Greetings and Salutations,
I don't give sermons. I don't write them. I sit, and I wait for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when it comes time to teach. I wait for God to speak to me, “Say this now.” So when God asked me to sit down and write this to you so that I could preach it to you, I was very surprised.
My brothers, my older brothers and sisters, it is with a broken heart and grave humility before God that I come before you with this now.
In my time as a college student, I have heard and witnessed stories of well-meaning ministers – men and women – destroying the work of the Gospel and hindering the work of the God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is why I write to you.
In the words of a man whose preaching I greatly respect (for how can I say that a man is godly if I've never met him?), “I bring to you indictments against the church. I dare not call them my indictments, for who am I to bring any indictment against God's Church, and I dare not call them God's indictments, for who am I to suppose anything for God? But, when I look at the Church, and the way she is run, and compare her to scripture, certain things must be addressed.”
Please know that I write with the utmost love. I am pained to tears over what I must write.
These, my brothers, are the indictments.
I. A practical denial of the Gospel as it is written
II. A practical denial of the Sufficiency of Scripture
III. A practical denial of the Sovereign role of God in the believers' lives, the believers' responsibility to obey God above all else.
I. What is the Gospel?
Genesis 6:5-6
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
Judges 21:25
“In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
Proverbs 14:12
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Proverbs 16:25
“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Jeremiah 17:9 (King James Version)
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Romans 3:9-20
“What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written,
There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable;
There is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness;
Their feet are swift to shed blood.
Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
This, man's depravity, is foundational to the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Without this truth, told in Scripture itself, there is no need for the propitiatory work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and certainly no need for His resurrection from the dead.
Yet, as it is written, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
Understanding this, it is then clear in Scripture that in order sin for dead and depraved man to God, there needed to be a death, “for the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23a) Someone had to take on the payment of sin for us. Someone had to die to pay that penalty, “and it pleased Yahweh to crush Him. ” (Isaiah 53:10)
God poured out all His wrath, due to us “who were by nature the children of wrath, (Eph.2:3)” on the crucified Jesus Christ, “for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Cor 5:21)”
This is the Gospel: that a man is saved by grace, through faith.
And this salvation - it is evidenced by confession of sin and repentance from sin unto the taking on the life and supplication of Jesus Christ, taking Him into you as the very essence of your being. We die with Him, and by confessing and believing on His name as the only name by which we are saved, we are raised unto newness of life – His life.
As it is written: "if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." We share in his death, so too shall we share in his life. And it all begins with repentance - Repentance from sin and believing on the name of Jesus Christ as sent from God, crucified, and raised again as man's only hope for glory and fellowship with God is the only way unto salvation. It bears repeating. To “repent and believe” is the only way by which salvation is granted unto a man. As the Word of God (John 1), Jesus Christ Himself, still says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the Gospel. (Matthew 1:15)”
This is the Gospel, that we repent and believe on Jesus Christ.
Repent and Believe.
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