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Called to Preach ( 2 ) By Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones

Ref. 3257 on tape
Romans 10:14-17

We are looking at the moment, as you will remember, at the words found in Paul's epistle
to the Romans in chapter 10, from verse 14 to verse 17.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe
in him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how
shall they preach except they beselt?
As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and
bring glad tidings of good things?
But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for as I have said, Lord, who hath believed our
report?
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
I have suggested that these four verses can be divided up into two pairs of two.
Verses 14 and 15 show us how the general call of the gospel goes out.
And verses 16 and 17 show us how the call becomes efficacious in those who believe.
Now we are looking at the moment, at the first section, the general call of the gospel.
The answer to the question, if you like, how shall they hear without a preacher, and how
shall they preach except they besent?
In other words, this is the great charter of the missionary enterprise, and it deals,
as we have seen, incidentally, with some of the problems that arise as the result of
that enterprise.
And we've also noticed how it strongly emphasizes the primacy of preaching.
Preaching is, after all, God's ordained method of making known the news of salvation.
It's not the only one, but it is the chief one, preeminently the chief one, and the one
that has been used of God throughout the running centuries.
And that, in turn, has raised another question, and that is the calling of the preacher.
How shall they preach except they besent?
And I think we've been able to show and to establish that always in the New Testament
the preacher is one who is sent.
He doesn't appoint himself.
He's not appointed by any other individual.
The New Testament knows nothing about a man turning to another and saying, why don't you
preach?
You can do it.
Go along.
I tell you where you may preach next Sunday.
There's nothing like that in the New Testament.
There's order in the New Testament.
Let everything be done decently and in order, and nothing is more striking, as one reads
the New Testament, than to notice the way in which church order began to appear almost
at once.
I showed you that in Acts 6 and so on.
And so by when you come to the pastoral epistles, there is quite a well-recognized order.
And now we are dealing in particular with this question of preaching.
How shall they preach except they besent?
And I showed that there was a personal element then in this call to preach, and also, and
that's the thing that we stressed most of all last Friday, the confirmation given by
the church.
There are two sides.
Of course, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions.
You don't generalize from exceptions.
An exception by definition is something very unusual, which needs very special justification.
There are exceptions, but the rule is that a preacher in that way is one who has felt
the call himself and has had the confirmation of it by the working of the Spirit in the
church.
And so it comes to pass that the herald, the man who proclaims this good news, the man
who does what we read of Philip is doing in Acts 8.5 in contradistinction to what the ordinary
members of the church did in Acts 8.4.
Such a man is one who is always aware of being commissioned, and he has to be commissioned.
He's not a freelance.
He is the spokesman, as it were, of the church.
He's acting on behalf of the church, and the church sets him aside in order to do this.
As I suggested, it's generally the case that the elders did this, and not all the elders
even, the teaching elder, the men in whom certain aptitudes were found, and men who
correspond to the tests that are to be applied.
Very well.
Now there we left it last Friday night.
Now in order just to round off this matter, though it isn't essential in the exposition
of our passage that we should do so, and yet it is a very important passage with regard
to this whole matter, and in view of the chaos that obtains at the present time, I am entering
into it like this.
Somebody may ask me finally then, well, how does the man himself know?
You've emphasized the church side of it, and you've given us reasons why it is essential
that there should be confirmation from the church of what the man feels himself.
But what does the man himself feel?
How may I know, someone may like to ask, whether I am being called or not in this way, and
whether God is, as it were, willing to send me as one of these preachers who herald and
proclaim this good news?
Well now, I'm only going to give you some headings.
It's a very important subject.
It's the whole matter of guidance in a sense.
But with regard to this particular matter, there are certain things which seem to me
to be made very plain in the scriptures and are confirmed abundantly in the biographies
of preachers throughout the centuries.
And one thing, therefore, which is invariable is this, is the pressure upon the spirit.
In other words, you don't seek the thing, but the thing is put upon you.
And it's not merely put upon you, it doesn't just come as a passing idea.
I do want to emphasize this element of pressure, that you can't get rid of the thing, it keeps
on coming back.
