Dec 10
5
WHY IS THE GOSPEL OFFENSIVE TO MEN?
No man can faithfully preach the gospel of Christ without offending men. Unbelievers and self-righteous religionists are always offended by the gospel. To many it is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. The preaching of the cross is the one means which God has ordained for the salvation of sinners. Yet, it is most offensive to the natural man. Why? The answer is not hard to find.
The gospel of the grace of God offends man’s dignity, because it addresses all men as sinners. The gospel leaves no place for human dignity. It is the great leveler of men. It puts the self-righteous moralist and the drunkard, the respected mother and the despised harlot, the promising college boy and the strung-out addict all on one level. All are sinners. We all by nature are nothing more than helpless, condemned sinners.
The gospel of God offends man’s wisdom, because it comes by Divine revelation. It is not possible for any men to know the gospel, unless it is revealed in his heart. Man, with all your proud learning and boasted achievements, you can never know God, you can never grasp the doctrines of the gospel, you can never understand the Word of God, you can never know Jesus Christ, unless God the Holy Spirit reveals Christ in you.
The gospel offends man’s pride, because it declares a particular and effectual redemption. Our Lord Jesus did actually put away sin. By his mighty act of death, as our Substitute, Jesus Christ did really and completely accomplish eternal redemption for his people. There is nothing for the sinner to do, whereby he might proudly claim merit before God. You must bow to Christ, receiving all grace from him as a pure, free gift, or you must perish.
And the gospel of God’s grace and glory in Christ offends man’s love of self, because it demands discipleship. The gospel demands commitment. It demands total, unreserved surrender to the Lordship of Christ. No man has saving faith in Christ who does not in his heart confess and acknowledge that Christ is Lord, submitting to his will, surrendering to his dominion, and trusting his grace. If Jesus Christ is not your Lord and King, he is not your Redeemer and Savior.
To many the gospel is offensive. That cannot be changed. As sure as you attempt to make it pleasing to natural men, you will compromise its message, and there will be no gospel in it. But to them who are the called by almighty grace, it is the power and wisdom of God.
Don Fortner
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The Revelation of Christ’s Finished Work in the Heart
When God visits his redeemed in the season of his love, he will make you to behold Christ Jesus has made perfect atonement and God now accepts you. When this gospel revelation is given to you then the gospel of Christ shall be a statute for ever unto you. Three things are sure to happen. First, the believer shall repentant from dead works to faith in Christ Jesus who finished the work (Leviticus 16: 29.) Secondly, we shall glory only in Christ Jesus who finished the work (Leviticus 16: 30.) Thirdly, Christ Jesus will become our eternal Sabbath of rest (Leviticus 16: 31; Hebrews 4: 9-11.)
All the work of the High Priest and in the offerings God declares the acceptance of his people is complete and finished by the victorious work of Christ Jesus the Lord.
· Christ is the believer’s Wisdom for God promised that by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many (Isaiah 53: 11.)
· Christ is the believer’s Righteousness for God hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5: 21.)
· Christ is the believer’s Sanctification for both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one (Hebrews 2: 11.)
· Christ is the believer’s full Redemption for we are bought with a price and we are not our own (1 Corinthians 7: 23.)
· We are in Christ and Christ is made All unto us by God, that we should glory in him, not ourselves. (1 Corinthians 1: 30, 31.)
May God grant you repentance from working for acceptance with God, that you might rest perpetually in Christ Jesus our Sabbath, in whom the believer is righteous and holy. Satisfaction has been made! Clay Curtis.
