We come again this morning to this marvellous summary of Christian doctrine concerning Jesus Christ. Six crisp, memorable statements about our blessed Lord, starting with the incarnation as he was manifested in the flesh and climaxing with the ascension to heaven, received up into glory. Here are the essentials of the Christian Gospel. If you want a definition of the Christian Gospel, doctrinally, well here it is, these six parts to it, because the Gospel is all about the life and person and work of Jesus Christ. And here it is, wonderfully summarised. Now we've had three so far. We've looked at manifested in the flesh and our Lord justified in the spirit and seen of angels. Now we take the next two together. Preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world. We take them together because although they could be separated, really they belong together in a particular way. Preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world. The two aspects of the Gospel in the world, preached in order that it might be believed. And you cannot really separate these two because souls are saved and God's church advances and God's name is glorified as the gospel is preached and as the gospel is believed in this world. So we take them together and look at them in this way. Historically, of course, the beginning of all this was in the book of Acts. Our Lord sent forth his apostles to preach the Gospel to every creature, and the Book of Acts is the record of that obedience on the part of the Church. As it went to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the Earth, the Gospel of Christ was preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world. And the Acts of the Apostles, or the Acts of the Holy Ghost, through the Apostles is that marvellous record of the going out of the Gospel and belief of that message and the growth of the Church and we at this moment in history are simply part of that record and part of that ongoing story of God's work in the world. It's marvellous to think about this continuity that we're not on our own in this segment of time, as if what has gone before is wholly different and what may come afterwards is yet different again, but we are part of a continuing history. The great place of the church in the world and God working through his church and through his servants The Gospel preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world. It's been going on since Pentecost. It's going on now. It will go on until our Lord returns again. This great, great sweep of history in the Christian era, the era of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel made manifest. How wonderful to think that as we hear about these things and are part of these things today, we are doing the same as the church has done centuries ago. And God will have a church to do these things in the world in centuries to come if the Lord tarries. A great part of a wonderful ongoing story. Well, Remember that this begins with the phrase, great is the mystery of godliness. The whole thing, these six statements, because they're divine truth, no one would ever have dreamed of them, no one would ever have known about them. unless God himself cleared up the mystery and only if God had made these things known. And now the secret is out and now the Lord Jesus has come to reveal the grace of God and the way of salvation and the mystery is revealed to us fully and to all Christians they see it for themselves. It's a wonder indeed. There's something wonderful and marvellous about these two things, that the Gospel should be preached unto the Gentiles and be believed on in the world. Something marvellous and glorious about this. And I want us to look at these two things First of all, the going forth of the Gospel preached unto the Gentiles and then the reception of the Gospel believed on in the world. These things are glorious and wonderful and marvellous just like the other four things in this verse. First then, the going forth of the Gospel preached unto the Gentiles. Now it's not a wonder that the Gospel should be preached. The wonder is who the Gospel was preached to in those days, those early days, and is still being preached to now. Unto the Gentiles. That's the amazing thing. Might not seem it, upon first reading, but we're told here of the saving message of Christ taken to people, to people who were the very worst, the very worst of people in all the world. You see, the Gentiles were all the other nations of the world except the Jews, all non-Jews. Now the Jews, God's covenant people, had the Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament entrusted, the law, religious privileges, the knowledge of the true God. They had been lifted up and had been so blessed spiritually and morally. But the Gentiles, untouched by the grace of never lifted up by God's mercy. They were people who were heathens, the worshippers of idols, people who practiced abominable wickedness of a moral kind, utterly depraved. They were called dogs, aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel. strangers to the covenants of promise, without God, without hope in the world. They sat in darkness. They were terrible people because they were there left in their raw, fallen humanity and original sin. You've only got to think of the city of Ephesus where Timothy was and where Paul was writing to him there. Think about the things that went on there amongst the Gentiles, the heathen people. And we learn in the Acts of the Apostles about the witchcraft that went on at Ephesus. When people were converted through the Gospel, they burned their evil occult books and they abandoned their devilish practices. Witchcraft! The