Turning your Bibles to the book
of 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I wanna read the first 11 verses.
The first 11 verses, verse 11 primarily being our text this
morning. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you 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 that he
was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen
of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James,
then of all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen
of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least
of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God,
I am what I am, and his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was
not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet
not I, but the grace of God, which was with me. Therefore,
whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believe. Let me read that verse 11 again. Therefore, whether it were I
or they, meaning whether it was Paul that preached or the other
apostles, So we preach and so ye believe. Last Sunday morning we talked
somewhat about the candlestick and about the danger out of the
book of Revelation of the candlestick being removed and We felt that
the Spirit of God enabled us to speak, and at the close of
the meeting, we were talking about some of these verses here
in the 15th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians. talking about
the gospel of our Lord, and we were trying to set forth how
that the gospel needed to be preached as the scriptures set
forth the death, the burial, and the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we showed how that the gospel
was defined, or the death of Christ, how it was defined with
four words. at the close of our service last
Sunday. Those four words were sovereignty.
We talked about how that the Lord Jesus Christ was delivered
up by the determined counsel of God out of the book of Acts
chapter 2 and then also the verses were read, Mike I believe read
them, about how that he was given commandment that he laid down
his life of himself and he had the power to take it again. That
no man took it from him, he laid it down of himself and had the
power to take it again. Sovereignty. The Lord Jesus Christ
was a sacrifice. He wasn't a martyr, he was a
sacrifice. And then we talked about the
word substitution, how that the word substitution defines the
gospel as it is revealed on the pages of the scripture. The Lord
Jesus, he was made to be sin for us. He knew no sin, but that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. We talked about
how he, the just one, how that he went to the tree and died
for the unjust, the Lord Jesus Christ suffering and dying in
our room and stead and place. And then the third word was satisfaction. We talked about how that the
Lord Jesus had satisfied God for us. We were not able to satisfy
Him ourselves. You can work all of your life,
you can dedicate yourself, you can give yourself over, you can
whatever you want to do in a religious way, commit yourself unto God,
but you can never satisfy God on your behalf. Only Jesus satisfied
God. And we read out of the book of
1st John where it says, I think it's chapter 4 and verse 10,
where it says that hearing is love, not that we love God, but
that God loved us and gave his son to be a satisfaction or propitiation
for our sins. The Lord Jesus satisfied God
for us. Now that's good news. That's
good news. If you never heard that before,
then you've heard something this morning that will save your soul. Something that will rid you of
a whole lot of anxiety if you believe it. That is that Jesus
Christ satisfied God. God is satisfied on the behalf
of his people. Those for whom Christ vicariously
lived and vicariously died, God is satisfied on their behalf. And God stands this morning satisfied
with these people in Christ. Because he can look for sin in
them, he finds none. Because there is no sin in Christ,
his people stand perfect and complete in the Lord Jesus. And then the last word that defines
the death of Christ and the gospel, we said that this must be preached
in order that the word of God would be honored, that God would
be glorified, that Christ would be exalted, that word is success. Success, the last word success. Now what that means is that the
Lord Jesus shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied
in the end. that he's not going to get there
at the end when everybody's gathered, he's going to be looking around
and say, well I'm disappointed, so-and-so's not here, that one's
not here, that one's not there, every seed in heaven will be
filled, there will be no one missing in glory out of the family
of God. Everybody for whom Christ suffered
the vengeful death on the cross, everybody for whom he poured
out his life's blood will be in heaven. They will be there.
Success! We serve a Redeemer that, as
Benjamin read out of Isaiah 42 and verse 4 last week, will not
fail nor be discouraged. God has planned it and decreed
it. He's purposed it, and He'll bring
it to pass. Christ's redemptive work is successful. When the children of Israel left
out of Egypt, there was not a hoof that was left behind. And the
Lord will not leave any of his behind. The Lord Jesus, our head,
will not be in heaven and leave part of his body behind on earth. Everybody that makes up part
of the body of Christ, or a member of the body of Christ, will be
in heaven with our head. Now that's what the Bible teaches.
