Would you turn back to Luke chapter
24? Looking forward to the conference
next weekend, and let's pray for the Lord's blessing upon
that. We will not be having services this Wednesday night. The conference
will begin Friday night, and we're going to observe the Lord's
table together tonight. The Lord said, this do in remembrance
of me. Look once again at verse 47 of
Luke chapter 24. And that repentance and remission
of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem. I've entitled the message for
this morning, What Should Be Preached. What should be preached. And
let me say at the outset that this is not my opinion of what
should be preached. I haven't looked over the contents
in scripture and picked out what I think ought to be preached.
These are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ concerning what
should be preached. There's a lot that is preached. There are hundreds of thousands
of churches in the United States. I Googled it and said there are
over 400,000 churches in the United States. Now that's a lot
of sermons being preached. A lot of sermons being preached,
most of which should not be preached. Because anything that's not founded
on the scripture, anything that is not the gospel should not
be preached. What should be preached? Well,
the Lord tells us in verse 47 that repentance and remission
of sins should be preached in his name. Now here, my dear friends,
is what should be preached. Repentance and remission of sins. And it's to be preached in his
name beginning in Jerusalem, he said. I think that's interesting,
beginning in Jerusalem. John Bunyan preached a sermon
entitled, The Jerusalem Sinner Saved. The Jerusalem sinner saved. That's the worst kind of sinner
there is. Those were the murderers of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Jerusalem sinner saved. Now look in verse 44 of Luke
chapter 24. And he said unto them, these
are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you. The content, the words, the message
that should be preached is always the same. This is what should
be preached. The Lord gives the words of Christ,
His own words, they're the words that always should be preached.
I'm preaching the same word that I always preached to you. Excuse me. Everything okay? Okay. That's kind of, that's
my mom, so I had to ask about what's going on, so that kind
of made what I was saying drop out of my head. So I'll try to
get it back. The Lord says, these are the
words which I spake unto you when I was yet with you. Now
what that lets me know, the Lord is simply saying what he'd already
said, and the content of the gospel is always the same. It's never anything new. If it's
new, it's not true. The Lord says, I'm giving you
the words that I gave to you when I was yet with you. Nothing new. The news is always
new and it's nothing new. I'm thankful for that, aren't
you? The content of the gospel is
always the same. It's a message from the scriptures.
No, he says, these are the words which I spake unto you while
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which
were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the
Psalms concerning me. It's a message from the scriptures.
If it's not from the scriptures, it's not the gospel. I'm so thankful
for the Scriptures. Mitch, when you got up and read
the Scriptures, I thought, what a blessing to be able to be allowed
to hear the Scriptures read. This is God's inspired Word,
and here we are with this blessed privilege of getting together
and opening up the Word of God and seeing what God says Himself
from His Word. The message of the Gospel that
should be preached is from the scriptures, and it's a message
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what he says again in verse
44. These are the words which I spake unto you while I was
yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were
written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms
concerning me. Concerning me. Somebody once
said a sermon without Christ is a mistake in the conception
and a crime in the execution. I believe that. All things which
are written concerning me, and I love this, it's a message about
what must be, not what about may be. But what must be, look
once again in verse 44. These are the things which I
spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must
be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets
and in the Psalms concerning me. Not what may be, but what
must be. Christ must be made a man. That's his purpose. Christ must
keep the law for somebody. That's his purpose. Christ must
die. He's the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. He must be raised from the dead.
He accomplished salvation in his death. He completely satisfied
God's law. He must be raised. Now look in
verse 45. Then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures. And if that doesn't
happen to me and you, this book is going to remain a closed book.
