The gospel is not the entire Bible, the law of Moses, the four Gospels, initiation into religion, or a call to repentance, but rather the good news concerning God's Son. The sermon emphasizes that the gospel's focus is on Jesus Christ as the Son of God, proven by his resurrection, and that it offers all blessings in Him, including power, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, and boasting in the Lord. The core facts of the gospel are that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, which is the proof of our justification. Believing the gospel honors God as true, results in receiving Christ, being begotten into God's family, and receiving all that is included in salvation and the fullness of God's blessing.
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Knowing the facts of the gospel. Number one, what the gospel is not. One, it is not the whole Bible. I don't let that shock you. A, the Bible is all true. Revelation twenty-two, six. So I'm not questioning the veracity of Scripture at all. But B, the gospel is good news. Luke eight in verse one calls it glad tidings. Now that ought to be conclusive enough that the Bible is all true, but it is not all gospel because it is not all good news.
Psalm nine and seventeen says the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations shall forget God. Now that isn't gospel. It's true. But there's no good news about it. And there are many other passages of Scripture that you'll think of that are perfectly true. All of God's word is true, but it is not all gospel. And number two, it is not the law of Moses. Second Corinthians three, five to eleven, shows the difference between the law and the gospel. It says that the law, the letter, kills. The spirit gives life through the gospel. It says that the law is the administration of death.
It says it's the administration of condemnation. So the law is certainly not the gospel. I believe in using the law. It makes a wonderful plow. To plow up the good soil. To plow up the soil and make it good and ready for the gospel. Number three, the gospel is not the message of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I'm going to shock somebody because all we thought of Lord is being the four Gospels. Now in Luke one and the first four verses, Luke tells why he wrote the Gospel of Luke.
He said he wrote it because he had an understanding of all the things which were done and taught. So you'll find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John many things. A. It does contain the gospel. Mark one and one says this is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But B. there is much more. Much beside the gospel in the four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And I've given you an example here, e.g., for example, Matthew twenty-three.
Now Matthew twenty-three is just filled with woes. Woe upon you Pharisees, hypocrites. Woe upon you for this, and woe upon you for that. Well, that is gospel. So Matthew has a great deal of judgments in it. So do some of the others. So you can't take all of the material in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as being the gospel. This is why some people have gone back to the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, and have preached this, and said, but you see, the Sermon on the Mount says that you have to be good. Well, the Sermon on the Mount was the Bible. Who were already believers in the Lord Jesus, see?
And the Sermon on the Mount is the... the plan, the pattern, the manifesto of the kingdom. And it is not the preaching of the gospel at all. Number four, it is not initiation into religion. Many people think, oh, the gospel, that means that you decide that you're going to be religious. Oh, James one, twenty six and twenty seven tells about people who have religion, all right, but their religion is vain. In fact, the word religion occurs only five times in the New Testament, and four times it's in a bad sense.
Only once is it said to be good. So if you've got religion, you've got about four chances out of five having the wrong thing. And there are many people who just simply have been initiated into religion and never heard the gospel at all. And five, it is not a call to repentance. A, repentance is acknowledging our need of Christ. And B, it is foundational in Old Testament doctrine, Hebrews six, one to nine. Now if you read that section, Hebrews six, one to nine, you will see that Paul is saying to them, now we're not going to go back to the things that you were taught in the Old Testament.
which included repentance, we want to tell you what Christ has done for you and what he's doing for you now, because he has risen from the dead. Section two, the focus of the gospel, such as you focus a camera and get a sharp picture, so we ought to understand the focus of the gospel. One, it is concerning his son. I would like for you to give particular attention to the first seventeen verses of Romans one. I'll mention some things that are in it, but you should read it very carefully.
And as you study this section, you will see that the gospel is concerning his son. A is the gospel of God as to its source. The gospel isn't something that the twelve apostles brought up. The gospel isn't something that Paul invented. Paul says very plainly in Galatians chapter one, I didn't get this from men. I got it directly from the Lord. God himself gave us the gospel. And D, it proves Jesus to be the Son of God by resurrection.
