. I'm
not interested in the controversies surrounding various men who come
since the reformers. We have one task before men,
and that is to preach Jesus Christ crucified incessantly, clearly,
distinctly, constantly. A man can have the doctrine.
I hope you listen to this now. I hope you get it. I hope you
get it. Ron would go out to the rest
home this afternoon, as he shall, and he could do what I know he
won't do. He could stand up and recite doctrine correctly. And interpret scripture in its
accurate, historic, grammatical context. And do so as a man who
stands as a marker of God and the souls of men. That's exactly
right. You see, it is not the letter
of scripture we've come to preach, but the person. Have you got
that? It's the person. It's not just
accurate doctrine, and we must have accurate doctrine, but your
doctrine can be theologically accurate and utterly damning
if you don't know the person of whom the doctrine speaks.
I've come to declare unto you Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
Now Paul doesn't leave this ambiguous. These are not the only two statements
he makes. This man, he says, necessity is laid upon me. Yea,
woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. Now if you want an
exposition of 1 Corinthians 9.16, read Ezekiel 33. You're talking
about the watchman. I'm standing here preaching to
you. I'm preaching to you, and you may draw your last breath
before I get done. I stand here as God's watchman,
and if I don't declare to you the warning of judgment and the
way of life, and you perish in your sins, Bill Raleigh, I'll
perish in my sins. This is the blood that I require
at your hands. Oh, that means God will set you on the shelf
and do nothing. I don't think that's what Paul meant when he
said, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. He said, if I
don't tell you the truth for any reason, I don't care what
the reason is, if I don't declare to you Jesus Christ and him crucified
as God gives me opportunity, that I'm as lost as you are.
I'm as lost as you are. In 2 Corinthians chapter four,
In verse five, the apostle says, we preach not ourselves. That
is, we don't preach about ourselves, from ourselves, or for ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord. I get so weary, I bite my tongue
a lot. I don't bite it here, but other
places, I bite my tongue a lot. Fellas, men and women alike come
along, want to suggest what to preach. Why don't you preach
this? Why don't you? I try my best,
let's just find out what God had me to preach. You know, wouldn't it be good
to have this, have that? Yeah, if God says it, and if God doesn't
send it, it's just sounding air and tinkling cymbals. We preach
not ourselves, but Jesus Christ the Lord. You see, your faith
and mine must stand not in the wisdom of men, but in the power
of God. Look in 1 Corinthians chapter
2 again, verse 3. I love the way Paul speaks of
this preaching. He said, he said, I was with you in weakness and
in fear and in much trembling. Now, I've heard fellows say,
well, that's talking about Paul coming and he was a weak, frail
man. Maybe he was. I don't know. That's insignificant.
totally insignificant. They said, well he was standing
before men and he feared and trembled when he stood before
men. That's nonsense. That's nonsense. Not a man sent
with God's message. Not a man who was willing to
be cast to the lions for this message. I believe I'd rather
face Bobby Estes than face lions. No, that's not what he's talking
about. He says, I stood before you as a man. utterly insufficient
to speak in God's name. Weakness of flesh, sin, corruption,
unbelief. I stood before you in the fear
of God Almighty as a man who must give account to God for
the souls trusted to his hands as the messenger of God and trembling It is my constant prayer with
every serious fiber of my being. Lord God, if you will not speak
by me, let me not speak. I'd rather drop dead now than
speak in God's name and not speak by God's power. And that's exactly
what Paul meant. Now that kind of weakness and
that kind of fear and that kind of trembling will make a man
bold enough to stand at the gates of hell in the name of Jesus
Christ to proclaim his gospel. Exactly right. That kind of weakness,
that kind of fear, that kind of trembling will fix it up so
a fellow won't back up, he won't know the meaning of the word
compromise. He won't know what it is to consider consequence. He won't know what it is to count
the cost. He just simply stands in God's
stead, in God's presence, in God's name, and speaks the truth
of God. Now read on. My speech and my
preaching was not with the enticing words of man's wisdom. I want
to be the best preacher I can be. I want to, if I write something,
I want to do the best job I can do. I want to set forth the gospel
in the best way I possibly can. But I don't give a hoot what
folks think about the way I do it. I really don't. I really don't. I'm not interested
in impressing fellas. I'm not interested in whether
folks approve of the way I speak or the way I don't. Several years
ago, I've told you the story, I think, Brother Mayhem was preaching
up in Paintsville, Kentucky. And he got done preaching, and
during the course of his message, he had used the word bitches. And this gal, she was a school
teacher, you know, and she was smart. She came up to Henry after
the services, and she said, she said, Brother Mahan, you used
one word that you shouldn't have used. And Henry said, well, what
was that? She said, you said britches.