The only way you and I are going to understand the Scriptures
is if He opens our understanding. And in this thing of preaching,
understanding is, I'm not trying to make you understand. That's
what God does. I'm declaring the truth. I'm
not trying to explain it. I'm declaring the truth, God's
truth. and I'm looking to God the Holy Spirit to open our understanding
that we might understand the scriptures. When people try to
make the gospel understandable, what they do is take away the
power of it and they take away the truth of it. I'm not trying
to do that at all. I'm simply trying to preach the truth, looking
to God himself to open my understanding and open your understanding so
that we might understand the scriptures. Now, verse 46, and
he said unto them, thus it's written, and thus it behooved
Christ. That word behooved is the same
word translated must in verse 44. Thus it's written and thus
must Christ suffer and rise from the dead the third day. It's
written, it must be. Now, like I said, we don't preach
about what may be, but what must be. Christ must suffer. Why must
Christ suffer? Because the sins of God's elect
became His sins, and He became guilty of those sins, and the
justice of God demanded Him to suffer. God's just. God can't
just let sin go unpunished. He must suffer. But not only
must He suffer, He must rise from the dead. Why? Because He
rendered full satisfaction to God, and the justice of God demanded
that he rise from the dead, and all the sins of everybody he
died for were put away. He was raised again for our justification. And I love the way the word is
translated, it behooved him. You know, when we use that word
generally, we think of something that it behooves you. It makes you
look good. It's beautiful. It behooves you. Well, the death
of Christ behooved him. Yes, it was necessary, but how
beautiful he is in this. The cross is the most God-like
thing God ever did, and thus it is written, thus it behooved
Him to suffer and rise again from the third day. Verse 47,
and here's why, and here's what should be preached. That repentance
and remission of sins should be preached in His name among
all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Now here we have from the Lord's
mouth what should be preached. And notice this should be preached
in his name. In his name. What does that mean?
In his name. What's the point behind saying
in his name? Now if I say to you, you need
to believe this because I said it. You'd be a fool if you believed
it because I said it. You'd be a fool. I'm not asking
you to believe something simply because I said it. I want to be like the noble Bereans
who search the scriptures daily whether these things be so. The
issue is not because I said something when I preach in his name I'm
saying believe this because he said it. And that's the authority. He said. Now what should be preached. By what. He said. Repentance
and remission of sins should be preached in His name, in His
authority because He said to say this. That's what should
be preached. Now here's what should be preached.
Repentance and remission of sins. What are meant by those two words?
Repentance and remission of sins. Now repentance And remission
of sins are mentioned together so many times in the New Testament. Repentance and remission of sins.
And what repentance is at its most elementary level is it's
a change of mind concerning the remission of sins. If you want
to understand what repentance is, please listen carefully because
this is so destroyed by preachers. They look at repentance as, well,
what you need to do is be sorry for your sin and you need to
stop that sin. And if you're sorry and you stop
that sin, then you'll have forgiveness. That's basically what is preached
with guarding repentance. You need to be really sorry You
need to stop it. If you do it again, you weren't
sincere. It wasn't real. You need to stop
it. And if you're sorry, and if you stop that sin, you'll
have forgiveness. That is called salvation by works. That's all it is. It's confounding
what repentance is in the first place. So what does our Lord
mean when he speaks of this thing of repentance and remission of
sins? Now, the word repentance is made
of two words, which means change your mind. It is that simple. Repentance is a change of mind. You used to feel some way, you
used to think something, you used to believe something, and
you don't believe that anymore. It's a change of mind. I've used
this illustration before, but it was apparent to me again this
week. When I was a kid, my mom and
dad would make me sit and eat food that I didn't like. And
I can remember sitting there at the table crying and, you
know, dad, stay there and eat, you know, all the way. But there
were two foods that I hated above all other foods. Number one was
Brussels sprouts, and number two was tomatoes. Now, I hated the smell of Brussels
sprouts, hated the taste, hated the texture, and now I can make
a meal of them. I love them. My mind's been changed. I love brussel sprouts. I mean,
if y'all have me over, have brussel sprouts. I love it. Do you know I hate tomatoes still?
You know, I got out of frozen food. I thought it was peppered
this week. I keep those frozen meals back there, and I got out
that frozen meal, and I thought it was red peppers, and I opened
them. That's tomatoes. I threw it away, because I hate
tomatoes. I don't eat them. I hate their
texture. I hate their smell. If it's touched
something, I don't want to taste it. So you say, do you like ketchup? Yeah, I do. I can't explain that.
But at any rate, here's the point. With regard to Brussels sprouts,
I've changed my mind. Love them. Make a meal out of
them. With regard to tomatoes, I've not repented. I still hate
them. Now, the point is a change of
mind. You feel completely different
about something. That's what the word repentance
means. Now, three times in the New Testament,
repentance is referred to as the gift of God. Just like faith, it's a gift
that God gives you. If you don't repent, it's because
God did not grant and give you to repentance. If you do repent,
it's because God has given you repentance. Just like if you
believe. If you believe, and you know this if you believe,
if you believe it's because God caused you to. He gave you that
faith. There was a time when you didn't have it, and you have
it now, and you know it didn't come from you. He gave it to you.
