My recreational reading lately has included material on the history of Baptists in Kentucky. Included in these books have been dozens of short biographies of the earliest missionaries to the area. Despite the fact that God used them for His glory, many were as different as apple trees and bull pines. For example, some of them were well-educated, while others were completely illiterate. From some, their sermons were logical and deliberate, while others were simple but emotional. Friday, I read the statement of a woman who was so impressed by the depth of a sermon she heard, she praised God for the Lord’s is ability to save even lawyers.
I don’t know that I want the style of my preaching to be put into any kind of box. And I am not sure that preaching “the whole counsel of God” permits just one style of delivery. Personally, I prefer textual and expository preaching, exposing the meaning of a few verses at a time. But that is not the ONLY way to present God’s Word. I feel responsible to feed the older saints of God, but also to be simple enough for the child. This can’t usually be done in the same message, so again, variety in messages is required.
The outline for this morning’s message has been laying in my notes for decades. Undoubtedly, I heard someone preach it, and I jotted it down. I’ve made it my own message, but perhaps you’ve heard someone else preach the same basic outline much better than you’ll hear today. That’s fine; it doesn’t embarrass me in the least.
Many churches after the Revolutionary War were blessed to have a preacher visit them only once a month or once in six weeks. As a result, I would guess the theme heard over and over was salvation through God’s sovereign grace. I believe that should still be the primary theme of God’s churches today. It should be our theme. Our orders are – “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Our responsibility is to “open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light.” John’s message to the world was “Repent and behold – behold the Lamb of God.” Isaiah preached the message of the Lord – “Look unto me and be ye saved.” Ezekiel urged “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Paul wrote – “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
The Glory of Jesus Christ and His gospel are our purpose for existing as a church. The moment we degenerate into morality lectures, we become as powerless Episcopalians. If without declaring blood Christ, we just retell Biblical history, we might as well reading Shakespear. Our task is to “daily in the temple and in every house, to cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”
And why? Is it simply because we have the command of God? No, because the commands of God by themselves tend to make people Pharisees and hypocrites. Why must we preach the gospel of Christ? Because of the Grace of Christ. Freely have we received, so freely must we give. Out of our bellies flow the rivers of living water of God’s wondrous grace. We are debtors because of grace – debtors both to the Jews and also to the Greeks. We must remember that God has “no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.” And that dying man or woman has no escape – except through Christ. “The wages of sin is their death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Why must we urge the lost to come to Christ? Because each and every person needs those things which flow from the Lord’s saving grace.
For example: they need to have the record of their sins LIQUIDATED.
Every once in a while in the paper or on a sign in a widow, we will read the words: “Liquidation sale.” The meaning is: the owner is going out business, and he is trying to liquidate what stock is left. If he used to sell furniture, the is now trying to turn chairs and tables into cash. But the dictionary defines “liquidation” in a somewhat more specific way. “Liquidation is to settle a debt by agreement or legal process. To clear up the affairs of a bankrupt; to covert to cash; to pay a debt.” That is precisely what God’s grace in salvation accomplishes.
Just for fun, when I published that book on “Bible Trivia” last March, I bought a 4 column ledger book. I wanted to keep track of my expenses and income from the sale of that book. My ledger tells me that with what has been sold and what I have spent, that book has cost me $97.80. On page 2 of the ledger, I have a record of the “John 17” book, and on page 3 “Jesus Wept.” Now with the 4th book, I am only in the red $180. That’s okay, because I didn’t expect to make money. And besides, those records help to illustrate a Biblical principle. The Bible declares that everyone of us have such a record – under our names. Revelation speaks of divine judgment based on “the book” and “books.” Matthew 12:36 says “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.” Matthew 18:23 – “The kingdom of Heaven is likenened unto a certain king which would take account of his servants.” Romans 14:12 – “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”
Let me assure you that this ledger is not very pretty or favorable to any man. Under debits, the list is astronomical. There are sins of flesh – things like anger. There sins of the mind and heart – things like lust, covetousness, envy, hatred. There are sins of your nature and state – such as pride and general rebellion. There are sins of action and commission. There are sins of omission and neglect – lack of prayer and Bible study. And what is the bottom line? “There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.” “There is none righteous no not one.” “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no, not one” – not even one. The list of sins, prove that the name at the top of the page – your name – is a sinner. And what is the balance at the end of the book? Death! “The wages of sin is death.” “Behold all souls are mine, as the soul of the father, so also the soul son; the soul that sinneth it shall die.”
But what about the assets side of the ledger? It is thoroughly and completely blank. Every entry on the positive side is written with water or disappearing ink. What we may think is an asset in our life, is not considered that way by the holy God. “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Some people think that by their obedience to the Ten Commandments, they are offsetting their debts. Sorry, “Know ye not that whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” “Whatsoever is not of faith sin,” and thus nothing that the unbeliever ever does reaches the asset column.
Ah, but through the sacrifice of Christ – in Jesus’ blood – the record can be completely liquidated. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:” The curse of the law is seen in our ledger as death and hell. “But (Christ) was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” In Christ’s salvation there is a liquidated record. Everything against God’s child has been covered with the blood of Christ and thus has become unrecognizable.
