The Law of God; Call to Repentance

The Need for a Biblical Gospel and Maximizing Mentality

0:06 I mentioned this morning in introduction for our study in the scriptures in the morning service that I was going to make an attempt to bring to you the message which I preached out on the West Coast, and that for two basic reasons. Number one, and I am sure you are more convinced of the first reason after the report I have given tonight, there was not ample time to do the adequate preparation for the next sections in 1 Thessalonians, which for the sake of our visitors present, I am preaching through in the mornings, and Psalm 1 in the evenings, and for the second reason, that the issues that we dealt with, I believe, are so vital that though some of the areas may seem like old hat, they are areas that are so vital to the ministry of any church seeking to stand in this generation in all of its religious as well as secular confusion. If the church is to have any kind of an adequate ministry, it must intelligently, as a church, be committed to the aspects of truth with which I am seeking to deal in this study of the scriptures. It is not enough for a pastor and a few elders and a few articulate laymen in the church to share the vision. That church should be like a well-trained army in which every foot soldier, as well

1:34 as those who stand in rank and in places of authority, have a clear understanding of the gospel, a clear objective in mind, and in all of the involvement of battle, are together coordinated in the attaining of that objective. So we, standing in our generation, loving Christ and loving His truth and seeking to be set for the defense and proclamation of the gospel, we should stand intelligently, every last one of us, understanding the issues that are at stake in our day, and seeking by all means and efforts to accomplish the purpose of God for us. Thank you. As a church, and I am increasingly convinced that when Dr. Packer said in his introduction to John Owen's book, The Death of Death and the Death of Christ, that perhaps the greatest need of evangelicalism in this hour is the recovery of the biblical gospel, I am increasingly convinced that he was speaking very accurate, if not prophetic, words. Therefore, the question around which our study this morning and again this evening clusters, the answers, clusters. The answer to this question is, is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel? Is the gospel that is by and large preached and believed in our evangelical circles today, is it the biblical gospel?

2:57 I sought to introduce the subject by giving you several reasons why this was a vital issue, and then by drawing the yellow line on the wall. Even my son got that illustration straight on the way home. He said, Daddy, I learned something this morning. And I said, What was that?

3:11 He said, Then he proceeded to tell me that the only way we could judge if a man is seven feet six inches tall is to measure him by an inflexible standard. And if we are to discern whether or not the contemporary gospel is the biblical gospel, we must bring that contemporary gospel to the objective inflexible standard of the word of God, to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them. And I must warn you.

3:40 I must warn myself again and again that the opinions of men and the numerical strength of men or the influence of men does not affect the line on the wall seven feet six inches tall. This issue is so vital that we dare not look out and take an opinion poll or a popularity census of the contemporary gospel to determine whether or not it is the true gospel. We must come to the touchstone of scripture and judge everything by the inflexible standard of God. And we must seek to do this with what I would call, in quoting another servant of Christ, the maximizing mentality, not the minimizing mentality.

4:23 You see, everything in our day is computerized. Everything comes in capsule form. Someone told me recently they saw a cartoon of what it would be like a few years from now. And there's a man sitting at a table with a bib on, and he's cutting up a cube of some kind of concentrated vitamins and minerals.

4:40 In other words, he's not sitting there drooling over a steak, but he's there cutting up his cube. We've got everything in capsule form. We have readers digest and digest of the digest. And everything in our age is pushed toward this sense of running and hurrying and condensing and shrinking and contracting.

5:05 And this mentality has filtered into the church. So when we approach the subject of preaching...

5:09 I'm on a mission. Teaching the gospel. Teaching the gospel. Of proclaiming the gospel, we think in a minimizing mentality.

5:17 This is the attitude that most people have. How little may we teach and still have it be called gospel? Whereas the Bible would lead us to approach the subject this way. How much must we teach in order to be true to God?

5:35 See the difference? One is the maximizing mentality. The other is the minimizing mentality. And the Apostle Paul didn't have the minimizing mentality.

5:45 He had the maximizing mentality. For he said in Acts 20 and verse 26, Wherefore I take you to record this day, I am pure from the blood of all men. Why? For I've given you three little verses in a short amount of time?

6:00 No. He said, Because I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. He said, The only reason I'm free of your blood, and that's a figure of speech, is because I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. As you ladies heard this morning in your Bible class, I'm clear from the blood of all men.

6:19 That is, I have discharged my responsibility to their never dying immortal souls. Why? Not because I've given them a minimum amount of truth in a minimum amount of time. No, no.

6:34 He said, I am pure from their blood because I have not shunned from declaring the whole spectrum of God's saving message. Paul had the maximizing mentality, not the minimizing mentality. And we must have that same mentality as we approach this subject. Is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel?

