This conviction that sin being what it is
and Satan being whom and who he is,
and this world lying in the wicked one
as it does, and hell popping on every
direction, and the spirit of the world being
prepared to bow down and accept the devil's
Christ, Antichrist, and when the blow winds are
blowing from every direction, the I say character
of them upon the hotness of the gospel
of Christ, I say to you that it's
my conviction.
Now, this doesn't make it so, but it
is my conviction, and I do not ask
anybody else to share it, but it is
my conviction, and I'll stand for it, and
the best I know I'll bear the consequences
of preaching this conviction.
It is my conviction that the most urgent
task facing us today is the recovery of
the gospel of the grace of almighty God,
and because that is my conviction, I am
asking men and women to stand by each
Lord's Day for several more Lord's Days, as
pretty soon we're going to try to preach
the gospel of God's grace.
Thus far we've been providing a setting for
its preaching, for the scriptures say where sin
did abound, grace did much more abound, and
sin does abound now, and oh, the deepest
desire of my heart is that once again
in America, as of days of yore, that
men in the predicament of sin and bound
by the cords of Satan himself, shall once
more hear, not in isolated places but everywhere,
the glorious gospel of the abounding grace of
a holy God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
I'm saying to you that man needs a
great salvation if Satan is half as powerful
as the Bible says he is, if sin
is as deadly as the Bible says it
is, if sin taking occasion in the flesh
and being spurred on by the law and
influenced by Satan has caused the situation that
we're in today, then I say to you
that people in that shape cannot, cannot, and
they must not be allowed to live this
life out without ever hearing the true gospel
of the grace of God, and the grace
of God is simply the grace, the God
of all grace, providing in Christ Jesus a
great salvation to meet the need of great
sinners who are guilty of great sin.
This is the theme of the gospel of
God Almighty as it is in Christ Jesus.
Now my friends, that gospel, that good news,
that proclamation that does not result in men
and women being saved in the Bible sense
of that term, cannot be God's gospel.
That gospel that turns out men and women
short of being saved in the Bible sense
cannot be the gospel of God.
It is not the gospel of salvation as
preached by the apostle Paul and as is
so sorely needed to be preached today.
To be saved from sin, to be brought
into right relation to God calls for a
great salvation, and it will need to be
a great gospel which proclaims such a great
salvation for such great sinners.
Now my conviction is, and you ought to
hear me now, don't go away now, my
conviction is that the gospel needs to be
recovered.
And when I say that the gospel needs
to be recovered, I naturally am also saying
that the gospel in its fullness, that the
gospel in its purity, that the gospel in
its power has been to a greater or
a lesser extent in your day and mine,
been well nigh lost.
In the word of God we are told
that the Lord Jesus Christ came into Galilee
preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
and saying the time is fulfilled and the
kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye
and believe the gospel.
The Lord said in his first proclamation that
the gospel needs to be believed, the gospel
needs to be believed, that the entrance into
the kingdom of God is by way of
repentance toward God and by way of believing
the gospel.
Now the Lord Jesus Christ believed that it
was important that the gospel be believed.
Great sinners standing in the need of great
salvation need not only that the gospel shall
be preached, but they need to hear it,
and upon hearing they need to believe it.
Salvation, according to the word of God, is
the blessed heaven-given boon for men and
women who believe the gospel.
Therefore nothing is so important as that the
gospel be preached and that the gospel be
believed.
Now I have said that for a hundred
years we have well nigh lost this wonderful
gospel, and I want this morning, having made
such a statement and having declared that my
conviction is that our most urgent task is
to recover this gospel, I want you to
hear me as I buttress or recommend my
conviction to you, to recommend that you need
to hear what I have to say as
I make the statement that the real gospel
is well nigh be lost, and that men
in the terrible condition they're in now are
not hearing the gospel that saves men if
it's believed.
To recommend that conviction I offer several suggestions,
and the first one is this, the great
perplexity and the awful unrest which is growing
every single day among those who earnestly seek
to teach and to preach the gospel of
Christ.
My friends, we are blind as bats if
we do not stop and take notice of
the fact that there is today growing everywhere
a tremendous dissatisfaction with things as they are
within our churches.
The matter of real evangelism, the matter of
Bible holiness, the matter of real New Testament
discipline, the matter of gospel fruit, the matter
of Christ-like character, the matter of Holy
Spirit power, the matter of formal or historical
faith in the stead of a living, regnant,
believing, obedient faith.
