Will you turn in the Bible to the
second book of Corinthians, at chapter 2, at
chapter 3, and while you're turning, I thank
you for the opportunity of witnessing here, and
I wish to try to speak this morning
on the first, in the first message on
the subject, why we preach the gospel.
Why do we preach the gospel?
In the second book of Corinthians, at chapter
2, we have a description by the Apostle
Paul of the contrast of the glory of
the Old Testament and the New, and the
word glory just appears in nearly every verse
of this chapter.
Beginning at verse 5, we read after this,
why Paul says, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves,
but our sufficiencies of God, who also hath
made us able ministers of the New Testament
or covenant, not of the letter, but of
the Spirit.
For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth
life.
But if the ministration of death, that's the
law written and engraven in stones, was full
of glory or glorious, so that the children
of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face
of Moses because of the glory of his
countenance, which glory was to be done away,
if that were glorious, Paul says, how shall
not the ministration of the Spirit be rather
full of glory?
For if the ministration of condemnation be glory,
see, God's going to get glory either way.
Everything that writhes and wriggles was created to
echo the glory of the sovereign Redeemer, the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And if God's going to get glory out
of dealing with men who come to the
judgment and have to deal with God's holy
law without a mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ,
he's going to get glory out of that.
And much more glory he'll receive to himself
as we preach the gospel.
For verse 9 says, if the ministration of
condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration
of righteousness exceed in glory.
For even that which was made full of
glory had no glory in this respect by
reason of the glory that excelleth.
For if that which was done away was
full of glory, much more that which remaineth
is full of glory.
And then the last verse of that glorious
chapter describes the chief occupation of every child
of God.
I didn't say every church member, but every
child of God spends most of his time
while washing dishes or down at the factory
or plowing corn, harvesting tobacco, whatever they do.
This is a description that fits every child
of God.
This is what a Christian is.
He's a fellow whose chief occupation, the thing
that makes him tick, is this.
We all, I thank God for that, all
includes every child of God, we all with
open face beholding as in a glass, we
don't see the fullness of it yet, did
it kill us, but we all with open
face beholding as a glass to reflect it.
Beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Lord.
Something happens to people like that, they are
changed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the
Lord.
God's eternal purpose is to have a family
of people just exactly like his son.
He is running according to schedule.
And we are here just as little messenger
boys, not knowing whether we'll get a good
hearing or a bad one, but knowing we'll
get one or the other, and knowing that
God has some people, and many I do
not know anything about that, who do the
praying here, keep the doors open, live the
holy life, and reflect the glory of Christ,
and each day are being changed into the
same image as Christ, until one day when
with undimmed view we see him as he
really is, and that look shall change us
completely, and we shall be finally saved because
we'll be just exactly like the Lord.
Would you like to meet some old gray
-haired saint of God with the Shekinah glory
on that countenance, and you can just see
from day to day as they behold the
glory of the Lord, they get more like
him every day.
And if you know one person like that,
then it's proven that coming to vital union
with Christ will change you with a change
that'll keep on changing you until you're just
like Christ.
And then in the first verse of chapter
4, Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, ministry
of not simply preaching a word to condemn
all men, we have to preach that, but
a ministry that talks about the glory of
God in Christ, and that's so full of
glory.
It glorifies God.
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, and it's
the gift of God's grace because we got
it through mercy, we faint not.
But we have renounced the hidden things of
dishonesty.
We're going to be honest with men whatever
happens, if we know how.
Not walking in craftiness, not trying to slip
up on blind side of somebody and wish
the Lord Jesus off on them, nor handling
the Word of God deceitfully.
This is humble, this will humble anybody that's
a Christian, for your business is handling the
Word of God, and you wouldn't want to
do it deceitfully.
But by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of
God.
We actually believe that God's alive and he
knows what's going on, he watches us.
We're not going to be spiritual crooks, says
Paul, and we're not going to use craft,
we're not going to speak as soothsayers and
put salve on open sores, and we're not
going to handle the Word deceitfully, God help
us there.