The Foundation: A Sound Doctrine of God

6:57 Now, I only had time to develop one point this morning, and that point was this. Is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel if it fails to build on a sound doctrine of God? Can we be truly evangelizing if we don't take time to tell modern American pagans who God is, creator, sovereign, sustainer of his world and of his creatures? And I hope that you had enough material from Acts 14 and Acts 17 to help you to answer that question.

7:29 Rather than take a lot of time to review, I will simply quote what one servant of God has said, which summarizes all that I attempted to say. I attempted to say in about 45 minutes this morning, quote, and we must not be afraid to start with the basic facts about God the creator. Revealed truth has a structure, and this is its foundation. That is, the facts about God.

7:55 When Paul preached to the pagan Athenians, he laid this foundation before going any further. He had to, or else the point of his witness to our Lord would not have been grasped. For knowledge of sin and salvation presupposes some knowledge of the creator. Nobody can see what sin is till he's learned what God is.

8:16 And that's why Richard Baxter directed the seeking soul to fix his mind first and foremost on the nature and majesty of God. In pagan England, and I might add America today, we need to lay the same foundation as Paul laid at Athen. We complain that our gospel preaching in the modern days is not the same as the gospel of sins does not register with those who hear it. May not this be, in the first instance, because they know nothing about the God with whom they have to do?

8:45 Have we taken pains to teach them who God is? The irony of our situation is that if we spend time preaching to modern pagans about the character of God, we should be told that we're not preaching the gospel. But the Puritans would not tell us that, nor would Paul. End of quote.

9:03 This quote by J.I. Packer was in the context of a lecture he'd done in England. The lecture he delivered some years ago on the subject of the Puritan concept of preaching the gospel.

9:12 And they saw this truth. That's why when you pick up Joseph Allene's Alarm to the Unconverted, which I hope all of you have and have read, though you may not be able to sit down and analyze with the precision of a theologian what's different with the gospel that Joseph Allene preached and the gospel that's preached in our day as the biblical gospel, you sense that you're moving in a totally different realm. There's a whole different mood in the evangelism of Joseph Allene and the evangelism of the best of our contemporary evangelists. And one of the factors of that different mood is this.

9:47 Allene was continually confronting you with the greatness and the majesty of the God with whom you had to do. He wasn't focusing primarily upon man and his felt needs or his psychological quirks. He wasn't focusing primarily upon the blessings that man had. And yet he is continually confronting me with God and man's sin in the light of the majesty of God, in the light of the law of God, in the light of the judgment of God, in the light of the glory of God's salvation in Jesus Christ.

10:22 And I submit to you that if we as a church are to biblically evangelize in our Sunday school, over this pulpit, in confronting the community, in our homes, we must build on a sound doctrine of God. That's why catechizing your children is an essential part of evangelism. For though teaching them the catechism has no power to create any love for God in their hearts, it is laying great beams of truth about the nature and character of God in that unregenerate heart and mind. So that when the Spirit of God is pleased to give life, that life then will take the form of those great underpinnings of divine truth. And there will be spiritual stability and maturity. Now I move to the second question. And I don't know how far we'll get tonight.

The Law of God: Schoolmaster to Christ

11:19 I'll confess I haven't determined tonight what I determined that Thursday night. I will tell you that. The second question I would like to ask is this. Is the contemporary gospel, the biblical gospel, if it fails, to make a proper use of the law of God?

11:44 The contemporary gospel, preached in the average gospel tract over the radio, preached, as many of you have confessed to me, to you, for years, from good evangelical pulpit, is a gospel that is marked by its almost total ignorance of and lack in using the holy law of God. Now the gospel is not the law, and the law is not the gospel. But the gospel establishes the law. And the law establishes the law.

12:19 And the law establishes the gospel. After Paul had preached the doctrine of God's saving grace apart from the works of the law, he said, do we make void the law of God through faith? God forbid. This message of salvation, he says, we establish.

12:36 We read in Isaiah concerning the ministry of Christ that he would make honorable the law of God and would magnify it in his salvation. And I'm speaking particularly when I mention the law of God of the Ten Commandments and their place in a true preaching of the gospel. Is the gospel in such a way that he would not use the law of God in his preaching of the gospel? I think not.

13:07 For he tells us in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 24, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, or, because those words are in italics, there's no verb there in the Greek, could be translated, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The law, he said, had a function, and that function was to lead us unto Christ. The function of the law was not to lead us to marry the law. No.

13:44 The function of the law was to strip us of every other hope, of every other recourse, until in a naked embrace of faith we found ourselves. Married to Jesus Christ. Paul's own testimony in Romans chapter 7 was that he had not known sin as sin unless the holy law of God had done its work, preparing him to receive the grace of God. Notice Paul's testimony in Romans 7 and in verse 7.

