A Message About God and Sin

Introduction: The Seriousness of the Question

0:03 What we have been doing in these past weeks has been an outworking of the concern of Peter when he said in 2 Peter chapter 1, I think it neat, as long as I'm in this tabernacle, to stir up your minds by way of remembrance, though ye know these things and be established in them. And certainly, apart from perhaps some new insight to a given text or aspects of it, what we have been dealing with is not new. We are not going into new territory, but going back to those things which lie at the very heart and soul of true spiritual concern.

0:44 And I want to continue in that general perspective by directing your attention this morning to a question which we shall attempt to answer from the Word of God. And the question is simply this, what is the gospel?

1:02 What is the gospel? And as we address ourselves to this question, I wish to do so, first of all, by considering with you briefly the seriousness of the question. Secondly, the source of our answer to that question, and then for the bulk of our time, the substance of the biblical answer to the question. First of all, then, the seriousness of the question, what is the gospel?

1:33 In other words, why should you sit here this morning and seriously engage your mind and heart for some fifty minutes with this three-word question, or four-word, what is the gospel? Well, I would answer that question by directing your attention to Galatians chapter 1, where we have perhaps the clearest statement concerning the seriousness of the question before. But what is the gospel? Why is it important that I understand the biblical gospel?

2:12 Why is it of such personal concern that I embrace that gospel? Having embraced it, why should I be involved in its propagation, in its preservation, in its defense? Well, the apostles' words in Galatians chapter 1 are a very vigorous answer to all of those inquiries. Verse 6.

2:35 of chapter 1, I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel, which is not another gospel, only there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Notice how the whole concern of this paragraph is with the gospel. But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema, or accursed of God. As we have said before, so say I now again, if any man preacheth unto

3:15 you any gospel other than that which he received, let him be anathema. Now you see the seriousness of the question before us. What is the gospel? And the question is serious because the maintenance of the integrity of the gospel is a matter of life and death. And the apostle

3:39 Paul was stirred as he begins to deal with these Judaizers who were tampering with the gospel because the apostle thought in biblical categories, and one of the fundamental categories of biblical thought is this, that what you believe is the difference between life and death. In other words, contrary to the mentality in our day, it is not the sincerity of your belief that is the difference between life and death. It is the object of your belief.

4:17 To believe the truth is to be saved. To believe a lie ever so sincerely is to be damned. And this is why the apostle says in his second letter to the church of the Thessalonians, chapter 2 and verses. Verse 9 to 12, that God will send to man a spirit of error that they may be damned who believe a lie. The lie may be spoken in the very language of some of the gospel thought

4:50 forms. The terms forgiveness and pardon and God and Christ may be profusely used, but if there has been a tampering with what God means in those words, and a tampering with tampering with the proportion that God gives to those words and their meaning, we may believe that tampered gospel ever so sincerely only to be damned by our sincere belief. And so the seriousness of the question is proportionate to the issues of heaven and hell, of life and of death.

5:29 And if we embrace and believe a wrong gospel, we shall do so to our own destruction. And so everyone gathered in this building this morning ought to be deeply concerned with the question before us, what is the gospel, if for no higher reason than your own salvation. For again, according to the apostle in Romans 1.16, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

5:58 And there is no possession of God's salvation apart from the gospel that God himself has given. And so you ought to be concerned with the question because of your own safety. But furthermore, you ought to be concerned if having embraced the gospel, you are accurately conveying that gospel to others. For one of the great privileges and responsibilities of every believer is that according to his gifts and status, station and opportunities in life, he is to be an evangelist.

6:33 He is to proclaim the message of God's salvation in Jesus Christ. And then of course for the life and well-being of the church. Unless the integrity of the gospel is preserved, true godly living cannot be long maintained. For the only soil out of which true godliness grows or in which it grows is the soil of a pure gospel.

7:01 And therefore one of the great concerns of the apostle is to explain the nature of the gospel to those who already have embraced it that he might advance the cause of holiness and godliness amongst the people of God. The book of Romans is a classic example of this. A systematic explanation of the gospel to those who have already embraced it. That understanding it there might be the promotion of the gospel.

7:27 of holiness of life and then if we can to the now generation even talk in these terms we ought to understand what the gospel is in the interest of the safety and well-being of unborn generations there was a time when our forefathers fought long and hard of the legacy they would leave to future generations we're the now generation economically politically and in every realm the one concern is my desires fulfilled now if i have to tear down the structures erected by my

8:06 forefathers in their godly foresight tear them down if i have to leave nothing for unborn generations too bad i'm part of the now generation and one of the crowning sins of our Our generation is its irresponsible contemporaneity, concerned with the now. And there's a sense in which they say, I don't care about the past, I have no concern for the future. And may God help us as confessed disciples of Christ to be delivered from that.