Now notice that. He has not proven to be the Son of God in simply dying. Many men died. Many men died on crosses. Three of them died that day on crosses. But only one raised again from the dead. So proving himself to be the Son of God. That's what the gospel proves. And see, it proves him to be the Christ by its power. In the same section he says that... The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. And D, it reveals the righteousness of God offered to faith.
Therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. That is, it is offered to the believer on the principle of faith. Now the number two, the second subheading, it offers all in Christ. First Corinthians one, seventeen to thirty-one. There are six things. A. The power of God. B. The wisdom of God. C. Righteousness. And D.
Sanctification. E. Redemption. Let me run over those again in case you missed them. A. Power. B. Wisdom. C. Righteousness. B. Sanctification. E. Redemption. And F. Boasting in the Lord. He who glorieths, let him glory in the Lord. The gospel makes you boast of nobody but Christ. Now anybody who boasts about anything but Christ is not a believer in the gospel.
I say that without any fear of contradiction. People who boast of anything but Christ do not believe the gospel. You have nothing to brag about. It is all in the Lord Jesus Christ. And number three. It is the revelation of the glory of Christ. Second Corinthians four, verses three to six. I noticed this very lovely translation in the Jan Darby New Translation. It says, and I put this down under A, it is the radiancy of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ.
Isn't that a nice expression? is the radiancy of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ. It's called the glory of the gospel of Christ in the King James Version. But it's a very strong word that's used here. In the gospel, you see the radiancy of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ. And B, we see the glory of God in his face, in Christ's face. The gospel is called several times the glorious gospel, or the gospel of the glory.
Now, see, we shall be to the praise of His glory. Ephesians one and twelve says, we who first trusted in Christ, we shall be to the praise of His glory. And D, we shall see and share His glory. John's seventeen, twenty-two to twenty-four in the prayer of our Lord Jesus, the intercessory prayer of the great high priest of John Seventeen. He prayed for four things, and the last of these was that we might see and share the glory of the Lord Jesus.
I think this is wonderful. Now there are people who are not interested in the future. They say, they're not. They say, we don't want pie in the sky. We want something for here and now. Well, the Gospel has plenty for here and now, but it also has plenty for the future. And you can't beat that. Everything you need now and everything makes you glad for all eternity. Now let's discuss in the third section the facts of the Gospel. The Gospel of Your Salvation, as it's called in Ephesians one-thirteen, the Gospel of Your Salvation has three parts.
I can't over stress this. I have been amazed at how many people leave out the third part of the Gospel. A, Christ died for our sin. Now you have not preached the gospel when you say Christ died. That's a historical fact. Even Josephus, the historian of the Jews, says that. Secular history says that. Nobody questions that Christ died. That isn't the gospel. The first thing is, why did Christ die? Christ died for our sins, according to the Scripture.
And this goes back to the Old Testament Scripture. Constantly in the Old Testament, the prophets were saying the Messiah will come and die for your sins. The priests were constantly saying this in the sacrifices. Every sacrifice in the Old Testament said, we're only covering the sins over. We're waiting for the Messiah to come and put these sins away. So when he says Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, he is saying this is why he got... Somebody says at a camp where I was one time, I know I'm saved because I believe that Jesus died. And I said to the little girl who said this, why did the Lord Jesus die?
She said, because the bad people killed him. Well, this is true, but that isn't the whole truth. It's true that the bad people killed him. I see that the Pope hasn't absolved the Jewish nation from all blame in the death of Christ. I notice that it hasn't been taken out of the Bible yet. The Bible still says that they are the betrayers and the murderers. And the nation of Israel will yet have to answer. All of those who are not receiving Christ will yet have to answer for this putting him to death. But that isn't the gospel. We have to know why the Lord Jesus died. We have to understand that he came for the purpose of putting our sins away. I don't want to labor this point, but I feel that it is misunderstood.
And B, he was buried. Now, why is this a part of the gospel? Don't they bury all dead people? Of course not. Of course not. Some people are just the bodies taken away. I preached the funeral for many people, and they just closed up the casket and put it on a train or an airplane and took it away. I never saw the burial at all. Now, why is it important if the Lord Jesus died? Because he had to take our place and die for our sins. Why is it important that he was buried? This is the proof that he was dead. You see, for three days the Lord Jesus was sealed in the tomb. And the people who say the Lord Jesus never rose from the dead, he just swooned away and his disciples got to him and revived him again.