14:17 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? He's speaking of how the Christian is released from the covenant of the law in terms of its condemning, in terms of its negative, damning, condemning curse that hangs over his head. And he says now, after I've talked in such strong terms of us being released from the law, what shall we say then?

14:43 Is the law sin? God forbid. No, no. Though the law has no power to save, and though we've been released from the curse and the condemnation of the law, he said don't infer from this that the law had no legitimate function in the realm of salvation.

15:00 Oh no, it did have a legitimate function. Here it is. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust.

15:09 The law had said I should not covet sin, taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, that is, evil desire. For without the law, sin was death. Paul said, the law did its work. Sin was not a living principle to me.

15:29 I had no true understanding of the nature and character of sin. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me.

15:50 Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, now notice, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that is the law, that sin, by the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful.

16:17 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. What does Paul say? He's telling us what the law did for him. And he says essentially the law did this.

16:33 It showed me the true nature of sin. It showed me my heart. It showed me that I stood slain. Sentence of God.

16:45 And it disposed me to receive the grace. This is why the apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 1.8, Wherefore the law is good if a man use it lawfully. And then he explains what the lawful use of the law is.

17:03 And he says in that passage in 1 Timothy 1.8, 9 and 10, that the function of the law is to discover sin as sin, until we see it as the breach of divine law. Point 1 and point 2 are connected. There can be no concept of sin as a breach of divine law, until first of all I understand God made me.

17:32 Me as the power with regard to him. Sin is the refusal to submit to the regulation of the God who made me and sustains my very life. What makes sin so terrible? Sin is anarchy.

17:55 Sin is treason against the God of heaven. Sin is a clenched fist to the one who holds my very life in his hand. You see when you begin to realize that, you don't talk lightly about sin. You don't begin to talk about little sin.

18:10 You begin to see sin in its true nature. The creature. The sovereign. And yet in our day, this function of the holy law of God is just almost completely passed over.

The Law's Role in Revealing Sin and Guilt

18:26 Why? Well, again, it might take some time to sit down with somebody and say, Hey Mac, you know about the Ten Commandments? He says, yeah, I heard about them once upon a time. Well, you know where they're found?

18:39 Yeah, I think they're found in the Bible somewhere, aren't they? That's right. Where about? A friend of Threesinger says that he's embarrassed people in evangelical churches.

18:48 Many times he'll say, now let's turn to the Ten Commandments. And he won't tell them where it is. And he says, it's something to see people. They don't even know where they're found.

18:54 Now see, he's mean and I'm sweet, so I won't do that. But in Exodus chapter 20, you have those ten words of Moses. To sit down with someone and begin to say, Look, what do you think that means? Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

19:06 What's a god? And that person begins to see that idolatry is not going out and taking a little piece of wood or stone and carving an image and bowing down. But idolatry is setting anything or anyone in the place that belongs to God. So that Paul says in Colossians 3, Covetousness, one of the crowning sins of twentieth-century affluent America, the love and grasping of things, is idolatry.

19:47 It's making up gods and things. The second commandment and the third begin to lay out the breadth and length of those laws that touch as Paul discovered when he came to the tenth commandment. Not just the deeds, but the very dispositions and the attitude of the heart, till someone begins to feel and own the weight of his guilt and his pollution, as did the apostle Paul. Then the gospel becomes good news.

20:17 Then the cross makes sense. And instead of the cross simply being a sentimental display of a self-sacrificing spirit of Jesus, the cross becomes that awesome display of the mingling of the infinite, infinite justice of God that would bruise his own son till he writhes in agony and cries out in brokenness, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And we see justice in all witness in those shrouded heavens, in the inky black skies, in the piercing cry of the Son of God. And yet, wonder of wonders, we see love mingled in all of its fullness as the just dies for the unjust as he cries, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. As he cries, it is finished. And so you see the cross then becomes that majestic display of infinite justice and of eternal love. But it will never become that unless the law of God has its proper place in our thinking.

21:24 An old saint of God once stood with Professor Murray ministering the Lord's Supper to some saints of God in Scotland. And almost in rapture he spoke out as he stood at the table, O cross, whose base is eternal justice and whose spirit is eternal love, is eternal justice. You try to plant the other base, the justice, and you don't have the biblical cross, the principle, sentimental, that will break your heart and make you a willing loved servant of Jesus Christ. But when you see that the cross has as its base, eternal justice, Galatians 3.13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse of the law. This doom thou shalt live, this hell thou shalt die, is meted out upon the Son of God, the substitute of sinners.

22:51 Then you see love. Love becomes that to us that it was the Paul's captivating principle. He said the love of Christ constrains me. Didn't they say it turns me loose to live like a flea?

23:08 He said it constrains me. It lays hold of me. Because it was love set in the context of law. And yet, dear ones, in our day the gospel is often offered as a panacea for all kinds of psychological problems.