8:42 For the scripture speaks again and again of generations and the responsibility of the godly to the unborn generations. Therefore, I hope every one of you is convinced that the question is not an academic one. It is as personal, it is as burning as the issue of your own salvation. The witness of the church to this generation and the legacy that we leave to unborn generations.

9:12 So much for the... So much for the seriousness of the question.

The Source of Our Answer: The Word of God

9:14 Now, secondly, what will be the source of our answer to that question, what is the gospel? The best text I know to use in saying what will be our source book for the answer is Isaiah 8 in verse 20. To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. To the law, to the testimony, that is to the...

9:43 The scripture-aided revelation of God's mind, found in the Old and the New Testaments, here and here alone. Do we have that inflexible, that eternal, that unchangeable source book to answer the question, what is the gospel? And there is nothing in human experience that is light to it. I used to use the illustration of physical measurements, that someone may claim something is six feet long and all of their protestations, The protestations and the bringing in the philosophers and the rest cannot change it.

10:15 But you see, men could get together and agree that a foot shall now be called a yard, and the yard shall be called a foot, and live thereby. So that a foot is no longer a foot, the yard is no longer a yard. But you see, there will never be a council of men who can change what God has said concerning what is the gospel. And because God is not man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent, he will never change the standard of measurement.

10:43 Therefore, when we come to the scriptures, we come to that which the psalmist celebrates and says, Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Or in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall never pass away. That's why the apostle Paul is confident that no angel or no subsequent apostle will ever be sent by God to change the gospel that has already been delivered. So he says in that passage in Galatians, If you wake up some morning, and you hear the fluttering of angels' wings, and your room is filled with blazing light,

11:25 and you're convinced that this is a supernatural manifestation, that angel begins to open his mouth and say, Thus saith the Lord God of heaven and earth. And he speaks with a voice that sends shivers down your spine because of its...

11:39 unique and awesome authority and power. And he says the gospel preached by apostles and prophets is now to be altered. Paul says, tell that devil to go back, that angel to go back to the pit from whence he came. The curse of God is upon him.

11:57 And if there comes a man who seems to have the credentials of an apostle, who seems to speak with apostolic authority, who can even perform signs and wonders, he tampers with the gospel, he's under the curse of God. So you see, the source for our answer is the changeless, the timeless, the word of the living God. Now someone says, but Pastor Martin, why spend the whole message dealing with this? Doesn't 1 Corinthians 15, 1 to 3 tell us what the gospel is?

Beyond Simplistic Definitions

12:31 And I've heard so many simplistic approaches to this question by someone glibly quoting 1 Corinthians 15, 1, to 3. Listen, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 to 3 is not a comprehensive statement of the apostolic gospel. It is an underscoring of certain facets of the gospel that were being attacked there in the Corinthian church. And so the apostle is underscoring the factuality of the death and the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ as an integral part of the gospel.

13:07 But elsewhere he intimates that, those facts, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, was buried, rose again the third day according to the scriptures, is not a comprehensive statement of the gospel. And let me give you just a couple of examples to convince you. He says in Romans 2 and verse 16, In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men's hearts according to my gospel. He says the preaching of future judgment, a judgment in which the thoughts of men's hearts will be disclosed, is a part of his gospel.

13:49 Again, in 1 Timothy 1 and verse 11, he intimates that there is another strand of truth that is part and parcel of the apostolic gospel. Having mentioned the proper function of the law, he concludes by saying, According to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. What he's been doing is saying there is a proper function of the law which is to be understood in relationship to the apostolic gospel. So you see a comprehensive understanding of the question, what is the gospel, must go beyond.

14:31 It must never leave, nor abandon, but must go beyond and include more than the mere statement, Christ died, Christ was birthed, and Christ was risen. When we come then to the gospels, the book of the Acts and the epistles, and we seek to boil down all of the data that is here to come up with those things that form the irreducible elements of the gospel, what do we have? And at this point, I'm not at all embarrassed to say that I believe nowhere has that distilled essence been more succinctly and accurately stated than, in Dr. Packer's little book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, in which he addresses

The Substance of the Gospel: A Bridal Party Analogy

15:15 himself in, I believe, the second or third chapter to the question, what is the gospel? And his answer is that the gospel is a message about God, about sin, about Christ, and about repentance and faith. And I believe his outline is accurate, and without embarrassment, I shall use it this morning, putting on the flesh, I trust, of my own independent contribution. Think of it this way.