That's what unbelievers teach, the swoon theory. The Lord Jesus never was really dead. But you see, the fact that his body was put right there with this wrapping around it and the hundred pounds of aromatic spices tying him down in that grave. And then the stone rolled and sealed of the Roman seal so that nobody could tamper with it. This proves to us that the Lord Jesus Christ was really dead. See, I have to know if I'm not going to worry about a debt, I have to know that that debt is paid. I've got to have some kind of guarantee that the money has been paid. And so with this debt, he was buried.
And see, He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. And I have been amazed, I said, at how many times I've heard the Gospel preached, quote, unquote. They said they were having a Gospel meeting, and no mention was made of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now these, none of these may be omitted. You cannot leave out any one of these. Why is it important that we know that the Lord Jesus rose from the dead? Well, here's a good statement.
In the close of Romans four and the beginning of Romans five, it says that the Lord Jesus was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Raised why? For our justification. You see, if the Lord Jesus did not come again from the dead, I have no assurance that my sins are put away, but I am justified. I can't be sure at all that I am right with God, unless I know that He rose again from the dead. And He is my receipt. A woman went to the jail to get her husband out of jail, and she paid the ten-dollar fine, and...
They unlocked her husband and she started out with him and she turned back and said, Oh, I didn't get a receipt. And the man said, Lady, your husband is your receipt. You wouldn't have him if you hadn't paid the fine. And so it is with us. We've got a receipt. Our Lord Jesus Christ alive is not on a receipt. We know that we are justified because we know that he's alive. This undoubtedly is why... There was so much opposition to the preaching of resurrection in the Acts of the Apostles. If you go through the Acts and look for this, you'll find that nobody said a word as long as they talked about Christ dying, because every person who was there in Jerusalem and in Judea and even farther out, they all knew that Christ had been put to death, or they called him Jesus of Nazareth.
They all knew this. But the minute that the Apostles began insisting on the resurrection, that's when the opposition came. I don't think the devil is the least that disturbed the Jews. Tell people that Jesus died. But he is tremendously disturbed when you say he's alive from the dead, forevermore. Well, that spells Satan's doom. It also spells our justification. Let's be sure that we understand this. None of these may be omitted. Now, E, when received, when the gospel is received, we are, quote, saved. and we stand." Two things are said.
First Corinthians, one to four. Two things are said, wherein by which we are saved and wherein we stand. Well, saved is the great inclusive word, meaning all of the blessing that has come to us through Christ. Salvation in everything that it means is ours because of the gospel. And when it says we stand, this means that we are, this is our standing. This is our foundation. This is our, this is what we depend upon. Number two, Paul refers to my gospel. Romans sixteen, twenty-five to twenty-seven.
A, this is the wider scope of blessed excuse me, a blessing to believers. This is the wider scope of blessing to believers. A, it includes the mystery of God's eternal purpose. In Romans, he says, by my gospel, And then he says, according to the revelation of the mystery, which is now manifest unto us, was hid in ages past, is now manifest unto us.
And in Ephesians three, one to twelve, he talks about how that in the past, no one knew about the blessings that God intended to bring to the gospel, including the church, and all of the revelation of the mystery. This was hidden in times past, but now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets. So Paul refers to my gospel. It's still good news. The word gospel means good news. Well, whenever Paul refers to my gospel, he's taking in more than just the simple facts of the gospel. He's taking in all of the blessing of the gospel. But see, this term is used only to believers.
Now when you talk to a non-Christian, you should give him the simple facts of the gospel, which are three. And this is stated in First Corinthians fifteen. Now by the way, that phrase, I declare unto you the gospel, the word declare is the same word which is translated certify. I believe it's in Galatians. The word declare is the word which means certify. Now the Apostle Paul says, I declare unto you the gospel. That is, I certify the gospel. You know what a certified check is. Some places say, on their business correspondence, they say only certified checks, except you can write a personal check to them.
