Recovering the Gospel

I'm going to speak to you on
the subject, Recovering the Gospel. If you'd like to follow as I
read God's word, I invite you to turn to the book of 2 Chronicles,
chapter 34. 2 Chronicles, chapter 34. Now the nation of Israel had
departed from the true worship of the Lord. The temple was deserted
and in ruins. evil kings and evil priests had
led the people of God, the Israelite nation, into idolatry, and turned
their hearts to covetousness, greed, and sin. Well, a young
man came to power by the name of Josiah. God uses strange instruments. God moves in a mysterious way,
the songwriter said, his wonders to perform. This young man was
only eight years old, when he became king of Israel. And when
he was 26 years of age, he ordered the temple to be restored, he
ordered them to rebuild the house of God, and he ordered all of
the idol groves to be destroyed, and he ordered all of the evil
priests to be slain. While they were cleaning out
the temple, it was in total ruin. And while they were cleaning
out the temple, Hilkiah, one of the priests, found a book
He dusted off that book, cleaned it up, and found it to be the
Word of God, the part of Scripture written by Moses, Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He dusted it off and he brought
it to the king, and they read this Bible to the king. He'd
never heard the Bible read before. All he knew about the God of
their fathers was what had been handed down to him, tradition,
He never heard the word of God read at all. And when they read
this book to him, now you look at verse 19 of 2 Chronicles 34,
this is what it says. And it came to pass when the
king heard the words of the Bible, when he heard God's word. He
rent his clothes and he said to the priest, now listen to
this, go inquire of the Lord for me and for the people of
Israel. concerning the words of this
book. For great is the wrath of God,
because our fathers have not kept nor taught us the words
of this book." I could stop this message right there and you could
probably complete it for me. You could make the application
to our present day, because you know and I know that our fathers
have neglected the word of God. This book has been neglected.
It has been lost in all of the religious ceremony and tradition
and custom and foolishness that's being carried on today in the
name of God. And the most humbling and heart-searching
and challenging thing that we face today is to get back to
the Word of God. The recovery of the gospel, the
cry of our hearts, not only men in the pulpit, but men and women
in the pew, The cry of our hearts ought to be that our generation
experienced what these people under Josiah experienced, a return
to the word of God, a return to the gospel, a return to the
word of God, not only in our message, but in our message and
our methods for the glory of God. Now, I'm convinced that
what is called the gospel today is not the gospel at all. I'm
convinced that what is going under the title gospel today
is not the gospel, but as Paul said, another gospel, and he
said there's not another. This is a perversion of the gospel. There'll be those that'll come
to you preaching another Jesus, another gospel, by another spirit. And what we're hearing today,
tragedy it is for all of us, is another gospel. And I'm going
to point out to you about five or six things that I believe
are true. Now, you listen carefully to
them. If you want to, jot them down. First of all, today's gospel
emphasizes what men should do for God, and not what God must
do for men. Now, did you hear what I said?
Today's gospel emphasizes what men should do for God, and not
what God must do for the Senate. Now, the publican in the temple
Christ said he was justified. He went home justified. But he
was not adding up his good deeds for God, as was the Pharisee,
but he was crying unto God to show mercy unto him. He was asking
for mercy. He was not telling God what he
had done for God, and what he'd given up for God, and what he'd
given to God. What was he asking for? He was
asking God to do something for him. He said, God, you be merciful
to me. Blind Bartimaeus, who sat by
the wayside, was not offering his services to God. He was pleading
for mercy. Today's Gospel says this, I made
a decision. Paul said, I obtained mercy. Do you see the difference? Today's
Gospel says, I accepted Jesus. Paul said, God accepted us in
the Beloved. Today's gospel says, give God
your heart. The word of God says, God gave
us a new heart. Can you see the difference? We
love him, the scripture says, because he first loved us. He
sought us. He bought us. He called us. He quickened us. He awakened
us. It's not what we have done for
God. Salvation is what God has done for us. Paul said, I am
what I am by the grace of God. I'm not what I am because of
what I've done, I am what I am because of what God's done, by
his grace, by his mercy, through the sacrifice of his Son. Paul,
writing in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30, says this, But of him are
you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. that according as is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." Can you see the
difference? I certainly can see it. It's clear to me. Today's
preaching, today's gospel, emphasizes what men should do for God. Won't
you do this for God? We have made a beggar out of
the king. And in reality, we're the beggars.
We're the ones suing for mercy. We're the ones crying for grace.
