I want to bring out the difference of the old Gospel that proclaims a saving God, and the new gospel that proclaims the news about a salvation that has been made possible. Today I want to give you the conception of what preaching the Gospel is. I begin by saying that only Almighty God knows how desperately we need in this generation to be set free from the degenerate faith and preaching of this hour. And only God knows how we need to be set free to preach publicly and privately. I believe that every child of God is to be a witness of what you have seen and heard from God; and we are to do that wherever we have an opportunity to get men and women still long enough to listen. We are to proclaim the glorious salvation in Christ. We desperately need individual Christians, public preachers and every child of God to be set free; for we have been bound by our misconception and by the premises of the popular gospel of today.
We need to be set free to preach the Gospel, not what we think is the Gospel. And that humbles us, because no man is perfect and therefore no man can set in judgment on anybody else in this matter. We can as brethren reason one with another and seek to arrive at truth. My friends, we desperately need to be set free from our misconceptions and be able to preach the Gospel. Not just some gospel, but the Gospel. My Lord said, "Repent and believe the Gospel." The Gospel must be preached to everybody we can get to hear it. And we need to study and we need to pray. We also need to sob about this, and not get our knives out for anybody. But we need to be desperately on the mourner's bench personally and privately. And everyone of us must proclaim the Gospel whenever we have the opportunity.
The Gospel has been well nigh lost in your day and mine. You know, my friend, one proof of what I've been saying and I think that proof makes what I'm saying have a good element of truth in it; is that it is popularly imagined today that those who will not preach that Christ died savingly for every man is not preaching the Gospel. It is popularly imagined and this is used on every hand by most preachers that every man who will not preach that God loves everybody and Christ died savingly for everybody; that such people are left with no Gospel at all.
It is quite common to this territory and I know what I am talking about; that unless we preach what they call universal redemption, and tell sinners that Christ died for them, and demand that everybody believe it, because we say it. That Christ in that way died for everybody; while we won't turn around and preach what that means. That means if He did, that everybody has to be saved. It is popularly imagined today that unless we so preach, we don't have any Gospel.
But my friends, a deep conviction of my heart is that every Christian who listens to me is engaged in this business whether he realizes it or not. For your mission is to preach the Gospel to people whenever you can. I want to be helpful if I can, so I say to you that instead of what is popularly imagined today as being true – on the contrary – what those of us who refuse to preach this new popular gospel are left with is just the Gospel of the New Testament itself!
Now I am either right or I'm wrong here. If I am wrong, God knows I'd love to be straightened out. I would not willfully misrepresent it. I wouldn't give my life to preaching a lie, if I knew my heart. I would not take the unpopular position that I have to take in these days, knowing what it costs somebody. And I stand to be corrected. But I am saying that this is a life and death issue. And the issue is whether or not we are proclaiming the Gospel. They say if you do not preach universal redemption and tell everybody that God loves them, and that Christ died for them; and tell everybody that Christ died for them in such a way that if they will do something, God will save them.
They say if you don't preach that, you don't have any Gospel. And I contend that if you do preach that, you do not have any Gospel. And that those of us who do not have all the answers, and you can pick us to pieces. You can ask us questions that we cannot begin to answer. And we make no claim to having all the answers. We are honestly facing the paradox of the Gospel of God's grace. And we contend that those of us who refuse to get up before a public audience or a private individual and say: "My friend, God loves you and Christ died for you." We cannot possibly say that; we know that is not the Gospel. We do not believe that is any business of the preacher or the hearer. God's Word says He does not love everybody. Malachi 1:2b and 3: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord; yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau ...."
Romans 9:11-13 says: "(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."
Psalm 5:5b says: "... Thou hatest all workers of iniquity."
Deuteronomy 32:19 says: "... He abhorred them ...."
Psalm 11:5b says: "... Him that loveth violence His soul hateth."
John 14:21 says: "... He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him ...."
Do you believe what the Bible says?
What does it mean to preach the Gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ? In order to preach the Gospel to all men, we do not mean that we are to tell men God has set
His love on each of them and that Christ died to save each of them. Now I label that, because that is what is being preached today. I've heard and you've heard preachers who say we must assure sinners that God loves them, and Christ died for them in their stead. When we tell sinners that God has set His love on them, and when we tell men that Christ died to save them, that simply means that if that is true, all men must be saved. It is absolutely impossible to tell a man that God has set His love upon him and that Christ has died to save him, then tell him that there is anything wrong with him. If God has set His love upon you, and Christ has died to save you, then praise God the joy of salvation, the assurance of salvation, the victory of salvation is yours, as you look not to somebody who possibly saves; but the One Who does.
Now will you follow me? The knowledge of being the object of God's eternal love, and the knowledge of being the object of Christ's redeeming death; this knowledge belongs to the assurance of one who has already believed. This knowledge that Christ died for me, that God loves me individually is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed. And it is not to be proposed as a reason why one should believe. These things are just not true. No man can know that God loves him until after he has believed.
Now salvation and assurance must not be separated, but they are not the same. Let me call your attention to two Scriptures – Romans 8:33, which says: "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.-Verse 34: "Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us."
