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Henry Mahan

The Apostles' Creed

Acts 15:11
Henry Mahan • March, 14 1976 • Audio
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Message 0183b
Henry Mahan Tape Ministry
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I'm reading the text again, Acts
15, 11, but we believe that through the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they. Now Paul and Barnabas had preached
the gospel to the Gentiles And many of them had believed the
gospel of Christ and they'd been converted. They had been saved. But the scripture says certain
men from Judea had tried to tell these Gentiles that unless they
were circumcised after the law of Moses, unless they kept the
law of Moses, in this respect they could not be saved. Now
there arose a great argument over this matter, so the people
at the church there determined to send Paul and Barnabas and
others to Jerusalem to talk with the apostles of Christ, with
Peter, James, and John, to put the matter before the apostles
of Christ and the church elders. So Paul and Barnabas and these
men sent by the church to Jerusalem, came to Jerusalem, and when the
matter was discussed there, they had another argument and another
dispute, because in the church at Jerusalem there were certain
of the Pharisees which had believed, and they too held to this position,
that except a man follow the law of Moses, Except a man be
circumcised after the law of Moses, he could not be saved.
And then Peter arose and delivered a powerful word. And I think
this word is a message for us today when we have voices all
about us saying, except you be baptized, you cannot be saved. Except you keep certain days,
holy days, you cannot be saved. except you belong to a certain
denomination or a certain organization, you cannot be saved. Except you're
sprinkled as an infant or confirmed, you cannot be saved. Peter arose
and delivered a powerful word in which he said, Brethren, a
good while ago God sent me to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. The Gentiles heard the gospel
which I preached and they believed God. And God saved them, and
God gave them the Holy Spirit. God made no difference between
us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, brethren,
why? Why do you try to test God by
putting a yoke on the neck of these believers, these Gentiles,
a yoke such as neither our forefathers nor we could bear? Why do you
try to mix law and grace? works and mercy, that's what
he's saying, we believe that we are saved or shall be saved
through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, just like these
Gentiles are saved. Now, this is a most important
statement from the lips of our Lord's the same one who replied
to the question put forth by our Master, Whom do you say that
I am? And Peter said, Thou art the
Christ, and our Lord pronounced his blessings on Peter's answer. And now when they come to Peter
with the question, Must a person do this, or that, or the other,
in addition to believing on Christ in order to be saved, Peter answers. And I call it the Apostle's Creed. This is what the apostles believed
about salvation. This is what the apostles believed
about redemption. Now, much can be learned from
this one verse of Scripture, and I want to divide it into
two parts. First of all, I'm going to deal
with the subject, what the apostles did not believe. And then I'm
going to deal, the Lord willing, with this question, what did
the apostles believe? What did the apostles believe?
Now, first of all, what they did not believe. It's clear from
this confession. Brethren, we believe that through
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. First of all,
it's clear that Peter and the apostles did not believe in ritualism,
ceremonialism. Now, they claim that Peter is
the head of the church. They claim that Peter was the
first pope. But when he stands to declare
his own confession about salvation, he says nothing about infant
baptism, he says nothing about sacraments, he says nothing about
abstaining from meats, he says nothing about holy days, he says
nothing about priests, he says nothing about altars, He says
nothing about robes or rituals. He says nothing about holy burial
ground. He declares that he believes
that salvation is by grace, not by works, not by ritualism, not
by ceremonialism, but it's by grace. We believe that we shall
be saved through grace, and that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
not the grace of the priest, Not the grace of the Pope, not
the grace of the Church, not the grace of men. We shall be
saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's how
we're saved. His theme is grace and grace
alone. And his theme is the grace of
God and the grace of God alone. So he did not believe in ritualism. He has an opportunity here now
to stand as we say the head of the Church, which he's not. the
first pope, which he wasn't, but if he is, and if he occupies
those positions, he has an opportunity now to set forth what he believes
about salvation and everything that is necessary for salvation.
And he does just that. He sets forth what he believes.