We're going to commend ourselves to every man's
conscience in the sight of God.
And now follows a tremendous passage of scripture.
In the next three verses we find the
difference between a lost man on his road
to hell, and a saved man on his
road to glory.
Verse three says the reason we're going to
be honest, as we know how, and the
reason we're going to use no craftiness, if
we can get away with it, promise, and
the reason we're going to handle the Word
rightly if we can, and commend ourselves to
the conscience is a gift that God gave
every man.
It tells you don't go that way, go
that way.
Which gift can be so sinned against that
after a while it'll become sin, as with
a red-hot arrow, give you the wrong
direction instead of accuse you, it'll excuse you
in your sin, but we're going to commend
ourselves to the consciences of every man in
the sight of God.
For here is the desperateness of the situation
if our gospel be hid, this gospel of
the glory of God in Christ.
If it's hid, it is hid to them
that are lost, and the reason it's hid
to them that are lost is something's happened
to them in whom the God of this
world has blinded the minds of them which
believe not, what of the glory of
Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine upon them.
Men are blind, men are blind.
Now skip the first, the fifth verse.
Here's the description in verses three and four
of the condition of men outside of a
vital union with Christ.
They're the victims of the work of the
devil.
They're blind.
They see no beauty in my Lord.
They see no glory in my Lord.
They're blind.
They esteem him not.
He's still despised and rejected by people who
are still in the clutches of Satan.
But verse six describes a Christian.
A Christian isn't somebody who's made a decision,
although decision in its right place is necessary.
A Christian isn't somebody who's made a profession,
although profession in its rightful place is good.
A Christian's not somebody that's done something, although
a Christian will do something.
A Christian's a product of the redeeming, reigning,
sanctifying, conquering grace of almighty God.
A Christian's not somebody that's done something.
A Christian's somebody that's received somebody.
He's a product of the grace of God.
And here's the most beautiful description I've found
in the word of God, how people get
saved.
Verse six says, for God, who commanded the
light to shine out of darkness.
And many people won't be able to say,
thank God, if we read the rest of
the verse.
For God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, has shined in our hearts.
Is there an amen?
Is that true of anybody?
That's the difference.
That's what causes the difference.
Not something you did, but something he did.
Has shined in our hearts.
Can't brag on anybody except God.
He's the difference, isn't it?
God, who commanded the light to shine out
of darkness, glory, glory, hallelujah, has shined in
my heart.
What'd he turn on the light in my
heart for?
Learn it by heart.
Learn it till you wake up at midnight,
walk down three stairway steps, steps of stairways,
flights of stairways, on your hands, and quote
it, rejoice in it, come hell or high
water.
He's shined in our hearts together.
Salvation's something God gives you.
The knowledge, you'll not be an ignoramus anymore,
the knowledge of the what?
Of the glory of God.
Where do you find it?
Eh?
In the face of Jesus Christ.
And verse 5 points God's people, listen to
me, verse 5 points God's people to the
one thing God proposes to you.
To change the condition of men who see
no glory in Christ.
To where they receive a firsthand experience of
and knowledge of the glory of God and
the face of Christ.
What's the weapon?
To bring that wondrous miracle to pass.
Verse 5 says, for we preach what?
Not ourselves.
You're not interested in me.
You are, you're crazy.
For we preach not ourselves.
But whom do we preach?
For we preach Christ Jesus the Lord and
ourselves.
Your bond plays.
For Jesus' sake.
Why do we preach the gospel?
Well first of all, what is the gospel?
Our generation is well nigh asleep to the
gospel.
The Christ of the Bible is unknown today,
you know it.
What is the gospel?
Hear me right, it's the proclamation everywhere, one
by one, before audiences, by public preachers, by
humble children of God.
It's the proclamation of the one who's now
on the throne and he got there by
way of a bloody cross.
It's the proclaiming of him who he is
and where he is now and what that
means and how he got there and why
almighty God has turned you over to him,
brother, and why he's not in your hands.
You're in his.
