What made you think I wouldn't
read my text? It's not worth your weight in mud to get up
and preach a message and not read your text, is it? It's such a joy. And I am going
to read my text. Before I say anything, I'm going
to read my text. It's good to see you. It's good
to be back with you. May the Lord bless His Word.
1 Corinthians 15. Let's read the first eight verses. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. which also you have
received, and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved,
if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you 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, 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." Paul
is ready to end this epistle, and he's going to end it like
he began it, saying something about the gospel. Paul was a
man who loved the gospel. Every time he began to speak
of anything, he always made his way quickly to the gospel. His
heart, his lips, his pen was full of the gospel. He began
this epistle, you remember, by saying that Christ sent me not
to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words. lest the cross of Christ should
be made of none effect. To them that are perishing, he
said, the gospel is foolishness. But to you that have been called
that, and you who are saved by it, it's the power of God, and
it's the wisdom of God. That's how he began this epistle,
and here he's ready to close this epistle, and he says, I
remind you again what I preached. I preached to you the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, His grace, And he comes here to what
I call the essential aspect of the gospel. This is not all the
gospel, but it's the essential aspect of it. Election is the
gospel, is it not? Calling is the gospel. Perseverance
of the saints, and I learned how to say that, is the gospel. Many things is incorporated in
the term gospel. But this is what I call the essential
aspect of the gospel. that Jesus Christ died for our
sins, He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures. That's what Paul said was the
gospel. That's what the Apostle Paul gloried in. And he said,
I declare it again unto you. I want to make it as plain. I
want to preach it to you again just before I close this epistle. The word gospel means good news. It means glad tidings. I bring
you good tidings of great joy." One dear old translator, Brother
Tyndale, said, The gospel is called good news because it takes
the damnable sinner who believes it and fills his heart with joy
and peace and makes it sing and skip and leap for joy. That's
what the gospel does. Back in the prayer room, Brother
Rich gave us an excellent definition of the gospel, what it does to
those who believe it. And this is what it is. This
is why the gospel makes the heart skip and why it makes the heart
sing and leap for joy. The Lord Jesus said, My Father
sent me to preach good tidings to the meek. He sent me to bind
up the brokenhearted. Now what would it mean for you,
dear soul, who have a broken heart, to have the Lord Jesus,
the Great Physician, to bind it up? Wouldn't that make your
heart skip? Wouldn't that make it leap for
joy? To proclaim liberty to those who are in prison, the captives? The opening of the prison to
those that are bound? To appoint unto them that mourn
in Zion? To give unto them beauty for
ashes? the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they
might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of
the Lord. It brings joy. It brings gladness
and happiness to the heart. I tell you, this is a sorry world,
ain't it? It's a sorry world. Sin has ruined
it. It's brought heartache and sorrow
and disappointment on every hand. Brother Scott Richardson used
to say, a Christian is a man who either is going into trouble,
or he's in the middle of trouble, or he's coming out of trouble.
A man that's born to a woman is a few days and full of trouble. And I've found that so in my
experience, and I bet you have too. And the Father in heaven
knows this. God knows what kind of life this
is since sin has entered. So what does he do? Well, he
sends his preacher. He calls upon his church to say
this, O Zion that brings good tidings, lift up your voice. Get up into the high mountain.
O Zion, O Jerusalem, you've got a good message. Get up into the
mountain and say to the cities of Jerusalem, Behold your God. Don't be ashamed. Don't be afraid. Lift up your voice. Let people
hear these glad tidings. Behold your God. You say, Bruce,
I don't want to behold God. Look at Him up there on that
mountain with the fire and angels running to and fro and the trumpet
sounding and the mountain is shaking. Not that mountain. Not
that God. Behold your God incarnate. Behold
the Lamb of God upon Calvary's tree, dying to make atonement
for our sins. Behold Him. that taketh away
the sins of the world." That's good news. It will make your
heart skip. How beautiful, upon the mountains
of them that bring good tidings of good things, that publishes
peace, that Jesus Christ has made peace by the blood of His that he's made peace with God.