He said, well, should I have said, she said trousers or pants,
but not britches. Henry said, well, I appreciate
you pointing that out. By the way, what did I say before I
said britches? She said, I don't know. He said, what did I say
after I said britches? She said, I don't know. He said,
good thing I said britches. You wouldn't have gotten nothing
out of the sermon. It doesn't matter to me whether you approve
me using bitches or not. Doesn't matter to me whether
you approve of the way I speak or not. I come not in the excellency,
enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
of God and power. That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now listen
to me. I want you to believe God. I
want you to trust the Son of God. I want you right now to
come to Jesus Christ the Lord. And when I get done preaching,
I'm not going to have men to come up here and pull tricks
on you and say, now, if you're interested, raise your hand.
Every head bowed, every eye closed, no one looking around, no one
leaving the building. And then we'll sing a few songs or a few
verses of a few songs and entice you to come down to the front
here and say a sinner's prayer and weep a few tears and assure
you you're saved. Oh, no. I've come declaring to
you the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I'm going
to leave it right there. Right there. I'm not going to
deceive you, try to con you into making a profession of faith.
Not going to do it. Sometimes mommas and daddies
get a little upset. Kids go through some trouble and, oh brother
Don, brother Don, you ought to come to visit your, what for?
Bloomin' Rebel won't listen to the gospel preached. You think
I ought to go deceive him and make him think he's saved so
that he listens to some word that I speak to him when he's
in a fit of trouble and fear and scared to death something's
gonna happen to him? No, no. Oh, no. We come and preach the
gospel. And I know I'm preaching to some
of you here who will not hear me. You continue to stop your
ears and say, no, I will not bow to the Son of God, but I'm
telling you here, plain and clear, you'll either bow to Jesus Christ,
the Lord, or you'll perish in your sins. And your faith not
stand in the excellency of my speech. Your faith and confidence
must not be in a preacher's persuasive abilities, but in the Christ
we preach. We must not be followers of men
and their logic and their argument and their reason and their tactics
and their personalities, but of Christ. You must not believe
my word because I'm able to, I can make it so clear. Brother
Don, he has so much evidence and historic knowledge and scientific
knowledge. Now, that's a joke. I'm just talking to you about
it now. But you get impressed with that stuff and say, I can
understand that. I can understand that your faith's not to stand,
Paul, in what I say, but what God says. Not in the way I say
it, but the way God says it. Not in the language I use, but
the language God uses. Now this is what I want to show
you this morning, and I want to show you plainly from the
Word of God, that when we preach Christ and Him crucified, we
preach all the counsel of God, for all that God Almighty has
purposed decreed, revealed, and given to the sons of Adam is
in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now perhaps you're thinking,
well, how can a man preach the whole counsel of God? How can
a man preach all the Bible and preach Christ all the time? I've
had preachers literally around the world ask me that question.
