Here's a passage of scripture
from the book of 1 Corinthians 9, verse 16. Listen to Paul. For though I preach the gospel,
I have nothing to glory of. For necessity is laid upon me,
yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel. Now, I wish you'd
just pull your chair up for a little while. I'm only going to speak
to you about 27 or 28 minutes. But I'm going to speak to you
from, I believe, the most important subject that I can deal with
or you can hear. And that is this subject, What
is the Gospel? The title of this message is
The Gospel That Saves. The gospel that's saved. Now,
I'm not going to talk about the gospel this morning. I'm going
to preach the gospel. I'm going to define it. I'm going
to set it forth. I believe in clear, unmistakable
terms. I believe like the Apostle Paul.
Necessity is laid upon me. I must preach. I must preach
the gospel. I have nothing to glory of. Woe
is unto me if I don't preach the gospel. Now, personally,
let me confess something to you. Personally, I am vitally interested
in three things. And under God, as Paul said,
God is my witness, these three things genuinely occupy my attention
and thoughts more than any other three things. Number one, I want
to know the gospel. Not a gospel, not some gospel,
not any gospel, but the gospel. There's only one gospel. Paul
said, if any man preach any other gospel, let him be accursed.
He said, I don't care if it's an angel from heaven. There's
just one gospel, that gospel of God, that gospel of His glory,
that gospel of His grace, that gospel concerning His Son. I
want to know that gospel. And I'm not taking for granted
that I know it, and I'm not taking for granted any of you know it.
A man can miss the gospel, he can be deceived, and if he's
deceived, he doesn't know that he's deceived or he's not deceived.
He said, I know I'm not deceived. How do you know you're not deceived?
If a man is deceived, he certainly doesn't know it. I'm not ashamed
of the gospel, Paul said. It is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believes it. So I must know the gospel. For
that gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Then secondly,
I don't want to only know the gospel in my head. I want to
believe it, lay hold of it in my heart. Do you? I want to believe
that gospel. What a fearful thought. What
a horrible thought to preach to others and myself become a
castaway. This was Paul's prayer for himself.
He said, oh, that I may win Christ. I want my hero to know Christ,
but I want to know him too. Oh, that I may know him and the
power of his resurrection. I want to believe the gospel,
to be obsessed with the gospel. to embrace the gospel, to lay
hold on this gospel that God says is the power of God unto
salvation. And then thirdly, I want to preach it. I mean preach
it. Not about it. There are a lot
of people who are preaching about the gospel who never really preach
the gospel. Now, you listen to me. I hear
people talking about the gospel all the time. Then I listen to
them, and they never define it. They never preach it. They just
preach about it. They use the words cross, blood, bible, heaven,
hell, repentance, faith, all these things. But they never
really get around to preaching the gospel. Defining the gospel. Paul said he preached the gospel. I preached the gospel. Not with
wisdom of words, not with intellectual comments and so forth, phrases,
not to please men, but I preached the naked gospel. As it is. to men as they are. I preach
the gospel. That's what I want to do, preach
the gospel. I want to be able to say with
that great apostle, I do not frustrate, I do not distort,
I do not confuse the gospel. I sound a clear note, a clear
trumpet on the gospel. Now, let me tell you something.
There are several things critical, critical, absolutely critical
to understanding the gospel that I must give you in in introducing
this message. First of all, this gospel that
saves is the gospel of God. It originated with God. It didn't
originate in some church council. It didn't originate in some denominational
headquarters. It originated with God Almighty.
Paul said, I'm an apostle separated unto the gospel of God. God's
gospel. He planned it. He purposed it. He executed it. It pleased the
Lord to bruise him. He applied it. It pleased God
to reveal His Son to me. He sustains it, and He will perfect
it. It's God's gospel from Alpha
to Omega. Almighty God originated the gospel. It came from Him to men. It didn't originate down here.