He gives us his peace. Lift up your voice. Publish peace
that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation, that
saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. Poor old Zion, just look at you.
You've had a tough day, haven't you? I'll tell you something
that will cheer you up. This will cheer you up. Saith
unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. Don't that cheer you up? He reigns
in creation. He upholds all things that He
has made. He reigns in providence. It is His Son that reigns upon
us every morning. He sends the small water. He
sends us the seasons. He clothes you. He feeds you.
Our God incarnate reigns in providence, and He reigns in salvation. Isn't
that good news? Poor Zion needs to hear that,
doesn't she? She needs to hear that. I declare unto you The
gospel that Jesus Christ died for our sins, what good news,
fills our hearts with joy. It's healing for the brokenhearted,
release for those who are bound and in captivity. The gospel,
I declare to you the gospel which I preached unto you. And notice
what he says about it. In the last portion of verse
1, which you have received, I preached to you the gospel the gospel
of the grace of God in Christ, and you have received it. Now, this is why the gospel is
good news. Because it doesn't come to us
and demand a thousand and one families. The gospel comes to
us and says, here's food, receive
it. Here's water, receive it. The gospel doesn't come and demand
you to get your act together and get your life all straightened
out and do 101 more things. No, the gospel comes to us and
says, Here's food, hungry soul. Eat and live. Here's water, thirsty
one. Stoop down and drink. And we
satisfy our hunger and we quench our thirst by this gospel. The gospel comes to us and it
says, all things are ready. Come and die. All things are
now ready. Come! That's the gospel. I spent
several years, all through my teenage years, and I tell everybody
this, but it's so. I spent all through my teenage
years up into my early twenties trying to save myself. I was
burdened with that all my young lifetime, trying some way to
commend myself to God. And my whole problem was this,
I did not understand the gospel. I did not understand the gospel
wasn't commanding me to do things. The gospel has this wonderful
message. It's done. It's finished. We can't hardly lay hold upon
that. We're people who always want to go about doing something.
That's the way lost people are. Wouldn't you think about needing
to be saved? Well, I need to do this, or I need to do that.
No, it's done. It's done. It's finished. Some of you, dear people, I've
been in some of your houses, and I know you, know how you're
on your jobs, and you're smart. I'm amazed that you're my friends.
I've been in your homes, and boy, you've got beautiful homes,
and some of you guys did this yourself. Every time I put my
hand in anything, I mess it up, and that's the truth. I've got
all kinds of projects, and my wife will bear witness to this,
that I've started and have never finished. I just can't hardly finish anything.
I love that word, it's finished. Especially when somebody else
says it. It's finished. It just makes my heart leap for
joy. It's done. It's accomplished. And that's
what the Lord Jesus said there upon the cross. He looked out
over his crowd and there sat his mother and some of his disciples
and all of those women. And he looked down at them. And
he thought within his heart, have I done everything that God's
commanded to be done? Have I answered every charge?
Have I made the payment that was required for their sins?
And he looked down here in 2009 upon you and said, What about
Clare? The charges against him. The
debt that he owed. Have I paid it all? Have I finished
it? And he thinks about it. He's
serious. This is upon his heart. This
is a work that must be accomplished, or his mother and his brother
and you and I will be lost, and Jesus Christ will abide alone
for all eternity. Happy, but alone. So he's serious
about this. Though he hangs upon the cross
in his agony and in his shame and his suffering, and just before
he lifts up his voice, he says, yes, it's finished. It's finished. He doesn't come to us and say,
you're going to have to grind your own meal and make your own
bread. No, I am the bread of life. Eat of me and live forever. He
doesn't ask us to go dig our own wells and put a pump in it
and draw the water. No, just stoop down and live. Drink and live, you thirsty one.