It's a really good test, therefore.
When you begin to feel this, you, as it were, try to get rid of the feeling.
If it's a call of God, it'll come back, it'll continue, it'll persist, and it'll persist
until it becomes a very definite pressure upon you.
And you can't evade it, try as you will, you can't get rid of it.
It keeps on recurring.
And anybody who's ever been through this will know what a very definite thing it is.
It is one of the most real things that can ever happen to us.
And that is how it comes.
You may decide, well, this thing doesn't seem to me to be right, and I don't see how I'm
going to do it.
And I'm not going to have anything to do with it, I'm not even going to think about it.
But you can't help yourself.
It'll come back, and come back, and come back.
Indeed, there are those who could tell a story along these lines and indicate how the pressure
can be such, and that if you resist it, you may even suffer physically.
I know a man who lost over a stone in weight while going through this process.
He literally lost over 14 pounds in weight in this straddle, as it were, against the
pressure.
That's one thing.
Another is that a burden comes upon you.
I mean by that now, a burden in the sense in which the prophets talk about the burden
of the Lord, a message given, and a sense that you've got to go and deliver it.
Now, the preacher, the man called to be a preacher, is a man who's got an unusual concern,
therefore, about the glory of God.
All Christians have a concern about the glory of God.
But the man who's to be a preacher has got this to an exceptional degree.
He feels that it is a very special burden that's put upon him to contend for the honor
and the glory of God, and the truth of God.
In other words, there's nothing casual about it.
Man doesn't take it up as an aside, as it were.
He's a man of such ability that he can easily do it as an aside.
He doesn't quite understand these preachers who've got nothing else to do, and they seem
to have difficulties.
He can do it in its stride as he goes along.
There's nothing like that about the true preacher.
He feels a burden, and this is something that is again placed upon him, the glory of
God.
And he's also a concern about the souls of men.
He doesn't preach because he likes speaking.
He doesn't preach because he likes to be in a position of influence.
He's got a concern about the souls of men and women.
And again, he may try to get rid of this and say, well, it's after all none of my business,
but he can't get rid of that.
It keeps on coming back to him, and he has this, again, every Christian should be concerned
about the souls of men and women, but the preacher is more so, obviously.
This is a part of his burden, the glory of God, the well-being of the souls of men and
women.
And then I put it as a separate heading, though it's implicit in what I've already been saying.
I feel that this sense of constraint that the apostle speaks of in 1 Corinthians 9 and
in 2 Corinthians 5 is a very definite part of this call.
I'll put it like this.
A man who preaches is a man who feels that he can do no other, that he can't help himself.
There's no credit to me, says the apostle Paul, yea, woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel.
He can't help himself.
The love of Christ constraineth me.
Or you remember the case of Jeremiah, who decided because he was getting persecuted
and was in trouble that he wouldn't speak anymore, but he couldn't remain like that.
The fire burned within him, and he had to go on speaking, whatever the consequences.
This has been put very well, to generate in a saying that is attributed to Mr. Spurgeon,
who had some very wise things to say about this whole subject.
And he used to put it like this, if you can stay out of the ministry, stay out.
In other words, you should only be in the ministry when you can't stay out of it, when
you can no longer resist, when you have to give in, as it were, and you stop resisting.
That's the call.
That's the sending.
It becomes inevitable.
You can't do anything else.
And what I'm putting is, in general, you see this.
Has any man a right to preach who doesn't feel some of these things and knows something
about them?
There is always this element of constraint in the man who is sent by God to preach.
He can do no other.
He's got to.
And so, finally, I would put it in this form.
This man is under such pressure in these various ways that, at all costs, he's got to go and
do it.
And it may cost him a good deal, but he's ready to do it.
And he doesn't regard what he's doing as a sacrifice.
He's so clear about his call that he ventures out.
And in doing so, as I say, he definitely does take a risk.
And this is particularly true at the present time, with the increasing and rising cost
of living.
It is no small matter for a man to enter into the Christian ministry at this present time.
He will know before he starts that, financially and so on, he is going to suffer.
But that doesn't make any difference to him.
