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We must understand that the gospel is not only scandalous—it is supposed to be scandalous! Through the foolishness of the gospel, God has ordained to destroy the wisdom of the wise, frustrate the intelligence of the greatest minds, and humble the pride of all men to the end that no flesh may boast in His presence.8 As it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.”9
We ought to be seeker friendly, but we ought to realize this: there is only one Seeker, and He is God. If we are striving to make our church and message accommodating, let us make them accommodating to Him. If we are striving to build a church or ministry, let us build it upon a passion to glorify God and a desire not to offend His majesty. To the wind with what the world thinks about us. We are not to seek the honors of earth, but the honor of heaven should be our desire.
In a sense, the gospel is so far-fetched that its spread throughout the Roman Empire is proof of its supernatural nature.
We cannot convince a man to believe any more than we can raise the dead. Such things are the work of God’s Spirit. Men are brought to faith only through the supernatural working of God, and He has promised to work—not through human wisdom or intellectual expertise, but through the preaching of Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead!12
We must come to grips with the fact that our gospel is an unbelievable message. We should not expect anyone to give us a hearing, let alone believe, apart from a gracious and powerful working of God’s Spirit. How very hopeless is all our preaching apart from God’s power! How very dependent is the preacher upon God!
All our evangelism is nothing more than a fool’s errand unless God moves upon the hearts of men. However, He has promised to do just that if we will be faithful to preach that one singu...
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The absolute inability of man to save himself from his sin and its condemnation is a constant theme throughout the Scriptures. Job declared, “If I wash myself with snow water, and cleanse my hands with soap, yet You will plunge me into the pit, and my own clothes will abhor me.”1 The psalmist lamented that his sin was always before him, and the apostle Paul cried out in desperation, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”2
Man’s total helplessness and inability to save himself is one of the darkest truths in Scripture. However, it serves the very high purpose of humbling man and magnifying the power of the gospel to save. In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul declared that it was because of man’s impotence or utter inability to save himself that Christ died for the ungodly.3 Left to himself, man cannot be saved. However, God has not left man to himself but has provided a means of salvation through the gospel of His Son!
“Do we recognize the great power required to save sinful men?” Salvation is not a light work; it is an impossibility for all but God.18
The Scriptures teach that man cannot come to God because He will not come to God, and he will not come to God because his heart is evil.
The walls of depravity around the heart of a man are much stronger and made of harder stuff than those that surrounded Jericho. If men could not bring down the walls of that great city by their own power, they cannot conquer the depravity of their own hearts.
It must be the power of God. For this reason, we often hear that the power of God manifested in the salvation of one man far exceeds the power of God manifested in the very creation of the universe. God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing. However, when God saves a man, He does an exceedingly more difficult thing. It is far easier to create good out of nothing than it is to recreate good out of a fallen and corrupt humanity.
If men are going to be saved, they will be saved by the supernatural power of God manifested in the preaching of the gospel!
“Do we recognize that the power to save is found uniquely in the gospel?” The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God for salvation. It is not just the core, or part of what is needed, but the whole. For it to have great effect upon men, it only needs to be proclaimed. It does not require a revision to make it relevant, an adaptation to make it understood, or a defense to validate it. If we stand up and proclaim it, it will do the work itself. A single preacher who has stripped himself of all his carnal weaponry and fights with only the proclamation of the gospel, the work of intercession,
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a study of contemporary evangelicalism shows that evangelicals no longer believe this bold thought. It sounds good in the old hymns, but to actually believe it and apply it would seem naive to say the least. Thus, many of the “model churches” of the day look more like a Six Flags over Jesus than a ship of Zion.