My friends, these things are occupying the attention
of men today, and great is the disturbance
and the dissatisfaction and the unrest everywhere.
Now, brother, if you are not concerned about
the absence of real, sure enough evangelism, and
real, sure enough holiness, and real, sure enough
discipline, and real, sure enough gospel fruit, and
real, sure enough growth of Christ-like character,
and real absence of Holy Ghost power, and
the fact that our creeds are believed and
that Christ is missed, if you are not
concerned about those things, then, of course, I
am not talking in a way that you
will be sympathetic with.
But I will say this, that whether you
believe it or not, there is great dissatisfaction
now, and God's Spirit is back of that
dissatisfaction.
Men are crying out today for something that's
real, and we preachers had better face that.
And with this awful perplexity and unrest, there
is a great uncertainty as to the road
ahead.
What shall a day bring forth?
Do you mean tell me we're going to
go on like we are now, playing church
and making out like we believe the great,
vital doctrines of Christ?
And I tell you, no, something is in
the wind.
Nobody exactly knows what it is, but this
awful unrest and this tremendous uncertainty has behind
it the power of the Holy Ghost trying
to flush us out of our nest of
rest and unbelief into the real certainties of
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I tell you, I believe that at the
root of all this perplexity and unrest and
uncertainty, I believe at the root of all
of it is the fact that we have
lost our grip on the Bible gospel.
We have lost this grip, whether we've meant
to or not.
For a century, we have bartered the true
gospel for a substitute product, which though the
substitute does look similar enough in some points
of detail, it is as a whole a
decidedly different gospel from the gospel written about
and put down in the holy word of
God.
And thus our troubles for this substitute product
that's called the gospel today does not answer
the ends for which the authentic gospel has
in past days proved itself so mighty.
This new gospel as I call it, it's
everywhere and it's preached by those of us
who call ourselves believers in the Bible.
It's preached by men who have much zeal
and much devotion and much courage, but whether
that devotion is right or not, their gospel
is wrong, for the gospel as it's preached
today conspicuously fails to produce in its share
of first, deep reverence for God.
Second, this new gospel is failing to produce
in its share of second, deep repentance toward
God.
This new gospel is failing to produce in
its share of deep humility, and this gospel
is failing to produce in its share of
a deep spirit of worship.
In short, the gospel as it's preached today
fails to produce Christians.
Now that's a tremendous charge, but God ever
said so.
The gospel as it's preached today produces lots
of converts.
It produces lots of church members, but it
produces Christians.
I'm not so sure.
My friends, it seems to change some of
the ways of men and women, but it
leaves men and women unchanged.
Well, why did you tell the truth?
You know I am.
Preacher brother, you know I'm telling the truth.
God help us.
We need to come to the mourners, preacher.
No, you turn off that radio and get
mad.
I'm not God, but I'm speaking now, and
I'm telling you the truth.
Our gospel we preach today gets men to
quit some of their bad habits and keep
others, but our gospel does not produce Christians.
Now this isn't an idle statement.
This isn't the ranting of a fool.
This needs to be faced.
Why this awful failure?
Why with as much preaching, and as many
church members, and as much zeal, and as
much courage, and as much devotion, and as
much tears as we have today are we
turning out by the gospel we preach?
People who have miscratched.
Well, I tell you what I believe, and
I'm on the mourner's beach about it, and
these programs are dedicated to it.
The people who give the money to pay
for them are back of it, and people
pray.
I believe the reason for the failure to
turn out Christians, men and women who are
really saved, lies in the character and the
content of the gospel as it's preached today.
I say you in the first place that
this new gospel, this substitute gospel, this popular
gospel that's everywhere today, and I say to
you it fails to get men, make men
God-centered in their thoughts and God-fearing
in their hearts, because if we'd be honest
brethren, that hadn't been the aim of our
preaching.
We haven't tried to make men God-centered
in their thoughts where he's uppermost, and God
-fearing in their hearts.
We've just tried to make some more converts,
and brother anything that comes along that puts
a damper on our making of converts, we'll
fight till we're blue in the face.
We're going to have what we call results,
even if in the having of the results
we're not true to Christ, and we're not
true to men, and our converts do not
give evidence of being saved.
My friend, one way of stating the difference
between this gospel they call it today and
the gospel of our forefathers, one way of
stating that difference is to say that the
gospel preached today is too exclusively concerned to
be helpful to man.