15:43 The proclamation of the facts concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ are like the bride and the bridegroom in a bridal party.

15:56 Who Christ is, is the bride or the bridegroom. What he has done is the other part of the couple. The person and work of Christ. Or the bride and the bridegroom in the bridal party.

16:11 But they are not the whole bridal party. There is the best man, and there is the maid or the matron of honor, and sometimes a bridesmaid or two. Now, when we ask the question, and I guess I think in bridal categories because of the events of the summer months here at Trinity, we had 14 of them last year, and now we're up to, I think, seven, with one to go and possibly another one that I'm not free to disclose at this point. Since the engagement has not been efficient.

16:38 It's been officially announced. I usually am the little bird that gets in on these things first. But anyway, thinking in terms of these categories, here is the bridal party. Now, central in the bridal party ought to be the bride and the groom.

16:53 It's legitimate. It's their day. They are the central figures, but they are not the exclusive figures. There is the best man, there is the maid or matron of honor, there are the bridesmaids and sometimes the ushers.

17:06 Now, when we address ourselves to the question. the gospel. Think of it in terms of the bridal party. The substance of that answer is that central is what the gospel says concerning Jesus Christ and his person and work. But

17:23 it is not the gospel unless the person and work of Jesus Christ are flanked on the one hand with what the gospel says about God, and on the other hand what it says concerning sin, repentance, and faith. A mere proclamation of Jesus Christ in his person and work without these attendants is a defective, if not an erroneous, proclamation of the gospel. So think of the bridal party as we come now to the substance of the biblical answer, what is the gospel? Having seen the seriousness of the question,

Element 1: A Message About God

18:07 the question, the question of the gospel, the question of the gospel, the question of the gospel, the question of the gospel, the question of the gospel, the question of the source of our answer, now the substance of the answer itself. And first of all, the gospel is a message about God. Think with me. What are the distinct blessings held forth in the gospel? Are the blessings of the gospel big bank account, luxury cars, long and affluent

18:36 retirement? You say, of course not. What are the distinct blessings of the gospel? Blessings that nothing else can hold forth. Is it peace, joy, happiness, fulfillment? Well, some would

18:50 say yes, but they're wrong when they say those are the distinct blessings of the gospel. The distinct blessings of the gospel are forgiveness of sin, peace with God, acceptance before the Almighty. The assurance of eternal life. The pardon of all our sins. If you've read the Bible

19:19 even half asleep, only a few times, certainly you would agree that these are the distinct blessings held forth by the gospel. Now think of them for a moment. You can talk about full bank accounts and about affluent living and luxury cars without any reference to the gospel. There's no reference to God, to guilt, to His law. But the moment you start talking

19:45 about forgiveness, pardon, justification, sanctification, adoption, you see, you're talking about things which have their starting reference point in the living God of holy scripture. Sin is an offense against God. Forgiveness is the pronouncement of that God, that our sins are no longer reckoned to our account. Justification is the declaration of that God that we're accepted before His tribunal as perfectly righteous as having obeyed His holy law.

20:30 Adoption is being brought into the family of that God and given the legal status of sons and daughters. So you see, unless the gospel starts with God, all of its distinct blessings cannot be appreciated. When forgiveness merely has reference to me getting rid of this carking pressure of guilt upon my back somehow, somewhere, in some way, that's not the gospel. There are people who get rid of their psychological guilt feelings every day who don't have a clue of what the gospel is.

21:10 And there are multitudes, having some kind of a religious experience that has something of Jesus and the cross and the blood who have nothing more than the person gets when in his group therapy he spills out his guts and feels better.

21:31 Because God has not been the starting reference point. They have never seen that their sin is moral offense against the God who made them. They have not seen that their sin brings the world to a place of peace. They have not seen that their sin brings the world to a place of peace.

21:45 They have not seen that their sin brings the world to a place of peace. They have not seen that their sin brings the world to a place of peace. under the holy wrath and anger of the God of the universe. They have never seen that Jesus Christ's death is to be understood in terms of God the Father bruising God the Son.

22:01 And so the gospel must of necessity begin with a message about God. And certainly the classic example of a gospel preacher who understood this is the Apostle Paul himself And in the 17th chapter of the book of the Acts, standing as a gospel preacher in a pagan society that knew nothing of the true God, longing to see these people brought to the knowledge of Christ, liberated from the ignorance and the bondage of paganism.

