I'm going to speak to you this
morning from the book of Romans, chapter 1, verse 16, 17, and
18. Now, if you have your Bibles,
I'd like very much for you to follow along with me as I bring
this message. Romans, chapter 1, verse 16. Now, the subject is the power
and revelations of the gospel, the power of the gospel. And
what does the gospel reveal? Now, if you order this sermon
on cassette tape, that will be the title of the message, The
Power and Revelations of the Gospel. Now, let's listen to
the scripture, chapter 1 of the Book of Romans, beginning with
verse 16. Paul says, I am not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ. I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God. unto salvation to every
one that believeth, to the Jew first, also to the Greek, for
therein is the righteousness of God revealed." Now, remember
that statement. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
It's the power of God unto salvation. And in the gospel, the righteousness
of God is revealed. Now, watch this second statement.
"...for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." Remember The wrath
of God is revealed from heaven. And then the next verse, because
that which may be known of God is manifested. I'm not ashamed
of the gospel. Now, Paul knew from experience
the opposition which the gospel of God's grace in Jesus Christ
encountered everywhere. And it's no different today.
I'm not talking about a gospel or some gospel. I'm talking about
the gospel. of the grace of God in Jesus
Christ. It meets with opposition everywhere. In the book of Acts, chapter
28, verse 22, someone said this, as concerning this truth or this
doctrine, we know that everywhere it is spoken against. They hated and despised our Lord
when he was here on the earth. It said he was despised and rejected
of men. a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. Men would not hear him. They
would not believe him. They would not come to him. He
said, you will not come to me that you might have life. And
then he said, let another come in his own name, and him you
will receive. I've come in my father's name,
and you receive me not. And he said to his disciples,
he said, marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. It hated
me before it hated you. And I speak these things to you
that you'd not be upset by them. When the time comes, they'll
cast you out of the synagogue, they'll hate you, and everyone
who persecutes you and mocks you and even kills you will think
that he does God a favor." And then the Apostle Paul said this,
that the preaching of the cross is to the religious people a
stumbling block, and to the Gentile it's sheer nonsense. So everywhere
this gospel of God's grace, the gospel of God's mercy in Christ
Jesus, the gospel of the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ is spoken
against. It meets with opposition, but
Paul said, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed to believe it.
I'm not ashamed to rest my soul upon it. I'm not ashamed to preach
it. I'm not ashamed to be identified
with it. Here are four reasons why the
gospel is offensive. I want you to listen to these
four reasons very carefully. This is the very heart and essence
of gospel truth. Here are four reasons why the
gospel of God's redeeming grace is offensive to the natural man,
to the religious man. First of all, when the gospel
of Jesus Christ addresses all men and women as sinners, It
offends man's dignity. How humbling, how humbling is
the charge, there is none good, no not one. How degrading is
the term ungodly. That's degrading. And people
do not like to be referred to as ungodly, yet the scripture
says Christ died for the ungodly. That when we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. And then how distasteful it is
to find the court of heaven pronouncing every son of Adam guilty, guilty,
guilty as charged. And that's what the law says
to everyone that's under the law, guilty before God. And it stops every mouth from
boasting. But when the gospel of Christ
addresses every person, and I'm talking about every one of you
out there listening to my voice today, When the gospel of Christ
addresses you as a sinner, a sinner by birth, a sinner by nature,
a sinner by choice, a sinner by practice, a sinner against
the Holy God, in your flesh dwelleth no good thing. In the flesh no
man can please God. You sin and come short of the
glory of God. All we like sheep have gone astray.
There is none good, no, not one. There is none righteous. No,
not one. Now, that's offensive. It offends
man's dignity. Man had rather be bragged upon
than put down. He'd rather be exalted than abased. He'd rather you talk about his
good deeds than his evil deeds, and yet we have no good deeds
in the flesh. Most of our deeds are motivated
by selfishness, self-righteousness. Most of our religion is an outward
form There's very little heart worship. Christ said, you call
me Lord with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. Your
hearts are panting after the things of this world, flesh,
materialism, possessions. And then the second thing that
makes the gospel offensive is this. When the gospel is declared
to be a mystery, and you read the book of Ephesians, you'll
find one of Paul's favorite words is the word mystery, mystery. And when the gospel is declared
to be a mystery which is not understood by the natural mind
or by the natural man, it must be revealed by the Holy Spirit,
that offends man's wisdom. Oh, how wise and intelligent
we think we are. We really think we're smart,
we have the answers, and yet God says man's wisdom is foolishness
with God. God says your thoughts are not
my thoughts. Your ways are not my ways. He
says there's a way that seems right unto men, and the end thereof
is destruction and death. In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul declares
that the natural eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered
the heart of man the things that God prepared for them that love
him. But God hath revealed them unto the believer by his Spirit.