How can you preach the whole counsel of God and preach Christ
crucified all the time? I want you to see. Turn over
to 1 Peter chapter 2. The preaching of the cross, the
preaching of the crucified Christ, the preaching of redemption by
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
by His ascension to the right hand of the majesty on high,
by His sovereign dominion by virtue of His blood, is the preaching
of the whole Word of God. Here in 1 Peter chapter 1, this
is exactly what Peter tells us, verse 23. We are born again,
not of corruptible seed. Merle Hart is not born again
because he's the son of his daddy, Merle Hart. And his son is not
born again because he's the son of his daddy, Merle Hart. And
his son is not born again because he's the son of his daddy, Merle
Hart. Don't matter how good any of them are. We're not born again
of corruptible seed. but of incorruptible by the Word
of God. This is it, right here. This
is it. There's nothing mysterious, profound,
or deep about that. It's as plain as the nose on
your face. The Word of God. We're born again by the Word
of God. Look at it now. Which lives and
abides forever. For all flesh is grass, and all
the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withers,
and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord
endures forever. Now look at it. And this is the
word which by the gospel is preached unto you. This is the word which
by the gospel is preached unto you. So a man stands up and he
opens the word of God. Lamentations chapter 1. And I
don't care how much study, research, diligent academic knowledge he
has, unless he finds how to expound Lamentations chapter 1 in such a way as to expound the
gospel in Lamentations chapter 1. Merle, he has not expounded
Lamentations chapter 1. That's what Peter says. I wasn't
preaching on the gospel, you ought to be. That wasn't my subject. It ought to have been. But I
didn't come to talk about Christ and Him crucified. Then you ought
not to have come to talk. That's exactly right. Now I want
to make 10 or 12 statements and I'm going to make them as briefly
and as plainly as I can. I'll give you the scripture references
and you can just listen as we go along because I want you to
hear what I'm saying and I want you to get it and get it well.
I probably will preach the same message at the conference in
Cherokee next Monday night. But I'll try it out here first.
I want you to get it. I want you to understand it.
And if I never preached to you again, Bobby Estes, don't you
ever hear a man who doesn't preach this right here. Don't you do
it. Don't you call a man to be your pastor who doesn't devote
himself to preaching this right here all the time. Don't you
do it. If by some stroke of judgment
God should send you a preacher who doesn't do it, shut down
the building, get out of business, and don't mock God anymore. Don't
do it. To preach the cross of Jesus
Christ is to preach the eternal purpose, counsel, and will of
God that ordained the death of Christ upon the cross. There
is no preaching of this book. There is no exposition of Holy
Scripture. There is no preaching of the
gospel that does not involve the preaching of God's eternal
purpose relating to the redemption of men by the blood of Christ.
Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
The cross of Christ was no afterthought with God. I was in college, we
were taught, and some of you have Schofield reference Bibles,
you can look it up. That was our theological textbook.
We were taught that God had plan A, and the Lord Jesus came to
be the king of the Jews, and the Jews wouldn't let him be
king, so God went to plan B and let his son die. I have alternative
plans, because I don't control anything. I make secondary plans
because I don't understand what's going to happen before me. I
make plans that are contingent upon certain things, but I'm
not God! God Almighty did not sacrifice
his son as an afterthought because the Jews wouldn't let him have
his way. Jesus Christ is described in the book of Revelation chapter
13 verse 8 as the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of
the world. So that before man fell, Christ stood as our surety,
our substitute, our savior, and our redeemer. Christ is the surety
of an everlasting covenant. Known unto God are all his works
from the foundation of the world. Secondly, to preach Christ crucified,
to preach this book, to preach the gospel, I must declare the
fall of man. It's impossible to preach the
gospel without preaching sinners lost, dead, and damned. impossible. You can't do it. If we're not fallen, depraved,
helpless, spiritually dead, justly condemned, then there's no need
for Christ to come. If there was a possibility somehow
of you being accepted with God on the basis of something in
you or something you do, whether it be your worth, your will,
or your works, then Christ did not need to die. His death was
a mockery. He died in vain. That's Paul's
reasoning. He said if righteousness come
by the law, then Christ died in vain. If righteousness could
come by some law God could give you, by some work God give you
to perform, by some will God give you to decide upon, then
Christ died for nothing. Righteousness comes not by you,
but by Christ. Listen to this. This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. whom I'm chief. In Adam all died,
by Christ we are made to live. In Christ we are made alive and
by his death we live. He died the just for the unjust
that he might bring us to God. Lindsay teaching out of Romans
chapter 4 this morning dealing with this matter of justification
by faith. And we are declared righteous
before God in our consciences and in our hearts as we believe
on the Son of God. That's exactly the teaching of
this book. But we are not declared righteous before God on the ground
of our faith. We're declared righteous before
God on the ground of the object of our faith. And there's a huge
difference. It is not because we believe
we are justified, but rather our being justified is the cause
of our believing by which we have peace with God. We're justified
by the blood of Jesus Christ on the grounds of his obedience
and his satisfaction. We simply receive what he has
done. We don't add anything to it.