They want a certified check. That means that the bank guaranteed that the money is there. And so... The gospel is a guarantee that God gives to us. I certify the gospel. That's the gospel that we should preach to the non-Christian. And we as Christians can enjoy the wider scope of the blessing, which includes all that God has for us as a result of the simple facts of the gospel, a result of the work of Christ. Section four, the required response to the gospel. One, God wants all to hear the gospel.
Romans ten, seventeen and eighteen. You're familiar with Romans ten, seventeen. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Well, in verse eighteen, he says, have they not heard? Yes, he says, because their sound went forth unto the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world. So the gospel has been sent. to the whole world. God wants all to hear the gospel. Remember that he told the apostles, his disciples, he said, Go ye to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. So this is intended for all.
A. Hearing implies willingness. I've given you two verses here that you might consider. Acts, twenty-eight and twenty-eight. Paul said, you consider yourselves unworthy of the gospel, so we'll turn to the Gentiles, and they will hear it. That didn't mean simply that they would hear it with their ears, but hearing in the Bible, in the true sense, involves a willingness. Hear ye the word of the Lord. Of course they heard it. He was saying it. They had to hear it. But he wanted a different kind of hearing than that, a willingness to listen to it.
And in Acts, eighteen and eight, it says that the Corinthians, hearing believed, and were of that size. So if you hear as you ought to hear, it will result in your believing. And so be this leads to faith. Galatians three two. Now there he says to the Galatians, Receive Jesus Spirit by the deeds of the law or by the hearing of faith. What do you mean by the hearing of faith? He meant hearing the gospel and believing. The hearing which leads to believing. this is receptive hearing not not skeptical i i accept this as a message from god and when we hear in this way this is the way he wants us to hear now number two he expects us to believe the gospel a it is truth galatians two And again, in verse fourteen, he speaks about the truth of the gospel.
There was a man who was a great corporation lawyer in New York City, and he said, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best attested fact in history. Now when you convince a skeptical corporation lawyer you've done something. And that's what that man said. That was his opinion of it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best attested fact in history. There isn't any court that would turn down the witnesses. First of all, the witnesses were unimpeachable of high character. Secondly, they had no axe to grind.
They knew that when they witnessed the gospel, it was as good as their lives. Practically every one of them were killed off by the Jewish leaders in the very first century of the gospel. So they had no axe to grind, nothing to gain by. These people saw him in broad daylight, and he was in the midst of them, and they were allowed to handle him. There was no question of their being deceived. And it was not one or two people, but a dozen at a time, and even as many as five hundred at a time, saw it. So there really no reason for questioning the truth of the gospel. And B, it is from God.
Galatians one, eleven and twelve. That's why you ought to believe it, because God said it. And C, it offers hope. will be moved away from the hope of the gospel. And D, it offers power. First Thessalonians, one and five, the gospel came to you not in word only, but in power. E, it offers glory. First Timothy, one, twelve, according to the gospel of the glory of God. And F, immortality. Second Timothy one and ten, he brought life, and immortality to life through the gospel.
Immortality always has to do with the body, not with the soul. Everybody's soul is going to endure forever, saved and lost. But immortality, only God has, and he gives it to us in the gospel. Our bodies are going to be made immortal at the return of Christ. And three, unbelief is disobedience. And I've given you three passages here which you ought to study very carefully. And you ought to tell the non-Christian that if he rejects the gospel, God accuses him of disobedience. And now briefly, number five, the effects of believing the gospel.
One, we honor God as being true. If you believe, John three, thirty-three says you have set through your seal that God is true. just like a notary public putting a seal on the documents. We honor God as being true. Two, we receive the person of Christ. Now, in John one and twelve, he equates believing with receiving the person of Christ. We receive the person of Christ. Three, we are begotten into God's family. Paul writes to the Corinthians, In Jesus Christ I have begotten you through the gospel.
So bleeding the gospel results in our being begotten into God's family. And four, we are given all that is included in salvation. That's the word that's used, the great inclusive term, Ephesians one, thirteen. And finally, five, we have the fullness of the blessing. the fullness of the blessing. Romans fifteen and twenty-nine. Everything God has to offer is in the gospel.