He's not asking you to do anything. Just receive Him. in all His
fullness, all His grace. Ain't that it? The gospel is
good news because it doesn't come to us and demand these things
of us, but it comes to us as light in our darkness. It comes
to us as food in our hunger, clothing in our utter nakedness,
blood, a fountain that's open in our shame and filth. And it
does everything for us that God requires and that we need. And
what do we do? We just receive it all into our
hearts. Just as we sit here this evening
doing nothing, just receiving Christ in His fullness. You can't
add anything to fullness, can you? We beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace. Full of grace. and truth and
of that fullness. This glass isn't full, is it?
No, it's not full. I could take some water and pour
some more in there. But if it was full, I couldn't put one
more drop in there. Jesus Christ in his fullness
has did everything that God required. All we do is receive. Receive. Ain't that good news? Don't that
just make your heart skip and leap? It's done. It's done. And look at this. Not only that
you've received this gospel, but he said, here wherein you
stand. You have received it, and wherein
you stand. You stand. I tell you, brothers
and sisters, I want to stand. I want to stand. I want to stand
before this world and have an answer if they ask me a reason
of my hope. I want to be able to give it.
I want to stand in the face of opposition and give a reason
for my hope. I do want to stand. Well, here's
the place to stand. When trials come and troubles
come and temptations come and disappointments come, I want
to stand. I don't want to fall. I don't want to fall away. I
want to stand. But I tell you, there's one place
that I want to stand, and you want to stand, and we must stand,
and we are, and that's before God. To stand there before the
eternal God and not have one sin marked to our charge. If
he marks iniquity, who can stand? But Paul said, here is a way
that God has made, a place that we can stand in, even before
God. Stand uncondemned, unjudged,
free and justified in the presence of God. Oh, and it makes your
heart skip for joy. Where is that place? It's the
gospel. You stand in the gospel. when the Lord will leave his
throne on high and descend from heaven and speak to the dead.
And they will all get out of the graves. And we will all come
up there before him. The earth and the heavens will
flee away. They won't be able to stand. The wicked won't be
able to stand. But you know who will stand in
that great day? Those who stand in the gospel.
Those who stand here where Paul said, You have received this
gospel, and wherein you stand. Who are you that judgeth another
man's servant? To his own master he stands or
falls. Yea, he shall be holden up, for
God is able to make him stand. And he shall stand. Now, as we
face God, and there on the day of judgment, if we stand in the
gospel, Did I ever tell you the story about standing where the
fire has already been? I have used that little story
so many times, but I just love it because it makes such a good
point. A fellow told me this years and years ago that he was
reading one of the stories about where some of our forefathers
was going west in a wagon train. And out on the plains, the grass
was high and it had dried. And there had been a fire broke
out ahead of them, and it was the winds blowing the the smoke
and the fire erupted towards them. And some of the men burned
out a huge area in that grass. And they circled the wagons,
and they got all the wagons and all the people in that burned-out
area. And they were sitting there watching the flames come towards
them, the black smoke. And one little boy began to tug
on his daddy's richest leg and said, Daddy, are we going to
be burned up? And he said, No, son, we're going to be burned
up. In just a few minutes, he tugged on it again and said,
Daddy, are you sure we're not going to be burned up? I'm beginning
to feel some heat and I see the smoke. Daddy, are you sure we're
not going to be burned up? And he said, Son, we're not going
to be burned up. In just a minute, he tugged again
and said, Daddy, how do you know? And he said, Son, we're standing
where the fire has already been. If you're standing where the
fire has already been, the fire can't touch you again. If we're
standing in Jesus Christ, nothing can touch us. The wrath of God
has already been there, consumed him, and consuming him consumed
our sin. And you can stand there in the
gospel. Don't that make your heart skip for joy? Oh, my. And look at this. What else the
apostle says about this? Not only have you heard this
and you've received it wherein you stand, but he said, by which
also you are saved. You're saved by the gospel. Now, I was reading Adam Clark.