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THE ABIDING FRIEND
“I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5
No human friend can say so. The closest and dearest of earthly links may be broken, yes! have been broken. Distance may part, time estrange, and the grave separate. Loving earthly looks may only greet you now in mute smiles from the portrait on the wall. But here is an unfainting, unvarying, unfailing Friend. Sorrowing one! amid the wreck of earthly joys which you may be even bewailing, here is a message sent from your God, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you!” Your gourd has withered, but He who gave it you remains! Surrender yourself to His disposal. He wishes to show you His present sufficiency for your happiness. As often your heart in silence and sadness weaves its plaintive lament, “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not!” think of Him who has promised to set “the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6) and to “give unto them a name and a place better than of sons or of daughters!” Alone! you are not alone! Turn in self-oblivion to Jesus. It is not, it cannot be “night,” if He, “the Sun of your soul,” be ever near! In the morning, He comes with the earliest beam that visits your chamber. When the curtains of night close around you, He, to whom “the darkness and the light are both alike,” is at your side! In the stillness of night, when in your wakeful moments, the visions of the departed flit before you like shadows on the wall, He, the sleepless Shepherd of Israel, is tending your couch, and whispering in your ear, “Fear not, for I am with you!”
Your experience may be that of Paul, “All forsook me!” But, like him, also, you will doubtless, be able to add in the extremity of your sorrow, “Nevertheless, The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me!” He can compensate by His own loving presence, for every earthly loss. Without the consciousness of His friendship and love, the smallest trial will crush you. With Him in your trial, supporting and sustaining you under it, (yes, coming in the place of those you mourn), you will have an infinite and inexhaustible portion, in the place of a finite and mutable one. Many a cloud is there without a Rainbow in Nature; but never in Grace. Every sorrow has its corresponding and counterpart Comfort. “In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, your comforts have refreshed my soul” (Psalm 94:19). If in the midnight of your grief your earthly sun appears to have set forever, an inner, but not less real sunshine, lights up your stricken heart. The stream of life may have been poisoned at its source, but blessed be His name if it has driven you to say, “All my springs are in YOU!” “The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in Him!”
John MacDuff 1849
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THE GRACIOUS VERDICT
“Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more” —John 8:11
How much more tender is Jesus than the tenderest of earthly friends! The Apostles, in a moment of irritation, would have called down fire from heaven on obstinate sinners. Their Master rebuked the unkind suggestion. Peter, the trusted but treacherous disciple, expected nothing but harsh and merited reproof for faithlessness. He who knew well how that heart would be bowed with penitential sorrow, sends first the kindest of messages, and then the gentlest of rebukes—”Do you love Me?” The watchmen in the Canticles smote the bride, tore off her veil, and loaded her with reproaches. When she found her lost Lord, there was not one word of upbraiding! “So slow is He to anger,” says an illustrious believer, “so ready to forgive, that when His prophets lost all patience with the people so as to make intercession against them, yet even then could He not be gotten to cast off this people whom He foreknew, for His great name’s sake.”
The guilty sinner to whom He speaks this comforting “word,” was frowned upon by her accusers. But, if others spurned her from their presence—”Neither do I condemn you,” Well it is to fall into the hands of this blessed Savior-God, for great are His mercies.
Are we to infer from this, that He winks at sin? Far from it. His blood, His work—Bethlehem, and Calvary, refute the thought! Before the guilt even of one solitary soul could be washed out, He had to descend from His everlasting throne to agonize on the accursed tree. But this “word of Jesus” is a word of tender encouragement to every sincere, broken-hearted penitent, that crimson sins, and scarlet sins, are no barrier to a free, full, everlasting forgiveness. The Israelite of old, gasping in his agony in the sands of the wilderness had but to “look and live;” and still does He say, “Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth.” Upreared by the side of His own cross there was a monumental column for all time, only second to itself in wonder. Over the head of the dying felon is the superscription written for despairing guilt and trembling penitence, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” “He never yet,” says Charnock, “put out a dim candle that was lighted at the Sun of Righteousness.” “Whatever our guiltiness be,” says Rutherford, “yet when it falls into the sea of God’s mercy, it is but like a drop of blood fallen into the great ocean.