And we preach the success of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now then
this morning, I've come to something that I think is very important
that we preach about, something that needs to be said in a way,
maybe a companion message of that one last week. But in verse
11, we see where the Apostle Paul here in 1 Corinthians 15
says, therefore, whether it were I or they, so we preach and so
you believe. Now, beloved, we believe in the
absolute sovereignty of God. We believe that God is sovereign
and that He can do what He will, when He will, however He will. But there's one thing that binds
God, and that is His Word. His word binds the Lord. Now God could, after redemption
has been provided for his family, he could send the angels from
heaven to get us by the nose to pull us into heaven if he
would have chosen to do so. He could have done it just that
way. But he did not do it that way. God has purposed that the
Word be preached. And Paul said, so we preach. Whether it were those apostles
that had come before him or he himself, he said, so we preach. So we preach. So we preach. Now recently I read an article
in a religious paper which suggested that one of the greatest problems,
and what rocked this fellow crawled out from under, I don't know,
but he suggested that one of the greatest problems in our
churches is that we spend too much time preaching. Well that's
nonsense. Now we may spend too much time
preaching, or at least some of the preachments that's being
made might be a waste of time and might be nonsense, but the
true preaching of the gospel, we don't have too much of that.
God knows we're not suffering from too much true sovereign
grace, free grace, Gospel preaching. Now, our Lord's command was that
we go into all the world and that we preach the gospel. And
this was Paul's dying charge to Timothy, remember? He said,
preach the word. Preach the word. Be instant in
season and out of season. Preach the word. And preaching
was the one business of the Apostle Paul. His whole life was given
over to the proclamation of the gospel that concerns God's Son,
the gospel that concerns God's Son. Now, beloved, there's so
many that have a gospel, but it doesn't concern God's Son. And the gospel we preach, the
gospel Paul preached, had to do with Christ. It had to do,
it all was about Christ. It was about this person, who
he was, what he did, where he is. It had to do with the Lord
Jesus Christ. Concerns Christ. It didn't concern
you stopping something, you starting something else, you joining something,
you going here, you going there. It didn't have anything to do
with that. It was the gospel concerning His Son. You can read it in Romans. chapter
1 and Paul said there that I'm not ashamed of that gospel. He
said I'm not ashamed of that gospel because it is the power
of God unto salvation unto everyone that believes. Unto the Jew first
and also unto the Greek. He says that I'm not ashamed
of that gospel because therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith as it is written that just shall live
by faith. And so therein is the gospel of God's righteousness
revealed in the gospel. And that was Paul's business.
That's what he was about. He wrote as we mentioned in our
prayer a few minutes ago. It is found in the book of 1
Corinthians. He says, Woe unto me if I preach
not the gospel. Now, God never called anyone
to discuss the gospel, to debate the gospel, or to refine the
gospel, but he does call men. He puts a gift in men, qualifies
them for the work to preach the gospel, and then he sends them
forth. into the world for that one purpose,
and he gives us but one reason for doing so. One reason for
doing so, and that is that he pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. It pleads God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's found
in 1 Corinthians 1 in verse 21. Now, beloved, then this is the
one business of God's servants, and that is to preach the gospel. It's not only the primary purpose
of our assemblies, But I believe it's the only purpose of our
assemblies is to be a sounding board for the gospel of Christ. Nothing more and nothing less.