If you repent, it's because He gave you this thing of repentance. Acts 5, verse 31, God hath exalted
him, a prince and a savior, for to give repentance to Israel,
even the forgiveness of sins. And you know how I respond to
that? Lord, give it to me. Give me this repentance. This is an
exotic that does not grow in human nature. It must be given
by God Himself. It's if God per venture will
grant them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. Now
this repentance that I'm talking about is infinitely more than
changing your mind about Brussels sprouts. This is a change of
mind concerning God. It's a change of mind concerning
yourself. It's a change of mind concerning how God saves sinners
by Christ. It's a complete change of mind.
Like somebody says it's a change, but oh, what a change. Here's something real concrete
about changing your mind concerning God. I can remember when first
hearing about election, God choosing who would be saved before time
began. I remember it made me mad. I
thought that's not fair. How could it be fair for God
to choose one and pass by another? How could that be fair? I'd get upset. And what I was
thinking, really, and I know this, when the Lord, I don't
know when the Lord saved me, but I know this, I can't give
you a date, but I know this, I was confirmed with the fact
that God chose who would be saved, and I might not be one of them.
And it made me mad. I thought, that's not fair, that's
not fair. You know what? I've changed my mind. I think
it's glorious. I think it glorifies God. It teaches me that salvation
is by grace. I totally think differently about
God's fairness. Whatever He does is fair. My
mind has been changed at one time. That's not fair for God
to choose some and pass by others. It's not fair for Christ to only
die for the elect. It's fair. My mind has been changed. I love the way God is. I love
the way He saves. That's a change of mind. There
was a time when I believed that if all, if everything went right, if
I was put in the right environment, the right, I could get better,
I could do better. There's a time when I thought
if I just was in the right circumstances, things could get better and I
could please God when I wanted to. I could ask Christ to save
me and he'd do it whenever I wanted to. Used to believe that way.
I don't believe that anymore. I don't believe at all like that
anymore. My mind has been changed. My mind has been changed concerning
God, His character. I believe things that I didn't
believe about God. I rejoice in things now that
I didn't used to rejoice in concerning the character of God Almighty.
I believe so differently about myself. I believe I'm nothing
but sin. I believe that if God gave me what I deserved, He'd
send me to hell. I've got no problem with that.
I've got a problem with it, but I don't have a problem with it.
I don't want it to happen, but God's just. Whatever He does
is right, just, holy, and true. And if He sends me to hell, if
He leaves me to myself, I'm getting exactly what I deserve. I can't
save myself. I used to think there was something
I could do, but I don't believe that anymore. Oh, how differently
I view the gospel of God's grace, how he did it all. I love that. I repented. That's
what that means, to repent. Paul called repentance in 2 Timothy
2.25, the acknowledging of the truth. Now, if you want to know
what true repentance is, you change your mind. I love the
way the Lord said, repent and believe the gospel. When you
repent, you know what you do? You believe. When you believe,
you know what you do? You repent. It's two sides of
the same coin. They go together. Wherever there's
faith in Christ, there's repentance toward God. Wherever there's
repentance toward God, there's faith in Christ. Turn to Acts
chapter 20. Verse 20. Acts chapter 20 verse
20. How I kept back nothing that
was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught
you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to the
Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith
toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, wherever you have repentance
toward God, you'll have faith in Christ. Wherever you have
faith in Christ, you'll have a complete change of mind with
regard to God. I love the way the Lord identified
his mission. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. A complete change of mind. Now turn to Mark chapter one. Here we have these two words
together at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark. Remember
I talked about how repentance and remission of sins are so
often together in the scripture? Here we have Mark chapter 1,
verse 4. John did baptize in the wilderness
and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Now here is how works religion
presents that verse. You be sorry for your sin. And you stop committing that
sin. And you'll have forgiveness. And that's a fair representation
of what 99% of the preachers who preach repentance mean. You
be sorry for that sin, and you stop committing that sin, and
you will have forgiveness. Now, let me say, before I go
on, we ought to be sorry about our sins, shouldn't we? And we
ought to stop committing the sin, shouldn't we? We should.
