I want you to take your Bibles
and open them with me to the Book of Romans. I'll be reading
from Romans, the first chapter, and the Lord willing, the first
six verses will serve as a text for this message. Now, here's
the subject. The business called preaching. That's what I'm going
to be speaking about today. This business called preaching. What is this business called
preaching? I've been preaching for a long
time. about 35 years, and I'm interested
in this business called preaching. Now, I think many people have
a wrong idea of preaching and preachers, and I hope to help
you to understand this business called preaching. Now, gospel
preaching is more than a religious ceremony. In most churches, we
sing a while and we pray a prayer, and then we take up an offering
and have a choir special, and then someone called a preacher
stands up, someone with a strong voice. He stands up and delivers
a sermon. Now, he's expected to deliver
a sermon in a strong enough voice to drown out all the crying babies. He's expected to preach loud
and long. He's expected to keep the attention
of people who are really not interested. And sometimes he's
expected to preach without even breathing. but only hollering.
Now, in some places, preaching has taken second place to other
activities and they have very little preaching, but they do
go along with their ceremonies. And then gospel preaching is
more than the opposite of that, a dry, dead, doctrinal lecture
designed for Sunday morning. And gospel preaching is more
than a rehearsal of the rules of morality. and an exhortation
to live a good moral life. What is gospel preaching? What
is this business called preaching? I believe the average person
has the wrong concept of preaching altogether. Let me say this.
Now listen carefully. This business called preaching,
gospel preaching, you know what it is? What it's supposed to
be. It is God speaking to people
through his servant. That's what preaching is. It
is God speaking to people. It is a man declaring the Word
of God and the message of God, God Almighty, for that day. The
true preacher is not speaking for himself. He's not speaking
for his denomination. I'm talking about the true preacher.
He's not preaching or teaching or speaking for a social cause. If he's God's preacher, if he's
preaching God's then that man at that time is speaking for
God Almighty. Now, that's true gospel preaching.
Listen to the scripture, Matthew 3, verse 1 and 2. There was a
man sent from God whose name was John. God sent this man with
his message to the people of his day. In that day came John
the Baptist preaching. This man was sent from God to
preach. Listen to this scripture, Mark
16. This is our Lord speaking to his disciples. He said, All
authority is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye, therefore,
and preach the gospel to every creature. And, lo, I am with
you always, even to the end of the earth. Listen to Paul in
2 Corinthians 5. We are ambassadors of Jesus Christ. Now listen, as though God himself
did beseech you by us. We come to you and speak to you,
he said, in the stead of Christ." That doesn't mean we're bickers
of Christ at all. That doesn't mean that we're
substitutes for Christ. It means just what he's saying.
We're ambassadors for Christ. Be ye reconciled to God. So here's
what I'm saying. Preaching is not just hollering.
It's not just delivering a sermon on Sunday morning. It's not just
delivering a dry, dead lecture. to a group of uninterested people.
It's not just taking up time on Sunday morning, going through
a ritual or a ceremony, but true preaching. If a man is preaching,
he is sent from God to deliver God's message at that time to
those people. Now, the true preacher of the
Word of God is to be heard. Now, that's my responsibility. Now, here's your responsibility.
The Bible is full of warnings to those who will not hear. Take
heed how you hear. Take heed what you hear. He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear Christ say. Now, the Bible is
full of warnings to those who will not hear, who will not believe,
who will not listen. Listen to Luke 10, verse 16. Now, carefully listen to this.
Our Lord Jesus is speaking. He's saying to his preachers,
to his disciples, he that heareth you, heareth me. And he that
despiseth you despiseth me, and he that despiseth me despiseth
him that sent me. And then listen to this. Woe
is unto me if I preach not the gospel. But now wait a minute. Woe is unto you if I preach the
gospel and you do not hear it. It works both ways, doesn't it?
God pronounces a solemn woe upon the preacher who does not preach
his gospel. He'd say, that man ought to preach
the gospel. He ought to be true to his God. He ought to be true
to the word of God. Well, that's so. If we speak
not according to the word, it's because there's no light in us,
no morning or no dawn in us. That's what the Amplified said.
But now, wait a minute. Equally so, our God pronounces
a woe upon those who will not hear his word and will not believe
it. Listen to Hebrews 4 too. The
gospel was preached to them, but the word preached to them,
did not profit them, not being received by faith of them that
heard it." So what is preaching? It's God speaking at that time
to you through his servant. And you are under obligation
to hear what the Lord says. Now, turn to that passage in
Romans that I mentioned to you at the beginning of the message,
Romans 1, verse 1-6. Now, Paul's epistle to the Romans
is preaching at its best. It's preaching at its very best.
And the first six verses give us what I call the introduction
to gospel preaching. It is good for every, if there's
preachers listening to this program today, it's good for preachers.
It's good for every one of us that we might be good hearers.