If you don't have Adam Clark, Dr. Clark, if you study your
commentaries and you don't have Dr. Clark, don't get him because
you don't need him. Because when he says, by which
you are saved, he says, the gospel puts us in a savable state. And everywhere he goes through
the gospel, when he finds that, he says, here's what the gospel
does. It puts a man in a savable state. Can you imagine that jailer
asking the Apostle Paul, what must I do to be saved? And can
you imagine Paul answering him, well, I can't tell you what you
can do to be saved. I can tell you what you can do
to put yourself in a savable state. Wouldn't that be awful? Some people think, I reckon,
that the gospel puts us in a savable state, and then after a lifetime
of obedience, we're saved. That's not good news. That's
hogwash, ain't it? Hogwash. I heard a man say that
the other day, and I thought, what is hogwash? Some of you folks could tell,
but do you know what I think hogwash is? I was raised on a
farm down south, and my dad used to raise his own hogs and kill
his own hogs. Every fall, we'd kill three or four hogs. Five
or six hundred pound hogs, because they rendered the lard. And I'd
watch my dad and one or two more men, they'd boil a huge kettle
of water. And they'd get it just the right
temperature, and they'd have the hog kill land on his side,
and they'd pour that water over that old hog hair in his hide,
and take a big butcher knife and scrape it off. And then they'd
pour some more water on it, and all that old filth and hair,
oh, it was a mess, and this smell awful. That's what I call hog
work. And if a man comes here and says
the gospel just merely puts you in a savable state, that's hogwash. It stinks. It smells awful. The gospel comes to us right
where it finds us, as it finds us and saves us. It saves us. Brothers and sisters, that's
good news for a lost man. That's good news for a man and
a woman who knows what they are. that they're hell deserving.
And they send whatever claims they had away of heaven. They send them away. They have
no claims. And they know their next step
should be in eternal ruin. And here comes the gospel. And
what does it do? It saves them from sin, from
the guilt of it and the love of it and the power of it. And
it puts a love in their heart for Him who saved them. Oh, you
tell me something could do that for me, and I tell you what,
my heart has skipped for joy. Old Scott said, I haven't heard
any bad news since I got the good news. And here's the good
news. The gospel has saved you. It's
not tried to save you. It's not come hoping that it
will save you. Perhaps it will save you in the
future. No, it come right where it found you. And Paul was writing
to these same group of people, and he said, some of you were
fornicators. You were open and profane people.
You were liars. You were drunks. You were idolaters,
effeminate abusers of yourself. You were... And what happened? You were washed. You were justified. You were sanctified in the name
of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Oh, the gospel is
good news, because it just comes right where we are, and saves
us right where it finds us, and as it finds us. Verse 3, look at this. Here's the gospel. I delivered
unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that
Christ died for our sins. Now, here's the gospel, and what's
the first thing we see about the gospel? Well, it's something
that's supernatural. It's something that's absolutely
miraculous. You say, Bruce, what do you mean?
Well, Christ died. Christ died. Now, if you don't
believe in miracles, if you say, well, I just can't believe that
God spake everything into existence, well, you won't believe the gospel.
If you reject Moses taking his stick and holding it out over
the Red Sea and getting partied, you say, I just can't believe
that. You won't believe the gospel then. If you reject the Hebrew
children being thrown into the fiery furnace and it had no effect
upon them, you say that's just impossible, you'll never believe
the gospel. The gospel is miraculous. It's
a miracle. And here it is. Christ died. Ain't that miraculous? You say,
Bruce, why is that miraculous? Well, here's why it's miraculous.