The gospel is a mystery that must be revealed. It's not learned
by natural wisdom and natural intellect. We're not educated
into the kingdom of God. We're regenerated, born into
the kingdom of God. So the gospel is a mystery that's
been hid from generations. If they had known who Christ
was, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. But he said,
you neither know me nor my Father. So it's a mystery. It must be
revealed by the Holy Spirit. We're shut up to divine revelation. And then the third thing that
makes the gospel offensive, and Paul says, I'm not ashamed of
this gospel, the gospel which denounces every son of Adam as
a sinner, and the gospel which says that salvation is a revelation. And then thirdly, when the gospel
of Christ declares that mercy, mercy is not in man's hands,
mercy is not in the hands of the church nor the law. Mercy
is in the hands of a sovereign God, and that God will show mercy
to whom he will show mercy, and God will be gracious to whom
he will be gracious, that offends man's pride. Now, he feels that
he deserves something good from the hand of God. He does not
feel that he deserves condemnation and judgment and destruction.
He feels that he deserves good from the hand of God. And God
is obligated to show mercy to him at all times. And when we say from the word
of God that it's not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy, that the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God might stand, the purpose of God according to election.
It was said to her, the elder shall serve the younger. Jacob
have a love, but Esau have I hated. I will be merciful to whom I
will be merciful. Gracious to whom I will be gracious.
Salvation is of the Lord. He giveth it to whomsoever he
will. That's offensive. It offends man's pride. Now this
is what our Lord taught in the fourth chapter of Luke. If you
who are familiar with your Bible remember the story in Luke when
our Lord went back to Nazareth where he was brought up and as
his custom was he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day
and he stood up to read And he read a passage of Scripture from
Isaiah 61. And he said, the Spirit of the
Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor, to give sight to the blind, deliverance to the
captive, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he put
the book down and he sat down and he said, this day is the
Scripture revealed in your eyes. I am that Messiah. I am that
Redeemer. And he was speaking to this Sabbath
day congregation of people who claim to know God and who claim
to belong to God, the people of God, Israel, the chosen nation,
the special nation, the nation that was blessed of all nations.
And they felt that God owed them something because of who they
were. And this is what our Lord said. He said, now listen to
me, I'm going to tell you a truth. There were many widows in the
land of Israel in the days of the prophet, but none of them
were fed. but one, and she was a Gentile. And there were many lepers in
the land of Israel in the days of the prophet, and none of them
were healed, but one, a Gentile by the name of Naaman. And what's
our Lord saying here? He's saying to these people who
felt that God was obligated to them and God owed them something,
and because they were the national people, and because they were
the chosen people, and because they were the specially blessed
people, who had the prophets and the law and the ceremonies
and the sacrifices, that they had to be God's people, had to
be saved, they had to receive mercy because of who they were.
And Christ said to them, in the days of the prophet Elisha and
Elijah, God passed by every leper and every widow, and according
to his own mercy and grace, he healed a Gentile and fed a Gentile. Now, this is what I'm saying,
that the gospel says that God's sovereign in mercy, that God
only owes men judgment. He doesn't owe them grace. He
owes them punishment for sin. He doesn't owe them forgiveness
for sin. And if he does come to us in mercy and grace and
forgiveness, it's because he will, not because we deserve
it. All right, now that's offensive, and it offends man's pride. And
I'll tell you the fourth thing about this gospel. This is the
reason Paul said, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of the
truth, the gospel of Christ. And he says in the fourth place,
when the gospel of Christ exposes man's inability to justify himself
before God and shuts him up to the person and work of Christ
alone. That our good deeds and our works and our religion and
our righteousness and our vows and dedications and decisions
will not justify us before God. That we're only justified by
the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That offends man's
self-righteousness. In the book of Romans, chapter
10, Paul talks about his people, Israel, a religious people. And he said, My heart's desire
and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
He said, I bear them record. They have a zeal of God. They're
religious, and they have an enthusiasm for God, but it's not according
to knowledge. And this is the reason why I
know it's not according to knowledge and why I know that their religion
is based on ignorance, is because they're going about to establish
their own righteousness before God. and will not submit themselves
to the righteousness of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord.