I want to be a good preacher of the Word. And you ought to
want to be a good hearer. If God is speaking through me,
then you ought to want to hear what God says. If God is speaking
somewhere through someone, and he is, he hath not left himself
without a witness, and you ought to seek with all your heart to
hear what God has to say to you from his word in this day. Now, I want you to watch this.
The Apostle Paul, in the first six verses of Romans 1, first
of all, he identifies God's preacher. And then secondly, he defines
God's gospel. And then thirdly, he describes
his master. And then fourthly, he describes
those who are in his congregation, or the heroes. Now first he describes
the preacher, and then he describes the preacher's message. And then
he identifies the preacher's lord and master. And then he
describes the people who hear the message, the congregation.
That'll be this business called preaching. That's what we're
talking about. I tried to show you what it is. It's not just
hollering. It's not just a dry lecture. It's not just a lecture
on morality and be a good person and all that. It's God speaking.
It's God speaking. True preaching is God speaking
in this day through his word. Now, listen to Paul. Paul identifies
the preacher. Verse 1, you see it there? He
says, he calls himself Paul. He says, a bond slave, a servant
of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the
gospel. Now let's look at the first word.
Here Paul identifies God's preacher. He says, Paul, the true servants
of Christ were never fond of titles and worldly honor. You'll
never find God's true preacher seeking to be known by titles
or to be called by titles or seeking the fame and honor and
applause of this world. They just never do. They never
call themselves Pope. Nowhere in the Bible. They never
call themselves Cardinals. Nowhere in the Word of God. They
never call themselves doctors. They never call themselves reverend.
Just Peter, James, John, and Paul. That's the first thing
you run into in this verse. Paul. Now what's the second thing?
He's identifying God's preacher. The one who brings God's message
in this day. He says, I'm a servant. I'm a
servant. Now, the word comes from the
word bondslave over there in the Old Testament when a person
had gained his freedom after serving seven years and he was
allowed to go free, but he didn't want to go free. He says, I'm
content. I love my master. I love my master's
house. I love my work. I want to stay
with my master as a willing, loving bondservant. Set free,
but this is my own. The only freedom I want is to
serve my master. That was a bondservant. And that's
what Paul called himself, a bond slave of Jesus Christ. Now, there's
a sense in which the preacher is the servant of men. Yes, there
is. Even our master said, he came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give himself a ransom. So there's
a sense in which God's preacher is a servant of all men. You
remember Paul said this, we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ,
the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, your servants. for
Christ's sake. And there's a sense in which
we are the servants of men in that we serve, in that we minister,
but we seek only to please him who is our master. Paul said
on one occasion, if I please men, I'm not the servant of Christ. So we don't get our message to
please our congregation or to satisfy the whims and will of
flesh. You know, one of the signs of
the last days is that people will heap to themselves teachers
having itching ears and turn away their ears from the truth.
We are his servants, his bond slaves. We do his duty, his commandments. We carry on his work and we serve
you in doing so. Now, what's the third thing?
The preacher is to be heard and respected for the sake of his
master and the sake of his gospel, but he's not to be exalted. He's
not to be revered because he's only a man. Peter said in Acts
10, 26, I myself am a man. Paul said in Acts 14, 16, we
also are men of like passions with you. Our Lord said in Matthew
23, call no man your father upon the earth. One is your father
which is in heaven, neither be ye called master. For one is
your master, even Christ, and he that's greatest among you,
let him be your servant." Richard Baxter, I believe, summed it
up when he said, I preach as a dying man to dying men. I preach
as one who may never preach again. We are but frail flesh. But wait
a minute. Paul says, he calls himself Paul,
not Cardinal Paul or Bishop Paul, but just Paul. He called himself
a bondslave, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. But he did call
himself an apostle of Jesus Christ. Though Paul was a humble man,
though he was a servant of Christ, he did not deny his office. He
still owned the fact that he was called of God, called to
be an apostle. Not made an apostle by men, not
even made an apostle by his own will, but called to be an apostle,
sent of God with God's message. He knew it. He knew it. He knew he was God's servant.
He knew God's hand was upon him. He knew he was ordained of God.
He knew he was sent of God. Now, that's God's preacher. That's
God's preacher. All right. Notice, secondly,
in the next verse, he defines his gospel. He said, I'm separated
unto the gospel of God. The gospel of God. It is the
gospel of God. Someone awarded Pastor John Gill
with a D.D. someone conferred a D.D. That's
an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree upon Dr. John Gill. They
called him Dr. John Gill. They awarded him that
degree, and this is what he had to say. He said, I neither thought
it, sought it, nor bought it. And my friends, that's true of
the gospel. It is the gift of God. I never thought it, I never
sought it, I never bought it. It's God's gospel. That's what
Paul is saying here. The gospel to which I'm separated.