It's a concern to bring peace to men,
to bring comfort to men, to bring happiness
to men, to bring satisfaction to men, and
the so-called gospel today is utterly too
little concern to bring glory to God.
Brother and sister, the old gospel your granddaddy
heard and believed was helpful too.
In fact it is more helpful than this
new gospel, but the concern of the old
gospel was first, last, and always to give
glory to God.
The old gospel was always and essentially a
proclamation of divine sovereignty and mercy and judgment.
It was a service to men and women
to bow down and worship the mighty Lord
on whom man depends for all good, both
in nature and in grace.
In the old gospel, its center of reference
was almighty God, but in the new gospel
of today, the center of reference is man.
The chief aim of the old gospel was
to teach men and women to worship God.
The concern of the new gospel seems limited
to making men feel better.
The subject of the old gospel was God
and his ways with men.
The subject of this new gospel is man
and the help God gives him.
There is a world of difference.
The whole purpose and emphasis of gospel preaching
has almost completely changed in your day and
mine, and from this change of interest has
sprung a change of content, for the new
gospel has in effect reformulated the Bible message
in the supposed interest of helpfulness.
Therefore, the themes of man's natural inability to
believe, of God's pre-erection being the ultimate
cause of salvation, and of the fact that
Christ is really a savior in the sense
that those for whom he died are really
to be saved, those great themes are not
preached today.
Today I hear it on every hand that
these doctrines, namely man's inability himself to believe,
namely God's pre-election of grace, and namely
the fact that Christ actually died to save
somebody, not just to make it possible for
some to be saved.
I'm told on every hand today that such
preaching is not helpful.
I'm told that such preaching drives sinners to
despair by suggesting to them that it is
not in their power to be saved through
Christ, and I know that the possibility that
such despair might be good is not even
considered, for it's taken for granted today that
this despair that sinners need to be brought
to cannot be good because it's so shattering
to our own self-esteem, and I stand
before this microphone and tell you now that
unless our preaching brings sinners to the place
of utter despair, of any hope within themselves
or anything they can do, we're not preaching
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
My friends, the result of leaving out these
signally important themes that buttress the gospel of
Christ is that part of the Bible gospel
is now preached as if it were a
whole of that gospel, but I warn you,
my friend, that a half-truth masquerading as
a whole truth becomes an uncomplete truth, and
I want to ask you now if the
following is not too much true, hear me
now.
First, isn't it true that today we appeal
to men as if they all had the
ability to receive Christ at any time?
I put that down.
That's exactly what they're preaching today.
In the second place, isn't it true that
we speak of Christ redeeming work as if
he had done no more of our dying
than make it possible for us to save
ourselves by believing?
You listen, that's exactly what's being preached today.
Isn't it true in the third place that
we speak of God's love as if it
were no more than a general willingness to
receive any who will turn and trust?
That's exactly what sinners are told today.
Isn't it true that today we depict the
Father and the Son not as sovereignly active
in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting
in quiet impotence at the door of our
hearts?
My friends, that's what's being preached today.
Maybe that's what people believe, but I say
with all my power that this set of
half-truths is something other than God's gospel,
and I say that the Bible is against
such preaching, and the fact that such preaching
has become almost standard practice only shows how
urgent it is that we shall look at
it closely.
I say to you that by their fruit
you shall know preachers, and by the fruit
of the gospel we shall know it.
And so I'm going to ask you as
my time has slipped upon me to be
standing by next Lord's day as I take
up where I've left off here and take
a look at the preaching of today as
against the preaching of two generations ago.
May God bless you everyone.
Now my friends, what I've brought to you
today over this radio station and you've just
listened to is either worthy of your prayer
and your attention, or it isn't.
I've made a serious charge, but it comes
from the very depths of my heart, and
I long that I shall tell the truth.
Our Father, as we've come and our words
have gone out over the ether waves and
into the ears and hearts of those who've
listened, my own soul reaches out and I
would breathe a prayer to you for men
and women in this desperate day.
They hear preaching by earnest, honest men, but
the preaching of the gospel despite our earnestness
and honesty is not true to their souls.
That gospel that transforms men as they believe
it seems to be strangely absent from our
land today.
And good morning my friends.
We're ready now for the seventh in the
series of messages on the general subject to
salvation of God as preached by the greatest
interpreter of Christ this world's ever known, the
Apostle Paul.
