Here's my text, two verses from
Acts chapter 5, verse 41 and 42, and they departed
from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted
worthy to suffer shame by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And daily in the temple and in
every house they ceased not, they did not refrain from teaching and preaching Jesus
Christ. Now the disciples of our Lord
were men whose entire lives were dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ. and to the gospel of his glory. These men believed Christ. They didn't just believe in Christ
or about Christ. They believed him. That's what
Abraham said. He believed God. He said that
four times in the scripture. He believed God. Actually believed
God. They loved Christ. They preached
him. They believed him. trusted him, and they declared
Christ and him crucified. In several verses this statement
occurs from the writings of the apostles. In Acts chapter 5,
Ben-Philip, Ben-Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached
Christ to them. preach Christ to them. In Acts
8, then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached Christ to them. In Acts chapter 9, and straightway
he preached Christ in the synagogue that he's the son of God. He
preached Christ. In Acts 11, and when they came
to Antioch, they spake unto the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus
Christ. And then in Acts 28, at the end
of Paul's ministry, it says he dwelt two whole years preaching
the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the
Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence. These men preach Christ. I don't
hesitate for a moment, not one moment, to call myself a predestinary. I don't hesitate one moment.
I believe God Almighty is absolutely sovereign. Scripture says we
know. that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are called according
to his purpose. By whom he did foreknow, he did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And moreover,
whom he did predestinate, them he called, and whom he called,
them he justified. And whom he justified, them he
glorified. What shall we say to these things?
I don't say anything. I believe it. I'm a predestinarian. I believe the scriptures. One
hundred percent. The infallible, eternal, almighty
word of the living God. I believe God. I believe God
is God. Let God be true in every man
alive. God is absolutely sovereign.
God is almighty. And our God worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will. He reigns in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and giveth it to
whomsoever he will. I believe the old-timers I believe their word. I believe
Abraham and Moses and Isaac and Jacob. I believe Augustine, Apostle
Paul. I believe Luther, Calvin, Dwingley,
Huss, Owens, Whitfield. I believe these men are tested,
tried, proven servants of God. Thank God for them and make no
apology. I believe God. Believe his word. Rest in it. Trust it. Secondly,
I do not hesitate to call myself a born-again believer. Except
the man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. We're born not of the will of
the flesh and not of the will of man, We're born not of natural
genealogy, we're born of God. I believe that we're the redeemed
in Christ Jesus. And my friends, there's one body,
not several, one body, the body of Christ. One body. We're his body. We're
one body. And we're one spirit. Not many
spirits, several spirits, one blessed, eternal, Holy Spirit
of God. One God, one body, one spirit,
one hope of His colleague. One hope. That's the blessed
hope. The eternal hope. The good hope. Christ in you the hope of glory. With one Lord. One God and Father. One faith, not several kinds
of faith, not the Christian faith, and the Muslim faith, and the
Hebrew faith, and the Protestant faith, and the... One faith,
we believe God. One God and Father who is above
all, through all, and in you all. no hesitation, no compromise. One Lord, one body, one spirit,
one hope, one faith, one baptism, immersion, confessing the death,
burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, putting away
a sin by the remission of Christ, one God and Father. And I do
not hesitate. to own, believe, and love the
church. The church now. I'm not talking
about the Victory Center. I'm not talking about the community
of believers. I'm not talking about all the
different interpretations and ways and means that men concoct
to deny the church. I'm talking about the church.
The church which is purchased with his own blood. His church. He said, I will build my church. C-H-E-R-C-H, church now. I will build my church. And the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I love his church. I believe the church. it shall
stand. I love its ordinances. He gave
us to baptism in the Lord's people. Not Christmas or Easter, all
these other shenanigans that we bring up, you know, to compromise. I'm talking about his church. He gave us the Lord's table,
the bread and the wine, this do in remembrance of me. As often
as you eat this blood and eat this flesh and drink this blood,
you show the Lord's death till he comes. I love the ordinances. I love baptism. Baptism is a
confession of faith. It's a confession of Christ.