worship of the goddess Diana. Diana of the Ephesians, worshipping an idol, supposedly fallen out of heaven, representing the goddess Diana. And then there were those contests in the amphitheatres, where men fought with wild beasts, gladiators killing wild beasts for the pure pleasure of the thousands who gathered. What barbaric and terrible things! Look at Paul's description of the Gentiles in Ephesians 4 and from verse 17. As he writes to the church at Ephesus, and maybe has these very things before his mind's eye as he writes. Ephesians 4, 17. As the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. See, their mind is empty. no truth about God, no knowledge of the right way, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness. to work all uncleanness with greediness. Abandoned to every vile, perverted sexual practice. Uncleanness, greediness, stealing, robbing, plundering. Past feeling. They've given themselves over to this sort of thing. You know, it's bad enough when people commit crimes or do awful deeds and they have qualms of conscience about it afterwards and wonder if they should have done it and feel somewhat guilty. But when people are past feeling, and give themselves over to such things they've reached a most solemn stage, haven't they? in depravity when people can commit such things with a smile on their face and with not a thought about the rightness and wrongness when their consciences are so hardened and insensible that they don't even feel anything anymore that's the gentiles That's what these people were like. Religiously, morally, in all these ways, they were the worst of people. And yet, dear friends, preached unto the Gentiles. That's the wonder and the marvel of the Gospel. If the angels whom we were thinking about last week who saw Christ and ministered to Christ and see believers and minister to believers. If these holy angels are the nearest beings to God, then these Gentiles are the furthest beings from God. And the Gospel goes to them. It is said of our blessed Lord by Simeon when he held the babe Christ in his arms and he prophesied what this babe would do as he grows up and as he goes out to minister and what he would accomplish and what would result from it all a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel. That's the wonder of it. And dear friends, we learn from this, the amazing grace of God, that God should have a message of redemption, not for a people whom he has chosen from among the nations of the earth and made his own covenant people, not for them only, but for the world outside of this, the world fallen to such depths, the world sunk in such depravity and awfulness that God should have a message for the worst of people. And that's the glory of the Gospel. Our blessed Lord, in Luke 24, gave orders to His Church that this Gospel should go out to the people, to the Gentiles, the nations of the world. What wonderful words these are, where Jesus says to His apostles, Luke 24 verse 46, He opens their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures. And He said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in His name among all nations. Yes, beginning at Jerusalem. But among all the nations, the Gentiles, that they should hear this good news, that they should learn of a God who is love and that they should learn of a God who has purposes of mercy and salvation for them, that they too might be brought in and saved and made the people of God. Well, we learn from this, don't we, that there is mercy in Christ for the worst of people. If you hear of a medical specialist who treats a certain condition and he seems to be the only one who can diagnose it, The only one who is able to prescribe and administer and he has so many cases of success, so many people helped and healed through this medical specialist. He becomes famous and he becomes resorted to by others and people say you should go to him, ask if you can be referred to him. because He's got so many people to His credit whom He has helped most remarkably. But here we learn of the great physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seed of angels, preached unto the Gentiles. And His fame is that there is no one too bad for Him to save. No case too far gone in sin. for Jesus to lay hold of. No one sunk too low that that person can't say, love lifted me. When no one but Christ could help, love lifted me, preached unto the Gentiles. I was telling the friends at Poyth yesterday afternoon, in a different connection, that we could take our Gospel to two friends in Durham jail, two women who have struck up a friendship because birds of a feather flock together, Rosemary West and Myra Hindley. We could take our Gospel to those two women and if God should break their hearts in repentance and if they should turn to Jesus Christ, His blood could cleanse them from their guiltiness, wipe out their past and make them new creatures. And they would be in heaven with every other believer. Yes, they would serve out their sentence. It would be right that they never come out of prison. They should have been hanged in the first place. Civilly speaking, they owe a debt for the law they've broken and the outrages they've committed. But the grace of Christ can save their souls. and deliver them from the consequences of all that they are and have done before God. And they could live in heaven to the praise of the glory of His grace preached unto the Gentiles. Whenever you hear about a dreadful case of crime or desperate human wickedness, If ever you see someone fallen and desperate in evil, never forget that the same grace that has saved us from our sins is large enough and all-embracing enough to save