We're trying to lay a foundation for the
recovery of the gospel of God's grace as
it is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now last Lord's Day I departed from the
subject somewhat and made a statement over this
radio and these stations that to my mind
the greatest, most urgent task facing God's people
today is the recovery of the gospel which
I believe has well and I have been
lost for several generations.
I said last Lord's Day that we have
substituted a gospel that in some respects is
similar to the true gospel but in its
content and its character and in the fruit
of the preaching of it is entirely different.
And I said that the preaching of this
hour we have the bible against us.
The facts of the gospel as presented in
the bible are against the kind of preaching
that's turning out the kind of converts that
are filling our churches today.
And we suggested as we kind of got
lost in the time last Lord's Day and
did not get to fully come to a
climax in our thought because of the lack
of time.
We suggested that gospel preaching must be judged
by its fruit, by the fruit of what
we preach, the kind of converts to our
preaching we may faithfully and scripturally judge the
content and the character, the truth or the
falseness of the gospel as we preach it.
And I'm saying that whether I'm right in
my premise or not and whether you may
write me off as a crank or not,
I'm saying that the character of church people
today, the lack of Christ-likeness, the lack
of a desire for bible holiness and the
paucity of real sure enough God-inspired bible
-centered evangelistic effort today and all of the
efforts we have today to get results at
the expense of the truth of the gospel,
I'm saying those are things that we must
not overlook.
We need frankly to face the fact that
our fruit today does not give evidence that
we're preaching the gospel of the grace of
God.
And I come to take up at that
point today and ask your indulgence.
I'm earnest about this.
I'm sincere.
I'm sincere as I preach to many preachers
who are kind enough to listen.
I'm sincere as I preach to people who
are not allowed to go into your houses
of worship.
And I do not doubt your sincerity or
your devotion.
What I'm saying is that we, whether we've
meant to or not, have substituted in your
day and mine a substitute gospel for the
old gospel of the grace of God.
And I'm saying that we need to recover
the old authentic biblical gospel and to bring
our preaching and our teaching and our practice
back into line with the old gospel.
I say that's our most pressing need.
My friends, there ain't no need for that
now.
I say to you that no doctrine is
worth making an issue of controversy unless that
doctrine backs up and constitutes a part of
the very heart of the gospel.
And I am saying that by dehearting what
we call the gospel today from some of
the old flesh killing and yet biblically true
doctrines of God's word, that we have not
told sinners the truth and that we have
not proclaimed the gospel of the grace of
God.
What's the matter with us today?
Well, I'll tell you exactly what's the matter.
And everybody who supports gospel preaching needs to
hear me now.
And everybody who seeks to preach, I ask
you to listen.
I don't ask you to agree, but I
ask you to listen.
I have to act, I have to be
responsible to God and you have to be
responsible to God.
You're not responsible to me and I'm not
responsible to you, but we are responsible to
God Almighty and to God's revealed truth.
Now that is exactly what our trouble is
today.
The old gospel preach that God saves sinners.
That God saves sinners.
That God does the saving.
That God saves.
He doesn't make possible salvation.
And that God saves sinners.
People just in the shape that we've been
talking about for several odd days over this
broadcast.
People who are in the deep mire of
their own sin.
People who dug a ditch and fell falling
into it themselves.
People who've been greatly influenced by the satanic
demonic powers of hell.
People who are willful sinners.
I tell you, the old gospel preach that
God first, last, in between, all the time.
He takes the initiative.
He is the author and the finish of
our faith.
The old gospel preach that God saves.
And it preach that God saves.
He doesn't just make possible salvation.
He saves.
He transforms.
He makes new creatures.
He starts with people in the pit they
dug.
And he doesn't quit until he makes them
like his son.
The old gospel preach that God saves.
And that God saves.
And that God saves sinners.
But this new gospel is so popular today.
Preaches that God makes salvation possible.
And there is all the difference between a
true gospel and a false gospel in those
statements.
I say to you that whether I can
preach it as it ought to be preached
or not, and whether I get mired down
by the fact that I am so ignorant
of the great truths of God, doesn't change
the fact that the gospel is the proclamation
of a God who saves and saves sinners.
It is not the proclamation of a God
who's done this or that or the other
to make salvation possible.
Now that's the heart of the difference.
That's the heart of the difference.
The converts of the new gospel say, I
decided for Christ.
The converts of the old gospel say, please
God, I can glory in nothing.
See the cross of Christ.
The converts of this new gospel say, if
it hadn't been for Calvary, I couldn't have
been saved.
The converts of the old gospel said, on
Calvary's cross, the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished that
which saves me.