Mercy is in the hands of the Lord. He said, I will be merciful,
I will be gracious. Depths of mercy can there be?
Mercy still reserved for me. Can my God, his wrath forbear,
and me, the chief of sinners, spare? Lord, be merciful to me. Now here's the second thing.
I'm saying that what we're listening to today, unfortunately, is not
the gospel. It's another gospel. And Paul
said, though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel,
let him be accursed. Today's gospel, secondly, emphasizes
heaven and hell, not Christ and sin. Now, the message for most
pulpits today is, wouldn't you like to go to heaven? Wouldn't
you like, when you die, to be transported into a beautiful
place whose streets are paved with gold? whose walls are made
of jasper and precious stone, where the gates swing outward
never, no night there, nothing but happiness and rest and peace.
Wouldn't you like to go to heaven when you die? Man's goal in religion
is to somehow make it to heaven. Isn't that the ultimate goal
of most all religious people? Isn't that what is being preached
today? Paul's desire was to win Christ and be found in him. That
was his desire. That was the beat of his heart.
That's what he said. Oh, that I may win Christ and
be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, but the righteousness of God, which is by faith or
through faith in Christ Jesus, that I may know him and the power
of his resurrection. When Paul talked about heaven,
it was to depart and be with Christ. I have a desire to depart
and be with Christ, which is far better. My friends, you can't
give a man a title to heaven without union with Christ. You
needn't even talk about a man going to heaven without being
vitally, personally, united with Jesus Christ. For Christ said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the
Father but by me. Our Lord said, this is eternal
life, this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. And John wrote
over in 1 John 5.11, this is the record that God hath given
us eternal life. And it's not just a place in
a beautiful city, it is a union with a living Lord. This is eternal
life that God hath given to us. He that hath the Son of God hath
life. This life is in his Son. Congregations
today are drenched, literally drenched with the terrors of
hell. There's a motion picture going about now, being shown
in churches, called the burning hell. And they show this picture. It's a horrible thing, I'm told.
And after they show this picture, they drag people down there.
Now, you don't want to go there, do you? Well, who does? You want
to go to heaven, don't you? You don't want to go to hell,
do you? Men are made to fear hell, to flee from hell, to fear
punishment, to flee from punishment, but men of old feared sin. That's
what they prayed to be delivered from. David said, my sins are
ever before me. He never said, hell is ever before
me. My sins are ever before me. Cleanse
me, O God. Create within me a right spirit
and a clean heart. Blessed is the man to whom God
will not charge sin. John said, if we confess our
sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. It was sin that these people
feared. It was sin that they wanted forgiven. It was sin from which they wished
to be delivered. You don't hear them talking about
a fear of hell and a fear of punishment. They talked about
a fear of sin. When Paul gave his farewell message
to the elders from Antioch, they brought them up there to Ephesus,
and he spoke to them before he left to go to Jerusalem to die.
And he said, Now I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole
counsel of God. I kept back nothing profitable
unto you. And this is my message. This
is a summary of my message. I preached unto you repentance
toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. That's the summary of
the whole message. Repentance and faith. Christ
came to save his people from sin. He's not a fire escape from
hell. That's not what the Lord is.
He's not an insurance policy guaranteeing you a place in a
beautiful city. He's a living Redeemer. who brings
men to himself and consequently to life eternal. And I'm saying
that the emphasis is all wrong. And when we get up before a congregation
of people and make heaven the issue and hell the issue, we're
not preaching the gospel. The issue is Christ. The issue
is sin. And the message is repentance
toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. And the man who has Christ
has heaven. Christ came to save his people.
not from hell, from sin. All right, what's the third thing?
Now, today's gospel, and I want you to stay with me now, and
they offend you, but that's all right, too, but you stay with
me. Today's gospel is preached to the head and not to the heart.
That's right. We're ever learning. We're a
generation of intellectuals. We're not only intellectuals
in all these other fields, but we've messed up our faith with
it, too. We're ever learning and never coming to knowledge
of the truth. We're picking God's Word to pieces.
We're trying to answer the unanswerable. We're leaving Christ and getting
to these little picky things in the Word of God and questions
that have no bearing whatsoever on the need of our souls. We
talk about, we know what we believe. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. There's a whale of a lot of difference.
I know whom I have believed. The disciples were identified
by the name of their Lord. They were called Christians.