There is also the LAPSED REMEMBRANCE.
This is so momentous – so huge – that it requires a MIRACLE of God. Man may measure the Lord’s miracles as great, greater and greater still. Creation of the universe out of nothing is a truly great miracle. Changing water into wine is only a minor miracle. But the salvation of a sinner is perhaps the greatest of them all. Because it requires things which come close to contradicting the nature of God Himself.
There are many ways in which to describe Jehovah God. There are characteristics or attributes which apply to the Lord – they describe Him. For example, God is eternal – He has always been and always will be; he cannot die. God is holy – He cannot sin; He cannot permit unrighteousness in His presence. God is omniscient – He knows all things; all possible things; all future things; all past things. There are a dozen other eminent attributes which apply specifically to Jehovah.
In so many ways the salvation of a sinner nudges on the impossible when it comes to the Lord. For any sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, to have eternal life, Christ, the Son of God had to die. Deity cannot die, but Christ did die for the salvation of His people. God is infinitely holy, but Christ “bore in his own body, the sins of many.” “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness:” “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Not only did the holy God defile himself with my sins, the omniscient God has forgotten them. Isn’t this impossible because it is contrary to the nature of God? It certainly is, but in salvation, Jehovah has chosen to forget to know the repenting believer’s sin. The Lord says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.”
When the first missionaries tried to preach Christ to one of the Inuit tribes of the far north, they discovered there was no word in their language for “forgiveness.” They struggled for some time to find a way to explain the results of salvation to those people. Finally, they learned to combine several others words – which I won’t even try to pronounce. They explained to the people that in salvation God was “not-being-able-to think about it anymore.” Jeremiah 31:34 – “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Isaiah gave praise to God with the words – “for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” And Micah added – God “will turn again, he will have compassion upon us, he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into depths of the sea.” David said, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath (God) removed our transgressions from us.”
Why has the Lord done this? It is because he has found someone worthy of His own self-denial? Why speak as a foolish man? “There is none righteous,” remember? No, no, it is simply by God’s grace, God’s grace, God’s grace. The planned forgetfulness of Almighty God is one of greatest miracles ever performed by the Lord.
And a third result of God’s saving grace is the LIBERATED RECIPIENT.
No human being is free, unless the Lord frees him, because bondage comes in too many forms. One of the great tragedies of modern society are the babies who come into this world addicted to the drugs their mothers have taken. But what of percentage of live births is that true? A University of Michigan study estimates that one baby is born addicted to some sort of opiate every hour in this country, – that is 13,539 each year. But when I see all the kids entering school with various mental problems, I wonder of the University of Michigan was even 10% accurate. And then, the University of Michigan is a secular institution, and can only think in a linear sort of way.
Christ Jesus was on the Mount of Olives on day, teaching when He said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” The unbelieving Jews interrupted, “We are the children of Abraham and have never been anything less than free.” But Christ replied, “Oh, but you are mistaken.” There are none so blind as them who will not see. “Verily, verily, I say unto who whosoever committeth sin is the servant (or slave) of sin.”
We have all entered this world as slaves – as addicts. Slaves worse off than the old conscripts to the galley ships of the Mediterranean years ago. We are more enslaved than those who were born to die in the Roman coliseum. We are born into this world as sinners, and those sins dictate to us throughout our unregenerated lives.
Ah, but “if the son shall make you free ye shall be free indeed. “ When Christ was just beginning His public ministry, He read from the Book of Isaiah, stating in part that “He came to proclaim liberty to the captives.” Elsewhere in Isaiah we read that he came, “to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”
On June 22, 1772 Lord Mansfield, Justice of the King’s bench in England handed down his most famous decision. He said there will never again be human slavery in Britain. If anyone brought a slave to England, immediately upon setting foot on that island that man was free. That is precisely what happens when sinner comes to Christ – a very special kind of freedom. \
A.J. Gordon met little boy carrying rusty old cage with several little sparrows inside. Knowing the answer, the preacher asked, “What are you going to do with those sparrows.” The boy replied – “Feed them to my old tom cat.” Gordon said, “I’ll buy them all, if you sell me the cage too.” “Mister, you don’t want these, they don’t sing or anything.” They dickered back and forth for a while finally settling on $2.00 for the cage all – a considerable sum. Gordon took the birds behind the church and opened the door – off they went. The next Sunday, he took empty cage into pulpit and used it as an illustration. He said, “The boy who sold me the birds said that they couldn’t sing. But he was wrong, when I released them they went flying off singing: redeemed, redeemed, redeemed.”
The Christian can say, “Christ hath redeemed me from the curse of the law, being made a curse for me.” There is no need for us to remain chained to sin, or to the punishment for our sins. “If the son shall make your free ye are free indeed.” And “if you from sin are still longing to be free – look to the lamb of God.” In Christ there is a liquidated record, God’s lapsed memory and a liberated slave. The Bible tells me to tell you, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”