The church is a preaching institution. We preach the gospel when we
stand here before you, open the book, read the text, and preach
the gospel. And when we baptize somebody,
we're preaching the gospel because baptism is a preaching ordinance. It preaches what saves us, don't
it? It really does. It preaches the
death, the burial, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then when we take the Lord's Supper, We are remembering Christ. We have the elements there in
the Lord's Supper. We have the bread and the wine,
which are symbolic of the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus
Christ. How that that blood was shed,
how that his body, how it was broken for us. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our Savior. He's our sacrifice, Paul said,
and He's that one that has answered to God in our place. And so what
we're doing is preaching. We're preaching whether we are
speaking from our mouths or whether we're baptizing or or whether
we have somebody or whether we have set the table and we are
gathering around the table to take the Lord's Supper. And then
I believe that this needs to be pointed out. You people are
not just hiring somebody to serve God for you. You're not. You're
involved in this thing of preaching. Paul said, whether it were I
or they, so we preach. So you believed and we all here
are preaching this morning. We all are preaching. We're all
involved in this thing of preaching That's why you ought to be listening
because you're here and by your very presence You are here either
saying amen you're either following the message or you against the
message. And so you're here this morning
and by your love and by your prayers and by your generosity
you're holding up the hands of God's servants who my all the
those precious truths of the gospel to men. I say this is
the one purpose of the church with good reason. with good reason,
because preaching is the means of salvation. Now, beloved, the
Bible says, as our brother read it this morning, Romans 10 and
17, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Now, I want to make this clear
to you. I said earlier, we believe in the absolute sovereignty of
God. And if God meant to save people
without the use of the word, without the means of the gospel
being preached, then I believe that he would have spelled that
out in his word. Now, we cannot force the Bible
to say what it does not say. We have some in the primitive
Baptist movement contend that if we preach that God uses the
means of the gospel in the conversion of sinners that we've robbed
God of his glory and we've destroyed the truth of sovereignty. Well,
beloved, if I could get around what the Bible says, about these
truths, about God saving men and women through preaching and
through the word being declared to them. If you could cut the
10th chapter of the Book of Romans out of the Bible, and if you
could cut out what Paul preached, what he said right here in verse
11, so we preach and so ye believe. If we could cut that out and
that God, through the foolishness of preaching, save them to believe,
then we wouldn't believe that God uses the gospel. Now, if
God wants to save somebody without the gospel, that's His business.
But I believe that what the Bible teaches, and if you want to follow
what the Word of God has to say, and if you want to believe in
Bible truth, you must believe that God uses the means of the
preaching of the gospel to save sinners. And it's necessary that
we preach the gospel. Now this is the purpose of the
church, and it's with good reason that we say that preaching is
the means of salvation. Preaching is the means of salvation. It's the means of edification.
God gives his church, Ephesians 4, tells us pastors according
to his own heart for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Well,
it is said in Isaiah 52.7, And Paul quotes it again in Romans
there in chapter 10. He says, how beautiful, and that
word means greatly desired, are the feet of them that preach
the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.
God saves us from those. God saves us through the hearing
of the gospel. God saves men as they hear and
as they are enabled to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. May
the Lord enable us to be faithful in declaring the gospel to every
creature. Now, beloved, we do not need
then to form a committee to investigate the responsibility of the church
in the 90s. Somebody said, well, you know,
the day has changed. The day has changed. We're living
in a different era. We're living in a different time.
And so what we need is to get a group of learned people together
and find out whether the mission of the church the responsibility
of the church to see whether it's changed or not. Well, beloved,
we don't need to do that because the Lord told us exactly what
we're to do. And last week, while we called
on a few folks to read, a few of the brethren to read a scripture,
and I'm gonna, I think we missed Kent last week. Kent, if you
would, if you have your Bible, would you look up chapter 16
of Mark, Mark, Matthew, Mark. and look in Mark chapter 16 and
read verse 15 and 16 to us and let us know when you found it.
Have you found it yet? Verses 15 and 16. And you'll find as he reads these
verses that the Word of God tells us exactly what we're to do and
exactly how we're to do it. Nothing is left to guesswork,
neither our work nor the method by which we are to perform this
work is determined by time, by place, or by circumstances, or
by human opinion. Listen to that. Can you read
that? All right, go into all the world
and preach the gospel. That's what it says. It's exactly
what it says. Preach the gospel to who? To
every creature. You don't know who the elect
are? You don't know their address? You go and preach the gospel
to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And so,
beloved, let us emphasize the fact that the work that we're
given to do, that it's not determined by the age in which we live,
whether it's 1996, or whether it would be 2006, whenever it
is, it's not determined by the time, the place, or the circumstances,
or by human opinion, but it's determined by thus sayeth the
Lord. What the Word of God says, we
give heed to. Now then, the very purpose of
our existence in this world is the salvation of God's elect
for the glory of His name. The purpose for our existence. What I'm saying is that we are
on the trail of Christ's sheep. When we go out and preach the
gospel to every creature, what we're looking for is Christ's
sheep. We're looking for that one that
the Lord would lay hold of, that the Lord would lay hold of by
His Spirit and by His power and bring unto Himself. We know that
God's not going to save everybody. We know that there are as sure
as we're alive and as sure as we're a foot and a half high,
that there's going to be some people that are going to go to
hell. The brother read it this morning. They've not all obeyed
the gospel. And there are many who have not
obeyed the gospel. Now when you think about obeying
the gospel, I want you to be aware of the fact that when one
does not obey the gospel, he does not believe the gospel.