Men today are identified, you know it's so and I do too, by
the man whose doctrine they follow. We're Lutherans and Calvinists
and Wesleyans and Presbyterians and Baptists and Catholics and
Romanists and all these other things. We're identified by the
names of men whose doctrine we've memorized and learned and to
which we adhere. The disciples were known by the
name of their Lord. Religion today is debated and
argued and fought over because men's heads are full of creeds
and full of doctrines and full of logic and their hearts are
empty of love and mercy and grace. And our Lord condemned that very
thing in the lives of the Pharisees. He said, you call me Lord with
your lips, but your hearts are far from me. That's about as
close as you ever get to knowing me is with your lips. We believe
in the sovereignty of God, and we'll fight for it. Noah moved
with fear. You see the difference? We believe
in the fall of man. Yes, we do. We believe in all
of the aspects of the fall. But Paul cried, O wretched man
that I am. There's a difference. We believe
in the atonement. Thomas fell on his knees at the
feet of Christ and touched those precious wounds and cried, My
Lord and my God. by his stripes I'm healed." That's
what Isaiah believed. And then we believe in life after
death, and Paul talked about, I have a desire to be with Christ,
to depart and be with Christ. We talk about life after death,
he talked about being with Christ. Peter, Christ said, do you love
me? Not do you love my doctrine,
do you love my people, do you love my church, do you love my
word, do you love the creed, do you love me? Preachers go
forth today ordained to the churches. Men of old went forth sent of
God, anointed of God. Whether they had the blessings
of men upon them or not, they went forth sent of God. Preachers
today go forth with degrees and credentials from the schools
and the ceremonies. Men of old went forth in the
power and unction of the Holy Ghost. Men today preach what
folks want to hear. Back yonder years ago they cried,
Thus saith the Lord. Preachers today give themselves
to programs and promotion and visitation and committees and
community activities. The disciples of Scripture said
gave themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Preachers
today preach and men are convinced in their heads. When Peter preached
at Pentecost they were pricked in their hearts. There's a lot
of difference. Preachers today pray Somebody says, and the organ
plays softly, Elijah prayed and the fire of God fell. Preachers
today are afraid they're going to offend somebody, and Paul
was afraid he wouldn't. He called his message the offense
of the cross. Preachers today are afraid somebody
will quit church and go away, and our Lord Jesus Christ turned
to his twelve precious disciples and he said, will you also go
away? I tell you, salvation is hard
work. And we're going to have to quit just preaching to men's
heads and minds and intellect, and ask God and the Holy Spirit
to give us a message to reach men's hearts. If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in thine heart God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. It's heart
work, heart work. But today's gospel is a message
to the head, to convince someone of our way of thinking, or to
convince someone of our denominational persuasion. or to convince someone
of our particular theology, instead of to bring that sinner trembling
to the feet of the Son of God that he might be saved. Fourthly,
today's gospel calls on men to stand up and be counted. Isn't
that right? Stand up for Jesus. Stand up
and be counted. Be a man. Show your colors. Fly
the flag. The prophets of God commanded
men to bow down and worship. Be still and know that I am God.
The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence
before him. One great old preacher who's
long since dead said this, the two-fold message of evangelism
is this, all flesh is grass and behold your God. That's the two-fold
message. How long has it been since you've
heard it? All flesh, all of the dignity and glory of man is as
the grass of the field that withereth and dieth Behold, sinner, your
God. It's a message which takes away
the so-called glory of man and gives all the glory to God. Paul
actually called the gospel the gospel of God's glory. That's
what he called it. That's how he identified it.
The gospel of God's glory. If you were to identify your
gospel, what would you call it? How would you identify it? The
gospel of God's glory? Or the gospel of your glory?
Or the church's glory? Or the denominational glory?
or man's glory, it's God's glory. And the results of this kind
of preaching, I'll tell you what it'll be. The results of this
kind of preaching, the preaching of God's grace, not what you
do for God, what he does for you, through Christ, in Christ. This gospel, it reaches the heart,
not the head only. This gospel of God's grace to
helpless sinners, I'll tell you what'll happen. There will be
an awful sense of the presence of God breaking the hearts of
sinners and bringing them trembling to the feet of Christ, crying
for mercy. And gone, gone will be the voice
of that proud sinner, and I've seen him so many times, standing
in the back of the church debating whether or not they'll patronize
the Son of God, debating whether or not they'll recognize the
Savior. Christ is knocking at my heart's
door. Shall I bid him enter, or shall
I bid him depart? gone will be the cry of the proud
sinner who says, shall I let God save me? And instead we'll
hear the heartbreaking sob of a broken-hearted sinner crying,
depths of mercy can there be? That's one of Charles Wesley's
greatest hymns. Mercy still reserved for me.