He is a man who sees that this has got to be his work, the work of his life.
He turns away from everything else.
He gives up every other calling and every other avocation, and he's called to preach.
So he goes out of something else, whatever it may have been.
Whether he was a man in a profession or whether he was a man who worked with his hands, it
doesn't matter, or had a business.
He feels called to do this one thing, so he has to give up everything else.
No man that warreth, says the apostle Paul to Timothy, in 2 Timothy 2, 4.
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, in order that he
may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
That's his illustration.
And that is true of the preacher.
Of course, you remember, it was true of the Levites in the Old Testament, and that is
the analogy which the New Testament uses, as we saw in 1 Corinthians 9 just now.
The Levites didn't have any possessions.
They were the only people who didn't.
But because they were the people who handled the holy things, they didn't have possessions
like the others had, but they were kept by the others.
And so this man realizes that whatever it may cost, he's called to do this, and he is
ready to do so.
Now the principle, of course, is found in that passage which we read at the beginning
in 1 Corinthians 9, especially from verses 7 to 14, a portion of scripture which is
grievously neglected.
Who goeth of warfare at any time at his own charges?
Who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof?
Who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
Say I these things as a man, or saith not the law the same also?
It is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that readeth
out the corn.
Doth God take care for oxen, or saith he it altogether for our sakes?
Yes, he says, for our sakes.
No doubt this is written, that he that ploweth should plow in hope, and he that thrasheth
in hope should be partaker of his hope.
If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap you a
carnal things?
Then if others be partakers of this power over you are not we, rather, nevertheless
he says, we have not used this power, but suffer all things lest we should enter the
gospel of Christ.
Now here's the material statement.
Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple,
and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
They shouldn't live of something else and preach the gospel.
They which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
In other words, they're in this position of the Levites.
They are dependent upon the goodwill and the faith of the members of the Christian church.
They are not men who earn their living by doing something else and then preach.
No, they live of the gospel.
They've been set apart, they've been called of God, they've been sent of God, and they're
utterly dependent.
Now, I hinted in passing last Friday night that this is a very material and all-important
point in my opinion.
That is why I've always said that the most dangerous thing a man can be is to be a lay
preacher.
He's in a position of great responsibility without knowing this sense of insecurity.
There is no greater discipline than to be a minister and to be dependent entirely upon
other people.
That's the position of the minister.
Now, but somebody may say, but surely your passage contradicts what you're saying.
The apostle Paul is there saying that he didn't receive anything from the Corinthians.
He wasn't paid anything by the Corinthians.
Now, this is most interesting.
I've often heard that used as an argument against an ordained ministry and against this
whole notion that the minister is supported and kept by the members of the church.
It's amazing how people can rest the scriptures.
You see, what the apostle is saying is this.
This is the rule that they that preach the gospel, he says the Lord has ordained this.
It's as strong as that.
It's not Paul's opinion.
The Lord has ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
Now, then he says in the case, your case at Corinth, this I have made an exception.
He more or less tells us why there were peculiar circumstances there.
There were enemies and there were people who were misunderstanding and bringing charges
against him.
So, in the particular case of Corinth, he took nothing from them.
Now, he explains this very fully in the second epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 11 in
verses 7 to 12.
Let me read them to you.
2 Corinthians 11, 7 to 12.
Have I committed an offense in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I preach
to you the gospel of God freely.
But listen, I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you service, and when
I was present with you unwanted, I was chargeable to no man, for that which was lacking to me,
the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied, and in all things I have kept myself from
being burdensome unto you, and so I will keep myself.
As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this bursting in the regions of
Achaea.
Wherefore?
Because I love you not God knoweth, but what I do that I will do, that I may cut off occasion
from them which desire occasion, that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we.
The thing is as plain as anything could possibly be.
He varies his rule, his custom, because of the peculiar circumstances obtaining in the
church at Corinth and in the regions of Achaea, but he was kept by other churches who made
up for this.
He puts it like that by saying, I receive wages of them, in order that he might not
receive anything from them.