That constitutes disobedience to the gospel. It's not that
you don't do something, but it's that you don't believe the testimony
that God has given of His Son. And this is the record that God
has given of His Son, eternal life. And life is in His Son. And he that hath the Son hath
life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. It's only those that have Christ
dwelling in their hearts by faith that have life. And disobedience
to the gospel then is what? Unbelief is what it is. And not
everybody is going to believe the gospel. He said you go into
all the world and preach the gospel. and baptize them in the
name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Lo, he said,
I'll be with you to the winding up of the ages. So then we're
after Christ's sheep. We have no other object or goal.
As our Lord Jesus Christ was sent to redeem God's elect, he
sent his church to gather those redeemed ones to their Savior.
And we must never be turned aside from this work. That's what we're
about. We're looking for Christ's sheep. Alright, now the method that
we use for biblical evangelism is just plain old gospel preaching. Paul told Timothy, he said, you
do the work of an evangelist. You go out, you do the work of
an evangelist, you preach the gospel. That's what it is. Now,
when our Lord told us to go into the world, He did not tell us
to go into the world and entertain the world, neither did he say
go and change the world, neither did he say that we're to go and
provide counseling for the world. Now, I know there's a lot of
people that are taken up nowadays with the business of counseling,
and maybe that's all right, and especially if they make sure
that they lay the foundation of the gospel in their counseling,
I'm not going to turn thumbs down on it. I'm just saying that
that's not the mission. I know there's a lot of men who
in their counseling do talk about the gospel and lay the groundwork
of the gospel in people's lives. And that I would agree with and
that would be fine with me. But if they are leading them
after the philosophy of the world and they're feeding their minds
on a bunch of heresy and foolishness, we of course reject that. Neither
did we come into the world as preachers of the gospel, neither
are we sent out to educate the world or to get control of political
offices so that we could rule the world. That wasn't a reason
why God put the church in the world. Now, I know that in our
day and time great emphasis is placed on the fact that we got
to elect all we can of Christian candidates and get them in political
office so that we can turn this world about. Well, it'd be wonderful
if we could turn this world around. It'd be wonderful. But my brother,
my sister, if you read the Word of God and you read it and just
let it say what it will, it is evident that you or I or no other
individual is going to turn this world around. God, it's in His
power to do it. But the Lord, according to what
the scripture says, it's going to get worse and worse. Read
the book of Timothy, read the word of God, and you'll see in
Peter how the scoffers, how they wax worse and worse, how the
men are deceived and being deceived, and this is the end of this world. This world is winding up. coming to judgment. And our business
is to rescue those that are a yard from hell, preach the gospel
to every sinner that we can get to, and tell them to repent and
believe the gospel. Tell them to trust the Lord Jesus
Christ. Then the Bible says, concerning
the message that we preach, that message is Christ and Him crucified. Roland Hill was right. when he
said that any message which does not contain the three R's, ruined
by the fall, redemption through Christ, regeneration by the Holy
Spirit, that it should have never been preached. And he's right.
Our message is the gospel. That's what our business is.