He says, we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
we shall be saved. The second thing that he did
not believe, he did not believe in self-righteousness. Now I
know what the creed of this world is. The creed of this world is
do the best you can, live a moral life, and you'll go to heaven. Someone posed this question in
the study a moment ago. Don't you believe that in that
day of judgment when all nations shall be assembled before the
Lord God at the great white throne judgment, where men shall hear
Christ say, Depart from me, I never knew you, where he shall say
to the angels, Bind them hand and foot, and cast them into
outer darkness, there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The question
was asked, Do you believe that very many people will be there
who expect to hear that word, Depart from me? who expect to
be among those on the left, who expect to hear Christ say, bind
him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness. Do you believe
there'll be many people there who expect to hear that? My answer
was no, sir. Most people there will hear it,
but they don't expect to hear it, because most people believe
in salvation by works. They believe that they're pretty
good people. Every man is born a Pharisee. Every man is born self-righteous,
and every man is born with a self-confidence that's bred in his bone and will
come out in his flesh, and he thinks when the smoke dies down
and the dust clears away, and the saved are in heaven and the
lost are in hell, that he'll be in heaven. Most people believe
that. Well, Brother Mahan, don't you
believe that if a man will keep the law of God, he'll go to heaven?
I absolutely do believe it. I absolutely do. I believe that
if a man could keep God's law perfectly, in thought, in word
or deed, he'd go to heaven. But here's my statement to you.
Bring me one son of Adam who has ever kept God's law. But I mean preacher. Keep it
as best he can. That's not what the Word of God
says. The Word of God says, Cursed is every man that continueth
not in all things written in the law. All things. That's the reason Paul said in
Galatians 4.21, Tell me, you that would be under the law.
Don't you hear the law? You that reject the grace of
God, you who reject the righteousness of Christ, you who go about to
establish your own righteousness and hope to be accepted before
God by your own works, don't you hear the law? The law says,
Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things. James 2.10 says this, to offend
in one point of the law. is to be guilty of the whole
law of God. No, the apostles did not believe
in self-righteousness. They did not believe in salvation
by human works. Rather, the apostle Paul says,
in the flesh no man can please God. Paul said, in the flesh
dwelleth no good thing. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified. I'll tell you something else,
it's clear to me that the apostles did not believe in legalism.
They did not believe in ritualism, they did not believe in ceremonialism,
they did not believe in self-righteousness, and they did not believe in legalism.
We believe that we shall be saved, Peter said, by the what? The
grace of God. By grace are you saved through
faith. and that not of yourself. It
is the gift of God. Salvation is the gift of God. God's gift in eternity past,
God's gift in the present, and God's gift in eternity future.
This is the old Reformation doctrine. This is the message that shook
Germany and Switzerland and Scotland when men like Luther and Calvin
and Knox preached. And this is the message that
will shake the gates of hell right now if men will dare to
preach it. Salvation is by the grace of God. God is not calling
men to works, He's calling men to faith. not for the works which
we have done, or shall hereafter do, hath God decreed on sinful
worms salvation to bestow. The glory, Lord, from first to
last, is due to Thee alone. No glory to ourselves dare we
take, or rob Christ of His crown." Nosa is clear to me what the
apostles did not believe. The Apostle Peter in this statement
rejects ritualism. He rejects circumcision. He rejects
ceremonialism. He rejects the sacraments as
such. He rejects any act of man to obligate God or to earn God's
mercy. He rejects self-righteousness,
he rejects legalism, he rejects all of these things in every
form, and he says, we believe we shall be saved by the grace
of God. Now, the second part of this
message, what did the apostle believe? Well, first of all,
he believed, and I'm going to give you about five points here,
briefly. First of all, the apostles believed
in the fall of man and human ruin. Now, brethren, this is
where we must begin. The fall of man and human ruin. Peter says, we shall be s-a-v-e-d,
saved. Peter viewed man as a creature
fallen who needed to be saved, who needed to be saved. Peter
viewed man as a fallen creature, a lost creature, a helpless creature,
a sinking creature, a perishing creature who needed divine salvation. We shall be saved. Oh, the flattery
that's heard from the average pulpit. If Peter were here tonight
preaching for us, he would not talk of the dignity of the flesh.