It's the proclaiming, if you don't hear anything
I say while I'm here, hear this, I
repeat it.
It's the proclaiming far and wide of him
where he is.
He's on the throne.
One time, hear me, he came and offered
himself as the king of the Jewish people
through whom he'd reach the world.
He offered himself for the acceptance or the
rejection of sinful men.
And they said, we will not have this
man to reign over us and to nail
him to a tree.
Listen to Ralph Barney.
God almighty made an answer and he raised
him from the dead.
That isn't all he did.
He exalted him and put him on the
throne.
And if this stumbles you, don't talk to
anybody else but God's sake talk to God
about it.
He's not subject to your acceptance or your
rejection now.
He's on the throne.
God almighty has settled that.
He's put him on the throne.
The gospel is simply this.
Jesus Christ is God's Lord.
Bow down to him, son.
Don't talk to me about taking him as
your savior.
Bow down to him as your Lord.
The gospel is the good news of God
about his son, his virgin birth, his sinless
life, his glorious death, his enthronement, his present
rule, and his return, everything about him.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you hadn't heard
it so much that it's no longer good
news to you?
Oh, as I go from place to place,
my whole heart leaps within me.
I wish, like little children, I believe our
church people, I believe you have never saw
it before.
I doubt whether many of you know the
Lord, but you'd like to.
I doubt whether many of you believe the
Bible, but try and do.
I'm not pushing that to you.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could just
believe what God said about his son?
Oh, it'd be such wonderful news.
Somebody said in my reading, I read it,
some of these days some simple child of
God is going to pick up the old
book, the Bible, and read it and believe
it.
Wouldn't it be wonderful, young people, if you
could believe?
You're trying to.
If you could believe the good news about
God giving you a knowledge firsthand, where some
personal worker don't have to convince you, you
are saved, of the glory of God.
You found that knowledge of God's glory by
beholding the Lord Jesus Christ.
This one, who entered heaven with his own
blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us, if
God's might judge this morning, I want to
get in on that us, for us.
He obtained eternal redemption for somebody.
I'd love to be one of them.
This one, whom man put on a cursed
tree, and God raised up and sent him
back.
The gospel is the preaching of him who,
while he's down here, obtained something for somebody,
and who's now ruling and reigning for us
all, not standing on the outside of the
heart's door of big sinners hoping to get
in.
But speaking from the soul, God's prime minister.
I love to read some of the scriptures
about him.
I just nearly get that religion every time
I read the third verse of the first
chapter of Hebrews.
I want to get in on that crowd,
the folks that he purged their sins.
What happened to him?
He sat down.
Where?
On the right hand of the majesty on
high.
Where is my Lord now?
He's sitting at the right hand of God.
Not that little Jesus, it's so little that
he's got the way to make us find
out what you're going to do about him.
No!
He's reigning from the throne.
Do you believe that?
How long is it?
It's forever and ever.
How long?
It's forever and ever.
I like to turn.
If you can't turn as fast as I
do, I'm fudging on you.
I've got to march here.
It's in the second verse of the twelfth
chapter of Hebrews, looking under Jesus the altar.
And finish of our faith, who for the
joy that was set before him endured the
cross, despising the shame that's happened to him.
And he sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God.
Oh, the gospel is the preaching of him,
whom the apostle Peter says in the book
of Acts, at chapter 2 on the day
of Pentecost, he reminds the people there of
the actions of sinful men, and then of
the action of almighty God.
He says, Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly, verse 36, that God hath
made that same Jesus, that same Jesus, the
one whom ye have crucified.
Men can brag about that.
Men can take the credit for nailing the
Son of God to a cursed tree.
But that isn't all of the story.
I want you to know as a matter
of fact, it's so, said Peter, that this
same Jesus whom you crucified, God, what God
do about it?
God hath made that same Jesus, this virgin
born, sinless living, crucified, eternal Son of God,
almighty God, the God of the universe has
done something about that.
He's made that same Jesus, not the Jesus
of a man's imagination, but the Jesus whose
story is told in the Word.