Now, I want us to turn to Romans chapter 10. And this is the chapter
that we've been referring to. It's a chapter that Brother Randy
read for us this morning. And I want us to look at some
things here. And I do this so that you will understand the
emphasis that I'm making, why I'm placing the emphasis on this
business of preaching the gospel and that this is a necessity. This is a necessity and this
is the importance. This is why that Paul said, I
endure all things for the elect's sake. And it's that they might
obtain that salvation which is in Christ with eternal glory. Now here in this chapter, Paul
tells us four things which are impossible. He tells us four
things which are impossible. Romans chapter 10, and he declared
here, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. That's in verse 13. I want you to look at that. For
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And we rejoice to know that it
is true. that anyone who calls, truly
calls upon the name of the Lord, they shall be saved. Yet we must
not ignore the fact that Paul plainly tells us that there are
certain things that must take place before any sinner can call
upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Now you've got to watch
this and if you understand that this is what I was talking about
a few minutes ago that if I could if I could cut this chapter out
of the Bible then I could just easily call up one of the primitive
Baptist brethren tell him to come up here and we would just
become a primitive Baptist Church because I agree with a whole
lot what they've got to say but they're wrong here Now, beloved,
the Bible, you must let it speak for itself. The Bible, like somebody
said, can very well take care of itself. Now, I have long ago
given up on trying to reconcile everything in the Bible and make
it fit in to just certain little theological positions. You must
let the Bible speak for itself. Somebody said the Bible is like
a lion. All you've got to do is just
let it loose. It'll take care of itself. And
that's true. Just preach the word and leave
that word with the Lord. Now, notice here, there are some
things that must take place in the sinner before he can call
upon the name of the Lord. If you call upon the name of
the Lord, you'll be saved. But listen now to what the Bible
says here in these verses. We see in verse 14, how then
shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? How then
shall they call on him whom they have not believed? No one can
call upon Christ for mercy until he believes on Christ. In order for a man to seek the
mercy of God in Christ by faith, he must believe this testimony
that we gave you a few minutes ago out of 1 John 5 in order
for him to call upon the Lord. And that testimony was that eternal
life is in Christ. That's where it is. And you call
upon the Lord believing that Jesus came into this world Believing
that Jesus went to the cross and died, and that when he died
on that cross, he had your sins upon him, and that when he was
taken down, buried in a tomb, and God raised him up out of
the grave, that he was raised for your justification. And you
believe that. Now when you believe that, you
believe unto salvation. Now the next thing that we see
here in this same verse, verse 14, it says, how shall they believe
in him of whom they've not heard? Meaning that no one can truly
believe on Christ until he hears the gospel of Christ. You can't
believe. It says, how are they going to
believe in him of whom they've not heard? How are you going
to do that? How are you going to believe in a person that you
never heard of? That you never heard anything
about? How you gonna do it? Well, now if a person was to
say, well now, the Lord struck me down out there in the cornfield
and just struck me right down, and I had some kind of an experience,
sun was hot, and I just had this experience, I mean, the wind
was blowing through part of the cornfield, wasn't blowing where
I was, and I had this experience and that, that's not salvation.
How are you going to believe in somebody of whom you're not
hurt? Sinners today are being asked
by preachers to believe on Jesus, but the preachers are not telling
them who the Lord Jesus Christ is, who he really is, and what
he has done, and where he is now. or how God does, how he
can be just and the justifier of a believing sinner. Sinners
are not hearing these things from the mouths of preachers.
Therefore, they don't know who Jesus is, and therefore they
can't believe on Jesus. And so, beloved, our business
is to proclaim faithfully the gospel. Jesus is God's Son. He came into this world on a
mission. God sent him down here to make an end of sin and to
bring in everlasting righteousness. He came down here to represent
The Lord's people, all those that the Father had chosen in
Christ and had given to Him, He came down here to be their
representative, to stand before God, between God and them, and
to represent them before God. And the Lord Jesus, seeing that
we were fallen in Adam, Seeing that one must die for sin, because
the Bible says, the soul that sinneth, it must die. It must
die. So the Lord Jesus being our representative,
that's why he died. That's why he died. Because he
was representing me. He was representing his people.
He was standing in their stead, their room, and their place.
And so beloved, this is who Jesus is. He's our representative.
He's God's son. And he came down to represent
us. Well, that's what he did. He
represented us on that cross. He answered to God for us. He
paid our debt in full. Therefore God's not angry with
us anymore because Jesus suffered his vengeance. And Jesus went
to hell for me. Jesus died in my place. Where
is he now? Well, the Lord Jesus is seated
at God's right hand. You remember? He was caught up
into heaven. He rose from the dead. And he was caught up into
heaven. He went up to be seated at God's
right hand. And the Bible says that He's
there at the right hand of eternal majesty, and he's there and that
we're in him We're seated in him right there already We're
seated in heavenly places in Christ that may be too much for
some Maybe too big for some too much too much for some people's
minds, but in our hearts we believe that we're in union with him
and And we believe that where he is, we are. And we believe
that because he lived, and because he lives, we live. We live in
him, and we're at the right hand of God in him, and he's there
to make intercession for us, to plead what he did on the cross. And when we sin, He pleads with
the Father. He pleads His blood. He pleads
His righteousness on our behalf. And so that's where He is. And
how can God be just and the justifier of those who believe in His Son?