Reader, you may be the chief of sinners, or it may be the chief of backsliders; your soul may have started aside like a broken bow. As the bankrupt is afraid to look into his books, you may be afraid to look into your own heart. You are hovering on the verge of despair. Conscience, and the memory of unnumbered sins, is uttering the desponding verdict, “I condemn you.” Jesus has a kinder word—a more cheering declaration—”I condemn you not: go, and sin no more!”
“And all wondered at the gracious WORDS that proceeded out of his mouth.”
John MacDuff
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Consider Jesus– as Receiving Sinners
“This man receives sinners!” –Luke 15:2
Nothing gave greater offence to the scribes and Pharisees than the divine mission of Jesus to save sinners. No greater and more virulent accusation could they allege against Him, than that, He extended His compassionate regards to the vile and the wretched, admitting the most flagrant offenders to His mercy, and inviting the most notorious sinners to His fellowship. And yet this, His greatest reproach, was His highest honor. Pluck this jewel from His mediatorial crown, and it has lost its costliest gem. Extract this note from the “joyful sound,” and you have hushed its sweetest melody. Remove this object of His mission from His coming, and you have reduced His incarnation, sufferings, and death to a gigantic waste.
Oh, with what glory does the fact that, “This man receives sinners,” invest the Son of God! How should our hearts glow with gratitude, praise, and love! If the individual who makes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is regarded as a public benefactor; if we deck the person of him who, at the risk of his own, saves the life of another, what shall we feel towards the Son of God who, in the plenitude of His compassion and love, bowed the heavens, and came down to save countless myriads of our race from the “bitter pains of eternal death”!
Yes, “He receives sinners.” He receives them as sinners–lost, undone, self-destroyed sinners–sinners too vile and too helpless to save themselves–who, if He does not save them, never can be saved. He receives sinners of all conditions and of every hue, of every depth of guilt and character of crime. Oh, if there were a sinner out-sinning all sinners–every sin tainting, every crime attaching to him–an abandoned profligate, an unbelieving scorner, a reviling blasphemer, a red-handed murderer, a profane infidel, a daring atheist, a moral parricide whose transgressions have broken a mother’s heart and bowed a father’s gray hairs in sorrow to the grave–sins as scarlet and red as crimson–as a cloud for darkness, and as the sands on the sea shore for multitude–if, I say, there be such a one whom He would not save, and could not save, then would there be silence in heaven and exultation in hell at the announcement that Jesus Christ had ceased to save to the uttermost bounds of sin and guilt all who, in penitence and faith, came to God through Him.
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It follows, then, that, receiving them just as they are, He receives them freely, apart from all fitness or worthiness, of their own. “By grace are you saved.” “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” What a joyful sound! Come, then, O my soul, to Jesus, without hesitation or delay.
“Just as I am I and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot;
To Him whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come.”
Assured of the fact that you yourself have come to Jesus and are saved, be it your aim to bring others to Him, that they may be saved too. Oh, live and labor, if need be, suffer and die for Him, whose greatest glory is, that He receives and saves sinners, who has received and saved you!
“He receives sinners.” Hear it, you that are afar off, wandering in ignorance and sin. Hear it, you who, amid the tortures of a guilt-oppressed conscience, are inquiring, “What must I do to obtain mercy and forgiveness?” Hear it, you who once walked in the way of holiness, but have turned aside to sin and folly. Hear it, you who are resigning yourselves to dark despair, tempted to terminate a present misery by the self-infliction of a future, a more fearful and interminable one. Oh, hear it, all you poor and wretched, you humble and penitent, you broken-hearted and burdened–“This man receives sinners, and eats with them.” “Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Octavius Winslow
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“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.” Micah 7:18 God delights in mercy. It is not drawn from him unwillingly; it is not forced out of him even by importunity; it is not dragged out of his heart by the cries of his people; but he delights in it as being his darling attribute, the very pleasure of God being in showing mercy to the miserable. How hard it is for us to believe this, until mercy visits the soul and a sweet sense of it is felt in the conscience. How we represent to ourselves God in his anger, in his justice, in his terrible displeasure against sin and sinners; how unable to believe that there is mercy for us, and that he delights in manifesting mercy to poor miserable, penitent sinners. Whoever would have thought of mercy unless it had first been in the bosom of God? Who could have ventured to entertain or suggest such a thought, that “there is forgiveness with God;” that he can “pardon iniquity, and transgression, and sin;” that he can cast all our sins behind his back, and blot them out as a cloud, yes, as a thick cloud? This is what God has revealed of himself in his word, but it is only as mercy visits the troubled breast, and God displays his goodness and love in the revelation of his dear Son, that we can rise up into any sweet apprehension of what his mercy really is, and rejoice in it not only as suitable, but as saving. Joseph Philpot.