23:23 Are you frustrated? Are you unresolved in your inner conflicts? Come to Jesus. The philosophy of a man like Orwell, his whole theology, God is a good God.

23:39 And he made a song about it now. God's so good that if you drive in a Ford he wants you to drive Cadillacs. Come to Jesus. There's time.

23:47 You'll be driving them. God's a good God. He doesn't want to see you sick. He wants to see you well.

23:52 So claim your healing. Put your hand on the radio. You see, the whole philosophy is one that utterly bypasses the concept that God is a just God and a holy God who's expressed his will in his holy law. And we have broken that law and deserve the wrath and the curse of God.

Paul's Pattern: Preaching the Law Before the Gospel in Romans

24:12 And it's a miracle of miracles that every one of us is not burning in hell this night. And when people begin to understand that and see the law of God in all of its burning holiness and all of its justness, in all of its, what Paul calls here, its spirituality, and see how far they've fallen short of that standard, then grace becomes a glorious sound. In the only systematic treatise of the gospel in the entire New Testament, excuse me, the book of Romans, Paul gives us the pattern as to how the gospel should be taught and how it should be preached. We turn for a moment to the book of Romans as I seek to develop this thought for a moment. After some general introductory words just to establish his hearing, Paul announces the theme of his letter in verses six. I'm sorry, in verses 16 and 17. Or perhaps we could back up to verse 15.

25:14 So as much as in me is, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God, the salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein, that is, for within the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.

25:38 What is his theme going to be? The gospel of Christ, which has as its central blessing a righteousness, a right standing with God that comes from God and is received by faith. That's the theme. All right, now, how is he going to develop his theme?

25:57 He starts in verse 18 with the doctrine of divine wrath against human sin. Notice. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. And then from verse 18 of chapter 1 all the way through the end of chapter 1, all the way through chapter 2, all the way through chapter 3 until he comes to verse 19.

26:25 He doesn't preach the gospel as we would define it. He preaches the law. And he brings one segment of humanity after another like some judge who has been given the responsibility of summoning criminals before a bar of justice. And he brings in those who had nothing but natural revelation.

26:48 I hope you got that on your test today, men. Now, what kinds of revelation are there? Natural and spiritual revelation or special revelation. And he deals with those who have nothing but natural revelation and he shows in the light of that revelation they're guilty.

27:03 Then he brings in those who have special revelation and he shows that they're guilty and he shows that they are all guilty in terms of law. Those with natural revelation have violated the remains of the law written upon the conscience. Those who have special revelation have broken the law that was uttered in thunder and lightning. Thunder and lightning upon Mount Sinai.

27:26 But whether the law transgressed has been the law in the conscience. Natural revelation. The law given from Mount Sinai. Special revelation.

27:36 What's the summary of the whole issue? Look at verse 19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God launches into the gospel. But there's no gospel for that whole part of chapter 1, chapter 2.

Psychological Guilt vs. Holy Ghost Sense of Guilt

28:08 He must first of all corral the whole of humanity and bring humanity before the bar of eternal justice and pronounce it, notice, duty before God in turn breaking his law. Now that's all the difference in the world between psychological or natural guilt. I want to illustrate from personal experience. Having a mother and father who were deeply concerned for my spiritual condition as a child and still concerned for my spiritual condition as an adult, when they would get wind from the neighbors that I had been cursing or maybe that I had been doing some things I shouldn't, my mom and dad would sit me down.

28:52 I can always remember we had some swinging French doors in that old house on 94 Soundview Avenue, Stanford, Connecticut. Six-room house into which we were squeezed. I don't know before we put the addition on, seven or eight kids. And I can remember when everybody would go to bed, they'd close those doors because they let out into the living room and up the stairs into the bedroom area and then I knew that the time of judgment had come.

29:17 Mom and dad were going to talk to me about something. So the French doors would close and I'd sit down by the big dining room table and dad and mom would sit there and then they'd begin to talk to me and maybe they, Mrs. Yates across the street had heard me cursing and so they were going to talk to me about my cursing. And you know, I can't remember a time when they'd talk to me about some of my bad behavior but I would not break down and weep like a baby.

29:41 I mean slobber and cry just uncontrollably at times. Weep and sob and then I'd even get down on my knees and pray with them and as far as I know I wasn't turning on those tears. And you talk about guilt. Oh, how guilty I felt.

30:03 I did not feel guilty before. God found me out. I hadn't been shedding any tears. I wouldn't have been slobbering and crying.

30:19 My concern was that mom and dad had found me guilty. Not that I was guilty before my creator. Not that I was guilty before my sovereign. Not that I was guilty before the one who held my life in his hands.

30:37 He could have caused me to drop into hell at any moment. See the difference between mere psychological guilt and Holy Ghost? Sense of guilt? In one the reference is inward or outward on the horizontal level.