22:38 For this is all there in the text. His heart is stirred within him. He sees the city given over to idolatry. He longs to see them through Christ come into the knowledge of the living God. Where does he start?

22:54 Before he moves to the bride and the bridegroom, he starts with the best man. Before he moves to the bride and the bridegroom, the person and work of Christ, he starts with a message about God. And he says in verse 27,

23:10 And he says in verse 27, Having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitations, that they should seek God, if happily they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

23:52 What is he doing? Some have said that, well, Paul sinned. In a moment of weakness, he tried to conquer Athens with Athens. He tried to go after pagan philosophy with mere human or even Christian philosophy.

24:12 And so Paul erred. And somehow between here and his visit to Corinth, he came to his senses, repented of his sin, and when he came to Corinth, all he did was say, Jesus loves you, believe on me. That's the understanding. Well, nothing could be further from the truth.

24:28 Paul despaired of human philosophy from the moment of his conversion. When he had a revelation of Jesus Christ and saw in him the glory of God, he was done with human philosophy. He was done with human wisdom. Done with carnal resting places. Philippians 3 is the eloquent testimony of it. What is he doing? He is simply preaching the gospel.

24:57 And he is starting with the best man. He's saying, I long to put the spotlight on the bride and the bridegroom. That is the person and work of Christ. But you people have no knowledge of who God is. That you are made by him. You are a cow of God.

25:15 Accountable to him, he is the determiner of the destinies of man and of nations. Look at it. He preaches biblical determinism, biblical predestination to pagans. And some of you who claim to be Christians take offense when we preach it.

25:29 Shaman. He says in verse 26, he made of one every nation, having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitations. He preaches general predestination to a bunch of pagans. He does.

25:46 Because he says the God with whom you have to do is the God who has a plan for his world. You're not running the show. The great of the earth are not running the show. Caesar and the other potentates don't run the show.

25:59 God who made his world is Lord of that world. Isn't that what he says? He that made heaven and earth, he is Lord of that heaven and earth. Imagine, preaching this to pagans, when they take some of us to call to try judiciousness, lead to preach it to Christians, and it's called strong meat.

26:20 Isn't that amazing? But that's what he preached. Now, don't argue with me. It's there in the book.

26:25 This is what he preached to them. And you see, he did so for one great reason. When he comes to what is apparently an abrupt conclusion because of the response, he is introducing the subject of judgment and accountability. And so we read in verses 30 and 31, he commands all men everywhere to repent because he's appointed a day in which he'll judge the world in righteousness.

26:55 Now, if a man begins to take those facts seriously, God has made heaven and earth. God has made me. He's Lord of heaven and earth. He's judge of the world.

27:07 I'm in his hands for good or for ill. I've been the creature who having received life from him, has my life. I've sustained by him. In him I live and move and have my being.

27:22 What a crime that I've lived ignorant of his laws, indifferent to his fellowship, unconcerned about his glory, utterly bereft of any desire to know and to give myself to the very purpose for which I was made. What a creature am I! At least the worm fulfills the function for which God made it. At least the beast and the birds fulfill their function.

27:49 I was made to know this God, to have communion with him. He is not far from us. We were made in his image. Yet I've lived so ignorant of him that I raise my statue to the unknown God and stick it along with all the others.

28:07 Now, when some of those Athenians begin to take that seriously, it's no wonder that we read in the following verses, look now, Acts chapter 17 and verse 32. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Others said, We will hear thee again concerning this matter. Thus Paul went out from among them, but certain men clave unto him and believe.

28:36 They said, Paul, this is serious business. Almighty God has made us. And all we've done is erect a little altar and say to the unknown God. And once in a while we throw him a chicken's head and we smumble a few prayers.

28:49 What a sin! What a crime! Paul, Paul, tell us more! Tell us more about this God.

28:54 Is he all might and all power and all holiness and all righteousness? Is there some other facet of his character? And Paul can say, yes, he is infinite love. And he so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish but have everlasting life.

29:15 And cleaving to Paul they hear about the bride and the bridegroom. They took so seriously what the best man said. They said, we've got to find out about the bride and the bridegroom.

29:28 I say to every person in this room who cannot answer an honest yes to that question, my dear friend, I preach to you as Paul did. The living God. He made you. He governs you.

29:43 He will judge you. You're accountable to him. And in reality, nothing else here on earth really matters. What about you, dear child of God?

29:57 You? You can say, yes, I have taken seriously what the Scripture says about God. And I have, by the grace of God, been led, as these Athenians were, to the heart of the gospel and embraced it. Oh, my dear Christian friend, I plead with you.