Here is eternal life. in His glorious person, in our
humanity. Here is life eternal. Isn't that
what John said about it? Here is what John said, "...that
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled." John said we saw Him with our eyes and
we leaned on His breast, we handled Him. That is the word of life. And the life was manifested,
and we've seen it, and bear witness, and we show unto you that eternal
life which was with the Father before the world was, and was
manifested in the flesh to us." Who is Jesus Christ? I mean,
when He's in the womb of that Virgin, who is He? He's life
eternal. Life eternal. He went about doing
good, healing all that was oppressed. They talked with Him, handled
Him. And He was life eternal. He never ceased to be what He
was before He came. Upon the cross, burying sins
in His utter weakness. Who is that? That's eternal life. What does He do then? He lifts
up His voice and says, It's finished. And gives up the ghost. Eternal
life given up to ghosts? Ain't that amazing? You say,
Bruce, can you explain that? No, I can't explain that. And
all the things you can do when you yearn it, just receive it
into your heart. That's all you can do. Eternal
life dying for our sins. You say, but that was the man.
That was eternal life. No matter how you look at him,
he's life eternal. He's the eternal God. He's the
Son of Mary. And in both, he's life eternal. And Paul said he died. Ain't
that amazing? Don't that make your heart skip?
What a mystery. I tell you, if you take the mystery
out of the gospel, you take the miraculous out of the gospel,
you don't have a gospel. If you can explain all of this,
you don't have a gospel. And look at this. Not only did
he die, but here is a miracle. Here is something miraculous.
He died for our sins. This word has two meanings, and
I didn't even know this until just the other day I was looking
at this. It's got the meaning that you
and I often attribute to it, in the room of, instead of, He
died for our sins. He died as a payment for our
sins. We have all kinds of scripture
for that. He suffered for our sins. He gave himself for our
sins. He made his soul an offering
for sins. He was wounded for our transgressions. This is the blood of the new
covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins. When the Lord Jesus died upon
that cross of Calvary, he obtained a free and full and eternal redemption
for all his people. They'll never have to face one
charge. Their sin has been paid for.
It's been perched away. It's gone. It's gone. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away. He died for our sins. But the
second meaning of this word is this. It has to do with the degree
of satisfaction. He made the payment for our sins,
but this word here also means that he paid a price that far
exceeded what God required. It means to be superior to, exceedingly
above, beyond, over and above in regard to or on behalf of. Our death was required. Your
death was required and mine was required. The soul that sins,
it shall die. But instead, Christ died. How
much more infant is his death than yours? It can't be measured,
can it? All of us together, all elect
sinners of all ages, with all their sins, suffering, death
for all eternity, would not have paid the price that this one
man paid by his death upon the cross. And he paid more, exceeded
more. infinitely more than what was
required. How do we estimate his merit?
I don't think you can. I don't think we can. It's more
than we can estimate. We often say, with strength enough,
but none despair. And that's so. It took everything
he had to put away sin. But when he
put it away, The price he paid was infinitely more than even
what God required. Does that make any sense? There
is enough merit in Jesus Christ to save us than there is sin
in us to damn us. Now, you think about that. Whatever
God required of you for your sins and the payment for it,
he has paid infinitely more. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more. of them, much more of them. He died for our sins. And you know this gospel is not
something that is optional. If you are not going to be saved,
we must receive it into our hearts. It must be received into our
hearts. It must be the only thing that we depend upon for our salvation,
our acceptance of God. If a man says he believes it
and that he has received it, and then he can let it go, he's
not saved. If a man says that he's received
this gospel and then he trades it for something else, he can't
be saved. Or he adds something else to
it, he can't be saved. How are we saved by this gospel?
It comes to us. We receive it and we hold it. in our conscience, in our hearts,
in our memories, we never let it go. We never let it go. Isn't that what Paul said? If
you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed
in vain. Is the gospel not a miracle?
I'll tell you it's a miracle. A miracle of love. A miracle
of grace. But look what else he says. Not
only that Christ died and he died for our sins, but Paul tells
us something else here that is a vital aspect of the gospel,
and that he was buried. He makes a point of saying that.