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“You are absolutely beautiful, My beloved! There is no spot in you!” Song of Solomon 4:7 Having pronounced His Church positively full of beauty—our Lord confirms His praise by a precious negative, “There is no spot in you!” As if the thought occurred to the Bridegroom that the carping world would insinuate that He had only mentioned her lovely parts—and had purposely omitted those features which were deformed or defiled—He sums up all by declaring her universally and entirely lovely, and utterly devoid of stain.A spot may soon be removed, and is the very least thing that can disfigure beauty—but even from this little blemish, the believer is delivered in his Lord’s sight. If He had said there is no hideous scar, no horrible deformity, no repulsive ulcer—we might even then have marveled. But when He testifies that she is free from the slightest spot—all these other forms of defilement are included, and the height of wonder is increased.If He had but promised to remove all spots in heaven, we would have had eternal reason for joy. But when He speaks of it as already done—who can restrain the most intense emotions of satisfaction and delight! O my soul, here is marrow and fatness for you; eat your full, and be satisfied with royal dainties!Christ Jesus has no quarrel with His spouse. She often wanders from Him, and grieves Him—but He does not allow her faults to affect His love. He sometimes chides—but it is always in the tenderest manner, with the kindest intentions—it is “My love” even then. There is no remembrance of our follies. He does not cherish ill thoughts of us—but He pardons and loves as well after the offence—as before it! It is well for us that it is so, for if Jesus were as mindful of injuries as we are—how could He commune with us? Our precious Husband knows our silly hearts too well—to take any offence at our follies and faults. Charles Spurgeon.
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“I have many people in this city!” Acts 18:10
This should be a great encouragement to evangelize—since God has among the vilest of the vile, the most reprobate, the most debauched and drunken—an elect people who must be saved. When you take the Word to them, you do so because God has ordained you to be the messenger of life to their souls, and they must receive it—for so the decree of predestination runs. They are as much redeemed by Christ’s blood—as the saints before the eternal throne! They are Christ’s property—yet perhaps they are at present, lovers of the ale-house, and haters of holiness. But if Jesus Christ has purchased them—He will have them.
God is not unfaithful to forget the price which His Son has paid. He will not allow His substitutionary sacrifice to be in any case—an ineffectual, dead thing. Tens of thousands of redeemed ones are not regenerated yet—but regenerated they must be! This is our comfort when we go forth to them with the quickening Word of God.
Nay, more, these ungodly ones are prayed for by Christ before the throne. “My prayer is not for them alone,” says the great Intercessor, “I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message.” Poor, ignorant souls—they do not pray for themselves—but Jesus prays for them. Their names are on His breastplate, and before long they must bow their stubborn knee, breathing the penitential sigh before the throne of grace.
“The time for figs is not yet.” The predestined moment has not struck! But when it comes—they shall obey—for God will have His own redeemed people! They must obey—for the Spirit is not to be withstood when He comes forth with fullness of His saving power. They must become the willing servants of the living God. “My people shall be willing in the day of My power.” “He shall justify many.” “He shall see of the travail of His soul—and be satisfied.” Charles Spurgeon.