30:15 Do not succumb to all the pressures that are upon us to trim down the gospel, to do away with the painful and often tedious task in personal witnessing, of seeking to acquaint men with whom God is. To acquaint them with whom, yes, to acquaint them with the living God and tell them who he is. The pressures are on us constantly to deviate from the method of the apostle in gospel ministry. And I say to you young men preparing for the work of the ministry, don't give up the gospel under the guise of wanting to be jealous for the gospel.

30:58 I've heard people say, no, no, no, I don't want to preach about God, creator, judge, sustainer, ruler. I'm just so in love with Jesus. I just want to tell people about Jesus. My friend, if you give up biblical theism, you give up the heart of the gospel.

31:16 You'll give up true worship. You'll give up true godliness.

31:21 Well, I must hurry on.

Element 2: A Message About Sin

31:24 The gospel is not only a message about God. It is, in the second place, a message about sin. It is a message. About sin.

31:36 Now, how do we know this? Well, for the simple reason that Jesus Christ came to deal with the problem of human sin. Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21. Perhaps the most succinct statement in all of scripture concerning the purpose for which a virgin's womb became the mysterious dwelling place of God himself.

32:04 Great is the mystery. The mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. And that manifestation began in the enfleshment of the eternal word in the virgin womb of a young peasant maiden called Mary.

32:24 And upon that conception, the announcement is given by the angel in Matthew 1.21. And she shall bring forth a son. And thou shalt call his name Jesus.

32:37 Jesus. Jesus. For his name will be a distillation of the whole compass of his mission. His name is the index of his work.

32:50 Thou shalt call his name Jesus. Which means Jehovah our salvation. For he shall say. Not he will attempt.

33:04 He will try. He will possibly. He is Jesus, mighty Savior, who shall save. No question about it, Mary.

33:18 When you're in the throes of your birth pangs, Mary, never forget you're bringing forth a conqueror. He saved.

33:31 And whom shall he save? His people. His people. Mary, before you bring him forth, he has a people.

33:41 He is the eternal word, who in the counsels of eternity with the Father and the Spirit committed himself to be the surety of a people. A people that he sees in his own mind, has upon his own heart and mystery of mysteries, to whom he is joined in covenant fidelity long before the world was born. Mary, he has a people. And as the mighty deliverer, he shall save his people.

34:19 And what will be the sphere of that salvation? Not their hang-ups. Not their frustrations. Not their economic necessities.

34:35 Though all of those things have some secondary reference as the fruit of the real thing from which he saves us. But Mary, he is coming. He is coming forth to save his people, not in, but from. The force of that Greek preposition is like an arrow pointing in this direction from this.

34:59 He shall save them from, away from, out of the direction of their sins, their moral guilt, their bondage, their pollution, their servitude to the flesh and to the dead. How, then, can we preach the gospel of Christ and not understand that an essential ingredient of that gospel is the message about sin? For in direct proportion of our understanding of the malady will be our appreciation of the remedy. In direct proportion.

35:42 Jesus said, to whom little is forgiven, the same what? Loveth. To whom much is forgiven, the same? Loveth.

35:51 Loveth. Much. Do you remember the words of our Lord himself? Here is that mighty deliverer in the midst of his own nation, his own countrymen after the flesh, and all they see is a young upstart rabbi who is rocking the ecclesiastical boat.

36:09 And our Lord turns to them and says, look, you people upset because of the company I keep. You find me hobnobbing with the outcast of society, the harlots, the scribes, the publicans, and they turn to him and say, go and learn what this means. Understand what God was trying to tell you there in the Old Testament, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. He said, go and understand what your prophets were telling you, that Almighty God delights in the conferral of mercy to sinners.

36:46 And that is never conferred unless men see themselves as sinners in need of that mercy. Amen. All you are is a bunch of people that are pretty good and acceptable. And if you'll just do your religious duties, everything's all right.

37:00 So you go on with your sacrifices. You go on with all your religious tappings. But when the real heart of what your religion is all about is being enacted before your eyes, you react against it. To learn what that means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice for.

37:17 I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. He says, that's my mission. To call sinners, those who see themselves as sinners, those who know themselves to be sinners, those who feel themselves to be sinners, and to call them out of their sins into a life of faith and obedience in myself. The gospel, then, is a message about sin.

37:46 It asserts the ugly reality of man's estrangement from God. It doesn't simply use the word sin and explain. It explains the nature of sin. Isn't that the book of Romans?