He mentions that Christ was buried according to the scriptures.
Scriptures predicted that in the Old Testament when Jonah
was three days and three nights in that whale's belly, that was
Jesus Christ in type, in picture. When David said, Thou wilt not
leave my soul, my body in the grave, that was Christ speaking. The scripture says that he was
buried, and his burial gives another proof of his death. Why
did they bury him? because he was dead. It wasn't
an issue when Jesus Christ said, It's finished. It wasn't an issue
with any of these people that he had really died. They'd have
never buried him if he wasn't dead. When those soldiers went
to Pilate, when he called the centurion in, Nicodemus and Joseph
had went and bagged the body, and he was amazed that he was
dead already. And he called us in to him and said, Are you sure
that Jesus of Nazareth has died? Yes, sir, he died. We went to
him to take the club and break his legs, but he is dead already. They pierced his side and all
of his blood ran out on the ground. He's dead. He's dead. It wasn't
an issue with Pilate. He made sure, the soldiers made
sure, Nicodemus and Joseph knew that he was dead. That's why
they buried him, because he was dead. They put him in this new
tomb. They had just dug it. There was
no time to make any channels, any caves to slip in and get
him out. It was a new tomb. Never men
laid it. And they put the Lord Jesus there,
Paul said, because he died. And here is the miracle concerning
his burial, and this is why Paul made such an issue of it here.
He was three days. in that tomb. And here's the
miracle, brothers and sisters, in that. And Paul wants us to
see that. He never began to decay. It wasn't that he was just buried
and rose again. No, he was buried and the third
day he rose again. But here was the miracle. Thou
wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. When the Lord
Jesus died, his blood was gone, his breath was gone from his
body, but death had no effect upon that body. It never began to turn color. It never began to decay. Not
one pore. Death had no effect upon him. And here's why. As soon as he
said it's finished, sin was put away. There was no more sin. And as soon as he lifted up his
voice and gave up the ghost, death was abolished. Death was abolished. Death is
no more. He swallowed death up. Therefore,
it had no effect upon him. His body remained holy, and the
reason it had no effect upon him, he was holy. He was holy
when He came into the world. He was holy as He lived. He was
holy when He hung upon that cross. And some people just can't understand
that when we say that Christ took our sins, He felt them,
He bore them, He was made sin, but He never ceased to be what
He was, holy enough to the Lord. And He was so holy and so full
of merit, when death gaped its ugly jaws upon Him, He just swallowed
it up, and now death is abolished. He has abolished death and brought
life and immortality to life through the gospel. And look
at him three days later. There he lives, and death has
not one effect upon that body. Ain't that wonderful? You and
I die, and as soon as we die, they have to do something with
these bodies. I had a brother-in-law that died when I was very young,
and the smell stayed in that house. He was in there three
or four or five hours, and the smell stayed in the house for
a long time because his body began to decay and swell. Not the Lord Jesus. Death had
no effect upon him. Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy
One, thine Holy One, to see corruption. The Lord Jesus was buried, one
man said, not only to fulfill scripture and abolish death,
but to identify with his people. To identify with his people.
His people are being buried everywhere and have been for ages. He identified with them. And you know something, as we
die and they put us in the grave, we'll identify with him. Charles
Spurgeon said, and he said some people may not understand when
I say this, but he said, I hope the Lord don't come until I experience
death. He said, I want to experience
death. I want to die. He said, I'm not afraid of it.
I'm not afraid to go to the grave. Put me in the grave. There's
no harm there. Death has been abolished. I tell you what you
can do, dear children of God. Go ahead and plan your funeral. Get your songs that you want
the congregation here to sing. Go down to the funeral home.
Have them plan it all out. And then rest yourself and wait.