It's a declaration of his sacrifice and his precious blood. And it's
always been. Since the Lord built this church,
it's always been the way of confession of Christ. That's right. He said, you go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Go and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Teaching them. to observe whatsoever things,
I command you. I love the Church. I love this
Church. Its people, its ordinances, its
elders, its hymns, its children, its doctrines, its truth. I love the Church. Don't you? Thank God for it. Make no compromise. Make no changing of the guard,
changing of the words. I'll be on the church. I'll be
on the church. So I'm a predestinarian. A sovereign
God. A sovereign God. I'm a believer. The New Testament, born again,
redeemed, blood washed, child of the King. And I love the church. I believe the church. Thank God
for the church. But if you ask me, if you ask
me, what is my creed? I must reply, it's the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's not the doctor of predestination.
It's not the doctor of the church. It's Christ the Lord. That's
my creed. That's our creed. I will build
my church. That's right. But if you ask
me my creed, it's Christ. If you ask me what is my body
of divinity, it's Christ Jesus and him crucified. If you ask
what is my religion, What is your religion, preacher? Here
it is. Here's my religion. It's not
by works of righteousness which I have done, but according to
his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, by the
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through
Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified By His grace,
we shall be heirs according to the hope of eternal life. That's
my religion. A person. You see, Jesus Christ the Lord,
this is what these disciples, they cease not to preach Christ,
to teach Christ, to hold forth Christ, to exalt Christ, to honor
Christ, to magnify Christ. Jesus Christ is the sum and substance
of our gospel. It's the heart and soul of our
gospel. Jesus Christ is the incarnation
of all truth. He is the truth. He's not a truth. He's the truth. Jesus Christ is our wisdom, our
righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. All summed it
up, Jesus Christ is all in it all. He's all. All before the foundation
of the world, all by the foundation of the world, and all through
the foundation. He's all in it all. Well, preacher, if you knew you
only had one more sermon to preach, and that's a possibility, Swift
to its close ebbs out life's little day, Earth's joys go dim, its glories
fade away, Change and decay in all around me I see, O thou that
changest not, abide with me." If he only had one sermon to
preach, just one, what would it be? Actually, if I had just one sermon
to preach, or two, or three, or four, or a hundred, it would
always be Christ and Him crucified. Doesn't matter whether it's one
or two dozen, it's going to be Christ. Paul said, I determined to know
nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was
with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. But I declared Christ, not with
wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made known of none
effect, but Christ in Christ alone. Charles Spurgeon gave an illustration of a story,
a true story about a preacher, a man named Dr. Geise. years
and years ago. And Dr. Guyce's sermons had become
so tedious and so theological and so burdensome upon his people
that he labored for years and years and years until suddenly one Sunday morning
in the midst of teaching his his theological discourses, he
suddenly became stone blind. And when he became blind, he
couldn't read his topics and his writings and his theology,
and he just stood there. And Spurgeon said he began to
weep, and he began to talk to the people about his problem,
his blindness. And he began to just give them
a message from his heart, knowing it would probably be the last
one that he would preach. And after he finished talking
to these people, they alertly listened. And with the deacons, he came
down from the pulpit, the podium, and walked up to the congregation
being led by the hand like Paul the Apostle. And as he left the podium and
was led away, someone remarked, what a shame. He didn't go blind
20 years ago. Isn't that tragic? I'm so glad we're not blind,
aren't you? I'm so glad that the Lord has
given us the word of faith, the gospel of his salvation. Well,
what is it to preach Christ and Him crucified? What is it? I'm going to give you four things,
give you four things this morning. What is it? To declare in no
uncertain terms. Christ and him crucified. But
I'll tell you the first thing is this, is to declare his deity,
his deity. When a person refers to Jesus
Christ as a great prophet, as a man refers to Jesus Christ
as a great teacher, or a great healer, or even a good man, He's
only declared him to be a great imposter. Jesus Christ is not
a great teacher. He's the only teacher. He's not
a great healer. He's the only one who healeth
our diseases. He's not a great man or a good
man. He's THE man, Christ Jesus. You see? It's to declare him
to be God. I am a Father one. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the beginning
with God. Without Him, there's no one.