For Christ is the goal, the consummation, or the end of the lawful righteousness
to everyone that believes it. He's our only hope of acceptance
with God. He's our only hope of forgiveness.
He's our only hope of deliverance. He's our only hope of salvation.
It's not in ourselves, it's in Christ. And that offends man's
self-righteousness. You see, you strip him before
you clothe him, and you slay him before you give him life.
And he's got to be lost before he's found. He's got to be humbled
before he's exalted. And that's what's offensive,
is that abasing and humility, humiliation of the flesh. But there you have the gospel
and the offense of the cross in declaring every man's a sinner,
in declaring that God Almighty is a sovereign this thing of
mercy, in declaring that the gospel is a revelation that comes
by the Holy Spirit working in the human heart, giving new life,
and then it declares that salvation is by substitution, by the bloodshedding
of Christ on Calvary's cross, by the obedience of the Son of
God. Now this is what Paul is talking about when he says, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of this gospel.
And you see, it must be real, there must be a real danger,
even for those who know something about the gospel, to be led astray
by this world, by the pressures of the world, by the pressures
of the religious world, and the pressures of the business world,
and the pressures of the social world, and the political world,
to be led into a religion that It covers everything and touches
nothing. That just is a myth or a haze
that receives all kind of heresies and errors and points out no
truth. Paul said, Timothy, in 2 Timothy,
that's chapter 1, verse 8, he said, Don't be ashamed of the
testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. Don't be ashamed. And then Paul, he It restated
his own position in verse 12 of 2 Timothy 1. He says, Nevertheless
I am not ashamed, I know whom I have believed. And then he
bragged on Onesiphorus. He says, The Lord grant mercy
to Onesiphorus in that day. He wasn't ashamed of me. But
our Master warned about this. He said in Mark 8 verse 38, Whosoever
therefore shall be ashamed of me in this sinful and adulterous
generation. him shall the Son of Man be ashamed
when he comes in the glory of the Father with the Holy Angel."
I'm not ashamed. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. And now Paul sets forth, in the
clearest terms possible, the power of that gospel and the
revelations of that gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation. Now let me show you four things.
Number one, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. He said it is the power of God. Now that's a very important word,
that one little word. It is the power of God. What's
Paul doing? He's saying there's one gospel.
It. Not they. It is the power of
God. There is but one gospel. There
is but one way of salvation. There is but one way of redemption
for all men of all ages. I'm talking about all the way
back to Abel. and all the way ahead to the
last one who shall believe. Whether there's a tribulation
or a millennium or whatever, there'll be no other gospel.
There's only one gospel. There's only one way of salvation.
There's only one way of redemption. And by setting forth this one
way of salvation, Paul cuts off all others. He says there's none
other name unto heaven given among men whereby we must be
saved. He said other foundations can no man lay than that which
is laid, Christ the Lord. He said, if any man preach any
other gospel unto you, then that gospel which I preach, I don't
care if it's an angel from heaven. Let him be accursed. There's
only one way. Christ said, I'm the way, the
truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father,
but by me it is the power of God unto salvation. I'm not ashamed
of the gospel, for it is the power of God. Now this is important.
I want you to listen a minute. And you know, a lot of preachers
think, well, you can't preach theology to a general congregation. Well, my friend, if you preach
the gospel, you preach theology. Theology is a study of God, and
eternal life's to know God and Jesus Christ and who he has sent.
But now listen carefully to this. It says the gospel is the power
of God unto salvation, meaning by that that the gospel is the
instrument of God's power to salvation. In other words, the
power of God to save is not the strength of God to do what he
will. God can make another world. There's
nobody stopping him. God can make another sun. There's nobody to stop him. Another moon. But the power of
God to save a sinner is not in his strength to do what he will.
And the power of God to save a sinner is not in the determination
of God to save a sinner. There are a lot of people who
have built their hopes upon the fact they're one of the elect,
that they're saved. Or because God predestinated
to save a people, then they're automatically saved. Oh, no.
No, my friend. Election's not salvation. Predestination's
not salvation. It's untrue salvation. God's
power to save is not in His strength. It's not in His determination
to save. The power of God to save is in
the gospel, which honors God's law. and satisfies God's justice
and enables a holy God to be just and justify our sinner.
That, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. If Christ
had not died, nobody would have been saved. Even God cannot save
a man at the expense of his law, at the expense of his justice,
at the expense of his righteousness, at the expense of his holiness.
God is just. He's righteous. So the gospel
is the power of God unto salvation. It's the instrument of God's
power. It's that which enables God to save, that permits God
to save, that releases the hands of God to save, which are tied
by his law and righteousness and just attributes of justice
and holiness. It's the power of God unto salvation. What is the word salvation? It
means deliverance. Deliverance. That's the reason
sometimes in the Bible the word salvation does not refer to the
salvation of the soul at all. In the book of Philippians, when
Paul says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
that verse has nothing whatsoever to do with the redemption of
a man's soul. He's talking about working out
their deliverance from troubles in the church, division in the
church. And Peter and Paul are talking
about something resulting in their salvation, deliverance
from jail, deliverance from the hands of enemies. But the word
salvation means deliverance. And when it refers to the soul,
this gospel of Christ, the substitutionary work of Christ, is the power
of God. It enables God to save us, that
is, deliver us from the penalty of sin, from the curse of the
law. from the condemnation of God's
judgment, from the power of sin, from the practice of sin, someday,
by his grace from the very presence of sin. And this gospel, one
gospel of Christ, is the power of God under salvation, deliverance,
to everyone that believes it. Now, no man is saved without
believing. He that believeth on the Son
hath life, which is justified by faith. No man is saved without
hearing and believing the gospel. What is faith? Faith embraces
the promises of God. Abraham believed God, and it
was counted to him for righteousness. Faith not only receives the promises
of God, but it embraces the merits of Christ, resting in him and
him alone, ceasing from our own labors and works and entering
into his rest, and then faith Commits the soul to Christ Paul
said he's able to keep that which I've committed to him against
that day. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
Why should I be? It is the power of God under
salvation deliverance from sins penalty and power and practice
and presence Unto everyone that believe it not only to the Jews
but to the Gentile as well So God's got a people out of every
tribe kindred nation and tongue unto heaven And then the second
thing, for in the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed.
Now, would you listen a moment? This is not high. This is just
so. Somebody says, that's awful deep.
No, it's just so. It's not deep. It's just so.
It's just true. For therein, that is in the gospel,
is the righteousness of God revealed. Now, when we talk about the righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel, we're not talking about God's
own individual personal holiness. That's revealed in many ways.
But we're talking about this. Now listen to me. Paul is talking
about this. He's talking about that imputed
holiness and righteousness of God, which enables a sinner to
be received of God and accepted into his fellowship. The righteousness
of God here is really the righteousness which God gives us in Christ. It's that righteousness which
he imputes unto us and reckons unto us and with which he covers
us in order that we might be accepted of him. Who shall stand
in his presence? Well, he that hath clean hands
and a pure heart. How, Job said, can man be just
with God? How can he be clean that's born
of a woman? Now, God Almighty can demand
no more than perfection, but he can be satisfied with no less.
perfection. So I've got to have that kind
of perfection, that kind of righteousness, that kind of holiness. Our Lord
looked at the Pharisees, the most religious, moral, outstanding
men outwardly of his day, and said to his disciples, now if
your righteousness doesn't exceed theirs, you won't enter the kingdom
of God. And that upset the disciples.
Well, we're not as good as those men outwardly. Christ is not
talking about an outward goodness. He's talking about an inward
holiness and an inward righteousness and an inward purity which is
imputed to us or given to us or reckoned to us because Christ
obeyed God's law in our place instead as a man. And then thirdly,
therein is the wrath of God revealed. Now, I know a lot of writers
do not feel that this verse refers to the gospel at all. They may
be right. I don't know. The wrath of God
is revealed in the the death of Adam in the garden the sentence
of death upon Adam the wrath of God is revealed in the flood
the wrath of God is revealed at the Destruction of Sodom the
wrath of God is revealed at the destruction of Jerusalem. But
let me tell you something. I Personally don't believe there's
any place in the Bible where the wrath of God against sin
is so clearly revealed as at Calvary He spared not his own
son God will punish things you don't believe that go to Calvary
and there's Christ bearing no sins of his own, but bearing
our sins. And then, by the gospel, that which may be known of God
is revealed. Philip said, Lord, show us the
Father. And our Lord said, he that hath seen me hath seen the
Father.