He's made him Lord.
The violent heresy going up and down this
country is, won't you pretty please make Jesus
your Lord.
God beat you to it.
God's already made him your Lord.
God's already sat him down.
He's the Lord of all men.
Then I'll have to read about that Jesus
who's able to save it ever will all
who come unto God by him, seeing he
ever liveth, what for?
To make intercession for us.
Then I'll have to read of that glorious
time.
Then cometh the end, when he shall have
delivered up the kingdom to God, even the
Father.
After, look what my Lord's going to do
before he quits.
After he hath put down all authority and
power, for he must reign, and he's reigning
now, how long?
Till he hath put all enemies under his
feet, and the last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death.
For he hath put all things under his
feet when he died on the cross, but
when he saith all things are not under
him, it is manifest that he himself is
not yet subject.
And then verse 28, shout about this if
you had any Christianity, think about it, oh
if you could believe this, and when all
things shall be subdued unto him, and any
things, all things, shall be subdued, brought under,
in subjection to Jesus Christ, he'll bring you
under.
He'll do it by grace, or he'll do
it by power, but he'll do it.
And when all things shall be subdued unto
him, then shall the Son also himself be
subject unto him that put all things unto
him, that God may be all in all.
Now while I preach about this Jesus, I
tell you whether anybody believes it or not,
it's wonderful.
Ah, no wonder the gospel's good news.
But I'll warn you, ladies and gentlemen, I
don't know you, but everywhere else I've ever
been in, this generation of church people know
nothing about the Jesus of the Bible.
Only Jesus we hear about's a little helpless
sort of a fellow.
But the Jesus of the Bible, he was
in a manger, but he's not there now.
He was on a cross, and in the
heart of God, being a lamb slain before
the foundation of the world, there's always a
cross in the heart of God.
And in that sense, Christ is still on
the cross.
But in the body, he's not in a
manger in a cow stable now.
He's not on an old tree being spat
upon.
Now, God bless your heart, he's on the
throne.
This is not the day when God's making
folks.
Brother Parks, a lot of times I get
in the flesh.
I want to pick people up and make
them.
But that's not God's way now.
Will be.
Not now.
We preach him, who he is, what he's
done, what he's now doing.
We preach him where he is now.
The popular Jesus is not the Jesus of
the Bible.
He's well nigh a stranger to us.
The modern Jesus has no majesty and no
cutting edge, no look of judgment.
He's been so sentimentalized and cut up into
a nice little kind lit teacher whose love
has no holiness and whose sympathy blinds him
to sin.
He's a companion, almost a pal, but he's
not Lord.
The modern Jesus is not one before whom
men would fall on their faces and he
wouldn't frighten anybody away, not even the devils.
The modern Jesus is one whom nobody would
crucify and for whom few, if any, would
die.
The modern Jesus couldn't have brought the church
into being and couldn't have sustained it.
And the modern Jesus can't transform your life,
but the Christ of the Bible can.
Why do we preach him?
Three reasons.
First, we're commanded to.
In Matthew 28, 18 and 20, the Lord
Jesus says, All authority, A-double-L, all
of it, every last bit of it.
All authority in heaven and earth has been
given unto me.
The Father gave it to us.
I haven't got any.
You haven't got any.
He has.
All authority has been given unto me.
Isn't that some claim?
He's the biggest fool out of hell and
he's God Almighty when he says, All authority
is given unto me.
Go ye therefore, go ye therefore.
We preach him because he commanded us to.
He's got a right to give orders.
We preach him because it's a great privilege
to do so.
Oh my, I hope you're not one of
these professing Christians.
Somebody has to get the wind to twist
your arm to get you to talk about
the Lord.
You don't know anything about the Lord, do
you?
It's not a duty.
It's a privilege.
Having received this ministry by the mercy of
God, we don't think.
God bless your heart, Paul, said according to
the gospel of the glory of God, which
was committed to my trust.
He says, I thank my Lord Jesus Christ
who counted me faithful and put me into
the ministry.
Oh, what a privilege.