So you see, the principle is this, that the Lord has ordained that the men who preaches
the Gospel should live of the Gospel.
Now I want, while showing you thus that this is the clear teaching, I want to point out
that this is not to argue, of course, for a distinction into clergy and laity.
That isn't involved at all.
This is not to argue for a priesthood or to say that the minister or the preacher is a
man who is essentially different from every other.
Now those of us who are non-conformists and free churchmen, we descend completely from
that teaching, such as you have it in the Roman Catholic Church and in every episcopal
form of church.
We don't recognize this distinction between laity and a priesthood on the other, or that
there is something special about this man.
That isn't the position at all.
All I'm saying is this, that the New Testament teaches order, that all Christians do not
preach, that it is only some who preach, and we've been considering the terms and the conditions
on which they do preach.
An order of preachers comes into being, and we have seen something of the way in which
the order does come into being.
All Christians are one.
We are all saved in exactly the same way.
We are in the same relationship to God.
We have all the same access to God.
We preach, we assert the universal priesthood of all believers.
But we, in addition, in terms of the scripture, point out that there must be order in the
church, that there are offices amongst these people who are equally Christian, in order
that everything may be done decently and in order, in order that you may have discipline,
in order that the truth may be safeguarded, and the various other reasons which I was
giving you last Friday evening.
And so it is the case that the preacher is the man who lives of the gospel.
He has forsaken everything else.
He's been so conscious of this call, this pressure, and it has been confirmed by the
church, and he is set apart by the church.
And so he has cut himself off from every other means of subsistence, and he is in the hands
of and at the mercy of the members of the Christian church.
But his faith is in God.
He knows that God has called him, and that whatever may happen to him, that God will
never leave him nor forsake him.
But that is his position, and that is the New Testament rule with regard to this matter.
How shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?
Now this is the most interesting matter.
You see, the preacher in Presbyterianism and in Congregationalism, amongst the Baptists
and all others, he is an elder like other elders, but he's an elder who has been set
apart by the church because they've noticed certain aptitudes in him and so on, and because
he's aware of a call, and because they are aware that he's called.
He's a man who's been set apart, and thus he speaks on behalf of the whole church.
He is a sent messenger by God and the church, and he heralds forth the good news of salvation.
Very well.
We must leave it at that.
Now then, there is the introduction to the next great matter which is taught us in this
passage, and that is, of course, the message of the preacher.
You see, the apostle is moving in a definite order.
We've seen now how people are going to hear.
They're going to hear from a preacher.
Well now then, what is this preacher going to say?
What is the message of this preacher?
And the apostle makes it quite plain and clear as to what that is, and he does it, of course,
by giving us this quotation from Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 7.
And also, it's a part of the 15th verse of the first chapter of the book of the prophet
Nahum.
Now, it's very interesting to notice the way in which the apostle introduces this quotation.
He puts it like this.
As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and
bring glad tidings of good things.
Now I say it's interesting to notice the way in which the apostle introduces, or the way
he handles, if you like, this quotation.
Now the first point we have to pay attention to is this, that in the oldest manuscripts,
the phrase about them that preach the gospel of peace is absent.
It isn't there.
It reads like this, how beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good
things.
In the oldest manuscripts, that other piece about the preaching the gospel of peace is
not there.
It is found in later manuscripts.
How do you explain this, sir, sir?
Well, the probability is, of course, that somebody later felt that by adding that the
quotation would be closer to the original in Isaiah 52.7.
But sir, somebody, aren't you suddenly becoming a higher critic?
No, I'm not.
I am a textual critic.
And there's all the difference in the world between those two things.
It is right that you should know the texts, the different texts, and know their relative
values, and I'm simply saying that in the oldest and the most reliable texts, this phrase
is absent.
It doesn't make any difference at all, but it's fairly clear that it was added, and for
that reason probably by some later editor.
But what is much more important is this, that the apostle, instead of quoting or instead
of translating the original directly and immediately or even using the Septuagint translation,
which was available to him and which he normally uses, does neither.
He gives his own translation and representation of the statement of the prophet Isaiah.
Now, we've seen him doing that before, but here is another instance of the same thing.