He would not talk of the nobility of the creature. He would not
flatter the flesh. But like the Apostle Paul, he
would faithfully preach that you who were dead in sin hath
he quickened. He'd preach what Roland Hill
preached when he talked about the three R's. He said if we
preach the gospel, we preach ruin, Redemption and regeneration. Ruin by the fall. Redemption by the blood. Regeneration
by the Holy Spirit. Brethren, like Ezekiel, we stand
preaching to a valley full of dead, dry, parched bones. Bones that have no spiritual
life. Bones that are without God, without
Christ, without hope, and without help. And just as helpless as
Ezekiel was looking over that valley of dead, dry bones, even
so are we as we look over the dry, dead bones of spiritually
dead men and women. And unless God Almighty breathes
on those bones, they'll never live. They'll never live. The apostles believed in man's
fall. The apostles believed in man's
ruin. And I'll tell you this, if you
search through the pulpits of America tonight, if you search
through the religious leadership of this nation tonight, you'll
find very few ministers of the gospel who believe that man fell
in the Garden of Eden. Or they believe that in the Garden
man was slightly wounded They believe that man in the garden
was affected to some degree, but they do not believe that
man by the fall was totally separated from God, totally lost all knowledge
of God, and all desire for God, and all the will to come to God,
and that man, like those dry bones in Ezekiel's valley, is
dead, dead, dead. and will not rise and will not
seek and will not come unless God first does a work of grace
in giving life. You can search through the officers
of the churches in this nation and go through the pulpits and
ask in the ear of every human being who claims to be a Christian,
Do you believe that man is dead without God, without hope, without
Christ, without help? And they'll answer, No, I do
not. But the Apostles did. They believed
in salvation by grace for fallen men. The second thing that I
see that the Apostles believed here, we believe that through
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be S-A-V-E-D, saved. Saved how? By grace. What a ring there is to that
word grace. Grace, how good. How rich. how free. Grace, how easy to
be found. Only let your misery in the Savior's
blood be drowned. Paul takes the crown from the
head of man in all respect and gives all the glory to the grace
of God. The Apostle Peter extolled and
exalted the grace of God, who will have mercy on whom he will
have mercy. God saves men by grace, pure,
immutable grace. Two prophets of God were walking
along one time. One of them was named Elijah.
He was the older of the two. The other was a young prophet
named Elisha. The old prophet said to the young
prophet, Elisha, I'm going to leave you. God has told me to
go to Bethel. And the young prophet said, I
will not leave you. I'm going with you. So they went
to Bethel, and while they were there, the prophets of Bethel
came to Elisha and whispered to him, ìThe Lord is going to
take your master away from you today.î And the young prophet
said, ìI know it. Hold your peace.î And then Elijah,
the old prophet, said to the young prophet, ìElisha, God is
sending me to Jericho. Iíll be leaving you now.î And
the young prophet said, ìNo, no, my father. Iím going with
you. Iím going with you.î So they
went together to Jericho, and the prophets of Jericho came
to the young prophet Elisha and said, God's going to take your
father away from you today. He said, I know it. Hold your
peace. In a moment, Elijah took the young prophet aside and said,
I'm leaving you now. I'm going to Jordan. The young
prophet said, not without me you're not. I'm going with you.
And so they went to Jordan, and when they came to the Jordan
River, the old prophet took off his mantle, and he stood back
and smoked the water, and it opened up like the Red Sea, and
the two men went across on dry ground. And when they got to
the other side, Elijah said to the young prophet, I'll be leaving
you now. And the young prophet said, My
father, grant me that a double portion of your power shall fall
upon me." And the old prophet said, that's not mine to give.
That can only be given by God. But I'll tell you this, Elisha,
if you see me, if your eyes behold me when I leave here, your wish
will be granted. And about that time, the scripture
says, a chariot of fire came down and picked up Elijah And
he was taken up out of the sight of this young prophet. And as
he went away, the young prophet cried, The chariot of Israel,
the power of God, and the mantle of Elijah fell at his feet. And
the young prophet reached over and picked up that mantle. And
he stood there holding it. And in a moment he took that
mantle and struck the waters of the Jordan and cried, Where
is the Lord God of Elijah? And the scripture says the waters
parted and he walked across on dry land. We have here the mantle
of the disciples. We have here the word of the
disciples. Is there an Elisha that has the
courage and the boldness to face an unfriendly world, an unfriendly
religious world. Christ said, ìThey hated me and
theyíll hate you.î Is there a man, is there an Elisha, is there
a young Elisha that will dare take the mantle of the disciples?
the mantle of the prophets, the mantle of the evangelists, who
will dare to cry out, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? and preach
that threefold gospel of the disciples. What is that threefold
gospel? It's the gospel of God's glory,
it's the gospel of God's grace, and it's the gospel of substitution. It's the only gospel that will
save us all of grace. All of grace. We believe that
through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, not through a debt
earned, but through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved. I didn't choose Him, He chose
me. I didn't seek Him, He sought
me. I didn't love Him, He loved me. The disciples believed in grace.