It came from God. Now, that's important. Secondly,
this gospel that saves, there's only one, is the gospel of God's
free grace. I know the word grace is used
all the time, but my friends, free grace is totally, completely
unmerited favor. For by grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. This salvation is the free gift
of God. The wages of sin is death. We
earn that. We merit the wages of sin. We
earn death. But the gift of God, the free
gift of God, is eternalized through Jesus Christ our Lord, being
justified freely, freely by His grace. So the gospel, it says,
is of free grace. We don't marry it, we don't earn
it, we don't buy it. It's given by God. It's bestowed
by God's free grace. Thirdly, listen to me. The gospel,
it says, is the gospel of God's glory. He's going to get all
the credit. Now that's the word, credit.
All the praise, all the glory. He will not share his glory. As it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. God will be glorified from eternity
to eternity for all that he does, for all that we are, for all
that we know, for all that we will ever be. Any preaching that
does not ascribe all the glory to God is not of God. And I mean
not one jot, not one atom, not one tittle of the glory shall
be given to men. And I'm talking about all your
reward system and all of your crowns they're going to give
out in glory for all the work you've done. That's an abomination
to God Almighty. He's not going to share His glory
with an apostle or with a priest or with a prophet or with a king.
He's going to get all the glory, every bit of the glory. The crowns
are going to be on His head. I'm telling you the truth. He
that gloweth, let him glow in the Lord. That's written, and
God will not share his glory. And I'm telling you, there's
too much preaching today that dignifies the flesh and praises
the flesh and honors the flesh and does not glorify God. And
my friends, in these last days, somebody's got to lift a voice
and tell this generation the truth that God Almighty is going
to get all the glory. Every knee's going to bow. That's
yours, mine, and everybody else's. And every tongue's going to confess
in heaven, earth, and hell that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. He's going to have the preeminence.
If He doesn't have it, you're not going to have any part in
His kingdom. We don't learn to glorify Him here. We can't glorify
Him there. It starts right here. The attitude,
the spirit is planted in the heart right now that blossoms
in glory. The seeds planted here. And fourthly,
this gospel, now listen to me, this gospel that saves is the
ancient, eternal gospel. It's the gospel which he promised
before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. It's the same
gospel he preached in the Garden of Eden when he talked about
the seed of woman. It's the same gospel he preached in the Garden
of Eden when he slew the lamb and clothed our mother and father.
It's the same gospel Abel preached when he brought the lamb and
its blood to the altar. It's the same gospel that Moses
wrote about Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
It's the same gospel Isaiah preached. It's the same gospel Abraham
preached. It's the same gospel Paul and
Peter, James and John, the Reformers. It's the one gospel. It's not
but one. God's never saved a man prior
to this day or after this day, but one way, that's by looking
to Christ. And there's going to be no other gospel for a millennium. And another gospel for the Jew
and another gospel for the Gentile is one gospel. And that's the
gospel of God. It's the ancient, eternal gospel.
It's His gospel. And then fifthly, listen to me. I'm sounding a note and blasting
a trumpet and declaring a truth that needs to be sounded forth.
And this is what I'm telling you. You say, those are strange
things. Why haven't we heard them? They're scriptural. Everybody
says they're preaching the gospel. No, they're preaching about the
gospel. They're talking about it, but
nobody's defining it. And this gospel is the gospel
of a person. It is the gospel concerning His
Son. Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was
made of the seed of David, He was a human being, He was a man. And He was declared to be the
Son of God, with power by the resurrection from the dead. This
gospel is a proclamation of a person. Of a person. and of the work
of that person, Jesus Christ. Who is He? Do you know who He
is? Who is Jesus Christ? He's the God-man, buried God
of buried God, and yet the Son of Man. Two natures in one person. God Almighty and man. God to
satisfy man to suffer. He is God in human flesh. The Lord Himself shall give you
a sign, a virgin shall be with child, and you'll call His name
Immanuel, which is being interpreted God with us. The Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, the express image, the
exact image of God." Thomas fell at his feet and said, My Lord
and my God. Not Jesus' superstar, not sweet
little Jesus boy, not the good man upstairs. He is God in human
flesh. What did he do? He came to this
earth. robed himself in human flesh, died on the cross, was
buried and rose again, ascended to the right hand of God. Why'd
he do it? That God may be just and justify the ungodly. Whereas
he's seated at the right hand of God triumphantly, our conqueror,
our redeemer, our victorious Savior, satisfied with what he
did, satisfied with what he accomplished. Not wringing his hands out, leaning
over the banisters of heaven, hoping somebody will let him
have his way. He sat down, expecting till his
enemies be made his footstool. Those things are true. They're
true. They're according to this book.