He'd got at hand this Septuagint translation of the Old Testament into Greek, but he didn't
use it.
Neither does he translate the statement in Isaiah 52.7 in its fullness altogether.
He as it were gives the essence of it.
He gives a kind of summary of it.
Now, this may be problematical to some people.
They may wonder, how do you reconcile a thing like that with the doctrine of the inspiration
of the scriptures and especially with the infallibility of the scriptures?
What's the point in talking about the inspiration of the scriptures and their infallibility
if the apostle here, instead of quoting the scripture exactly as it is, summarizes it,
gives the essence of it, and even does that in his own language?
How do you explain that?
Doesn't this invalidate what you claim for the scriptures?
Well, we've considered this point before.
I'm simply reminding you of it in passing.
Far from in any way detracting from the doctrine of the inspiration of the scripture and its
infallibility, it rather tends to prove it and to reinforce it, and it does it in this
way.
There was no man who had greater respect for the Old Testament scriptures than the apostle
Paul.
All the Jews revered the scriptures.
They were the oracles of God, as he's reminded us at the beginning of chapter 3, and they
were proud of the fact that it was to them only the oracles of God had been given, and
they were most careful in their handling of them, in their copying of them, and it
is indeed a miracle how they have been copied and preserved.
It's astounding.
But that was because of the great respect of the Jew to the very letter, every jot and
tittle of the scripture.
To him was something wonderful.
Indeed, the danger of the Jew was to worship the scriptures.
And yet, you see, you have the apostle doing this thing which he does here.
What's the explanation?
Well, there's only one explanation.
The same Holy Spirit who had inspired and led the prophet Isaiah was inspiring and leading
the apostle Paul.
It's the same inspiration.
The apostle Paul would never have dared to do this thing himself.
Of course not.
He'd be the last man in the world to do it, but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
He's led to do this.
The Spirit who gave the message to Isaiah is now taking his own message and putting
it in summary form here in order to serve this particular purpose that he had in view
at this particular point.
So what it does is this.
It not only leaves the question of the inspiration and the infallibility of the word of Isaiah
intact, it shows us that the word of the apostle Paul is equally inspired and equally infallible.
So that when the apostle Peter in his second epistle in chapter 3 says that people rest
the writings of the apostle Paul to their own destruction, even as they do also the
other scriptures, he's being very accurate.
The writings of Paul are inspired scriptures in exactly the same way as the Old Testament
documents are inspired scriptures.
That's what it really proves, very well, so that it enlarges our whole idea of inspiration.
My next point about the way in which he uses it is this, that it does give us once more
a very interesting side light on prophecy.
I've had occasion to remind you before that when you're reading prophecy you must always
remember that there are generally two elements in it.
One element is the immediate one, the present one.
Now in the case of this prophecy of Isaiah it's perfectly clear as to what it is.
Isaiah was writing to the children of Israel partly, well he wrote entirely before they
ever went to the captivity of Babylon, but in his message he was given a foreview, a
preview of their deliverance from the captivity of Babylon, which hadn't yet happened.
He warned them that it was coming, he saw it coming, but he also saw they're coming
back from it.
It was all given to him by God, that's revelation, and then by the Holy Spirit he was inspired
to write his revelation, but that was the immediate.
So he puts it like this, it is a picture you see of a number of people in a hopeless state
of captivity.
They're quite helpless, they can't do anything, they're in the hands of a very powerful enemy
who's well armed, who's got soldiers and great battalions, and they've got nothing at all.
They're absolutely helpless.
What is their hope?
Well they've only one hope, and that is that some power right outside themselves will do
something about their deliverance, and they're always waiting.
There they are as it were in a plane, surrounded by mountains, and a rumor has reached them
that someone is preparing for their deliverance, and they're waiting for it.
And they set people in watchtowers to wait for this, and suddenly one day they see a
messenger coming over the top of a mountain.
Suddenly he comes into sight and he's coming rapidly towards them, and they say, now then
here's the news we've been waiting for, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of these messengers that bear us glad tidings of good things.
That was the immediate.