And it is not popular. Men do not believe it. They will
rebel against it. They will not have it. But every
faithful prophet of God will preach it. I believe that through
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. Not by work,
not by law, by grace. The third thing in which these
apostles believed, he said, we believe that through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. They believed in the
atonement, the work of Christ, the grace of Christ. I heard
a story years ago, many of you may remember it, but it is said
that a mother called a little boy in one day from play, and
she said, son, she said, I want you to go down to Mr. Gallagher's store and pick up
a vase that I bought and paid for, and you bring it home. Now,
you be careful, son. It's a fine vase, and mother's
already bought it and paid for it, and I want you to bring it
home." So he went down to Mr. Gallagher's store, and he told
him he'd come for his mother's vase, and Mr. Gallagher put a
piece of paper around it and a string and handed it to him.
The little fellow took the vase and started home, and on his
way home he ran into a buddy. And his buddy said to him, said,
Jimmy, let's play a little basketball. And he said, no. He said, my
mother sent me to the store to get this vase, and she told me
to be real careful with it, not to break it, and I've got to
go home. Oh, he said, put the vase down over there. We won't
break it. Put the vase down and play some
basketball. So the little fellow went over
there and he set the vase down. And he came back, and they were
bouncing the ball back and forth and dribbling it and passing
it behind their backs. In a moment, the ball went over
there and hit that vase, and it fell into a thousand pieces.
And the other little boy grabbed his basketball and ran home.
And this little fellow went over, and he picked up the pieces,
and he sat down on the sidewalk, and he began to try to put it
back together again. And he took a piece of the vase,
and he tried to find one that fit there, and he put it And
then when he turned loose to get another one, that fell, and
he got them back up again, he turned loose to get another one,
that fell, and he saw the impossibility of restoring the vase, and so
he just burst into tears and sat there and cried and cried.
In a few moments, a voice spoke and said, What's wrong, son?
What's wrong, son? And he looked up, and it was
his father. And he said, Dad, he said, I've done an awful thing. Mother sent me to the store to
get this vase for her. She bought it and paid for it.
Well, when I was coming back, I played some basketball, and
we broke the vase. And, Father, I tried to put it
back together, and I can't put it back together. And the dad
reached in his pocket, and he said, All right, son. He said,
Here's some money. You go to the store and buy another
vase just like that one and take it home to your mother. My friends,
back here in the garden, God gave to man a law, a perfect,
beautiful, spotless law, and told man to keep it. But man,
in his rebellion and in his sin, broke that law. And men, through
the years, have sat down and tried to put it back together
again. They get this one just right,
you know. and then maybe another one, and they reach for another
one, that one falls, and reach for another one, that one falls.
In all these points, we cannot restore that perfectly designed
law of God's holiness until finally we see our sin and our inability
and our infirmities and our iniquities and our transgression, and we
just throw up our hands and we cry, Oh God, I cannot keep it,
I cannot restore it, I cannot perfect it. The Lord Jesus Christ
comes along and he said, I have by my obedience, I have by my
righteousness worked out a divine righteousness for you. I have
through my obedience purchased a new vase, a new righteousness. Now here it is. You take it.
It's yours. You take it and present it to
the Father. It's a perfect righteousness. It's a perfect holiness. That's
how men are saved. They're saved through the work
of Christ. They're saved through the substitutionary work of Christ.
They're saved by the obedience of Christ. They're saved by the
death of Christ. What I could not do because of
the weakness of the flesh in breaking God's law, God sending
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in
the flesh and gave to me what I couldn't produce and what I
couldn't restore. I have in Christ a perfect righteousness. That's what the disciples believe.