30:53 In the other it's the recognition of the vertical relationship. I developed this at some length when I preached through the 51st Psalm when David said, Against thee, O God, and thee only have I sinned. Now what does that? The teaching and preaching of the Holy Law of God.

31:11 And my question then is this. Is the contemporary gospel which comes with a message of God's salvation from sin, is it the biblical gospel if it doesn't first of all teach people what sin is in a biblical sense? What will be salvation from sin, biblical sin, until first of all people know what sin is? And what's God's instrument to teach the nature of sin?

31:39 The Holy Law of God. The Holy Law of God. So if we're committed for the defense and proclamation of the gospel, we must be committed. And opening up of those ten words of Moses in all their length and breadth, we must be committed to, by the grace of God, taking time to show people the holy righteous requirement of God, which they have miserably and willfully broken.

32:11 For the whole disposition of the unregenerate man is so graphically described in Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. Every man's a rebel to the law of God. But he doesn't know that.

32:34 Walk up to the average man in Bloomfield Avenue tonight, just coming out of Grunnings with an ice cream cone in his hand, tap him on the shoulder and say, Hey, Max, do you know that you're a rebel against God? He'd say, What are you talking about? I went to church today. I like God.

32:47 I love God as much as anybody. I mean, I don't take my religion as seriously as I should, but don't tell me I hate God. You do, Max. You've got a clenched fist in the face of God.

33:00 You say, Wait a minute, though. Who in the world do you think you are? I know I...

33:04 I feel kind of nice towards... I even give a dollar a week in the church.

33:09 You see, he doesn't look upon himself as described in Romans 8, 7. Enmity against God? Not subject to the law of God? What's the only thing that'll make him realize that?

33:20 Well, the Holy Spirit, yes. But what is God's instrument? Paul says, By the commandment, sin will begin to appear as sin. And I say, Do you know what your Creator requires of you?

33:32 You think He requires you to go to church once a week and throw a nickel or a dollar in the plate? Well, he says, I thought that's pretty good. Now, listen. Here's what God requires of you.

33:42 Look. I turn him to the Bible where Jesus said, This is the first commandment. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, the God who made you, upon whom you're dependent, for your very life and breath and existence, in whom you live and move and have your being. This God requires that He be the supreme object of your affection, of your love, of your desire, that in every plan, in every project, in every projection of your intent of life, He should be central.

34:17 Is He? You know, I never thought of that. No, I guess you haven't. Let's go on to the next commandment.

34:25 You begin to take him through those ten words of Moses. If God is pleased to give you a hearing and open his eyes, he's going to begin to see something. He's been walking around in a fool's paradise thinking he liked God, and he'll begin to see why I've been just what the Bible says. I've been a clenched fist rebel.

34:42 Where can I flee? I dared to live this way before this great and mighty God. What shall I do to be saved? See?

34:53 That's how the law works. In your children, in my children, you Sunday school teachers, may God give you wisdom as you pray how to apply the law to the conscience of those youngsters so that they'll have a biblical sense of sin. Well, I don't want to enlarge this anymore, but I hope I've given you sufficient biblical data to answer the question, is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel? And in the time that remains tonight, let me just give one more point.

The Necessity of Repentance in the Gospel

35:26 How I ever got all five of these in one message, I don't know. But here's the third. And I want you to listen carefully. We have visitors here tonight, and I'm particularly in earnest that this that may be, as I mentioned earlier, not unfamiliar ground to some of our own people may be less familiar to you, and so I trust you'll listen carefully, all of you, as I ask the third question and then give you some biblical material with which to answer.

35:57 Is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel if it fails to sound, a clear note of repentance? I have a series of messages on the subject of repentance I've never preached here at the church. In fact, it's frustrating. I go out in meetings and I figure, well, you know, this will be a little bit of relaxing from preparing new messages.

36:23 I'll ask the Lord to lay in my heart something I've preached back in Caldwell and just pray over it and have a little less pressure, and then I end up preparing a whole new series to preach out there, and then I come back thinking, well, boy, the pressure will be off me. I can give that series there and the Lord won't let me do it. So I've got a stack of messages that I've preached elsewhere that I haven't preached here, and a bigger stack that I've preached here that I haven't preached elsewhere. And I have a series on the subject of repentance that I want to preach sometime, but now would not be the opportune time.

36:58 But we've sought to sound this note of repentance, and it has come to many of you, as you remember, almost like a new gospel. Why? Because the gospel of contemporary evangelicalism doesn't sound this biblical note of repentance. If it says anything, it says all you need do if you admit you're a sinner, believe Jesus died on the cross, and accept Him as your personal Savior, or commit yourself to Him, or terms of that nature.

