Introducing the Gospel

So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might rain through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, there is no maybe in this gospel and that is good news. Yes, we have all drunk from the polluted stream of Adam's race, but there is another one who has begun a new race, a race of justified men and women, boys and girls who have accepted the gift of righteousness. Have you ever felt like you're doing all the right things, but still struggling to find true peace? Religion can feel like that. It's like trying to paddle through the storms of life with nothing but flimsy oars.

But what if there was a better way? Today, we'll explore the message that goes beyond man-made rituals and empty traditions. In this message, you'll learn why the gospel isn't just good advice, but good news rooted in God's eternal promises. Paul reveals why the gospel is for everyone and how it's been foretold for generations. It's time to cut through the noise of false promises and find the truth. Adam stands at the fountainhead of humanity, and he has polluted the stream of mankind from his day till the end of days.

We are polluted and you say, well, that's not fair. I didn't eat that fruit in the garden. Well, you might not have eaten the forbidden fruit because you weren't there personally, but you have taken a forbidden sin.

You may not have eaten that proverbial apple, but you might have stolen one. In other words, you've committed your own sins that prove that you have indeed been infected by the polluted nature of Adam. All of us are born into the family of Adam, and our case is terminal. The reason the gospel was first given was because of that curse. If you can imagine Adam and Eve standing there about to be expelled by God from the garden. God will post angels to make sure that they don't get back in. Imagine they're washed over with guilt and shame, and yet it is in the midst of that exile that God promises a coming redeemer. He will be bruised by the deceiver, Genesis 3 tells us, but that coming redeemer will crush the head of the deceiver. You see, ladies and gentlemen, the reason that you have to be born again is because you were born the first time into the wrong family and condemned to death. In fact, in John 8 44, the Lord says that the father of that humanity, all humanity, is the devil. He is the father of lies, and so we as his children find it just as he finds it in his own tongue to lie.

So we lie. We prove the fact that we are polluted members of this family. You see, you had bigger family problems than you thought you did. You got a problem with a relative of yours that you might not have thought about. We have as a human race been infected.

We have drunk from the polluted river. We are terminally infected with sin, and so you need to be adopted out of that dying infected family into a living whole family. So you are no longer the son or daughter of Satan, as it were, who has rights to humanity.

You are now the son or daughter of the living God. The religions, men and women of this world, do nothing more than try and build filters for polluted water. Religions of the world have become masters at masking the effects of the disease. They've attempted to produce spiritual medicines that keep pain and guilt and shame at a bare minimum.

They've produced cosmetics to make the soul look better than it really is. They've even invented ways to deny our condition and to talk of positive things and to create self-improvement plans to make us feel better about our infected terminal condition. Several years ago in India, I was in a Hindu temple waiting area and noticed a plaque on the wall and I scribbled it into a note. It declared their way of dealing with fallen humanity. It read, he who desires to cross the painful ocean of worldly life, which is full of the crocodiles of anger, greed, and infatuation, should catch hold of the Bhagavad Gita, which is their Bible, which has the disciplines of action, devotion, and wisdom as its oars. It will easily take him to the land of liberation or the land of nirvana, their heaven. This was their gospel. Get a hold of the oars and hold on tight to disciplined action and devotion and wisdom and maybe if you hold on tight to the oars, you will make it through the crocodile infested waters of life.

Maybe, ladies and gentlemen, maybe is not good enough. In fact, all you have to do is study further and discover that within their system of belief, every person will spend time in one of 21 hells that will burn away bad karma. Once purged, your soul will be recycled to a higher life form and the process begins again. If you've been particularly bad in the previous life, you might be condemned to one of the lower hells where you will be cooked in jars or eaten by ravens. Buddhism isn't much better even though it's growing in this country. It has its own seven hot hells, complete with torture chambers and quagmire.

And then for those who were a little better than the rest, there are seven cold hells where you won't burn, you'll freeze. Frankly, all of the man-made religions of the world are similar in that none of the man-made religions of the world are good news. The Western world has concocted its own religious system. They may not threaten you with being cooked in a jar or eaten by a raven, but they're not much better.

They're equally hopeless and empty in the system that they promote of self-improvement and self-salvation. When I think of the world religions, I think of the emperor in that story you heard as a kid, who was duped by a couple of very shrewd men into believing that they could make clothing for him. Of course, they didn't know how to make clothing and they didn't have any fabric. And so they fooled him into believing that they were making this clothing out of exquisite fabric, but only the sophisticated could see it.