We believe through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, through
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the obedience of the
Lord Jesus Christ, through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we shall be saved. I'm preaching this, pure and
simple, that God created man in his own image. and made him
holy and upright. And through his perversity and
his rebellion and his iniquity, man chose a lie in preference
to the truth. He chose his way in preference
to God's way. He chose to follow Satan instead
of following God, and he lost that righteousness, he lost that
holiness, and it can never be restored by anything man can
do or be or say or present. It's lost, it's tainted. It can never be restored. You
cannot take that which is soil and stain and make it holy again. There's no way that man, in his
fallen condition, can come before a holy God in fellowship and
communion. No way. Who shall stand in his
presence? He that hath clean hands, but
ours aren't clean. And we can wash them in the basin
of the law, and we can wash them in the basin of works, and these
basins are filled with mud and myrrh. But boy, if you can get
to the basin of the blood of Christ and wash them, they'll
be clean. Because the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. And what I lost in the
garden, Christ came down here as a man. The first Adam fell,
the second Adam stood. The first Adam rebelled, the
second Adam submitted. The first Adam sinned, the second
Adam was spotless. The first Adam who represented
me lost what God had given us, and the second Adam who represented
us also restored what God had for us by his grace. And as in
Adam we died, so in Christ are we made alive. By the disobedience
of one, we became sinners. By the obedience of the other,
we became righteous. And it's all in representation. And the preachers that stand
in their pulpit tonight, whoever they are, and talk to you about
coming before God in your goodness or in your religion or in your
promises or in your vows, is deceiving you. Because you'll
only come in the same dirty rags in which you were born. You've
got to come clothed in the righteousness of another. Receive me, Father,
for Christ's sake. Hear me for Christ's sake. Accept
me for Christ's sake. And that's the way men are saved. All right, notice the next thing.
The disciples believed that man was lost. He needed to be saved. He needed to be saved. That's
what I'm saying. All the flesh, all the sons of
Adam needed to be saved. Why? Because they're lost. Because
they're sinners. Because they're dead. Because
they fell. Because they're separated from
God. When God put Adam out of that garden, he put us out. When
God separated Adam from himself and put those flaming swords
out there and said, Adam, get out of here. Well, he put us
out. When Adam became the enemy of
God, we became the enemy of God. Now, when God, by Christ, sends
a substitute down here and restores everything we lost, I want to
be in the substitute. That's where I want to be. I
want to be in Christ. I don't want to be in Adam. I
don't want to be in myself. I don't want to be in a church.
I don't want to be in a religious stand in or sit in or a religious
organization that besieges the throne of God. I just want to
be in Christ. That's where I want to be. I
want God to look on me in Christ, I want Him to love me in Christ,
I want Him to consider me in Christ, and I want Him to accept
me in Christ. Not for what I've ever done or
ever shall do. Could my tears forever flow Could
my zeal and enthusiasm know respite? No. These for sin could never
atone because they have too much sin in them. Christ must save
and Christ alone. Then in the next place, they
believed in perseverance. Peter said, we believe we shall
be saved. We believe that through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved. But Peter, you may
fall. Look at your weakness, Peter.
Don't you remember when you denied the Lord? Don't you remember,
Peter, when the Lord had you on top of that building and sent
those animals down and you refused to do what God told you to do?
Don't you remember, Peter, down there when Paul had to withstand
you to the face because you were led the wrong way? Peter, considering
your weakness and your tendency to sin and your impulsiveness,
you'll fall. Well, I'm sure Peter would answer,
yes, if I depended on myself I'd fall a thousand times. But
I'm not dependent on myself, I'm dependent on four things.
Number one, I'm dependent on the purpose of God. It cannot
change. God said, I am the Lord, I change
not. The gifts of God are without
change. One time a friend of mine gave
me a piece of property on which to build a house. He's never
taken it back. What kind of friend would he
be if he took it back? Well, is God any less a friend?
God gave me the gift of life. Do you think he'll ever take
it back? God gave me Christ. Do you think he'll ever take
him back? God gave me life! What kind of friend is God who
says after 30 years, I'm going to take it back? No, he said,
I am the Lord, I change not. The gifts and calling of God
are without change. I am the Lord, I change not,
therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Secondly, the fact that I'll never fall
depends on four things. First, the purpose of God, it
will never change. The covenant of grace will never change. The
book of life will never change. The sacrifice of Christ will
never fail. He said, my sheep hear my voice,
they follow me, I give them eternal life. I'm the good shepherd,
I give my life for the sheep. And his blood can never fail. When his blood puts away sin,
it's put away for good. It can never come back. He said,
I've separated your sins from you as far as the east is from
the west, and I'll remember them no more. rather than the baptismal waters
that can't effectually put away sin. All of my promises and vows
cannot put away sin, but the blood of Christ is effectual
to the point that it makes God, who cannot forget, forget. Now you figure that out, but
it's subtle. The blood of Christ is so effectual,
it's so infinite, that through the blood of Christ even God
can't see my sins. That's what he said, and I'll
remember their sins no more. That's how sexual is his blood.