He's Almighty. The only true God. He that hath
seen me hath seen my Father. Behold, the Lord himself will
give you a sign. A virgin shall be with child,
and I shall call his name Emmanuel. God with us, God with us. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself. He's God. And secondly, preaching Christ is preaching his true humanity.
We must never, now listen, this is interesting, we must never
make Jesus Christ less man because he's God. And we must never make
him less God because he's a man. He's the God-man. Eternal God
and a man. He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. He said, a body hast thou prepared
me. He was made flesh and he was
made in the likeness of flesh He was made a man, kept in all
parts as we are, yet he's God Almighty incarnate. Christ the
man and Christ God Almighty. The Apostle Paul said this in Romans chapter 1. Let's turn
to this right in Romans chapter 1. This is it, right here, in Romans
chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which he
promised the poor by his prophets and the holy scriptures. Concerning
his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh. He was made a man. He was made
what he wasn't. He was made a man, perfect man,
without sin, but a man. Not less God, but a man. But
now what's this? And declared. He wasn't made
God. He was made a man and he was
declared to be the Son of God, with power, perfect, almighty
power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection
from the dead. Jesus Christ He is a man, bone
of our bone, flesh of our flesh, Jesus Christ is God, the God-man. And there's no discrepancies
and there's no failure. He's God and He's
a man. And thirdly, now watch this carefully,
preaching Christ is preaching Christ Christ is God, and Christ
is man. Now here's the third thing. Preaching
Christ is to preach Christ in the solitariness of his person
and work. The solitariness of his person
and work. The singleness, the simplicity
of Christ. Christ alone redeemed us. Now
plus anyone or help from anyone with alone, he redeemed us. Scripture said when he had by
himself purged our sins, he had no help, no help whatsoever in
the redemption of our souls. It was all of Christ. He put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Alone without others,
he made intercession for us. through His blood, the royal
bath of mercy was drawn from the veins of the Son of God through
a blood atonement. And no blood of noble martyrs
or helpers or aides entered that stream. It's the whole complete
work of Jesus Christ the Lord. He redeemed us by Himself, by
Himself. The solitariness, the singleness
of his ministry, of his work, of his atonement, of his blood,
of his righteousness, of everything, didn't have any help from anybody. That's so very important that
Christ redeemed us. so completely of himself and
by himself and through himself that no one, nobody, nothing
added one thing to that redemption, not one thing. I think the thief
on the cross is about a clear illustration of the solitariness
and the singleness and the complete accomplishment of Christ's death
more than any other illustration. This man had no help whatsoever. This man was a male factor. Someone said that he was an outcast
of the outcast cast out. He had no virtue whatsoever,
no help whatsoever, nothing going for him at all. And the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
him. Someone said he didn't wash, he didn't work, he didn't witness. He believed on Christ. Turn to Acts chapter 53 a moment. Acts 53. In Acts 53, I want to
read just three verses here. The solitariness, the oneness,
the fullness of Christ's sacrifice. In Isaiah 53 verse 1, Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong
his days. The pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities."