The gospel which I preach, the gospel which I've been called
to proclaim is not my gospel. It's not a denominational gospel.
It did not come out of the councils of Rome or the councils of men.
It's God's gospel. God Almighty purposed it. He
purposed from the foundation of the world to save the people.
God Almighty planned it in his eternal councils of grace. God
Almighty purchased it in that He sent His Son into this world
in the fullness of time. God sent His Son into the world
made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law. God bested all glory in Christ,
all grace in Christ, all mercy in Christ, all the gifts of grace
in Christ, all redemption in Christ. In Him dwelleth all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily and you are complete in Him.
God sent Him to the cross. It pleased the Father to bruise
him, and God Almighty applies the work by the power of His
Spirit which His dear beloved Son purchased. For Paul said,
God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace was pleased to reveal His Son in me. It's God's gospel. I wish I could emphasize that.
I wish there was some way that I had the ability and the power
to press upon you the fact that this gospel that I'm trying to
preach It's not something I invented or some man invented or something
that came out of the councils of Trent or Rome or anywhere
else. This gospel is God's gospel. It's the heaven-planned gospel.
It's the heaven-sent gospel. It's the gospel of God. And not
only that, but listen to the next verse. It's the ancient
gospel. There's not two gospels or three
gospels. There's only one gospel. Only
one gospel. He said, I'm separated to the
gospel of God, which he promised before by his prophets in the
Holy Scriptures. The gospel is no new message
of hope. Now, listen to me. It's not even
a New Testament message. Somebody says, we have a New
Testament church, or we're preaching a New Testament message. Now,
wait a minute. The gospel is no New Testament gospel. It's
the everlasting gospel. It's the eternal gospel. The
gospel is as old as God because it was born of God's mercy and
God's grace. And it's the gospel that's in
tune with and in accord with God's justice and righteousness.
And it's the gospel that's born of the heart of God through the
Son of God. It's the eternal gospel. It's
the ancient gospel. It's the gospel God preached
to Adam and Eve. The gospel God preached to Adam
and Eve was not a gospel of works. It was a gospel of blood. The
gospel of grace is the gospel of the virgin-born son. That's
the gospel God preached to Adam. And you go back to the garden
when man first fell. And God slew an animal, shed
blood of an innocent victim to cover the nakedness of this fallen
couple. You see, that's sacrifice. That's
a sacrifice and that's a shedding of blood and that's a covering
with righteousness that covers our sins. And God said to Eve,
you'll have a son. He said to the serpent, the seed
of woman will bruise your head, talking to the father of evil,
Satan. The seed of woman. Who is the
seed of woman? Virgin born. You're not the seed of woman.
I'm not the seed of woman. I'm the seed of man. Christ is
the seed of woman. That's an ancient gospel. The
gospel I'm preaching right here in 1982 was the gospel Almighty
God presented to our fallen mother and father in the Garden of Eden.
It was the gospel Abraham believed and saw and rejoiced in. Abraham, Christ said, saw my
day. He saw it and rejoiced. It made
his heart glad. You know what he said to his
son Isaac? God will provide himself a lamb. Christ is the lamb slain
before the foundation of the world. Christ is the lamb slain
in the Old Testament types and shadows and symbols. Christ is
the lamb slain on Calvary's cross. And Christ is the lamb in the
book of Revelations, a lamb in the midst of the throne, as if
it had been slain. It's no new gospel. Moses wrote
of me, Christ said. Moses wrote of me. The Old Testament,
the whole Old Testament is Christ Jesus in his sacrifice, in his
death, burial, and resurrection, in picture and type and symbol. That tabernacle, that's Christ.
The priesthood, the sacrifices, the Passover is Christ. That
rock that gave forth water is Christ. The brazen serpent lifted
up is Jesus. Christ lifted up on the cross.
Luke 24, verse 44, Our Lord said, These are the words I have spoken
to you when I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled
which were written in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, in
the Psalms concerning me." Christ died for our sins according to
the Scripture. Paul is defining his Gospel.
He introduced us to God's Preacher, and now he's identifying God's
Gospel. It's the Gospel of God. It's
the old gospel, the ancient gospel, the everlasting gospel, ever
new gospel. It's the gospel of Christ. What's
that next line? Concerning his son. See that?
Paul, just plain Paul, that's all, a man of like passion, a
man just like you, a sinner saved by grace, but called to be an
apostle and a bondservant of Jesus Christ. But I'm separated,
consecrated, dedicated to preach this gospel, whatever it costs,
whatever it costs, whoever it wounds, whoever God's pleased
to save by it, separated to the gospel of God, not man's gospel
or denominational gospel, the gospel of God, which he promised
before in the Old Testament, in the prophets, in the Psalms,
concerning his son. That's what the gospel is. It's
not a plan. Somebody said, I'm going to talk about the plan
of salvation. Salvation is not a plan, it's a person. And you'll
miss salvation resting in a plan or a proposition or a decision. Salvation is a person. The gospel
is a person. It's concerning His Son. And
it's concerning everything about His Son, from eternity past to
eternity future. Christ has always been our Savior,
our substitute in whatever He is or whatever He did, or whatever
office He occupied. From the time he was our surety
in the everlasting covenant until the time that he'll come again
and open the graves and change our bowed bodies into the likeness
of his glorious body, that's all part of his redemptive work.