Do you see this? In the cross of Christ, our sinfulness
is revealed. Our inability is revealed. The certainty of divine judgment
is revealed. If God won't punish sin, why
did he kill his son? If God Almighty won't send you
to hell in a heartbeat, why do you reckon he sacrificed his
son? If God in his holiness must not be satisfied in his justice,
why do you reckon he put his son on that tree? Thirdly, if
I preach the cross of Christ, I must preach the holiness, righteousness,
and justice of God. Such holiness, righteousness,
and justice in God as demanded the death of his son for the
salvation of sinners. God is holy. He must punish sin. God's righteous. He won't touch
you. He won't look your way. He won't
receive you. He won't have mercy on you. He
will not pardon you. His righteousness will not allow
it, except His justice be satisfied. There's no other way. There's
no other way. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. God is love. I know that, but the message
of this book is not, smile, God loves you. The message of this
book is that He's a just God and a Savior. We're justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus,
whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to
declare God's righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God. Vabiestas, God Almighty,
cannot. Now I'm telling you, this preacher
speaks with utmost reverence when I talk about something God
can't do. God Almighty cannot, He cannot, He cannot sit on His
throne as God and receive you into heaven without the satisfaction
of His justice. Can't do it. Because He declared,
the soul that sinneth, it shall die. For it to be otherwise,
He must abdicate His throne, for He Himself would be proved
a liar. Cannot be. The character of God,
is displayed to sinners in the sacrifice of his Son, for there
we see mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace
have kissed each other. God simply cannot compromise
his character. So hard for us to understand
that because we're constantly compromising everything. We do
it all the time. We bend everything. God won't. God won't. He demands righteousness. He demands satisfaction. He'll
either slay you or he slew his son for you. You'll either stand before God
in the terror of everlasting damnation on the day of judgment or Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
stood before God in the terror of infinite wrath and damnation
in your stead. There's no other way. If I preach
Christ crucified, I've got to also preach the deity and glory
of His person. You see, it is the deity and
glory of His person that makes His work effectual and sufficient
for the salvation of God's elect. It is not just the painful, shameful
death of a good man on the tree that has merit with God. That
wouldn't do any good. Lyndon J. Campbell sitting there,
one of the finest men I know. I have utmost admiration for
him, but he's just a sinner saved by grace. And if he should die
for his wife, Diane, or for his daughter, Michelle, if he should
be willing to take Michelle's place before God Almighty and
say, all right, I'll suffer for her, wouldn't do one speck of
good. Because he's got his own sin to answer for. He's got his
own sacrifice to make. He's got his own atonement to
make, his own righteousness to establish, and he can't do it
for himself. The only thing that gives merit
and efficacy to Christ's blood as a man is the fact that this
man who died at Calvary is God in human flesh. God loved the
church and gave himself for it. God Almighty bought his church
with his own blood. He said, well, you fellas believe
that was divine blood. Oh, no. I got a better sense
than that, God's a spirit. Oh yeah, I do believe that. I
sure do. So that contradicts yourself.