Christ's Commission: Cross, Tomb, and Repentance (Luke 24)

37:23 Now my question is, is that the biblical gospel if it is devoid not only of a little trilly note once in a while, way out on the end of a keyboard on repentance, but if it's devoid of a note that's right smack dead center in the main chord? That's my question. Now to help you to answer that, let me give you three passages of scripture, and then we'll be done. Luke chapter 24, beginning with verse 45.

37:55 Our Lord is preparing His disciples for the ministry they are to have after His return to the Father. And we read in the 45th verse that then He, Jesus, opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. That's the only way anyone will ever understand. That's the most humbling thing for a preacher.

38:20 He studies, he prays, he tries to be clear, he tries to illustrate, he tries to feel his audience, and if he feels he's losing them, he tries to brighten them up maybe with a little humor, with another illustration, tries to capture their minds. He labors to communicate simply and clearly. He gives his life to it, gives his blood to it. He's willing to die if necessary in doing it.

38:43 And he counts that a joy. God bearing me witness. That's my testimony. If I have to die suddenly, I want to die preaching.

38:51 I want to die preaching. No better way I'd love to go than right out of the body into the presence of the Lord while declaring His truth. But you know, it's the most humbling thing to realize though you study to be simple, though you throw your heart and soul into it, though you try to follow and feel your audience and catch them with a little humor here and catch them with an illustration here, if the Lord Jesus is not pleased to pull back the veil, you might as well be talking in Chinese. They won't understand.

39:23 They may be sitting back and be impressed with your zeal or they may scratch their head and say, what in the world is he getting all worked up about? Or they may go away wondering if you've got all your senses. There may be all kinds of reactions, but one thing there will not be, there'll be no understanding unless the Lord opens the understanding. But blessed be God, He's pleased to do that, and He did it here, and He opened their understanding to understand the Scriptures, and He said in essence, and they understood this, here's the core of the scriptural message of salvation.

39:57 Verse 46, And He said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behold Christ, Old English word for necessary. Thus it is written, thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer. And, you women, remember this morning, you've got to pay attention to grammar, word order, and as a conjunction, it's joining some thoughts here. It behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in His name among all the nations beginning at Jerusalem.

40:32 And ye are witnesses of these things. What things are they to bear witness to? Three great areas of truth. First of all, the truth that clusters around the cross.

40:47 It behooved Christ to suffer. What does it mean that we as a church, if we as a church are to be a gospel preaching, teaching, evangelizing church, we must continually bear witness to the truth that cluster around the cross. We must tell men the necessity of the sufferings of Christ. That means teaching them about God, and about man, about sin, about the justice of God, the wrath of God, and the infinite grace of God, that He would send His Son to die, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, as the Scripture says.

41:26 We must continually reiterate all of those truths that cluster around the cross, the necessity of the sufferings of Christ, the nature of the sufferings of Christ, the benefits that flow from His sufferings. And oh, beloved, the minute our hearts grow cold to those truths, we're on the way out. When we cease to thrill at the truths that cluster around the cross, when we can no longer say with Paul, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the first great area of truth.

42:00 Second great area of truth clusters around His open tomb. And to rise from the dead the third day, we must declare to men, we must receive and believe and appropriate for ourselves, and then declare to men the fact of the resurrection. There's an open tomb somewhere in Palestine. I don't know if it's the one they take you on the tours.

42:21 I got a sneaking suspicion a lot of that may be a money-making gimmick. And if I thought that walking under a gnarled olive tree where Jesus supposedly prayed would make me a better man of God, I think I might sell my car, my wife and my kids and get a plane ticket and go. No, you're not going to love Christ more sitting under a gnarled olive tree. The disciples fell asleep right under the right tree.

42:41 Didn't do much for them and it won't do anything for you either. So save your pennies for something far more worthwhile than a trip to the Holy Land if you think it's going to make you more spiritual. Now if you're going for other reasons, we've got one or two of our number who are going and you go with my blessing and the blessing of the church. But don't go thinking that's going to make you more spiritual.

43:03 No, it won't do it. It won't do it. But somewhere over there, there's a slab of stone, if it's still around, that once held the lifeless, blue, dead body of Jesus Christ, presented with God. And we're to declare to men the fact of His resurrection, the implications of His resurrection.

43:27 He lives. For what purpose? Why, He lives now to make good all that He purchased then. Do we need a Christ on the cross to save us?

43:36 Yes. But we need a Christ upon the throne to save us. And so we declare to men, He lives. He lives, Christ Jesus lives today.

43:45 He lives. He lives to save, to grant repentance, remission of sin, to transform life. We're to proclaim that. But now, what are we to proclaim after we've proclaimed the truths that cluster around the cross?

43:57 Around the open tomb. What are we to tell people? Log your head to those facts and you'll get remission of sin? No.