You don't have to fear death. Paul even refused to call it
death. He called it sleep. Some of these fellows, he said,
I've fallen asleep. You mean they died? No, they
went to sleep. There is no death. Is that what he said? I found
this little article a few weeks ago in your bulletin, and you
ought to remember this. This is what Horatius Bonar said
about this. He said, I believe what Scripture
says, not what my eyes see. And here's what he said. I do
not believe in sickness, but in his health. I do not believe
in death, but in his eternal life. I do not believe in corruption,
but in his holiness. I do not believe in the grave,
but in him who conquered the grave and said, I am the resurrection
and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that liveth and believeth
in me, he shall never die." That's what we believe in. Death is
gone. I don't believe in death. I don't
believe in sin. Sin is gone. What a gospel! See this gospel, this wonderful
gospel? And what can you do but just
receive it and try to believe it? No wonder one of the old Puritans
said, we're not looking for something new. We're looking for grace
to believe what we already know. And that's it, ain't it? Oh,
Lord, give me grace just to believe the gospel. That's all I want.
That's all I want. And he rose again. And I'll quit
with this. He rose again. the third day
according to the scriptures. And you know his resurrection,
among other things, just proved that he accomplished everything
that he undertook to accomplish. He purposed and then he undertook
to accomplish the redemption of his people. And it's very
evident that he did it because God raised him from the dead.
Our sins were laid on Him, and if He hadn't put those sins away
by His merit, He would have still been in the grave, decayed. But He put those sins away. He
made reconciliation. He made peace with God. The way
is wide open. Brothers and sisters, the door
into God's very presence, His holiness, is wide open. We have
access to the Father. Everything that needed to be
done He did it. He was successful. He didn't
try and fail. He did it. How do we know? He
raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand.
And that's where he's at now. The work is done. Believe and
live. And he gives these two reasons.
Scriptures. Scriptures. Every type that pictured the
resurrection, the two little birds, They cut one of them's
throat, put his blood down in water, and they tucked a live
bird and washed him in the blood and water of that dead bird.
Remember that one? The cleansing of the leper? It
took two birds to represent one Savior. That's how wonderful
he is. One bird died, and the other
one, they turned him loose and he flew away through the sky.
That's the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That whale
coming up from the bottom of the depths and spitting Jonah
out on the coast, that's the resurrection of our Savior. God
raised Him. You destroy this building, He
said, and in three days I'll raise it up again. Is that what
He predicted? That's what He did according
to the Scriptures. And He says here that He was seen of many
witnesses, above 500 witnesses at one time. And you know, not
a one of those retracts their testimony. Not a one of them. And I tell you, they probably
got put to death because of it. When they went about saying Christ
is raised from the dead, they said, if we hear you say that
one more time, we're going to whip you. We're going to excommunicate
you and we're going to kill you. But they said, do what you want
to with me. My Lord is raised from the dead. I saw it. I ate
with it. I handled it. He is alive forevermore. What a gospel, brothers and sisters.
What a gospel. Oh, our Father, our wise and
holy and good and eternal Father, the God and Father of our blessed
Savior, our faithful and merciful High Priest, we call you our
Father because you are. In your dear Son, you are our
Father. You will never suffer fellowship
to be broken again. In Him you are eternal, Father.
We come to you, our Father, through His precious blood. We come to
Him at your word of grace. And we praise you for this wonderful
gospel. We've never heard anything like
it or experienced anything like it in our poor souls. And, our
Father, we find nothing else that will cheer us and encourage
us in this awful world but this blessed gospel. We thank you
for not only accomplishing everything, our master, but writing it down
where we can go daily and read it to encourage our hearts. Thank
you for this, dear people who are gathered here to worship
you. And I pray that you'll be your own interpreter this evening.
Forgive us of our sins. For Christ's sake alone, forgive
us. Wash us. Give us your grace to love one
another, to be patient to bear with one another. Bless these
dear people here. Thank you for blessing your work
in this place. Bless the dear pastor and his
wife and his family. Bless all of these families.
For your sake and for your glory we ask. Amen. Thank you, brothers
and sisters.