Why we preach the gospel?
They're blind men, blinded by Satan.
What's the matter with them?
Because they get drunk, they do this and
that.
Oh no, they're in more terrible shape than
that.
They're blind.
They live in God's Word and do not
do all things whatsoever they do to the
glory of God.
The blind!
Our churches have been trying to get along
for two generations without the right kind of
preaching and intercessory prayer.
They're the only weapon we've got.
So we get people to make decisions and
go on to hell, but what needs to
happen now is for the power of the
Spirit of God, using the truth of the
gospel, to take the scales that the devil
has put on men's eyes so they can
see.
They can see the glory of Christ.
Any man that tries to do personal work
of preaching the sermons I'm trying to preach
and his primary motive is not to proclaim,
to exalt, to display with a cry in
his heart that the glory of Christ might
be revealed.
That's it.
The grand design of the gospel of God
concerning his Son is the glory of that
Son.
What's the difference?
The lost man doesn't see any glory in
Christ.
Any man does.
Something's happened to him.
He can see right now.
He can see right.
He used to.
He couldn't do it.
Mr. Burns, the evangelist God used.
He started to fire the revival in McShane's
parish in Scotland.
When he got famous he went down to
take ship to go to China to be
a missionary.
The reporter asked him, said, Mr. Burns, I
presume you're going to China to convert the
Chinese.
He said, oh no, I'm going to China
to glorify God.
If you don't understand that you better do
a little praying, dear one.
Jesus Christ is the light and the glory.
He's the light that lighted every man.
He came and tabernacled among us in the
flesh.
And John says, glory be, we beheld his
glory.
Are you one of the people who beheld
the glory of Christ?
Don't get mad at me.
I didn't ask you if you've made a
decision.
If you've done what they've made popular these
days, accept it, Jesus.
It used to be a good word, now
it isn't any more.
Have you beheld his glory?
Get you to make a decision?
No, your decision's done been settled.
Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.
We're not trying to get you to make
any decision.
That's all settled.
It's not a question of whether you're going
to receive Christ or not, it's just a
question of when.
Do it now, as God persuades you.
Wait a little while and he'll put his
foot on your neck and make you.
No, we're not trying to get you to
make a decision.
That's already been settled.
Do you understand that?
The grace of God.
That's what it is, brother.
Send the messengers out with an offer of
pardon.
You don't have to make your move now,
just wait a little while.
But you're going to make it, so we're
not trying to get you to make a
decision.
That's done been settled, is that clear?
What are we trying to do?
We're over-preaching.
He lives because of what he did, because
that's God's way of bringing glory to himself
by displaying and manifesting the glory of his
son.
This is too deep for me, brother.
There's one thing I know, that the God
who makes evil will rise up to praise
him, and everything's going to be to the
praise of the glory of God's grace some
of these days.
This generation has never seen the glory of
Christ.
You wouldn't misunderstand me.
I don't know how you treat me.
I've been received well and run out and
everything else many places.
That's up to you.
It's all in the book.
I'm not here to entertain you, I'm here
at your invitation.
I want to help you if I can.
But if we just quit trying to get
people to make decisions, and if our Sunday
school classes and our pulpits and our radios
and our homes and our whole testimony, we're
doing what God told us to do, preach
the gospel.
That's him on the throne, brother Scott.
Let's just keep lifting him up!
He says he'll do the right!
We've been trying to do it both.
We ain't getting anywhere.
Nearly everybody in this country done made from
one to half a dozen decisions, still living
like the devil.
We don't need some more decisions right now
out of place.
We need some people into whose lives the
light comes to shine.
It causes them to see the glory of
God in Jesus Christ.
Isn't he wonderful?
Praise the Lord.
I wish this closing moment just called your
attention to the glory of the eternal word
of God.
In the beginning was the word, and the
word was with God, and the word was
God.
I hope you're not so hard and so
nice and so religious that that wouldn't drive
you to, oh Lord, help me to get
a little of the shine of the glory
of him, the eternal God.