Have it your way, I believe it. With all my heart, Jesus Christ
shed blood at Calvary, which belonged to Him who is God in
human flesh. His obedience and His death,
therefore, are of infinite worth and merit with God. Fifthly,
if I preach Christ and Him crucified, I must preach the fulfillment
of every promise, prophecy, picture, and law in the Old Testament
in Christ, every day, every day. You read the promises of God,
And these fellas, they've got dispensational policemen. You
go back to Genesis. Oh, you can't have that. That
was for the Jews. Well, let me go to Joshua. No, you can't have
that. That was for the Jews in that day. Well, my soul, let me get
to the Psalms. No, that was for the Jews in
that day. Well, let me get over to Matthew. No, that was just
for the Jews during the Lord's ministry. Can I have a little
bit of Romans? All the promises of God, all
the promises All of them. Child of God, do you hear me?
All of them. Wherever you find a promise given by God to believing
sinners, as you are a believing sinner, take it to your heart.
All of them in Christ Jesus are yea and amen. All of them. All the prophecies, all of them. These fellas on TV, I'll try
to be a little more respectful. No, I won't. They got no business whatsoever
speaking God's name. None whatsoever. Get up and talk
to you about this book prophesying about the nation of Israel and
what's gonna happen in Israel. Let's look at Israel. Watch,
watch Israel. Don't watch Israel. Get your
eyes off Israel. Watch the Son of God. Oh, look
at what happened in Russia. Remember a few years ago when
Iraq invaded Kuwait? Those folks all around the country,
these prophecy mania folks, they just, books came out. I mean,
faster than you could get them off the press, they were going
to press. Now, this is it, this is it! Boys, we know what's going
on now. This is where the oil war started.
This is how the world's gonna be burned up. Christ is coming
right now, you better get ready. Let me tell you something. Christ
is coming right now. You better be ready. But this
book got nothing at all to say. Nothing at all to say about Iraq
and Saddam Hussein. Iraq and Saddam Hussein, beg
your pardon, just ain't that important. This book's about
the Son of God. Beginning at Moses and in all
the prophets. Our Lord expounded to those disciples
on the Emmaus Road things concerning himself in all the scriptures. He took Bathyond and Genesis
and just kind of skipped along. And he came over to Exodus and
Leviticus and Numbers, went through Joshua and Ezra and Esther and
Job and Psalms. Got over to the major prophets
and minor prophets and just went right down through Malachi and
he said, now boys, this is talking about me. This is talking about me. This
is talking about the Christ of God. And when they understood
what he said, they said, did not our hearts burn within us? It burned within us as he spoke
to us out of the scriptures. The Old Testament has absolutely
no message and no meaning. apart from the death of Jesus
Christ as the sinner's substitute upon the cross. The law given
at Mount Sinai has no message, no meaning, and no use apart
from the sacrifice of Christ at Calvary. Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes it.
How else do you explain the seed of the woman, the bruising of
the serpent's head? Abel sacrificed Noah's Ark. How
do you explain those things? They're just big fairy tales.
Folks come along, they talk about Cain and Abel, and they debate
all the time. So the issue was not that, most
people, they say, talk about the sacrifice of Abel being the
right sacrifice and Cain's being the wrong one. I wish most people
did. Listen, that's not what it is. The difference is the
way they came. That ain't the difference. God
said plainly that sacrifice of Abel spoke of him whose blood
was shed, the Lamb of God. Abel brought a sacrifice that
God provided. Abel brought a sacrifice of blood. Cain brought a sacrifice he provided
in cooperation with God. He was a farmer. Now he says,
I wouldn't think about coming to God with just work of my hands.
The Lord, the Lord, he sent the rain and the sunshine. The Lord
made the ground rich. And the Lord gave me the strength
to bring up this fruit. And I will bring to God now the
fruits of my labors in cooperation with his word. Brother Scott
Richardson preaching on Cain and Abel's sacrifice one time,
and you know how Scott can milk things pretty good. He looked
at me and he said, Don, what kind of farmer was Cain? I said,
I don't know. He said, I know. I know what
he raised. He was a vegetable farmer. What
kind of vegetables did he raise, Don? I don't know. I don't have any idea. I know,
I know. He raised turnips. You can't
get blood out of a turnip. I'm telling you, you don't come
to God without a blood sacrifice. You got that? You don't come
to God without a blood sacrifice. Cain tried it. He's in hell today.