God can be just because He did not bend His law. He did not
in any way, shape, or form set aside his law in providing redemption
for his people. He charged every law infraction
of his people to Christ, and Christ suffered for that infraction,
and the holy law of God was honored. in the death of the Lord Jesus,
and we do not set aside the law by faith, we establish the law
by faith. We believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, who, very character, is the character of the holy
law of God. It's drawn out. The law of God's
drawn out in his character, in the character of Jesus, and he's
the one that suffered for us, gave himself in our room, all
of his righteous character has been imputed to our account.
And that's the gospel, my friend. And you've heard about him. You've
heard about him. Now if you believe on him, then
you're saved. You can call on the Lord if you
believe just what I've just told you. You can call on him and
you'll be saved if you call on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the
third thing is this. No one can hear the gospel of
Christ without a preacher. Now let's look at that right
here in verse 14. All I'm asking you to do is to
believe what the Bible says. That's all I'm asking. I'm not
asking you to believe what I say about the Bible. I'm asking you
to believe what the Word of God says. Listen to it here. And
how shall they believe in Him of whom they've not heard in
the last part of verse 14, and how shall they hear without a
preacher? How are they going to hear without
a preacher? No one can hear the gospel of
Christ Without a preacher, God has chosen to save sinners by
the instrumentality of gospel preaching. God does not call
sinners to Christ by the voice of angels or the voice of singers. God calls sinners to Christ by
the voice of a preacher. And if the voice of a man proclaiming
the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, this is the instrument
that God will use in the salvation of his people. How shall they
hear without a preacher? And faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. Hearing from God in the Word.
Hearing the Word of God. Now then, there's one other thing.
And that's found in verse 15, the first part of the verse.
And how shall they preach? Except they be sent. How are
they going to preach? Except they be sent. No man can
truly preach the gospel of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit
unless he is sent of God. That's why a man should not take
upon himself the responsibility or obligation of preaching the
gospel unless he feels that God has called him to the work and
that God has pledged his ownership of his soul and that God is going
to be with him and that his words will not fall to the ground but
that God will bless those words Bless the word as he proclaims
it, and use it in the salvation of sinners. Well, how shall they
preach except to be said? When God intends to call his
elect to Christ, he will send a preacher. He will send a preacher. He will send somebody to proclaim
the gospel. That's shown clearly in old Jonah's
case, isn't it? Old Jonah, he fought that thing,
and he would have never went to Nineveh if he got it. He tried
every way he could to get out of it. and God he wound up God
put him right out on the shore and he went to Nineveh and he
preached to Nineveh and the Lord was pleased to save and deliver
those Ninevites even though Jonah didn't want that to happen but
still God accomplished his purpose the Lord will accomplish his
purpose now I believe that one of the best illustrations of
this is found in the 8th chapter of the book of Acts, how God
sends a preacher. And our time is getting away
and my voice is almost gone. But turn, if you will, to Acts
chapter 8. Now this is a very familiar story. And what I'm going to do is,
I want you to turn there to this chapter. And what I'm going to
do is this. I'm going to have, beginning
with Chris over here, And the brethren, the men that are here,
and the boys, I want you to turn to that portion if you've got
a Bible, and each one of you read one of the verses. And we'll
read beginning here with, well, let's see, let's begin with verse
26. Verse 26, Chris. And the angel of the Lord spake
unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south, unto the
way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is a desert.