And I looked at him and on nothing
else do I base my hope of salvation.
Today, my friends, our minds have been conditioned
to think first of the cross, the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ, as a redemption
which does less than redeem.
What we are preached today is not that
Christ has redeemed us by his blood, but
that he's made possible our redemption.
Now that's what we hear and that's not
so.
The Bible doesn't talk about Christ having made
our redemption possible.
The scripture says we have redemption through his
blood.
The scripture speaks of he has redeemed us.
He has redeemed us.
He has made possible our redemption.
There's no gospel in that.
The gospel is not in a possibility.
It's in the proclamation of something that has
taken place.
The gospel talks about a God who's saved
and saves by the cross.
But today, we've heard it preached until we
believe it, that on the cross, the Lord
Jesus didn't actually redeem people.
He just made it possible for people to
be redeemed.
Today, our minds have been conditioned to think
of Christ as a savior who does less
than save.
Did you get that?
The gospel today proclaims a savior who does
less than save.
All on earth we have preached today nearly
years that Christ has done something that makes
it possible.
If you do something for God to save
you.
But the old gospel preached of Christ who
was a savior.
Not a possible savior but an actual savior.
Our minds have been conditioned by present day
preaching to think of God's love, wonderful love,
as a weak affection which cannot keep anybody
out of hell without help from somewhere else.
We preach that God loves you but if
you so and so and so and if
you don't do so and so and less
thus and that, well you'll go to hell.
Our minds have been conditioned by present day
preaching to think of saving faith as the
human help which God needs to help them
save sinners.
My friends, these are serious charges but bless
God I'm telling you the truth and I'm
lifting up my voice against it and I'm
not trying to make anybody mad.
I'm pleading for a recovery of preaching about
a God who doesn't make possible salvation but
a God who saves.
I'm not preaching a Christ who makes salvation
possible but a savior who saves people.
And I tell you there's good news in
that if I can be a sinner to
look to a real savior not somebody who
made salvation possible, I'm preaching the gospel.
I say to you my friends that that
faith that we hear so much about now,
it's an act of man and yet it's
a gift of God and we tell sinners
that they do it themselves and we lie
to them.
It is their own act and a sinner
must believe but praise God the old gospel
preached that in virtue of what Christ was
and did on the cross, God has secured
there in the breath of the Lord Jesus
Christ the gift of faith for those for
whom our blessed Lord died.
Now my friends here's a situation how it's
come about in this way Why is it
that we preach a God who doesn't save
but a God who possibly might?
Why is it we preach a savior who
does less than redeem and a savior who
does less than save?
Why is it we preach of God's wonderful
love as if it is just a big
stream and we'll hope that we get our
little dipper and and find that God's able
to save?
Why is it we preach faith as a
human help that God needs and he can't
save us unless we come to his rescue?
Well I think it's come about somewhat this
way we who are earnest at least want
to magnify the saving grace of God.
Everybody that preaches today talks about preaching that
men are saved by grace and they mean
it and as honest as they are I
do not doubt their honesty or question their
motive but I say that we who want
to magnify the saving grace of God and
the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ
we really want to do that.