It was a foretelling of the liberation of the children of Israel from the bondage and
the captivity of Babylon.
But you see that isn't its only meaning.
The apostle shows here that there was a double meaning.
That was the primary one.
But there was a hidden meaning, there was a further meaning, and the further meaning
is this.
Oh yes, this is going to happen to you on the physical plane.
You are going to be delivered from the captivity of Babylon.
You are going to be brought back to Jerusalem, but on an infinitely higher level in the realm
of your spirit.
You're going to be redeemed in the realm of your spirits.
So it is a foreshadowing and a preview of the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
and His glorious gospel of salvation.
Now this is something I say that we must always be keeping our eye on as we read the prophecies
of the Old Testament.
The double meaning, the immediate, the remote, the material, the spiritual.
Now you get exactly the same thing of course in connection with the deliverance of the
children of Israel from the captivity and the bondage of Egypt.
That was a fact, but it was more than a fact.
It is a prefiguring of the coming of the Christian salvation.
Egypt represents the world, the flesh, the devil.
Moses is a type of Jesus Christ as the New Testament makes so plain, especially the epistle
to the Hebrews.
And this deliverance, Red Sea, Jordan, these are figures of the great Christian salvation.
The New Testament uses it like that so we are entitled to do exactly the same thing.
And thus we saw last Friday night that our Lord when He went after the temptation in
the wilderness back to His home town of Nazareth, He went into the synagogue on the Sunday and
they handed Him the role to read and He read, do you remember?
From Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me to preach
and so on.
As this day is this scripture fulfilled in your sight.
It had an original meaning but this is the great meaning.
And so, you find the gospel in the prophets and if you don't find the gospel in the prophets
there is something wrong with your reading of the prophets.
The prophecies are full of gospel, some of them particularly so.
Isaiah is a particularly evangelical prophet, he generally goes by that name for that reason.
The point is that the apostle takes up this old word from Isaiah 52, 7 and he says this
is it.
That was giving its immediate message but it was also pointing to this.
The preacher is a man like that man coming over the mountain tops bearing the good news.
And so that leads us directly to a consideration of the message of the preacher.
Here he is, how beautiful are the feet of Him, how beautiful upon the mountain says
the Old Testament you see, coming like this and bearing this wonderful news.
What is it?
Now this is the most important question.
The apostle has told us many times what it is but he tells us it again.
And that is the business of the preacher, to go on repeating the message, the gospel,
the evangel.
It's the only thing he's got to say but he goes on saying it, why?
Well because people are so ready to forget it, because they so fail to understand it,
because they're so ready to misinterpret it.
So you have to go on repeating it.
And here he does it once more.
What is the message?
And the answer is quite plain to us, the message of the preacher.
Here's a message about him.
Here's the question, how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear
without a preacher?
So the message of the preacher is about him.
That's the problem.
Whosoever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How can they know about him?
Very well, the answer is the preacher tells them about him.
So the preacher is a man who preaches about him, about the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the message of the preacher.
He tells them about the Lord in whom they are to believe.
Which leads me to remind you again, my dear friends, that Christianity is Christ.
Christianity centers in him.
Christianity is in him.
Without him there is no Christianity.
It's the person that matters.
It's this Lord that counts.
You see, we've already heard it, if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, person.
There is no Christianity apart from him.
There is no salvation apart from him.
There is none other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved, Acts
4-12.
It is always this person.
And never was it more necessary to repeat that than it is at the present time.
People are preaching Christianity.
There's no such thing.
It is a message about him.
And it is all together in him and about him.
What is it?
Well, his person, I say, who he is.
Jesus is Lord.
What did the first preachers preach?
Well, that's exactly what they did preach.
You read the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
What did they preach?
Jesus and the resurrection.
They preached Jesus.
Philip did it to that Ethiopian eunuch.
They were all preaching Jesus.
Of course, there's no message apart from him.
So the preaching of the preacher is to tell people about him, this person, that he is
indeed the Lord of glory.
Preaching consists in telling people that nearly 2,000 years ago God sent forth his
son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that are under the law.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the beginning was the word and the word
was with God and the word was God.