There's no question about that. We ought to be sorry. We ought
not sin anymore. We ought not ever sin again.
Amen? It's true. It's true. But let
me ask you, if that's what repentance is, have you repented? No. Not if you're honest. No. There's
many sins you still commit. Does that mean you haven't repented?
I'm not excusing you or myself in committing those sins. I'm
ashamed that we have to say something like that. But if that's what
repentance is, it means you haven't repented. Neither has anyone
else. If it means being sorry and stopping,
and then you have forgiveness. Now you look at this statement
regarding, if I repent, then I'll be forgiven. That's a complete misunderstanding
and denial of what repentance is in the first place. If you and I ever repent, we'll
repent of thinking stuff like that. You know, Paul spoke in 2 Corinthians
7 of a repentance that needs to be repented of. That's a repentance
that needs to be repented of. Now, if I repent, I'm going to
see clearly that forgiveness does not come at the end of some
equation. If I repent, and if I am sorry,
and if I start doing better, I will have forgiveness. No,
forgiveness is not the end of the equation. As a matter of
fact, I'm left out of the equation of forgiveness. I'm not forgiven
because I do anything. I'm forgiven because He forgave. That's why I'm forgiven. Salvation
does not end with the forgiveness of sins. God's salvation begins
with the full, complete forgiveness of sins. Now, if we repent, we're going to
do what the writer to the Hebrew says when he says, Purge your
conscience of dead works. Repentance regarding dead works. Now here's what repentance is.
You have a change of mind about your works. You see that all
before God saved you, every one of them were dead. You were dead
in trespasses and sins, and there wasn't any saving merit in anything
you ever did. That's when you repent of dead works. You purge
your conscience of dead works. All of my works before salvation
were dead works, and I purge my conscience from dead works
when I look to Christ only as all I need, as all I have, and
as all I want. Now that's what it is to repent.
You repent of anything other than this. Christ is all I need. He's all I have. and he's all
I want, I look to Christ only. I think that one of the most
beautiful illustrations of repentance is the prodigal. You read Luke
chapter 15, and it's about repentance. And you remember the part of
the prodigal. He said to his father, father, give me the goods
that befalleth me. Now, first of all, see, this
fellow had a sense of entitlement. You owe me something. You owe
me something. And that's the way people are
with God. God owes me salvation. I mean, he's God. He ought to
love me. He ought to forgive me of my sins. He's God. That's
what his job is. That's what he's supposed to be doing. That's
who God is. And men have this sense of entitlement. And this prodigal had a sense
of entitlement. Father, give me the goods that
befalleth me. And the father gave him what he wanted. Scripture
says he went out and wasted his substance and riotous living.
He had a good time. Then all of a sudden, what a
blessed time, he began to be in want. He saw that he didn't
have anything. He spent it all. And so what
did he do? He went and joined himself to
a citizen of that country who put him to work. He joined a
church. He joined a church and he went to work. But you know
the, what he was working at, it didn't give him any satisfaction,
those husks. wouldn't give any satisfaction,
then the scripture says, he came to himself. Now that's what repentance
is. He remembers At my Father's house,
everybody has plenty to eat, and I'm perishing with hunger.
And I'm going to rise and I'm going to go to my Father. I'm
going to say, Father, I've sinned against Heaven and before Thee,
and I'm not worthy to be called Thy Son. Look at that complete,
all that sense of entitlement's gone. I'm not worthy to be called
Thy Son. Make me as one of Thy hired servants.