And this is the truth. This is the Word of God. It cannot
be set aside. It's got to be faced. And if
you meet a truth in the middle of the road, you've got to run
from it or bow to it. What we think, What we believe
about the gospel makes no difference whatsoever. There's one gospel.
I know that's so. And that's the gospel of God.
I know that's so. God is the one who has been offended.
God's law is the one we've broken. God is the only one who can forgive.
God is the only one who can justify. God is the only one who can speak
peace. God is the only one who can forgive. So it's God's gospel. And I'll tell you this, we've
got nothing to pay. It's got to be by grace. We're bankrupt. We're broke. We're dirty, beggars,
diseased, ragged, dead sinners. If anything's done, God'll have
to do it. We can't lift a finger or wiggle a toe. It's the gospel
of God's free grace. And I'll tell you this, it's
the same gospel He's always declared. God's never saved men but one
way. Every tongue in heaven is going to declare that Jesus Christ
is Lord. Every knee is going to bow at the throne of Jesus
Christ. Not at the throne of the law,
not at the throne of works, not at the throne of some denomination,
not at the throne of some evangelist who won unto the Lord. They are
going to bow at the knee of Christ and confess that He is Lord.
Every tongue will declare in heaven unto Him who is worthy,
unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sin in His own precious
blood. He said, Moses wrote of me. Well,
they said, we've got Abraham. He said, you don't know Abraham.
You're not Abraham's children. If you're Abraham's children,
you do the works of Abraham. Abraham saw my day. He rejoiced
to see it, and he was glad. Jesus Christ is the gospel from
Alpha to Omega. You miss Christ, and you miss
the gospel. Leave Christ, and you leave the
gospel. And that's what many have done. In Luke 24, 27, it
says, And beginning at Moses, Our Lord Jesus Christ, beginning
at Moses, beginning at Genesis 1-1, and all the prophets through
Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel, through every one of the major
and minor prophets, through all the prophets, He expounded unto
them, all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself. The
things concerning Himself. What's the book all about? The
Old Testament says someone's coming. The four Gospels say
someone has come. And the Epistles say He's coming
back. And that person is the Lord Jesus
Christ. To Him, Acts 10.43, to Him give
all the prophets witness that through His name, whosoever believeth
in Him should receive remission, forgiveness of sin. It's all
in Christ. God's put all His eggs in one
basket. God's put all His promises and
purposes in one basket. He's put them all in one person.
In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. God's
committed everything to the Son. He's put everything in His hands. And that's the way you'll come
to God through Christ. That's the way you'll know God,
love God, worship God, and that's the way you'll be forgiven by
God. It's by embracing and laying hold upon by faith of His dear
Son who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh
to the Father but by me. Now listen carefully. Listen
carefully. Listen as for eternity. I had
an old preacher friend one time used to say, if you're not in
too big a hurry, to meet God in the judgment, if you're not
in too big a hurry to perish in eternal damnation, if you've
got just a minute, will you listen to me and listen carefully? This
gospel of Christ, this one gospel, is the only suitable, sufficient
gospel, for it both meets your need and God's need. God's need? I know I've got a need. What
need does God have? It's time we started thinking. Our Lord
said, come, let us reason together. We've got to do some thinking.
You can't get this generation to think. You can't get them
to study. Listen to me now. God was under
no obligation to save anybody. God owes us nothing. God was
under no necessity whatsoever to redeem any of Adam's race.