38:00 Paul's theme in Romans is what? It's the gospel. He announces it in verse 60. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

38:07 It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And now as he starts to expound his gospel, where does he start? Verse 18 of chapter 1, all the way through the end of chapter 1, all of chapter 2, all of chapter 3 to verse 20, is nothing but an exposition of the universal reality, the reality of sin, the specific manifestations of sin, and the demands of sin. It demands judgment from God, or the provision of an adequate substitute.

38:40 And then he says in verse 21, But now a righteousness apart from the law hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. And he begins to expound about the bride and the bride. For two and a half chapters he has the attention, the focus upon the best man, the message about sin.

39:03 Having seen what they are, they may desperately feel and appreciate what they can become in union with Jesus Christ. May I press the question upon your conscience this morning. Have you ever heard and received into your heart of hearts the message of the gospel about sin? About your sin?

39:28 The fact that you are sinning. The fact that you are sinning. The fact that you are sinning. The fact that you are sinning.

39:30 The fact that you are sinning. Is your failure to keep God's holy law in thought, word, and deed. From the moment you had any being, every transgression, every stepping over that law, in thought, word, or deed, every bit of failure to live up to the standard of that law is criminal offense against the God of heaven. For the scripture says sin is transgression of the law.

39:58 And again the scripture says, for Bible, the law cometh the knowledge of sin. And again, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sin. Have you seen your sin in the reality of its legal relationship to almighty God? Have you seen your sin in terms of its polluting effect upon your heart and life?

40:23 Not only your objective guilt, I have done wrongly, but your inward pollution, I am, I am bad. And Jesus said, for from within out of the heart of man proceed, and he describes every form of sin. My friend, the gospel is not good news until we've heard the bad news.

40:47 And the bad news is we're undone. To use just the language of Romans 5, we are sinners. We are ungodly. We are without strength.

40:58 We are enemies. Those are just four words used in the compass of a few verses, in one chapter. Can you take them to yourself and say, Oh God, it's true. By nature I was ungodly.

41:14 Oh, I may not have been, like some people, disrespectful to human authority. It says ungodly. That is unlike God. I was not reflecting His image, and that's the worst thing of sin.

41:30 It renders us ungodly. You say in your heart of hearts, Oh God, I was your enemy. Indisposed to obey your law. Indisposed to honor your Son.

41:43 Can you say with no tongue in cheek, with nothing sticking in your throat as you say it, I was without strength. No power to blot out my sins. No power to change my own heart. I was, again the fourth word, just a plain old sinner.

42:05 No pretty adjectives, to extenuate the guilt. No pretty flowery words, do in any way, in shape or form, tone down, tear away, the plight in which I found myself. My friend, can you say from the heart, I know I'm a sinner. No man can say in truth from the heart, I know I'm a Christian, before he can say, I know I'm a sinner.

42:38 And the Gospel is a message about sin. It tells men just how bad they are. It doesn't overstate the case. It doesn't say that every man is as bad as he could be.

42:52 Every man is as wicked in intensity as he could be. No, no. It dares to assert that the most moral, the most upright, the most kind, the most gentle, the most beneficent of men, who may be a blessing to his community, and an honor to his society, is nonetheless a rebel against God. And exposed to the wrath of God, liable to the judgment of God.

43:20 Can you say that with no tongue in cheek? Can you own your sinnerhood? My friend, if you cannot, I declare the Gospel to you this morning. And I say that you are precisely what the Word of God declares you to be.

43:34 You are ungodly. You're offended at that. If I were ungodly, why would I be here? Ah, my friend, that may simply be on the one hand, a wonderful indication, an indication that God in the overtures of mercy has put you here that you might know what you are.

43:51 Maybe for years you've been in a church that flattered you and told you you weren't ungodly, you just had a religious elbow out of joint, and if you come to church, you get it back in joint, and everything's all right. You've just got a little myopia in your spiritual vision, and get the glasses of going to church, and being sweet, and keeping the golden rule, and you'll have twenty-twenty vision. You see, your presence here, may not so much be an indication you're godly, as that Almighty God in mercy has brought you here in His sovereignty to show you that you're ungodly. My friend, don't look at yourself through the clouded glasses

44:34 and through the dim vision of your own natural sight. Look at yourself in the mirror of the Word of God, and Almighty God declares you to be so undone, so helpless, so guilty, so much in bondage, that nothing less than God Himself coming to the enfleshment of the incarnate Word, living upon this life, in this earth, in this life, a sinless life, going to an accursed death upon the cross,

45:16 feeling the full weight of the Father's wrath and anger, the bruising of His own head and the wrong and righteous judgment. Nothing less than that could answer to your need. Now you see, there is again this direct proportion between an appreciation of the glory of Christ and something of the reality of human sin. If all I have as my problem is that I've got a few joints that need to be reset by being nice and religious and learning a few things about God and the Bible, why, my friend, must the Son of God become man?