And so the king went along, well, you know, I'm sophisticated, so sure, it looks beautiful. And then the day came where he was to display his new clothing to the crowd of his kingdom and he went out basically in his birthday suit and he's walking around and the people of his kingdom are watching him silently afraid to reveal their own lack of sophistication that they can't see his clothing. Until finally a little innocent boy says to his mommy, mommy, the emperor has no clothes. See, the children of God have a message for the religions of the world.

Basically, they have no hope. They cannot cover sin, they cannot cover guilt, they cannot cover shame. The person within those man-made religions are still exposed and naked before the one true God before whom they stand condemned in their sin. A few years ago I showed you a clip from my trip to India and it was a video clip of a priest who was washing in the polluted water of the Ganges River covering himself with some kind of soap and then washing himself, believing that he was washing sin away. You see, the reason there is so much religion in the world, no matter where you go, is because the human heart knows there's something wrong. The human heart knows intuitively that they have broken the law, we'll learn later. The human heart knows that it needs something outside of itself for cleansing, some ritual.

There must be some ritual, there must be some tradition, there must be some ceremony, there must be some way to silence the guilt. There must be something or someone who can diagnose our terminal condition and provide a cure. Paul will be the one to arise and show us God, and he will show us the way to God. And the way is the sum and substance of the gospel, which is good news.

Is it any wonder that the word gospel in the Greek Bible is a word that literally means good news? Yes, there is sin. Yes, there is shame. Yes, there is guilt. Yes, there is condemnation. Yes, there is a coming judgment, but there is good news too. Paul summarizes the good news. Would you look over in Romans 5 and verse 17.

And imagine again that campsite scene by the water. For if by the transgression of the one, referring to Adam, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. Look down at verse 21. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. There is no maybe in this gospel and that is good news. Yes, we have all drunk from the polluted stream of Adam's race, but there is another one who has begun a new race.

A race of justified men and women, boys and girls, who have accepted what he refers to here as the gift of righteousness. There is a way to have and to know that you have the way to eternal life. And it is through this one, Jesus Christ our Lord, there is such a thing today as the gospel truth, my friends.

In an age of deception, in an age of lying and distrust, and in an age of religious confusion and manipulation in pious terms, here is at last the gospel truth. Why did it come? Because of the curse. Because mankind is infected with a terminal disease called sin.

The second point is an important question. Where did the gospel come from? And so in the last part of verse one Paul declares this is the gospel of God. You could render that construction so that it would read, this is the gospel whose source is God. You see, Paul has to establish the divine source of this gospel.

Otherwise it will not have credibility to a world that's already filled with novel systems of faith and religion and superstition. In fact, during the days of Paul, there were even before the first century ended, there were other novel forms of the gospel. And so Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, 4 warns of men who will preach a different Jesus, a different spirit, a different gospel. In other words, they will talk about the gospel, but it will be a different gospel. They'll talk about Jesus, but it will be a different Jesus.

They'll talk about the spirit, but it will be a different spirit. 2 Corinthians 11, 4. In Galatians 1, 7, Paul further warned the believers along the same line when he wrote, There are some who are disturbing you, the church in Galatia, and who want to distort the gospel of Christ.

He goes on to say words, by the way, that need to be heard today more than ever. But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel, contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed, as we have said before. So I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel, contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. And one of the few instances Paul ever repeated himself in the same paragraph is here.

The word contrary, if an angel preached to you a gospel contrary, if a man preached to you a gospel contrary, the word could be translated in addition to, more than. Paul was more than likely referring to the Judaizers who were not essentially denying Christ, but they were trying to add to Christ the works of the law. They were adding to the gospel. It was Jesus plus something in Paul's day, and it's still the same way today as Jesus for most people, at least in the western world, plus something. Whenever I see a copy of Mary Baker Eddy's Key to Understanding the Scripture, or the Book of Mormon, which claims is another testament to add to the New Testament, I think of this verse. And the irony is that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claimed it was an angel from heaven who led him to the place which translated provided new revelation regarding the gospel, who gave an addition to the gospel. What does Paul say again in verse eight?

If an angel comes from heaven and delivers to you a gospel in addition to the gospel you have in the past tense already received, let him be a curse. This is why Paul's introduction to the gospel truth is so critical. This isn't Paul's gospel. This isn't something he made up. This isn't something an angel delivered to him. This gospel's source is God, and it is good news.

By the way, it is not good advice. It's good news. Now, if it's truly from God, then it isn't something new or novel, right? Paul anticipates that question by answering who told us about the gospel. It gives us the messengers of the gospel. Paul's answer would be, well, the prophets. Look at verse one again in the latter part. Gospel whose source is God, which he promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

In other words, he wants them to know this is not a new thing. This is not a new gospel. This gospel from God was not thrown together rather hastily after Adam and Eve sinned. God wasn't up in heaven watching, saying, oh, no, don't eat that.