In fact, the very things that the pulpit now promises and people in the pews seek the most are often the very things that Jesus warned could be lost in the course of true discipleship.26
According to Him, a man may have to lose the whole world in order to be saved, and yet in His estimation, it was a bargain to get salvation at such a small cost.27
men do not comprehend their deplorable condition. As a rich man sees no reason for rejoicing in a meager gift of bread until a turn of events leaves him impoverished, so the sinner finds no joy in salvation until the horrid nature of his sin is revealed and he sees himself as wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.28
men do not understand the great danger they are in. A man will esteem salvation only to the degree that he understands something of the terrors from which he is being saved. A clearer view of hell and the wrath of God will give man a more appropriate appreciation of the salvation offered through the gospel.
men do not understand the infinite cost that was paid to secure their salvation. The redemption of a soul is costly and beyond the wages of men.29 Only God possessed the payment price, and He paid it in full with the precious blood of His own Son.30 Sinners who remain uninformed regarding the worth of ...
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Blind men find no beauty in a sunset, deaf men are not moved by even the most beautiful sonata, and brute beasts have no appreciation for art. In a similar fashion, unregenerate, unconverted, carnal men are spiritually blind, deaf to God’s Word, and in bondage to a brutish heart that would sooner feed its animal lusts than taste and see that the Lord is good.31 For this reason, Jesus exclaims that unless a man is born again he cannot even “see” the kingdom of heaven, let alone esteem its worth.32 For this reason, carnal people fill our church rosters—people who come for all sorts of reasons
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salvation from the condemnation of sin, from the power of sin, and, ultimately, from the presence of sin. These same themes may also be arranged in a temporal or chronological order—past, present, and future. The one who believes in the gospel has been saved from the condemnation of sin, is being saved from the power of sin, and will ultimately be saved from the presence of sin.
The immeasurable power of God manifests itself in the gospel. Nothing less than the gospel can bring a man to repentance and faith. Nothing less than the gospel can transform a man from sinner to saint. Nothing less than the gospel can bring many sons home to glory!48
The gospel call is universal. The redemptive work of Christ did not take place in some remote corner of the planet, but in the very center of the religious world.1
Christ did not come to save only a certain people group, but He shed His blood to redeem a people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.3
The only password into glory is “I believe.”
the work or fruit of one’s life is the evidence of truly being saved by faith.
a man’s life proves the validity of his confession of faith.
The Scriptures not only teach that the gospel is for everyone who believes, but they also warn that the gospel is against everyone who does not believe.
The gospel is a two-sided coin with forgiveness and life on the one side, and condemnation and death on the other. It is not “salvation to everyone”; it is only to “everyone who believes.” To the rest, the gospel is a death sentence, a constant reminder that they stand condemned before God and that the wrath of God abides upon them. For this reason, the unbelieving world hates the gospel and does everything in its power to suppress or restrain its truths.21 For this reason, the unbeliever loathes the messengers of the gospel and seeks to silence them. Gospel messengers are like barbs in his
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By faith, the greatest sinner from the most backward and vile people may now take his chair at the Lord’s Table and dine as a son.
God offers the gospel freely to the Jew and the Gentile alike, and this brings to mind one more truth that ought to be expounded before we leave this theme behind: the gospel that saves the Jew is the same that saves the Gentile.
there can be no gospel proclamation apart from a biblical treatment of sin. This includes explaining the heinous nature of sin and exposing men as sinners.
As stewards of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we do no service to men by making light of sin, skirting around the issue, or avoiding it altogether. Men have only one problem: they are under the wrath of God because of their sin.3 To deny this is to deny one of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity. It is not unloving to tell men that they are sinners, but it is the grossest form of immorality not to tell them! In
Paul preached against sin for the same reason that the physician works to diagnose his patient’s illness and is willing to tell him even the worst of news. It is a labor of love for the salvation of the hearer. Any other response by a doctor or preacher would be loveless and immoral.