There is assurance. And everybody who is listening to me now, who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you can say that, and you can rejoice in it, and the reason you can rejoice in it is you are not trusting in somebody who made salvation possible. You are trusting in God Who justifies; God justifies, so who can condemn? Why, nobody except Christ, because Christ was the One that died, and Christ was the One that was raised, and Christ is the One Who makes intercession for us.
It is not a proposition to lost people; this is a proclamation of a child of God. Galatians 2:20 says: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
This is not something to tell a sinner, this is a proclamation by a child of God of what actually has been made real to him. Praise the Lord. By experience he knows that he loves God, because He first loved him, and that Christ gave Himself for us. He came down here to be our Saviour; and not to make something possible. Bless God, He came to be a Saviour.
And we bid all men look, look away from yourself to One Who hung on a cross, and is now alive. Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and the forgiveness of sins. He is the Saviour of all who believe. He died for all who believe. Praise God. His death assures salvation to all who believe. We do not proclaim the Gospel by telling men that God has set His love upon them, that is the assurance of salvation. We do not proclaim the Gospel by telling men Christ died to save them, that is the matter of assurance. Preaching the Gospel is a matter of proclaiming to men as truth from God, which all men are bound to believe and act upon. And as we proclaim this Gospel which is truth from God, we bring forth four great facts to the attention of men and women. (1) We tell all men that they are sinners in the sight of God, and they cannot do anything to save themselves. That's preaching the Gospel. Every human being is a sinner in the sight of God, and no one can do one thing to save himself. This is truth from God.
Instead of us telling an old sinner that God loves him, and Christ died for him; we need to spend that time in the Word and preach the cross. And the first message of the cross is that it was sin that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. And it was sinners who drove the nails. Judgment is coming, and God must punish sin. We proclaim to them as truth from God what all men are bound to believe. Nobody will ever get saved by somebody telling him that God loves him and Christ died for him. A sinner doesn't care whether God loves him or Christ died for him; he is not interested in knowing that, for that is just something we argue about. We are to tell all men on the authority of God and His holy Word that they are willful rebellious sinners, obnoxious to the judgment of God, and responsible to God in that awful pit that they dug themselves. They cannot change their awful sinful nature, and they are condemned by God's holy law. They are taken captive by Satan, they sit in darkness in the prison house. God Almighty has to perform a miracle if they ever get out. We are beginning to preach now.
In the second place, God's Son, is a perfect Saviour for sinners, even the worst sinner that ever was on the road to hell. We are to tell men with assurance of the Word of God that God's Son, Jesus Christ, is a suitable and a perfect and an all-sufficient Saviour for sinners. Oh! my friend, what that old sinner needs to hear first of all is not that God loves him and Christ died for him. He needs to stick to this fact that Jesus Christ saves sinners; He came down here to save sinners. Everybody in the sight of God, before he is saved, is just an old sinner. The one who God is going to save and God knows He is going to save him. He looks at him as an old sinner. In Luke 5:32, Jesus says: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
So we tell all men that they are sinners and they can do nothing to save themselves. And if they will believe that, we tell them that Jesus Christ, God's Son, is a perfect Saviour. Not ap0ssible Saviour, but a perfect, suitable and available Saviour for sinners, even the worst sinners.
And then as we preach we tell sinners in the third place that God the Father and God the Son has promised that all who know themselves to be a sinner, and put their utter confidence in Christ; shall be received into favor, and none shall be cast out. This is something I can't understand, it is too deep for me. I can tell every sinner in the world and it is true according to the Scriptures. John 6:37 says: "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."
Christ died for those who would believe. Christ died for those who do believe. I Peter 2:24-25 says: "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by Whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."
Oh! what grace it is. God and the Son have promised in grace that every sinner who will face the fact that he is a sinner and he cannot save himself. And will face the fact that Jesus Christ is a perfect Saviour for sinners, so He must be a perfect Saviour for me. Then God tells him in the Gospel that both He and the Son hath promised grace this is, condescension this is, glory this is. Alleluia! That all who know themselves to be sinners and put their faith in Christ, and rest in Christ shall be received. He won't be rejected. Every sinner who puts his faith in Christ, the promise is, he will never be cast out.
Then we are to tell sinners these four things and when we do, we are preaching the Gospel. (1) All men are bound to believe that they are sinners. (2) All men are bound to believe that Christ is a perfect Saviour for sinners. (3) All men are bound to believe that God promises in the Gospel that all who see and know themselves to be sinners, and (4) look away from themselves and look in perfect confidence to Him, rest in Him, they shall be received.
And then we conclude by saying that God Almighty has made repentance and faith a duty, requiring of every man who hears the Gospel. A serious full resting and rolling of the soul upon Christ, in the promise of the Gospel as an all-sufficient Saviour able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by Him. Ready, able and willing through the preciousness of His blood and the sufficiency of His death to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves unto Him for that end. We are all eternity-bound men and women, and unless God Almighty is pleased to perform a miracle in you and reveal Christ in you; you are doomed for hell.
If sin is damning its thousands, religion today is damning its tens of thousands with this popular gospel which is a perverted gospel. Galatians 1:6-9 says: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have receive& let him be accursed."
"Blessed Father, please have mercy on those who read this message and may the Father be glorified in the Son. Amen!"