You know that, and I do too. God being God is independent
and sufficient in himself. He's under no obligation and
no necessity to redeem anybody. He passed the angels by, he could
have passed us by. But, having purposed, having
purposed to save sinners, having purposed in his eternal counsel
to have a people to restore the sons of Adam back to his favor,
the Lord God placed Himself under certain divine requirements being
God. Now God, let me go over that
again. There was no, God had no obligation
to us, no necessity to redeem any of us. But once Almighty
God purposed to save a people, once Almighty God in His eternal
counsel said, I'll have a people out of Adam's race and give them
to my son. He placed Himself under certain
divine requirements Meaning, if God's going to justify sinners,
He's got to do it in keeping with His character. He's got
to be just and justifier. If God Almighty is going to show
mercy to sinners, He's got to do it in keeping with His character.
He's got to do it as God. He must be righteous and merciful. If God Almighty is going to be
gracious to sinners, He's got to do it in keeping with His
character. He's got to be holy. Do you understand what I'm saying?
God being God, He cannot do anything that's not according to His holy,
perfect, righteous character. Now, here are four things that
I'm going to give you in ten minutes. Four things. Number
one, God's law must be honored. It must. If He's going to justify
sinners and save sinners, He can't do it at the expense of
His law. He can't erase His law. He can't repeal His law. It still
stands. It always has. It always will.
God's law is a revelation of God's character. It has stood. It does stand. It shall stand
forever as the laws of His kingdom. Our God is a holy, holy, holy,
holy, holy God. He can't change. There's no way
that God can save, accept, or have dealings with men at the
expense of that law. He can't cancel the law for your
benefit. It must be obeyed. by all who
would come to him. Any man who comes to God must
come to God as a perfect person or he cannot be received. Not
one jot or one tittle shall pass from that law till it's ever
been fulfilled. Christ said, I didn't come to
destroy the law, I came to fulfill it. It's going to be fulfilled.
And that's the reason Christ was born of woman. That's the
reason Jesus Christ was made under the law. That's the reason
Jesus Christ took our flesh and our bones. that he might fully
obey God's law on behalf of those who were given to him, and on
behalf of those who believe on him. Romans 5, 19 says, "...by
the disobedience of one, many were made sinners. So by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Christ obeyed
the law as your head, as your representative, as your substitute
if you are in Him. He fulfilled it for you, and
before the law, Every believer has a perfect righteousness.
Every believer himself has met God's law head on and fulfilled
it in Christ. Now, God can justify us and God
can save us and God can receive us because we are in Christ perfect
and His law is not violated. His law is not violated. God
can't violate His law. He can't stick his tongue in
his cheek and say, well, you know, I just overlooked that
little in fraction there, not one jot or tittle. That's a pretty
small amount, jot and a tittle. All right, secondly, not only
must his law be honored, God can't do anything except in keeping
with his character. God's justice has got to be satisfied. God's just, just, absolutely
just. He's righteous and true. He must
punish sin if he's going to be God. He always has and always
will. He cannot clear the guilty. He
can by no means clear the guilty. The soul that's in it shall surely
die. Isn't that what God said? How
can I die in eternal hell and go to heaven too? That's the
reason Job asked three times, three times in the book of Job,
how can man be just with God? How can he be clean that's born
of a woman? How can he that drinks iniquity like the water be clean
and holy in God's sight? Well, that's why Christ died
on the cross. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, He was
made sin for us. He actually took our sins in
His body on the tree. He was made sin for us who knew
no sin. He had no sin of His own. That
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. God set forth
His Son to be a propitiation, a mercy seed, a substitute, a
sin offering, a sacrifice, an atonement for our sins. To declare
God's righteousness. that he, God, might be just,
holy, and the justifier of them that believe in Christ. Christ,
in death, paid the debt and enabled God to forgive sinners. He had
the debt having been paid. Yes, sir, God put himself under
a divine requirement, under a divine obligation, under divine necessity. If he's going to receive fallen
creatures, their sins have got to be paid for. They couldn't
pay them, angels couldn't pay them, and God couldn't pay them.