And the third thing, I cannot fail, I cannot fall, because
of the purpose of God it'll never change, because the blood of
Christ it'll never fail, and because the love of Christ is
everlasting. He said, I have drawn you with
an everlasting love. Having loved his own, he loved
them to the end. I love Ruth's testimony over
here, talking to her mother-in-law, Naomi, after her husband had
died and her father-in-law had died. Ruth said, Entreat me not
to leave thee. Whether thou goest, I will go.
Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people.
and thy God shall be my God. And that's the fourth reason
why the people of God will never fail, never fall, because the
work of the Holy Spirit gives us a nature that can't live without
God. It gives us a heart that can't
beat without God. It gives us a soul that can't
breathe without God. It gives us a word like the apostles,
Lord, to whom shall we go? You could no more leave Christ
than you could leave your own soul. You could no more leave
Christ after seeing His beauty, after partaking of His grace,
after walking in His fellowship. Nothing else matters. Nothing
else attracts. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying
that a man, a woman, a young person who's really been born
again couldn't leave Christ. There's no way, because Christ
is our life. There's no way. The last thing the apostles believed,
let's look at this testimony again. He said, we believe that
we, that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, I want
you to watch this carefully, don't miss it. Through the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they. Now, I like the way Peter worded
this. You remember the dispute was
over whether or not the Gentiles could be saved. That's what the
dispute was all about. These fellows down there, was
it Antioch? They said, why, these Gentile
dogs are going to have to be circumcised. They're going to
have to follow the law of Moses. They're going to have to keep
the Sabbath day, and they're going to have to do all these
things to be saved. They can't be saved just by faith,
just by believing on Christ. They've got to follow what we,
they've got to be what we are. So they ran up there to Jerusalem
and they gathered around. Some more folks said the same
thing. And Peter got up and said this, Brethren, we believe that through
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as these
Gentile dogs. He was putting their salvation
to question, not the Gentiles. He didn't say, now, we know that
God's been pleased to show mercy to these Gentiles, we don't like
them, but we must admit that they're going to be saved just
like we are. No, he didn't say that. He said,
brethren, I believe we're going to be saved just like they are. Somebody here may say, well,
I believe the drunk can be saved just like I am. No, the way is
this, you'll be saved just like the drunk. Well, brethren, I
believe that a fallen woman, I believe that a harlot could
be saved, and I believe they're saved just like we are. No, you
got it wrong. You're saved like they are. That's
what Peter's, that's one of the most beautiful statements in
this book.
Henry Mahan
About Henry Mahan

Henry T. Mahan was born in Birmingham, Alabama in August 1926. He joined the United States Navy in 1944 and served as a signalman on an L.S.T. in the Pacific during World War II. In 1946, he married his wife Doris, and the Lord blessed them with four children.

At the age of 21, he entered the pastoral ministry and gained broad experience as a pastor, teacher, conference speaker, and evangelist. In 1950, through the preaching of evangelist Rolfe Barnard, God was pleased to establish Henry in sovereign free grace teaching. At that time, he was serving as an assistant pastor at Pollard Baptist Church (off of Blackburn ave.) in Ashland, Kentucky.

In 1955, Thirteenth Street Baptist Church was formed in Ashland, Kentucky, and Henry was called to be its pastor. He faithfully served that congregation for more than 50 years, continuing in the same message throughout his ministry. His preaching was centered on the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, in full accord with the Scriptures. He consistently proclaimed God’s sovereign purpose in salvation and the glory of Christ in redeeming sinners through His blood and righteousness.

Henry T. Mahan also traveled widely, preaching in conferences and churches across the United States and beyond. His ministry was marked by a clear and unwavering emphasis on Christ, not the preacher, but the One preached. Those who heard him recognized that his sermons honored the Savior and exalted the name of the Lord Jesus Christ above all.

Henry T. Mahan served as pastor and teacher of Thirteenth Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky for over half a century. His life and ministry were devoted to proclaiming the sovereign grace of God and directing sinners to the finished work of Christ. He entered into the presence of the Lord in 2019, leaving behind a lasting testimony to the gospel he faithfully preached.

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