44:05 Notice the coordinating conjunction. Verse 47, And in the light of His cross and His tomb, repentance unto remission of sin shall be preached in His name, preached in his name among all the nations beginning at Jerusalem. They are witness to this fact, that men seeing themselves in need of the works of his cross and the benefits of his open tomb will stack arms and fall down in repentance and in faith and embrace the Lord Jesus. Don't you dare tell them if they simply nod to the fact of the cross and the tomb all is well. Don't tell them simply embracing those facts and making some kind of a decision or profession with reference to the facts is all that God requires. No. The God who made us and sent his son to die for us and raised him from the dead on behalf of sinners is the God who says to people, now turn from that state of rebellion that necessitated the death of my son. Turn from that sin which is the death of my son. Turn

45:12 from that sin which is the death of my son. Turn from that sin which is the death of my son. Which opened up his wounds and in repentance, which is unto life, fall down before him and plead his mercy. Let me ask you a very simple question. In the light of this passage, which is so clear, so simple, the outline of it very, very structured so we all can see it, am I authorized to preach a gospel that is silent about the cross? What would you think of me if you heard me and some other preachers pleading with God that the Holy Ghost, would bless with power the preaching of a gospel that was cross left? What would you think of such praying? You'd think it was presumption, wouldn't you? You're praying

45:58 for the Holy Ghost to bless the gospel that Christ ever authorized. What would you think if you heard a group of preachers praying, oh God bless the preaching of a gospel, but it was devoid of the message of the open tomb? You'd say that's presumption. All right, listen. It's no less presumption to pray for God's blessing upon a gospel that is true to the cross than to the tomb, but is silent about the nature and fruits and necessity of true biblical repentance. And why has most of the preaching of our generation been marked by the lack of Holy Ghost unction, by that grip of God? I'll tell you why. The Holy Spirit of truth cannot come upon a gospel that is a half-truth presented as a whole truth, is a whole untruth.

46:57 One of the shocking revelations to me, and I still reel and stagger from it every time I'm reminded of it inwardly, is apparently, beloved, we have lived in a day when preaching anointed of the Holy Ghost that brought men to realize when they heard preachers, God is here, God is speaking. They saw beyond the instrument. They heard something more than the voice of the preacher. This has been well-nigh unknown to our generation. And one of the reasons is that the Holy Spirit has come upon a gospel that is a half-truth presented upon a gospel that is a whole untruth presented as a whole truth. And one of the reasons is that the Holy Spirit has come upon a gospel that is a half-truth presented as a whole truth. And the Holy Spirit has come upon a gospel that is a whole untruth presented as a whole truth. The Holy Spirit of truth will not endue with power, a message which he's never authorized.

47:35 Do we want the gospel to be powerful through our witness in our community to our children, to our loved ones, and whatever other means God will open to us? Then it must not only be a gospel of the cross and of the tomb, but a gospel of repentance.

47:51 So I ask the question, is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel when it doesn't sound a clear note of repentance? When it doesn't tell us the truth? Tell men, unless they turn as well as trust, they will perish. But if they do not turn from the sin as dear as the right hand and the right eye, that they shall burn according to the word of Christ.

Paul's Ministry: Repentance Toward God and Faith Toward Christ (Acts 20 & 26)

48:15 To other scriptures, Acts chapter 20 and verse 21. And I hope every one of you will be familiar with these scriptures.

48:26 When I was preaching on the subject of repentance at the Biola Seminary last week, I had a young Indian student from, where are our Indians tonight? We don't have any of our Indians here with us tonight, from Kerala. Knows my good friend, Chandrapila. And he said that he was in a local church with a man with a couple of degrees, good evangelical church, and he asked him something along these lines.

48:52 How come I don't hear anything about repentance? And he looked at him and said, are you a Jew? He said, no, I'm an Indian. He said, repentance is for the Jews.

49:02 To the Gentiles is belief.

49:05 Is that so? Well, let's see how Paul thought about it. Look, Acts chapter 20 and verse 20 and 21. I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you.

49:17 Oh, to be able to say that. He didn't say I kept back nothing of what you wanted. He said I kept back nothing that was profitable. What determined the content of Paul's preaching is not what people wanted, but what they needed.

49:37 Oh, for grace to be that faith. But I showed you publicly. Taught you publicly. And from house to house, testifying, here's my message, both to the Jews and also to the Greeks.

49:49 They're the same kind of sinners, lost and under the same condemnation. They need the same Savior. And they'll get it in the same way. Testifying both to the Jews and to the Greeks, two great areas of truth.

50:05 Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And what did those two great notes of truth...

50:13 Truth comprised, listen, verse 24. But none of these things moved me, neither count I my life dear to myself, that I might finish my course with joy in the ministry which I received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. How do you testify of the grace of God? Tell people that in their sins, wedded to their lusts, walking in a course of rebellion, if they will but nod their heads to the fact...