Can my God his wrath forbear, and me the chief of sinners spare? Today's gospel, today's gospel
is a gospel that calls old men to stand up and be counted, and
the glory of the church used to be the presence of the Lord. The glory of the church used
to be the power of the Holy Spirit. The glory of the church used
to be where two or three are gathered in my name, there I
will be in their midst, I will be with them. But the glory of
the church now is what? The height of its steeple, the
size of its building, the numbers of people in the Sunday school.
The church today will do anything under the sun to get a crowd,
just anything in the world. And I believe, if we were truthful,
that we would write outside of most of these buildings, frequented
by people playing church Sunday after Sunday, and ministers who
are fearful to preach, thus saith the Lord, and seek to please
the desires of the people, we'd write on the outside of these
buildings, The glory has departed. Somebody inquired of the Lord.
Josiah told them to rebuild the temple. We're going back to the
worship of God Almighty. And old Hilkiah the priest, in
cleaning out that temple, he found the book. I wish some preachers
and deacons and elders and Sunday school teachers would not just
take quarterlies and Sunday school literature and what somebody
said or what somebody told them to say, but they'd go and find
this old book and dust it off and open it up, like Ilkai the
priest, and take it to the pastor, take it to the preacher, say,
look, we found the book. Our fathers have sinned against
us. Our fathers have sinned against
the Lord. Our fathers have departed from
the word of God. We found God's word. Listen to
what it says. Josiah the king sat on that throne
there, and he listened to that man read that book, and he tore
his clothes. He rent his clothes in anguish
and agony, and he said to the priest, Go and inquire of the
Lord. Surely God's wrath is against
his people, for our fathers have sinned against God and sinned
against us in departing from the words of this book. Go and
inquire of the Lord, it may be. to be mercy for us. I don't know,
it may be too late. We may have compromised the word
of God so long, it may be too late. The measure of the cup
of God's wrath might be full. There may be nothing for this
generation, I don't know. Old Jonah went down there to
Nineveh and he preached to them and the king of Nineveh called
the people together and he said, everybody put on sackcloth and
ashes and let's cry unto God. It may be that God will repent
of the evil that he has decreed to pour out upon us. It may be
that God will show mercy, I don't know. But some of us are going
to have to get on our knees and we're going to have to open the
book. And some preachers are going to have to get off the
streets and get back in their study and start opening the word of
God and saying, Lord, whatever it costs and whatever confusion
it causes and whatever I have to suffer, if I have to, you
remember they wouldn't let John Wesley preached in his home church.
He came back home after he made a trip to America, and they wouldn't
let him in the churches over there, the churches of England,
they wouldn't let him preach in the pulpits. So what did he do? He
went out and got on his daddy's tombstone and stood there and
preached the gospel of Christ. And I'll tell you this, if I
have to preach on my daddy's tombstone, if I have to preach
to five people or four people or two people or just preach
to my family, I'm going to preach the gospel. Paul said, Woe is
unto me if I preach not the gospel. And would the God, like old Josiah,
would the God that somebody would inquire of the Lord, it may be.
It may be in his providence, it may be in his purpose, it
may be in his divine plan, that there's still some mercy reserved
for this generation. But we're going to have to have
a recovery of the gospel. God's not going to bless error.
He's not going to bless lies. misrepresentation of his word.
He's not going to bless us presenting a false picture of him. He's
going to bless that gospel that is of the glory of God, not what
sinners do for God, but what God does for sinners. That gospel
that has to do with Christ and sin, that gospel that has to
do with the heart, that gospel that tells men to bow down in
the dust and cry with solid Tarsus on the road to Damascus, Lord,
what will you have me do? Is there somewhere a prophet
or a preacher or a man who feels called of God, who has the boldness
and courage and care for his own soul? We preach as those
who must give an account and care for the souls of his people
who dares to go back to the book, back to the book. And if it's
offensive, if it makes men glad or makes them mad, he's going
to preach, thus saith the Lord. And the Lord will add to the
church. such as should be saved. Not our in-gatherings, but his
out-callings. Now these messages are on cassette
tape, and they can be had for a small charge. You write to
me. This message today will be on tape, and you can receive
it. Write to me at the address given to you at the close of
the broadcast. God bless you, everyone.

Recovering the Gospel

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Recovering the Gospel

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