That's preaching.
This great event, the coming of the Son of God into this world.
So it is all about this person.
And it, as I say, starts way back in eternity and then tells people the facts about him.
And I want to underline that word facts.
The facts are all important.
If you do away with the facts, you've got no message.
I'm putting it like that because the most popular theological movement on the continent
of Europe today is a movement that says the exact opposite.
It says the facts don't matter at all and you really can't be sure of anything except
that he died on a cross.
They don't believe the resurrection, they don't believe the virgin birth and so on.
But the facts are all important according to the New Testament.
His birth, his virgin birth, the New Testament asserts it.
His virgin birth, conceived of the Holy Ghost, we're even told how Mary stumbled at this
in order that we might know that it was a fact.
Born of a virgin, no human father, conceived of the Holy Ghost, sinless, that holy thing
that shall be born of Thee, no sin.
Not from sin, the miracle of the virgin birth and the incarnation and his life of course.
You see, you go to your book of the Acts of the Apostles and you'll find all that I'm
trying to say so that I needn't keep you.
But this is the kind of thing they did.
You remember Cornelius sending for Peter and Peter begins to speak.
Peter opened his mouth and said, I'm reading in Acts 10, 34, of a truth I perceive that
God is no respecter of persons.
The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ,
in brackets, He is Lord of all, that word I say ye know, which was published throughout
all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, how God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and
healing all that were oppressed with the devil, for God was with him.
And we are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem,
whom they slew and hanged on a tree, him God raised up the third day and showed him openly,
et cetera.
Now that's it.
You see the facts.
His birth, his life, his teaching, his miracles went about doing good, healing the sick, raising
the dead.
They preached the miracles.
Why?
Because they were the proofs of the fact that he is the Son of God.
So they told the people about that.
This is the message.
And then you notice his death upon the cross.
This was a vital part of it, Jesus Christ and him crucified.
But then the resurrection as a literal physical fact, that he literally rose in the body out
of the grave and revealed himself to certain Jewish witnesses, and they were witnesses
of his resurrection.
Not that he went on living, but that he had risen in the body.
The fact is ascension from Mount Olivet.
How they stood there and saw him going and ascending into the heavens.
The facts, and it's the facts that are being attacked today, as you know.
They're dismissing, they're ridiculing.
We don't need them.
It's the teaching we want.
It isn't.
The message of the preacher is to tell about him and the facts concerning him.
His ascension is taking his place at the right hand of God in the glory.
And how on the day of Pentecost he had shed forth and poured forth his Holy Spirit upon
those members of the early infant church according to his own promise.
Now then, we must leave it at that, I see, for tonight.
But there is the first element, strand if you like, in the message of this sent preacher.
He is a preacher of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's a preacher of his deity, his eternity.
He is a preacher of the facts in connection with his coming into this world, what he did
in it and how he went out of it, and what he is at the present time.
But it doesn't stop at that.
So that, God willing, we shall have to go on next Friday night to consider how the preacher
explains to the people the meaning of these facts.
You start with facts, then you give the meaning of the facts, and it's all here in the words
that are used by the great apostle.
God willing, I say, we shall proceed to consider the meaning of these facts next Friday night.
O Lord our God, we come again unto thee and we come, O Lord, to offer our thanksgiving
and our praise, that we have such glorious facts to handle and to repeat and to proclaim.
O Lord, bring them home to us, we pray thee, by the power of thy most blessed Holy Spirit.
We thank thee for the uniqueness of the gospel.
We thank thee for the uniqueness of this blessed person in whom we believe, and apart from
whom there is no salvation.
May his name be glorified in our midst.
May his name be glorified through us as we live our lives day by day in all our circumstances
and surroundings, and O Lord, hear us as we pray that that Holy Spirit may come down
in power and might upon us who has been sent to glorify him.
May he glorify the Lord Jesus in this hour, day, and generation, that men and women may
fall at his feet and acknowledge him as their Savior and as their Lord.
And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship
and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night, throughout
the remainder of this hour, short and certain earthly life and pilgrimage and evermore.
Amen.