His glorious words, when he spoke, his glory
shone through the veil of his flesh.
Some people saw it.
When he said, I'm the Messiah, some people
believed him.
When he said, I'm the redeeming Lord, some
people were able to believe him.
When he said, I'm the resurrection from the
dead, some people were able to believe him.
When he said, I'm the assurance, the rock
of salvation, some people believed him.
When he said, I'm the source of all
grace, some people were able to believe him.
When he said, I'm God, some people believed
him.
A man can't speak that way about himself.
I wish we could recover for this generation
the sense of the glory of his deeds.
He spoke, and the winds obeyed him, and
the waves were quiet.
He spoke, and death had to surrender.
He spoke, and the hearts of some were
open to him.
I wish I knew how to preach of
the glory of his death.
Ladies and gentlemen, that death that's always in
the heart of God, there was a glory
about it that caused fear to come in
the heart of the sinner.
He said, surely, this man's the son of
God.
There was a glory about his death that
caused this old earth to shake.
There was a glory about his death that
caused the veil to be rent in flames.
There was a glory about his death that
caused the graves to yield up their dead,
and there's still glory there.
You see it?
If you're saved, you do.
I close by just mentioning what I've been
talking about.
Oh, that men and women this day, I
wish I knew how to preach it.
I'm not a novice any longer.
I've been preaching this month 36 years, 28
of them.
I've been a full-time Hitchhiker Evangelist.
The news sort of worn off.
Before I die, I ain't just preaching now,
I'm telling the truth.
Before I die, I wish I could preach
Christ, where he is, and all in glory
of his enthronement.
I wish men and women could see him
there.
They'll have to take God's word for it
in the gospel before they'll ever see him.
I wish somebody could just believe the testimony
of God.
Where is your son?
He's on the throne.
How long is he there for?
Forever.
And the only power to transform the human
life and lift it up, just the human,
flows from the right hand of him who
sits on the throne.
And I say it to you with a
breaking heart, the only transform lies about this.
Just tell the story that this generation has
put its faith in a Christ, but not
the Christ of the book, but he's on
the throne.
And to get in touch with him means
to get in touch with power that'll change
you.
Amen.
Glory of the enthroned, regnant Christ.
Not in our hands to do with what
we will, but we're in his hands.
And the only safe place for a human
being is bowing at his throne, saying, Lord,
if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole.
Someday, this glory will be revealed on this
earth.
And men will cry for the rocks and
mountains to fall upon them to hide from
the face of him that sits on the
throne.
I would that men today could believe the
gospel.
What's the gospel?
Christ on the throne.
He got there because he went to the
cross.
Therefore, God's highly exalted him.
And here's what God thinks about it, giving
him a name, amen, which is above every
name.
That's what God's done about it.
What for?
That it's the name of Jesus.
Therefore, men shall bow, and every tongue confess
that he's what?
What the Bible's been saying all along, that
he's Lord.
Amen.
Glory to the glory of the Father.
Too late for your salvation, but your salvation
never was the big thing.
The glory of Christ is the big thing.
During the First World War, a Red Cross
nurse lay dying, and an attendant nurse was
at her side.
Just a little while before she died, the
nurse began to try to speak, and she
was almost gone, and she said, Breathe.
Breathe.
And the attendant nurse, that's all she could
get out of her, and she brought her
a glass of water, but she shook her
head.
She didn't want water.
After a while, the dying woman made another
effort.
She said, Breathe.
Breathe.
The attendant nurse brought her the Bible, thought
maybe she wanted the book, but she shook
her head she didn't want the book.
After a while, she made another effort and
said, Breathe.
Breathe.
Nonplussed and perplexed, the attendant nurse brought her
a pad of paper and a pencil, thought
maybe she'd write out what she was trying
to say.
She shook her head, and after a while,
the last supreme effort of her strength, she
was half-raised to sit in her bed
on the palm of her hand to get
a little more rest, and the dying woman
said, Breathe.
Breathe.
Bring forth the royal
diadem and crown him
Lord of all.