It may be appropriate at this time to ask ourselves if our gospel preaching has such a purpose. Do we love enough to teach truth, expose sin, and confront our hearers? Do we possess a biblical compassion that tells men the truth in hope that their hearts will be broken under the weight of their sin and they must look to Christ alone? Are we willing to risk being misunderstood and maligned in order that truth might be told and men might be saved? There seems to be a growing conviction even among evangelicals that contemporary Western man already carries so many psychological fractures and
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Identifying a malady and explaining its seriousness are always the first steps to finding a cure. A man who has no knowledge of his cancer will not seek the aid of medicine, and a man will not flee from a burning house unless he knows of a fire. To the same degree, a man will not seek salvation until he knows that he is thoroughly lost, and he will not flee to Christ until he knows that there is no other means of salvation. Men must be told of their sin before they will acknowledge it; they must be informed of the danger of it before they will flee from it; and they must be convinced that
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The greatest reason for making much of sin is that it exalts the gospel. You cannot see the beauty of the stars in the midday sky because the light of the sun eclipses them. However, after the sun sets and the sky becomes black as pitch, you can see the stars in the full force of their splendor. So it is with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can only see its true beauty against the backdrop of our sin. The darker man appears, the brighter the gospel shines. It seems that men never even notice the beauty of Christ or consider His worth until they see the heinous nature of their sin and see
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We rob men of a greater vision of God because we will not give them a lower vision of themselves.
If the bravest and most hardened infidel understood even the smallest portion of who God is, he would immediately collapse under the weight of his sin.
First, although sin may be committed against our fellow creatures and even against creation itself, all sin is first and foremost against God. Secondly, sin is heinous not merely because of the devastation it might bring upon other men or creation as a whole, but primarily and especially because it is an offense committed against an infinitely glorious God who is worthy of the most perfect love, devotion, and obedience from His creation. Therefore, the more a man comprehends something of the glory and supremacy of the God against whom he has sinned, the more he will comprehend the atrocious
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A wrong view of God will ultimately lead to a wrong view of everything else.
In the preaching of the gospel, we must expose the sinfulness of sin by spreading abroad the true knowledge of God. We must proclaim the full counsel of Scripture concerning all His attributes, especially those that are less popular and less palatable to the carnal man: His supremacy, sovereignty, holiness, righteousness, and love.
We must stand in the midst of self-absorbed men, challenge their beliefs, and point their eyes upward through the proclamation of truth. We must tell them that the Lord is the only God, eternal, immortal, and invisible, the “most high above all the earth.”10 We must warn them that the nations are like a drop from a bucket before Him, and He regards them as a speck of dust on the scales.11 We must lead them to the conclusion that to Him belong greatness and power and glory and majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.12 For of Him and through Him and to
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The word holy comes from the Hebrew word qadosh, which means separated, marked off, placed apart, or withdrawn from common use.
the holiness of God refers to His transcendence.28 As Creator, He is above all of His creation and is totally distinct from everything that He has made and sustains. This distinction or separation between God and everything else is not merely quantitative (i.e., God is greater) but qualitative (i.e., God is a completely different being). Regardless of personal splendor, all other beings on earth and in heaven are mere creatures. God alone is God, separate, transcendent, and unapproachable.29 The most splendid angel that stands in the presence of God is no more like God than the smallest worm
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Secondly, the holiness of God refers to His transcendence over the moral corruption of His creation. He is separate from all that is profane and sinful. He is impeccable and pure!32 He is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.33 He is the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.34 He cannot be tempted by evil, and He does not tempt with evil.35 His eyes are too pure to approve it, and He cannot look on it with favor.36 All sin is an abomination to Him—a loathsome thing that evokes hatred and disgust. Everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination before His
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toward which a man is to aim and the path in which he is to walk are the will of God. Any thought, word, or deed that does not perfectly conform to this standard is sin. Even the slightest deviation brings guilt.
Scripture never presents “missing the mark” as an innocent mistake or honest error. It is always an act of willful disobedience resulting from man’s moral corruption and enmity toward God.
transgression is translated from the Hebrew word abar, which means to cross, pass over, or pass by. In the New Testament, the term is translated from the Greek word parabaíno, which means to go by the side of, to pass over, or step over. To sin is to step over or go around God’s law with a total disregard for His person and authority. It is to go beyond what His commands permit and to ignore the restrictions His law imposes on us. It is to run beyond the fence and trespass into places that do not belong to us, like sheep that have gone astray and turned to their own way.9
