My friends, I come to say that the Old Gospel of God’s Grace is opposed to this “new gospel” of part grace and part man. The Old Gospel, which is the true Gospel of God, safeguarded some values, which this “new gospel” loses. Will you hear me carefully now? The “new gospel” that we have today by a certain universal redemption and universal divine saving purpose compels itself to cheapen grace and to cheapen the cross of Christ, by denying that the Father and the Son are sovereign in salvation. This “new gospel” assures us that after God in Christ has done all that They can or will do, it depends finally on each man’s own choice whether God’s purpose to save him is realized or not.
Now my friends, this popular position has two unhappy results — this preaching that God has done His part and now He helplessly stands by while you decide whether or not his purpose shall be realized:
In the first place, this position compels us to misunderstand the significance of the gracious invitations of Christ in the Gospel. When we hear the invitations of these preachers who pervert the Gospel, they are not the expressions of the tender patience of a mighty Sovereign—they are the pathetic pleas of human desire. And so the enthroned Lord of glory under present-day preaching is suddenly changed into a weak, futile figure, knocking at the human heart which He is powerless to open. My friends, this is a shameful dishonor to the Sovereign Christ of the New Testament.
Read the rest of this entry »
“And she shall bring forth a Son, and though shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
Christ died to make men H-O-L-Y, holy, Salvation is in Christ; it’s in Him, not in what he did apart from Who He is. I believe the most damning fundamental preaching that is taking place in the southland today is the preaching that leads people to think they have an interest in the death of Christ, with being vitally joined together to Him in their daily walk. We’ve been preaching salvation through a representative that we never came into contact with. I want to lift a voice from time to time from the perfect life and glorious death and resurrection and present intercession of our Lord except as you are vitally and really and experientially and actually joined to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The limit of His salvation is found in Matthew 1:21;
“For He shall save His people from their sins.”
The only way on earth that the Lord Jesus Christ could become the Substitute and die instead of anybody else was to be vitally and spiritually and legally under the law of God, joined to that body that is His, and those people are His by the Divine decree of Almighty God. It is silly to talk about Christ dying in man’s stead, unless that person had been joined to the Lord positionally before there was even a star.
Read the rest of this entry »
In the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, we have a running controversy between the Lord Jesus Christ and the religious leaders of the Jewish people. After the marvelous miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, our Lord begins to teach the people who followed Him in great numbers at this time, and here his teaching was very offensive and became a stumbling stone to the leaders of the people of His day. This morning I want to take out of this sixth chapter of John a few things that my Lord taught that were offensive to people then — and also very offensive to people today.
As a text, let’s read John 6:59-61:
“These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in Capernaum. Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Does this offend you?”
Does this offend you? Everything my Lord Jesus did when He was here in this world offended somebody — and you know He is still offensive today. He is the rock of offense (Romans 9:33). For instance, His birth in a stable in Bethlehem was offensive. My, my, the Lord of Glory has no business being born in a cow stall! And that is offensive even today! Also, His common heritage offended men. He didn’t come from the high and mighty, and one person upon learning that Jesus was from the little province of Nazareth is quoted as saying, “Can any good thing come out of Galilee?” His death on the cross of Calvary was offensive then and it is offensive now (Galatians 5:11). His second coming is offensive to so many religious people. It was offensive then — and it is offensive today.
Read the rest of this entry »