And he arose, and went, and behold, in the land of Ethiopia, a eunuch
of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who
had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for
to worship. was returning and sitting in his chariot, read
Isaiah as the prophet. Then the spirit said unto Philip,
O dear, join thyself in this chariot. Philip ran to him, and heard him say, And he said, how can I expect
some man, should there be any desire to kill him? He was led as a sheep to slaughter,
and he went and led John before he sheared his soul, and he brought
his body. In his depilation, his judgment
was taken away, and he was known to declare his deterioration
for his life. Kurt? And the eunuch answered
Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet
this, of myself, or of some other eunuch? Chris, start again. Then Philip opened his mouth,
and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him of Jesus. And as they went on their way,
they came to a certain water. And the eunuch said, Seek, here
is water. What does the eunuch mean to
you? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart,
thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And they commanded the
chariot to stand still, and they went down full into the water,
where no man came out of it. When they were come up out of
the water, the Spirit of the Lord parted with Philip, and
Eunice saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. But
Philip was found dead for his sins, and passing through the
creek, We see here how the Spirit of the
Lord led Philip as this Ethiopian eunuch was
returning home from a religious gathering. And he was sitting
in his chariot and he was reading Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit
said unto Philip, you see, he's being sent, isn't he? He's being
sent by God. And go near, he said, and you
join yourself to this chariot. Go hop on this chariot. Because
there's somebody in that chariot that I want you to talk to. Alright? Philip ran and he heard him read,
he ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet. And he
asked him a question. And what was the question he
asked him? Do you remember, Kent? Right there in the last part
of verse 30. Last part of verse 30. What's the question? Do you understand what you're
reading? He was reading Isaiah chapter 53. He said, now do you
understand what you're reading? And what did he say in verse
31? Alan, what did he say? Now do you believe that that
was the truth? Do you believe it
was the truth? He said, I can't understand what
I'm reading, except some man should guide me. And he desired
Philip that he would come up and sit with him. And it tells
us here in verse 32 and 33 what part of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah
he was reading. And the eunuch answered Philip
and said, I pray thee of whom speaketh the prophet, this of
himself or some other man? Kirk read that to us. Of whom
speaketh the prophet? Is he speaking of himself? Is
Isaiah talking about himself? Or is he talking about some other
man? What's the answer to that question?
He was talking about what? Some other man. Who was the man
he was talking about? Christ, amen, that's right. He's the one that he was talking
about when he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and like a
lamb done before his shears, so opened he not his mouth. This
is God's lamb, Christ, God's lamb. And then in his humiliation,
his judgment was taken away. And so he said, or if some other
man, that other man is Christ. Then Philip did what? He opened
his mouth. He opened his mouth to do what?
To preach. Well, what did he preach? He
started at the same scripture, and out of those scriptures,
Old Testament scripture, out of the gospel of the Old Testament,
the book of Isaiah, what did he preach? Who did he preach? It wasn't what, who. And he preached
unto him, Brian? No. Look at it there. Yes, in
a sense, you're right. But what does it say? What does
the scripture say? Verse 35. I'm trying to teach
you to look at the scriptures, keep your eye on them. Preaching unto him Jesus. Jesus. You see, we cannot come to an
absolute God apart from a mediator. apart from Jesus. You come to
God through Jesus. Jesus said that there in John
chapter 14 in verse 6 where he said no man can come to the Father
except by meat. No, that's not it. He says, how
does that verse go there about, I've quoted that verse a thousand
times, that That's right. I am the way the truth and the
life no man cometh to the Father but by me That's the only way
and so Jesus is talking about you coming to God Through him
and so when Philip is talking to this sinner about coming to
God he opened his mouth and preached Jesus unto this sinner because
God will not speak, nor will he be spoken to, except through
a mediator, and that's the God-man, Jesus Christ. You see, you can't
have anything to do with God. God is an absolute God. Your
dealings with God is through the God-man, through Christ.
You come to God through him, and Christ is approachable. He's
approachable, as this eunuch found out. Well, and so then
Philip asked him, said, do you believe on the Lord Jesus? The Ethiopian eunuch wanted to
be baptized. And Philip said, if you believe
with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, what?
Kurt, what did he say there in verse 37? What did this Ethiopian
eunuch say there? He answered and said, That's what he said. That's what
he believed. He believed that Jesus Christ
was this one we described earlier, one that came out from God. That
was with God. There wasn't anything made that
was made without Him. This one that came out to be
our representative. He believed that. And that's
what he said. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God, and when a man believes that, then he can call
on the name of the Lord. he can worship, he can call on
the name of the Lord and be saved because he believes the gospel. Well let's have a word of closing
prayer. Alan would you just