I'd be grateful for anything that comes my way. He repented,
didn't He? That's what repentance is. It's
a change of mind. Essentially, it's a change of
mind regarding the forgiveness of sins. Now let's finish by
thinking of this thing of the forgiveness of sins. That's what
remission is. Remission is the forgiveness
of sin. What is the greatest need that you have? I don't have a hard time answering
that question with regard to myself. The greatest need I have is the
forgiveness of my sins. I need that worse than, if I've
got that, I've got everything. If I have the forgiveness of
sins. And you know how, think about this, the way someone will
respond to this thought of the forgiveness, it pretty much depends
on how evil you believe yourself. and how you think you need to
be forgiven. If you have little need for this,
it's not that big a deal. But if you have great need of
forgiveness, of full, free forgiveness of sins, this can be very important
to you. This thing of repentance, a change of mind regarding the
forgiveness of sins. Now turn with me to Acts chapter
13. This is Paul's first recorded
sermon in the book of Acts. I'm going to cut in at the end
in verse 38. Be it known unto you. I want you to know this. Be it
known to you. I want you to see this real clearly. Now, that's the way preaching
ought to be. It's not trying to hide things or trying to package
the gospel or present it in such a way to take the offense out
or make it under, be it known to you. Therefore, men and brethren,
that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him All that belief are
justified from all things from which you could not be justified
by the law of Moses. Now, through this man, the God-man,
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Son of God, God's Christ, God's
prophet, God's priest, God's king, through this man, And the
only way my sins will be forgiven, the only way your sins will be
forgiven is through this man. Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. If you're forgiven, it'll only
be because of Christ through this man. Through this man is
preached unto you The forgiveness, the full remission of sins. Now,
let me tell you three things about his forgiveness. First,
it's full. That means all your sins are
forgiven. The ones you haven't committed
yet are all forgiven. All sin. All sin. Sins you know about, sins you
don't know about. When people talk about confessing
all your sin, there's two problems with that.
Number one, you don't have enough time in the day to do it. And number two, most of them,
you don't even know what they are, most of them. If I have to confess
every single one of my sins individually, I'm in trouble. Confession of
sin is taking sides with God against yourself. It's agreeing
with what God says. That's what confession is. Now,
when someone is forgiven, that means they're forgiven of all
their sin. The second thing about God's
forgiveness is it's free. There's absolutely nothing you
have to do to pay for it. There's absolutely nothing you
do to achieve this thing. It's not given to you because
you did anything. It's absolutely free. Do you hear me? It's free. There's nothing you do to pay
for it. There's nothing you do to get God to do this for you.
It's absolutely free. If you think you have anything
to pay, you missed it in the first place. The only way you
can be forgiven is if it is free. And the third thing about God's
forgiveness is it is irreversible. You can't become unforgiven if
he's forgiven you. You're forgiven. And it is irreversible. It's full, it's free, and it's
irreversible. And beloved, it's present. There
is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. And look what it says in verse
38. Be it known unto you therefore, brethren, men and brethren, that
through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins,
and by him all that believe. justified from all things from
which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." Now all
the believers are what? They're justified. Now let me
tell you why you're forgiven. You're forgiven because you're
justified. Justification logically comes before forgiveness because
if God ever views you as guilty you'll not be forgiven. He said
I'll by no means clear the guilty. By Him all that believe are justified. That means I stand before God
without guilt. That means I never sinned. That
means I am perfectly righteous before God. That's what justification
means. That means as He is, perfect, righteous, holy. Except, that's
me. That's me. That's what He is.
If I'm justified right now before God, I have the very righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I stand just before God.
Now who gets this blessing? all who believe. Now let me remind
you something about faith. Faith is not believing you're
saved. Faith is not believing that Christ
died for you. Faith is not believing that you're
one of the elect. Faith is not believing that you're
born again. Faith has absolutely nothing to do with what you think
about yourself. Faith has wholly to do with what
you think of Him. I believe, said the Ethiopian
eunuch, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Do you believe
that? Do you believe that Jesus is
the Christ? Whoso believeth that Jesus is
the Christ is born of God. I had someone say to me recently,
that's just leaving too many holes. Anybody could say that. I know
anybody could say that, but not anybody can believe it. Only
the elect believe that. But I tell you this, faith is
not what you believe about yourself, it's what you believe about Him.
All that believe Him. all that believe the gospel are
justified from all things which you could not be justified by
the law of Moses. Ephesians 1, 7 says, in whom
we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of
sins. Now, I can say this with confidence. This is what should be preached.
It's what the Lord said should be preached. Repentance A complete
change of mind and remission of sins. A change of mind regarding
the remission of sins. That's what should be preached
in His name, by His authority, beginning in Jerusalem. Here's
where I want you to begin preaching this message to the very people
who murdered me and called for my death. The Jerusalem sinner
saved. Let's pray. Lord, we ask in Christ's name
that you would give us this precious gift of repentance. Lord, enable
everybody in this room to repent and believe the gospel. Lord, how we thank you that your
salvation begins with the forgiveness, the full, free, forgiveness of sins. Lord, enable us to look to thy
son only for the forgiveness of sins. Bless this word for
your glory and for our good. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.