You try it, you go to hell too. There's no other explanation.
for the Passover lamb, the tabernacle, the priesthood, the mercy seat,
the atonement, all the gorgeous apparel of that great high priest
in Israel, the smitten rock, this banner from heaven, the
serpent lifted up, they all mean nothing unless you understand
them as being pictures and prophecies of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of
God, slain for our sins. If we preach the cross of Christ,
then we preach the love of God. and preach it right here in his
love. Not that we loved God. There's not a man or woman alive
who knows God who would imagine saying such a thing. Not that
we loved God, but Rex, he loved us and sent his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. God commendeth his love toward
us and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I see the
love of God only as I stand at the foot of Mount Calvary and
look toward heaven through the glass, the bloodstained glass
of Jesus Christ crucified. Anywhere else you look toward
God is nothing but wrath and consumption and fire. To preach
the cross of Christ, a man must preach free and full justification
by faith in Christ and not by our works. If Christ represents me before
the law and justice of God, If He fully honored and satisfied
with the law and justice of God as my substitute, then my salvation
is finished and complete, as finished and complete as His
work who sits upon the throne of God. The scripture says you're
complete in Him. Complete in Him. Believing on Him. The Apostle
Paul writing to the Gentiles or speaking to the Gentiles says
in Acts 13, you are justified freely from all things by his
blood. I talked to Pam's brother and
to her last Sunday evening and while they mourned the loss of
their dad, I've known the man for About 25 years. A believing man. Pam's brother,
who passed us down in Birmingham, said we had a good time of rejoicing
and worship. Oh, what a blessed thing. To stand before God. Justified. justified from everything. Will you hear me? I stand right
now before God, justified from everything by the blood of His
Son. To preach Christ and Him crucified,
let me skip over this, I can't come close to getting to all
of it, is to preach the person and work of God the Holy Spirit.
These yahoos who run around crying about the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit,
Holy Spirit, get the Spirit if you got the Spirit, wave your
hands, stand up and clap, these promise breakers, who have gathered
by the thousands on our nation's capital to deceive the world.
And I mean that. I mean that. They are deceived
and deceivers. Just wave in the spirit. Oh,
look at this. These fellows are so dedicated.
Dedicated to self. The only preaching of the Holy
Spirit is the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. You look in
John chapter 14. We won't turn there now, but
you look there when you go home. When He, the Spirit of Truth has come,
the scripture says He'll testify of me. When a man speaks the gospel
by the power of God's Spirit, he doesn't stand up and talk
about the Holy Spirit. No sir, that fellow who talks a lot about
the Holy Spirit doesn't have the Holy Spirit. He just doesn't
have it. That person who speaks by the
Spirit of God speaks about Christ. Talks about wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. Talks about sin and righteousness
and judgment. Talks about all things being
accomplished and fulfilled in Christ the Lord. The Holy Spirit
comes and shows us our need of Christ by showing us our sin. He shows us the righteousness
of Christ, revealing His righteousness, the righteousness of God accomplished
in Him. He shows us judgment, judgment
satisfied, justice satisfied by the efficacy of Christ's blood.
And He guides us into all truth, showing us the things of Christ. And then folks, they cry, well,
you know, we got to have some practical Christianity. Let's spend our time. I had preachers actually fool
enough to say to me, I believe my calling is to show folks how
to live right. That means I'm gonna tell you
what I think you ought to do. I'm going to tell you how long
I think you ought to wear your hair. I'm going to tell you how many
times I think you ought to read your Bible in a day. I'm going
to tell you how I think you ought to raise your children. I'm going
to tell you where your children ought to go to school. I'm going
to tell you what you ought to have on your television set.