Not just the cross that saves, it's the life of Christ that
saves. It's the intercession of Christ that saves. He's our
eternal surety. He's our representative. By his
obedience, we are made righteous. He's our atonement. He's our
sin offering. He's our risen justifier. He's
our ascended king. He's our interceding mediator.
He's our great high priest. He's our coming king, kings and
lord of lords. Christ Jesus, that the gospel's
concerning his son. Don't miss the gospel by getting
wrapped up in a theology or a creed or a plan or a proposition. The
gospel is a person. Abraham, who lived long before
Calvary, was redeemed and had righteousness imputed to him
by believing God. Believing God, that God was able
to do all that he promised. And here I am, 1,982 years on
this side of the cross, and I'm saved the same way, by believing
God. Not believing in a finished work,
but believing in a person who finished the work. And the work's
not finished yet. That work. Oh, his death is finished. The sacrifice is all finished
and put away. The debt is paid. But he's going
to make me just like himself, and that hasn't been done yet.
My salvation nearer than when I believed. Now, Paul describes
his Lord. He describes this Lord who is
the gospel. He says, first of all, the gospel
concerning his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David. Made of the seed of David. We're
talking here about his human nature. Now, I get confused about
Jesus Christ, Preacher. When you talk about Jesus Christ,
who is Jesus Christ? Well, first of all, he's the
Son of Man. Made of the seed of David, a
Jew, an Israelite. born of Jewish parents, born
of the seed of David. That's right, the house and lineage
of David, right on down the line. John 1.14 says, The Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us. Galatians 4.4 said, He was made
of a woman. He who made woman was made of
a woman. Galatians 4.5 said, He was made under the law. Isaiah
9.6 says, A child is born. Yes, he was the son of man, bone
of our bone, flesh of our flesh. Pilate said, Behold a man. Jesus
Christ is a man. You say, Jesus Christ is only
a man. Wait a minute, take out the only,
Jesus Christ is a man, but not only a man, he is a man. Now
what's the next line? It's concerning his son who was
made of the seed of David according to the flesh. In the flesh he
was a man from the house and lineage of David, the heir of
David's throne. But it says in the next line,
"...and declared to be the Son of God." Not made the Son of
God, not created the Son of God, declared to be the Son of God.
That's right. He always is and was and will
be the Son of God. The one who was born from the
womb of Mary was the child, a child, a human child, a little infant,
born in flesh and bones and blood, just like us. But the one who
inhabited that body, who limited himself, who came into this world
and clothed himself in that body is none other than the one who
clothed this universe with stars, the one who made the universe,
the one who reigns and rules over all things. That's right.
He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world
knew him not. In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And all things
were made by him, without him was not anything made that was
made, and he was made flesh. That's right. He's the man, son
of man, perfect man. He's the son of God, the only
begotten of the Father, the exact image of the Father. He that
has seen me, Christ said, hath seen God, hath seen my Father. That's exactly right. All right,
his resurrection from the dead, God raised him from the dead,
the Father raised him from the dead. The Father is saying by
his resurrection that all that Christ is and all that Christ
did and all that Christ will do is accept of the Father on
behalf of those whom he represented. Did he represent you? Did he
represent me? He is our righteousness, our
wisdom, our redemption, our sanctification, our sin offering, our substitute,
all things are in Christ. And whatever he did, for whomever
he perfected it and performed it and purchased it, the Father
says, I accept it. I accept him and them in him.
That's where you need to be in Christ, in Christ, because that's
where God's mercy is and that's where God's blessings are, is
in Christ. Now watch the last thing. Paul
describes the believer, verse 5 and 6. He says, first of all,
we've received grace. It's by grace that we're saved,
not by work, not by merit, not by earning, by grace alone. It's
the gift of God. Now we earn the wages of sin.
We deserve the wages of sin. If anybody goes to hell, it'll
be his own fault. If anybody goes to heaven, it'll
be God's fault. He'll praise God forever. He'll say, Grace
taught my heart to fear, and grace did my fears relieve. How
precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed. Grace! We've received grace. Secondly,
we've received faith. You see it there in verse 5?
We've received faith. Faith's the gift of God. Thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power. You want faith?
Go to God. He's the source of faith. He's
the fountain of all good things. We have been called of God, and
we are beloved of God. We have received grace, faith,
apostleship, been called of God. We are His beloved.