That's it. And I tell everyone this. It's by his full obedience that
we have a perfect righteousness. Perfect righteousness. Not a
progressive righteousness. perfect righteousness by his
obedience, once for all. Secondly, it's by his blood that
we have justification. If you touch his righteousness
or touch his blood, you pollute both of them. If you add anything to his righteousness
or blood, you pollute both of them. It's Christ and Christ
alone. His holiness is our sanctification. not should be, it is our sanctification. His holiness is our sanctification,
and his presence, his presence is our acceptance, our assurance,
and our hope, and because he lives, we live also. That's three things. We preach
Christ, his deity, uncompromising deity. This humanity, uncompromising
human humanity, the solitariness of his work, completeness of
it, absolute completeness of his work, plus nothing, minus
nothing. Doesn't contribute in any way on our part, our salvation. It's complete in Christ. He's made under us, all things. We're complete in Him. Number
four, here's the last one. To preach Christ, now listen
to me carefully, to preach Christ, preach Him, is to preach Him
as the only mediator between God and man, the only mediator. The only mediator. There's one
God, And there's one Mediator between God and men, and that's
the man Christ Jesus. And I'm telling you, you know
it, and I know it. Most of the world doesn't know
it. In declaring our Lord Jesus Christ as the only Mediator,
only Mediator, we set aside and reject all other Mediators, and
all and any other Savior. Mary, the apostles, the saints,
the intercessors, the counselors, the statues, the crosses, the
symbols, the forms of God, the little things that creep in,
that give us age to worship and age to prayer. Nothing. Now let me show you a scripture
in Exodus 20. Now listen to this, Exodus chapter
20. And I'm saying this so strongly. There's no symbols, no pictures,
no emblems, no figurines or figures, only Christ. In Exodus 20 verse
20, Exodus 20, verse 20. And God spake all these words,
saying, I am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of
the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt
have no other god before thee, no other gods, no other representation
of Mary, Apostles, Saints, Statues, Intercessors, Crosses, Symbols,
no other God. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven images, any pictures of God, pictures of Christ, graven
image, etchings, paintings, forms, any likeness of anything that's
in heaven, above, or in the earth beneath,
or in the waters under the earth. And I'm telling you, thou shalt
not bow down thyself to any of these images, statues, figures,
and whatever. For I, the Lord thy God, am a
jealous God. I will not share my glory I'll
visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third
and fourth generation of them that hate me." I want you to turn to Luke chapter
24. This is kind of a summary of what Luke chapter 24, sort
of a summary of my message this morning. Luke 24. Luke 24, verse 36. I'm talking about Christ, God. Christ, the man. Christ, the
only Redeemer, the only... the only solitariness of His
Word, the only Atonement. and no representations, and nobody
else. Now listen, in Acts, uh, uh,
Luke 24, verse 36, And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood
in the midst of them, and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And they were terrified, affrighted,
that they'd seen a spirit. And he said to them, why are
you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your
heart? Behold, my hands and my feet, I myself. Can you get a
hold of that? There's no cross, there's no
Mary over here, and there's no saint over there. It's I myself. Why on earth would we be fooling
with anybody else? Why on earth would we be interested
in anybody else? It's I, myself. It's I, myself. Handle me. Reach
out, touch me. A spirit hath not flesh and bones
as you see me have. This is not a spirit blowing
around and an image floating around. An old dead somebody
somewhere and a saint that's hanging around. This is Christ
the Lord in the flesh. You don't see bones, flesh and
bones. Spirit has not flesh and bones
you see me have. And when he had thus spoken,
he showed them his hands and his feet. He showed them their
Lord, their Redeemer, their Lord. While they yet believed not for
joy and wondered, he said unto them, Do you have any meat? And
they gave him a piece of boiled fish and a honeycomb, and he
took it and did eat. That's the reality of his resurrection,
the reality of his person. I'll never have to rub a a cross
again. You never have to imagine anything. He's real. And he took it and
did it. And he said to them, these are
the words that I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that
all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law
of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning me. Then
he opened their understanding that they might understand the
scriptures. And thus he said unto them, it's
written, thus it behooved Christ to suffer, to rise from the dead
the third day, that repentance and remission of sin should be
preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem,
and you are witnesses of these things. Behold, I send you the promise
of my Father upon you. Now you tarry in the city of
Jerusalem until you be do'ed with power from on high." And
he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and
blessed them. He came to Christ as he blessed
them. He was parted from them and carried into heaven. And
they worshipped him, not one another, not a symbol or a sign,
they worshipped him. and returned to Jerusalem with
great joy. And they continually in the temple,
they continued in the temple praising and blessing God.