45:59 If the problem of human sin is I've just done a few bad things and if I say the words to something up there called God, I'm sorry, then He's beneficent and kind and lovely and it'll all be taken care of. Why, my friend, must there be the agony of Calvary? If your sin and my sin is not what the Bible says it is, then Calvary becomes the biggest mockery that ever occurred on the face of God's earth. The Incarnation is utterly meaningless.

46:38 But they are not meaningless. Bless God. Though our state was such that none but a divine human Savior could answer to the need, God provided such a Savior. Though our condition was such that nothing but the bruising of the spotless Son could ever provide a just basis for our acceptance, that is precisely what God did to please the Lord to please Him.

Element 3: A Message About Christ (Preview)

47:04 My friend, when the Gospel ceases to be a message about sin, it ceases to have any meaning when it tries to maintain its message about Jesus Christ. But then the Gospel is, and I see time has gone from me, and Roger asked me if this would just be one message. I am assured him it was, but he knows better than I how those promises sometimes fall to the ground. Let me just give you a distillation of what we'll cover, Lord willing, in the next message next Sunday morning, because I do want to put some attention upon the bride and the bridegroom.

47:45 I already have. But the message of the Gospel is not only a message about God and about sin. If that's all it were, then my friends, having to be a Gospel preacher would be the most bitter task in all the world. Simply to tell people God is Creator and God is Holy and man is sinner and is condemned.

48:09 What an awful task. But thank God, standing at the center of the bridal party is the message about the Lord Jesus Christ in His person and in His work. And the Gospel is an announcement of who He is and of what He has done to meet the need of guilty, helpless sinners. And that's what turns the Gospel and its elements of bad news into the most glorious good news in all the world.

48:42 It is no Gospel to come to sinners who know something of who God is. Who know something of what they are and then tell them there is something you must do to make yourself acceptable to that God. That is not good news. The good news is this, that though you've revolted against that God and He could, with every fiber of His own holy and just character fully intact, He could judge you and me and cut us off for eternity, that God in sovereign, free, uncoerced love has moved out to sinful men and has given to sinners

49:26 a Savior such as our Lord Jesus Christ. And He has sent Him. He bruised Him. He raised Him.

49:34 He exalted Him. He has seated Him at His own right hand. And the good news of the Gospel is that every single sinner seeing himself to be what he is in reality, God's creature, who has sinned against God, incurred guilt, condemnation, and come into bondage, every such sinner embracing himself to be what God says he is, is warranted to cast himself upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And on the basis of who Christ is and what He has done, plus nothing, all of the guilt is removed.

50:17 That would be a Gospel enough to preach, but God goes beyond it and says a positive righteousness is imputed. Not only does He declare you not guilty, He declares you innocent, in union with His Son, and the righteousness that is Christ becomes ours as we are in Him. And there is no condemnation. And by the power and virtue of the living Christ, not only do we become the benefactors of what we would call the legal aspects of salvation, guilt removed, declared righteous, but the virtue of a living Christ actually comes to indwell us.

51:02 And by the Spirit we are made new creatures with new desires, new appetites, new loves, new hates, new aspirations, new perspectives. We become, in the word of the Apostle, new creatures in Christ Jesus. The old passes, the new comes. Oh, my friends, that's a wonderful Gospel to preach.

Element 4: Repentance and Faith (Preview)

51:24 There are times one wonders, if I may say it without being reverent, if God really seriously considered the treasure in which He put that Gospel. It's almost more than the mortal mind in praying at times can bear. The very thought of it, that this great Gospel that God should so love sinners as to make such and freely confer all of those benefits upon those who, and that's the bridesmaid or the maid of honor, repent and believe the Gospel. It's a message about repentance and faith.

52:03 And these are not works I perform for what is faith but the empty hand that lays hold of God's provision. And repentance is simply the acknowledgment, profoundly the acknowledgment, that without one pinky holding to the world and the flesh and the devil, I do desire that salvation and that Savior as He is offered. To save me from my sins. Not to save me so that I can continue in my sins with no fear of judgment.

52:38 Not to save me from hell to come while I continue to live in the living hell of my rebellion against God. Now! No, no. Repentance is the acknowledgment of my desire to be saved from my sins by His free grace and His mercy.