But God as a man could pay them. God as a man. And the God-man
did. All right? Thirdly, now watch
this. If a sinner is to be saved and brought to God in righteousness,
nothing must be left for him to do. Now, this is the gospel.
Nothing must be left for the sinner to do. It's got to all
be done for him. The whole of the righteous work
must be fulfilled, otherwise there's no hope. If Jesus Christ
came down here in righteousness and obedience and death, and
left one thing for me to do, just one thing, one thing pleasing
to God, one thing in keeping with God's holiness, one thing
of perfection, it has to be perfect or God can't receive it. The
sacrifice must be perfect or God can't receive it. If He left
one thing for me to do, I'm damned as sure as you're a foot and
a half high. Why? For man being what he is, in
the flesh dwelleth no good thing. In the flesh no man can please
God. Man at his best state is altogether
vanity. If God with the magnifying glass
of sovereignty put you under the microscope of sovereign piercing
eyes, he couldn't find in all of us put together one righteous
act, thought, word, or deed. So if Christ left anything for
you and me to do, we're down. But He paid it all. He paid it
all, all the debt I owe. This is what the Gospel says.
But of God are you in Christ, who has made unto us everything
we need. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. We're complete. My friend, you
hear that word, complete. Complete means complete. Complete
means nothing left to be added. Complete means there's no lack.
I'm complete. In Christ, the work of Christ
is sufficient to save a thief in his dying moment, or a Pharisee
like Saul of Tarsus, and leave him to walk this earth for 30
or 40 years. In him there is no sin, being
freely justified by his grace through the redemption that is
in Jesus Christ. You say, well, what about my
repentance and faith? The goodness of God led you to
repentance. The Scripture says God hath granted
repentance to the Gentiles. Even that regenerating work and
that convicting work of the Holy Spirit and that repentance that's
formed in your heart, that's the work of God. It is God that
worketh in you, both to will, that is to desire, and to perform
His good pleasure. It's given unto us not only to
suffer for Christ, but to believe on Him. Faith is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Yea, even the work
of faith in our hearts, that is the work of God. All right,
here's the fourth thing. In salvation the sinner must
be brought to Christ eternally and glorified with Christ or
that salvation is no salvation at all. In other words, a salvation
is not eternal. And I hear people run around
here arguing all the time about once saved, always saved, about
eternal security, about once in grace, always in grace. Let
me tell you something. Let me say it as plain as I can.
A salvation for six months ain't no salvation. A salvation for
six years is not a salvation. That's just prolonged agony. That's all. a prolonged condemnation. That's no salvation. Salvation
for 60 years is no salvation. But an eternal salvation, now
that's salvation. That's salvation from the power
of sin, that's salvation from the penalty of sin, that's salvation
from the practice of sin, and that's salvation by the grace
of God someday from the very presence of sin. Whom God foreknew,
He predestinated, He called, He justified, and God will glorify
Him. He said this in John chapter
10, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and I know them,
and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Yes, his salvation, full and completely, honors his law. His
salvation, full and completely, satisfies his justice. His salvation,
full and completely, meets every need that the sinner has, and
his salvation He will keep me till the river rolls its waters
at my feet. We are kept by the power of God
through faith. He that hath begun a good work
in you will fulfill it in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Now, I have two messages on this cassette tape. One I preached
last week entitled, Four Great Fears Removed, from Romans chapter
8. The removal of four great fears.
And then the one I just brought to you on the gospel of God's
saving grace. What is the gospel? The gospel
is clearly defined. If you want these messages, write
to me. The address is given to you on
the screen in just a moment. Send two dollars. That's what
it costs to make them, prepare them, and send them to you. We'll
mail it to you by return mail. Until next week, Henry Mahan,
bidding you a very pleasant good day.