Oh, I can't believe they ate that fruit. Now what in the world are we going to do? No, there's never been an emergency meeting of the Trinity. 1 Peter 1 tells us that the plan of redemption preceded the formation of the world. The lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. It wasn't like God has plan A, and he'd like to do that if we cooperate. And then he has, if we don't cooperate, plan B.

No. God has arranged and designed it all to glorify him. And the prophets since the time of Moses have been prophesying of his coming. In fact, the first coming of the Redeemer has about 330 prophecies in the Old Testament to speak of him. And when Paul dictated the book of Romans to his secretary Tertius, he will quote from Genesis five times, Exodus four times, Leviticus twice, Deuteronomy five times, 1 Kings twice, Psalms 15 times, Proverbs twice. He'll quote from Isaiah 19 times, and Ezekiel once, from Hosea twice, from Joel once, from Nahum once, from Habakkuk once, and from Malachi once. Luke 24 verses 25 to 27 says of Jesus, beginning with Moses and all of the prophets, he, Jesus, explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. There's an interesting incident you might want to turn if you want to hold your finger here, but in John chapter five verse 18, the religious leaders are really upset with Jesus.

Why? Because he committed a miracle on the Sabbath day. It's interesting to me how they always ignore the miracle. They fail to get involved in the party that follows, and they're concerned about the ritual. Well, then they're back and forth. Jesus compared himself to God the Father, and then when he did that, of course, they wanted to kill him. He said to them in verse 39, you search the scriptures. The implication is continuously, I like the way Barnhouse paraphrased it, you've always got your nose stuck in the Bible, for you think that in them you have eternal life. The implication is that is true, and it is good, by the way, to have your nose in the Bible. But he goes on, it is these, these scriptures, that bear witness of me. In other words, Jesus is saying that the Old Testament was showing the way to eternal life, and it was pointing to the Messiah, and the Messiah was Jesus.

If they just get out of the Word, the truth of the Word, they were always studying, never able to come to the truth. He goes on in verse 45 by saying, do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you've set your hope, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. Doesn't that make you want to dig back into Genesis and Exodus, and find out where, well, he says Moses was speaking of me. Could the Lord make it any clearer? Well, he goes further in verse 47, but if you do not believe Moses' writings, his writings, how will you believe my word? What were those writings of Moses, by the way?

Why don't you say them with me? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, stop. In other words, if you can't hear the truth of God about the Messiah in Genesis, you're not going to believe the truth of the Messiah in Matthew. If you can't believe the first verse of the Bible, you will not believe any verse of the Bible, and I think that's why it's so important to understand that Satan has through the centuries leveled so much of his attack against the first book of Moses, the book of Genesis, and that very first verse.

Say it with me. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Can you imagine the debate that's raged over that one little verse?

Why? He says here in John, if you believe that one, you can believe any of them. You cannot choose and pick your way through this book and say, well, I'll believe that passage, but I'm not going to believe the other passage, or that's for me, but the rest is not for me.

No, it is one book. From the first verse through the last verse, the Gospel of God has been revealed. This is all you need to discover the Gospel truth.

John Wesley, a church leader in the 1800s, sometime around 1870 wrote these profound words. Listen, I am a creature of a day passing through life as an arrow through the air. A few moments hence, I am no more seen. I drop into an unchangeable eternity. I want to know one thing, the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach me the way, for this very end he came from heaven. He has written it down in a book, oh, give me that book. At any price, give me the book of God.

I have it. Here is knowledge, enough for me. Let me be a man of one book.

Here then I am, far from the busy ways of man. I sit down alone, only God is here. In his presence I open and I read this book for this end to find the way to heaven. Paul declares in his opening sentence, this is the Gospel truth, this is the good news. And you heard about it through the prophets.

This is not something novel, this has been something promised. Having established then a need for the Gospel and the source of the Gospel and the first messengers of the Gospel, Paul now moves to the content of the Gospel truth. Paul now wants to answer the next question, what's the Gospel all about?

And he tells us, this is the Gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures, now note verse three. Concerning his son who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh. Now, why mention that he's related to David?

Isn't it impressive enough to say that he's the eternal son of God? Not unless as Paul fully understands you know the importance of the royal connection that qualifies the true Messiah as the one who could by lineage have the right to sit upon David's throne. The prophets had declared that the Messiah would be a direct descendant of the tribe of Judah, a descendant of David. So the true Messiah must be a descendant from the royal line of David, legally the rightful heir to the throne. That's why at the very beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, what do you have?