52:59 The Lord willing will attempt to open up those last two elements of the Gospel next week as God spares us. But, oh, again, how wonderful to preach. You need not wait till next week to know the Gospel is the power of God into salvation. You've heard enough of the good news this morning to warrant your laying hold of the offered Savior.

The Enduring Preciousness of the Gospel

53:20 And, oh, dear children of God, those of you who frequent this place of worship, you haven't learned one new thing this morning. I doubt it. Maybe you've heard things stated a little differently. Have you grown weary with it?

53:32 Have you sat there this morning and sighed a little bit and said, oh, when's He going to get back in Ephesians and give us some profound exit? My friend, listen. That's the Spirit that is mother to a relinquishment of the Gospel. When these essential, rude elements cease to be precious and strike a note of joyous response and are no longer the things for which you die, you've already, in principle, given them up and it'll only be a matter of time before they're gone.

54:03 Whole denominations, preachers and movements that once proclaimed this message no longer do. And it began when some who believed it and even experienced it ceased to be thrilled by it and be willing to pay a price to propagate it, to preserve it and to defend it. So may God renew our love for the biblical Gospel, renew our commitment to that Gospel, renew in us the sanctifying power of that Gospel. It takes present influences of the Holy Spirit to give us present enjoyment of the most elementary truths.

54:44 Never forget that. Truths that once burned when the Spirit made them real and are now settled and lodged in the categories of memory need as much the present influence of the Spirit not to give us the understanding that's there and settled, but to give us a living appreciation of that truth. Therefore is only the Spirit constantly present, constantly operative in the hearts of the people of God that can preserve the integrity of the Gospel. You can't preserve the Gospel by embalming it in printer's ink

55:28 in a confession of faith. We need our confessions, we have them, to let people know what we understand the Gospel to be. But there's only one thing that'll preserve the Gospel in the heart of a Christian, in the heart of a congregation. You know what it is?

55:42 A present ministry of the Spirit making the Gospel precious! And when that goes, it's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time before everything else does. Is it precious to you this morning?

55:54 Do you long to go out and if there are no people outside, grab the nearest tree and speak this blessed message? Do you long to gather your children about the table and in family worship do you tell them this message? I pity the parent who's not an evangelist to his own children. All not rubbing their consciences raw every time at the table, are you saved?

56:16 Are you saved? No, no, that's stupidity or at best misguided zeal. But oh, when the text that you're dealing with, when the passage you're reading, when the Bible story you're expounding leads naturally, do you love to preach the Gospel to your children? Do you love to proclaim that message to the man at the shop when you're having your sandwich together and the opportunity arises and you're not boorish and coarse and unkind?

56:47 You're gentle, wise as a serpent, harmless as a duck, always as it were laying down back with holy scheming, even when you're talking about the weather and the mist, you're all the time scheming and trying to engineer the conversation and then when the Lord opens it up, does your heart leap within you when you have an opportunity to tell the Gospel? Oh, dear people of God, pray that if the Gospel is ceased to be precious, the Lord will give you a new love for it. And if you're here as one who's never heard the Biblical Gospel, you've heard it this morning, and Almighty God who has sent it by His Word through His servant, now says, believe and be saved. Amen.

Concluding Prayer and Benediction

57:31 Let us pray. O Lord, how we thank You for that message of good news. And though our hearts are humbled at the bad news, the announcement of our sin, the recognition of Your holiness, how we thank You that You so loved as to give Your only begotten Son, and we thank You for Him who is not a potential Savior, if we will do this or that, but He is the Savior, the mighty Deliverer, who shall indeed and with certainty save His people

58:16 from their sins. Many of us here in this place this morning have reason to believe we are Your people because we are being saved from our sins. O Lord, bring others to that blessed discovery, as this day they repent and believe the Gospel. And then we pray, give to us as a church a new love for the Gospel.

58:41 Oh, may this never become old hat to us. May this never become that which causes us to yawn. But, O Lord, keep us in that freshness of our love to the Savior, our love to that message which You've ordained to be the power of God unto salvation. We pray for the many young men upon whom Your hand is resting for the work of the ministry.

59:08 Lord, give them a new love for the Gospel, a new understanding of how to preach it, and then all of the grace they'll need to preach the full-orbed, apostolic Gospel in a day when that Gospel is despised, watered down, denied, ignored. O God, give to our own, needy generation an army of mighty Gospel preachers. Hear us, Lord, in this our prayer, and dismiss us with Your blessing and benediction resting upon us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.