50:43 Did Jesus die at all? No, not according to Paul. He said to testify the gospel of the grace of God is to proclaim God, proclaim Christ, proclaim the mercy of God in Christ, but then tell men that they must stack arms. There must be repentance toward God, a turning from the disposition of sin, of rebellion, of pride, of self-will, of self-glory, of self-righteousness.

51:13 And there must be... Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

51:16 Not accepting Jesus as personal Savior. Not simply believing in the fact of the incarnation or the crucifixion. But that whole soul commitment to the whole Christ. Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

51:33 He said that's the gospel of the grace of God. And the gospel that doesn't sound that note of repentance is not a gospel of the grace of God. It's a gospel of life. It's a gospel...

51:46 It encourages men to believe they can stick a pardon in their pocket and go tripping on their way to heaven doing as they please. Whereas the gospel of grace is a gospel that freely conferring pardon upon the sinner subdues the sinner and makes him a servant of Jesus Christ. And that's grace.

52:07 The law could never do it. All the law can do is show me my vileness and my wretchedness and show me that seething cauldron of rebellion against God. But when the grace...

52:19 of God is revealed it brings me to bow in subjection to the Lord Jesus as my sovereign and as my Savior. Last verse, Acts 26 and verse 20.

52:35 Here the Apostle Paul is reviewing his ministry of some three and a half years before the Ephesians. And he says...

52:44 I'm sorry, this was the Acts 20 passage. Acts 26 is before King Agrippa. And he says in this portion, verse 19, Whereupon old King Agrippa, I was not disobedient of their heavenly vision, but showed first unto them of Damascus and at Jerusalem and throughout all the coast of Judea and then to the Gentiles. This is what I preached, that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for, that is, answering to, consistent with, repent.

53:18 And then verse 21, I think, has more than a literary connection. For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me.

53:29 You see, when a man preaches, it's not enough to have a notion about Christ and a head full of facts, but that there must be a plowing up of the heart, a turning from sin, to use the definition of the shorter catechism, that repentance unto life, out of which a sinner, seeing himself as a sinner, turns with full purpose of an endeavor after a new obedience,

53:58 he'll stir up the venom in the hearts of men, as the apostle Paul did, and the Jews sought to kill him. Why? Because he refused to deceive them into thinking that religious privilege and religious knowledge were all that were necessary. He said there must be vital experience in the context of repentance.

54:19 See, that's what he insisted on.

Practical Implications for the Church

54:23 And so I ask the question tonight, is the contemporary gospel, the biblical gospel, when it fails to sound this clear note of repentance that Paul sounds, I leave you, Graham, to answer that question.

54:36 The two other questions I would have asked if I'd had time will have to leave for another time. But I hope that this study today has sharpened your understanding of the biblical gospel. You've seen the line on the wall in the new way, and that you'll evaluate everything by that line on the wall. Bring everything to that line on the wall.

54:58 And what does this mean to us practically now? It means that as a church, by the grace of God, we must stand together for the full-orbed biblical gospel and be willing to pay any price to bear witness to that gospel in our generation. For Jesus, for Paul said in Galatians chapter 1, the curse of God is upon those who bring any others up.

55:22 It means that we who are put in places of leadership must jealously guard each one who comes to a place of teaching responsibility in the church. Everyone who comes into this pulpit to preach, everyone whom we will stand behind, and support in the cause of missions at home and abroad. It means, beloved, we've got to take seriously this gospel and refuse to be involved with our efforts, our money, and our time with anything less than the biblical gospel. This gospel.

55:52 That's what it means. It means that when we give out tracts, we ought to seek to make sure that they're tracts that have the biblical gospel. When we pray and labor in the cause, we must seek to give the true product, communicate the biblical message. I hope that our study today has helped you in some measure to answer more clearly this question.

56:22 Is the contemporary gospel the biblical gospel? If it fails to build in the sound doctrine of God, if it fails to make proper use of the law of God, if it fails to sound a clarion call to repentance, I think I know what some of you may be saying. You say, Pastor, looks like we've missed a whole good bit in our day and age. We sure have.

56:49 And that's why we're in the mess we're in. It's just as foundational as this matter of what is the gospel. What is the gospel? And where liberalism has filled churches with a bloodless, tombless gospel, no cross, no open tomb, we've filled our churches with people that are strangers to repentance.

57:10 And their justice deceived, I think it's even worse deception. Even worse.

57:17 May God grant that our hearts may be so stirred that we shall determine anew by the grace of God that all our energies, our reputation, and everything else are going to be laid on the line. We're going to go for broke.

57:32 May God help us to go for broke that this generation will hear the biblical gospel. And that we might see just one day of what Whitfield saw for years when that gospel, under the power of the Holy Ghost, swept multitudes into the kingdom of God. To this end. Let us leave.

57:50 Let us pray.