And I'm going to come around with a pulpit committee or a
discipline committee and we're going to watch you. And we're
going to guide you, nurture you. That's what the Pharisees tried
to do with the adulterous woman. And if you follow them, you're
going to wind up where she was, condemned by them. To preach
Christ crucified is to truly preach practical Christianity.
When I preach the cross of Christ, I'm calling for holiness of life. with the most powerful argument
the universe has ever heard. Mark Henson sitting back there,
bought with a price. The Son of God bought you with
his blood. Now if you know anything at all
about that, you glorify God in your body and in your spirit,
which are God's. That's nice, but I need the whip
of the law. That's because you don't know this grace, and you
don't know this Christ. I had a fellow tell me one time,
I was shocked, I was shocked. One of the deacons in church
at lookout, he talked about Mormons, and he said, he said, if I believed
my salvation depended on what I do, I'd be as jealous as they
are. We had a little set too. You reveal what's in your heart.
You reveal what's in your heart. Every practical exhortation given
in this book, without exception, every practical exhortation men
call godliness and Christianity and practical Christianity, everyone
given in the New Testament, everyone without exception, is based upon
motivated by, inspired by, and arises from Christ crucified.
I call you who believe on the Son of God to be baptized as
the Lord Jesus Christ suffered it to fulfill all righteousness
as your Savior and your Redeemer. Follow Him. I call on you who
are born of God's Spirit to take the Lord's Supper and do so in
remembrance of Him who redeemed you with His blood. I call on
you to love one another. as Christ loved us and gave himself
for us. I call on you to give, give. I've never preached a sermon
on tithing in my life except preach against it, don't believe
in it. The Lord Jesus didn't give tithe to himself for you. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, how that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich.
Now then, you prove the sincerity of your love based on that. That's
the motive, that's the basis, that's the guideline. Somebody
wrote to me one time when I was working on a book on the church
and said, don't you think we ought to, maybe you ought to
give some warning lest folks give too much. I said, I hadn't run across that
yet. No, I believe I'll leave it like it is. Christian kindness
and forgiving, forbearing, long-suffering, patience. Boy, how do you get
folks to do that? Be you kind one to another, forgiving
one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church. Wives, submit yourselves to your
own husbands as unto the Lord. This past few days, I've talked
to three couples my age and older who claim to worship, love, and
trust Christ. who've grown to despise each
other and decided they're gonna just get a divorce, kiss it goodbye. And one of them asked me, said, what do you think
concerning that? I said, somebody in the house
is as lost as they can be. Somebody's as lost as they can
be. Somebody's as lost as they can be, probably both. That's exactly right. That's
exactly right. How can you say that mother dog?
Men's and believers love each other. They just do. They forgive. They're forbearing. They're patient. They're kind.
That's just all there is to it. That's all there is to it. Believers
learn. They don't just learn. It's not
like they have to be forced to. My soul, we learn by grace to
get along. Learn to. To preach Christ and him crucified
is to preach the blessed, blessed prospect of his glorious second
advent. Behold, he comes. He loved me. He washed me. He made us kings and priests
to God. And soon he's coming to take
us home to God. I've not shunned to declare to
you all the counsel of God. I take you to record. And if
I never see your face again, I'm going to see your face on
the Day of Judgment, and I'll look you square in the eye, and
I will declare I'm pure of your blood. And these eyes will haunt
your soul through hell for eternity. I've not shunned to declare unto
you all the counsel of God, for I determined to know nothing
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, this is what
John said. I want you to look at this one.
Turn to 2 John. 2 John. I believe it's verse 9, yeah. And we won't sing a song. I don't
think we'll even have a prayer when I get done. I've been praying,
and I hope you have. that God will make his word effectual
to your hearts, and he'll make you to see, to know, and to trust
Jesus Christ right now. But I want you to go home with
these words fixed in your heart. I've declared to you the doctrine
of Christ. Anybody, if you got any question
about it, raise your hand, we'll stay here, we'll get the question
settled. Anybody here got any question? I've declared to you
the doctrine of Christ. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. That's painting with a broad,
broad brush. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. Amen.