You couldn't find the preacher anywhere in this
country who doesn't want to magnify the saving
grace of God and the saving power of
Christ and so we we got that right
motive but we declare in an effort to
do what we think ought to be done
we preach all over this country that God's
redeeming love extends to every man and we
further preach and brother you can get in
a fight about this we further preach that
Christ has died to save every man and
we further proclaim that the glory of divine
mercy is to be measured by these facts
and then having preached that in order to
avoid what that naturally assumes that is that
everybody will be saved we have to turn
right around and deny all this said and
then go on to explain now here is
the damning part about this we have to
go on to explain that after all nothing
that God and Christ have done can save
us unless we add something to it now
my friends if I'm not telling the truth
about what's called the gospel today I want
you to write me and straighten me out
we thus preach that the decisive factor which
actually saves us is our own believing what
we really say is Christ saves us with
our help and if you think that out
what that really means is we save ourselves
with Christ's help but my friends if we
start as is done now by affirming that
God has a saving love for everybody and
that Christ died a saving death for everybody
and yet we do not preach that everybody
will be saved we just show how foolish
we are the man who preaches that Christ
died in a saving way for everybody has
got to preach that everybody must be saved
the man who preached that God has a
saving love for everybody has got to preach
that everybody must be saved but we say
brother Byron we don't believe that I know
but that's what you preach you get an
awful stew oh how we ran about it
and so these folks running around here limiting
the purpose and love of God we're just
a minute we are simply saying that the
old gospel limited the work and love of
Christ simply this way that the love of
God accomplished all it was sent to do
and that the love of Christ dying for
our sins means that those whom it was
meant for are to be saved now we
need to be clear here in this kind
of preaching as it is the popular preaching
of the day instead of exalting the grace
of God and magnifying the cross of Christ
we cheapen them and people who preach that
way limit the atoning work of the Lord
Jesus Christ people say to me brother Byron
you blame the limited atonement and I say
no but most all the preachers in this
country do for they preach that Christ didn't
actually accomplish what he set out to do
he just made possible something that he hoped
might accidentally take place my friends the old
gospel says of Christ's death that Christ's death
saves all whom it was meant to save
the new gospel says that Christ's death as
such actually saves nobody what's good news about
that what's good news about that no wonder
my friends you can go into most any
church in this section today and in three
or four nights hewing to the line ninety
-five percent of the people in the congregations
will be saying if that fellow's preaching the
truth then I'm not saved no wonder my
friends at Baptist who've always said we believe
in the eternal security of the believer it's
hard to find a Baptist now who feels
any security why well we believe the gospel
about a God who's made salvation possible not
a gospel about a God who actually saved
dear old brother Spurgeon whom the preachers quote
today but hate his gospel they accused him
of preaching the limited atonement he answered and
this wise I quote it brother Spurgeon said
we're often told that we limit the atonement
of Christ because we say that Christ has
not made a satisfaction for all men or
all men would be saved now our reply
to this is brother Spurgeon says that on
the other hand our opponents limit the work
of Christ we do not our opponents say
Christ died for all men ask them what
they mean by him dying for all men
ask them did Christ die so as to
secure the salvation of all men and they
said no certainly not we ask them the
next question did Christ die so as to
secure the salvation of any man in particular
they answer no they are obliged to admit
admit this if they're consistent they say no
Christ has died in order that any man
may be saved if and then follow certain
conditions of salvation now says Mr. Spurgeon who
is it that limits the death of Christ
why it's you you say that Christ did
not die so as infallibly to secure the
salvation of anybody we beg your pardon when
you say we limit Christ death we say
no my dear sir it is you that
limits it we say Christ so died that
he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude
that no man can number who through Christ's
death not only may be saved but are
saved must be saved and cannot by any
possibility run the hazard of being anything but
saved you are welcome to your atonement says
Mr. Spurgeon you may keep it we will
never renounce ours for the sake of it
I thank God I have the privilege of
pointing every sinner I can get and speak
in distance of to the Lamb of God
and I can say to them sinner they're
on the cross salvation wasn't made possible salvation
was accomplished I bid you to look at
not somebody who may be conceived but look
at the Savior and he died so that
everyone believing in him is assured of salvation
oh my sure what I'm going about is
not just to be dismissed I'm comparing the
old gospel we're going to start preaching pretty
soon if you don't all the way I'm
prepared I'm comparing the old gospel that bad
men look to a real savior to the
new gospel that just can't possibly point anybody
with assurance to Christ the Savior oh the
sinner may still have his good opinion of
himself and all his supposed abilities we deheart
repentance and deheart saving faith in order to
make this plausible it's very simple we tell
sinful men just open your heart to the
Lord and in so doing we have first
denied God's sovereignty and second we've undermined the
very basic conviction of religion itself and that
basic conviction I know this is so is
that sinful man is always always in God's
hand and we've lost a great deal and
it's no wonder that our preaching begets so
little reverence and humility that our converts are
so self-confident and so deficient in the
true knowledge of themselves and in the good
works which scripture regards as the fruit of
true repentance my dear brother the old gospel
said Christ died to save a certain company
of helpless sinners upon whom God had set
his free saving love the old gospel says
Christ's death ensured the calling and the keeping
Christ's death ensured the present and the final
salvation of all whose sins he bore that's
what Calvary meant in the old gospel that's
what means today the old preachers said the
cross saved the old preachers will preach today
the cross saves they'll quote that verse of
scripture dear dying lamb thy precious blood shall
never lose its power till all the ransomed
church of God is saved to sin no
more only God knows how this glorious gospel
of a real savior needs to be preached
today my time's gone and I have to
go away sorry my time's gone and ask
you to be here next lord day as
we take up where we've left off with
this gospel