You have that thing we usually skip over. It's the genealogy, it's critically important because it traces Jesus back to King David. There's something even more fascinating about Christ's human lineage. In Matthew chapter one, the genealogy is actually that of Joseph and it traces his line from Abraham through David and then through Solomon. God had promised David in 1 Chronicles 22 that Solomon's throne would be established in Israel. Thus, the future kings would be descendants of David through Solomon.

Solomon wasn't the oldest, there was another. His name was Nathan and he was born in Jerusalem, 2 Samuel 5, 14. And that is the line of David through Nathan across the column of your notes that ultimately produced a little girl named Mary.

Here's the beauty of God's sovereignty. Nathan, the son of David, had a lineage that ran on until it culminated in the birth of a girl named Mary, a man who could pass on to her son the legal right to sit on the throne. Solomon, another son of David, the one who had been given the promise of royalty, the promise of the throne, had a lineage that produced a boy named Joseph, a man who had the royal and historical right to pass on to his son, who could then be the king of Israel.

And guess what? In God's design, those two lines culminated and those two cousins became engaged. That meant that had there been a throne in Jerusalem, their first-born child had both legal and royal rights to sit on the throne of David. In fact, you remember the Christmas story, we call it, how Joseph and Mary had to travel back to the home of their forefathers and so they went where? They went to Bethlehem because that was David's home place. Joseph was from the house of David and so they went back. They didn't look much like royalty. The throne had long since disappeared, but yet the baby who was born that night and wrapped in strips of cloth and placed in a straw-filled manger was no one less than the one who had legal and royal right to sit upon David's throne.

Well, there is a slight problem. Centuries before the birth of Joseph, in his direct lineage, one of his forefathers had been cursed. A curse from God had been placed on then the line of Solomon and even though God had promised the line of Solomon to be the one to sit upon the throne, you now have a break in that. And the curse in Matthew's genealogy discovered that that ancestor's name was Jeconiah. If you go back to Jeremiah 20 and 230, and we won't for time, but we read where the Lord said that he would not prosper, Jeconiah will not prosper in his day for no man of his descendants will sit on the throne of David or rule again in Judah. And none of Jeconiah's seven sons were given the throne of David. Well, Joseph, a direct descendant of Jeconiah, therefore any biological son of Joseph can't sit on David's throne because of this curse.

How do you solve that problem? Well, God's sovereign design was so masterful, Mary and Joseph were betrothed or married. Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit's overshadowing of her womb and Joseph would become not the biological father but the adoptive father.

Thus allowing Jesus to circumvent the curse and yet still receive the legal and royal right from his father and mother to sit on the throne. So the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is of paramount importance for many reasons and here is one of those important reasons. Centuries earlier, Isaiah the prophet declared, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.

Or God with us, Isaiah 7.14. Matthew and Luke both plainly tell us that Mary was a virgin. Even though the critics have pummeled Isaiah 7.14 and saying the word virgin did not mean true virginity. So Matthew and Luke plainly reveal that Mary was a virgin. In fact, they give us the details that Joseph was going to put her away.

Why? Because he figured that she had fornicated. She had violated her betrothal vow to him because she was pregnant. And it would take a vision in the night for Joseph to learn that this was the miraculous conception by means of the Holy Spirit. And now you know why or one of the reasons why that was so important because any biological son of Joseph could not sit upon the throne of David. Thus he could not be the true Messiah. So Jesus was the uncursed Messiah, the legal Messiah, the true Messiah. And so the Apostle Paul as he begins to deliver the content of the Gospel introduces to us the Messiah who is legally and royally the rightful heir as a son of David. So you read in Romans 1.3 the Gospel concerns the Son. And he says, I want you to understand he was born a descendant of David according to the flesh. This is the beginning of the Gospel.

That was Steven Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called Introducing the Gospel. The Gospel isn't just about making life better. It's about giving life meaning and hope.

Let's embrace that truth and live it out every day. We have a resource that can help you understand the Gospel more fully. It's something we call God's Wisdom for Your Heart. It's easy to read and offers a clear explanation of the hope Jesus Christ offers you.

There are three ways you can get it. You can read it on our website at wisdomonline.org forward slash gospel. Once again you'll find this resource at wisdomonline.org forward slash gospel. If you've installed our app on your phone you'll find a link right on the home screen that says Gospel. Click that link and it will open right up. The Wisdom International app is free in the app store for your device. Finally, call us at 866-48-BIBLE for information on how you can get a bundle of this resource in print. That makes it easy to share with others. However you choose to read it, I hope you'll do that today. Join us next time on Wisdom for the Heart.