such people from their sins. If we find as Christians that we look down with a kind of pride upon others so far gone we've not understood the Gospel and we've not been filled with the wonder and glory of it. There but for the grace of God go I. Grace alone has made us to differ, but that grace is available to them as well. Christ is preached unto the Gentiles. What a marvellous thing. There is not one person outside of the possibility of the grace of God in Christ. Now this great truth preached unto the Gentiles, it was a secret thing until now. Ephesians 3 and verse 4, the Apostle writes there and he says that this truth that the Gospel should go into all the world was something that was not thought about until Pentecost and the book of Acts, Ephesians 3 verse 4. Paul speaks about his knowledge in the mystery of Christ and here is this mystery which is now revealed. In other ages it was not made known. unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel. Ah, no one ever imagined before this that what Christ came into the world to do and this marvellous gospel of salvation should actually be for the world. It was understood that salvation is of the Jews, that God's covenant people would be the natural heirs of the Messiah and the coming of this dear Redeemer, that the Jewish nation should be partakers of this grace more fully revealed. It was not a thing that was thought about. well openly talked about in the Old Testament. In Song of Solomon 4 and verse 12 there is a little picture of the church in Old Testament times and this is how it is described and it's most apt that it should be seen like this. Song of Solomon 4 And verse 12, a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse. A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Yes, the grace of God was confined to the church of the Old Testament in the form of the nation of Israel. The spring was shut. The fountain was sealed. There was the thought of it being confined to that one nation, that one people. But now, the truth is and it's become clear that the spring, the river of grace overflows and it flows out to the Gentiles, the nations of the world. Not the people of Israel only, but the other countries in the world as well. God has an elect people among them, and they too are to be saved, and Jew and Gentile together shall make the one Christian Church. It wasn't clear in Old Testament days. Yes, there was a Rahab, there was a Ruth, and there was here and there. a proselyte taken out from the Gentiles and brought in to Israel. But it was never imagined that there would be such a glorious universalism about the Gospel preached unto the Gentiles. But now, now it is. And thank God it is, dear friends, because you see, if it had not been God's purpose to go beyond the Jewish people in the blessings of the Gospel of Salvation, then the only Christians in this world would have been Jews. And you and I among the Gentiles would have been shut out and we would have not been partakers of these things here this morning. Just imagine, just imagine if the situation in the Old Testament had been the ongoing, permanent situation The people of Israel, entrusted with Old Testament and all the types and shadows and promises of Christ. And then Jesus came, the Messiah of Israel. Israel had believed on Jesus and there would have been Christian Jews and the Christian church would have been Jews only. And you would have had Israel, Christian, Jews in the different parts of the world assembled as Christian churches. But we Gentiles, outside, no Gospel for us? No salvation for us? Ah, dear friend, the very fact that we sit here this morning knowing Christ and having been brought in to covenant privileges and blessings by the grace of God in Christ is proof preached unto The Gentiles. The amazing thing is the Jews rejected their Messiah and the Gospel was taken to the Gentiles. Instead, it's to the Jew first still, but to the Gentiles and it has more success among the Gentiles than amongst the Jews. One marvellous, amazing irony in a way. But there we are, preached unto the Gentiles. And that tells me, dear friends, that everybody is on the same level in this. Jews and Gentiles, privileged ones and outsiders, all the same. That's why Paul in Romans 10 verses 12 and 13, when he speaks about the going forth of the Gospel, He can say this, for there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. Romans 10 verse 12. No difference between the Jew and the Greek. The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Thank God that there is a place for such as we are. Dear friends, if we bring that up to date, it means this, that in a given situation where the Gospel is preached, there are people who are like the Jews. They've had church privileges, background, upbringing, knowledge. And there are those who are outsiders, not from a Christian background. And those in the church, in a Christian environment, they sometimes find it hard to accept that they have to come the same way to Christ as the outsider, the worldling, the person who's never bothered about the things of God. And you have some church people, I mean church people, not converted people, hearing about the Gospel and hearing about the freeness of God's grace and the one way to God through Jesus Christ and they say something like, well I can understand that he needs redemption and he needs the blood of Christ He, the drunkard, the robber, the adulterer and so on. But we church people, who've lived decently all our lives and have faithfully attended a place of worship, we don't need the same. We don't come the same way. And that's what's hard to accept, isn't it? But you see, that's what Paul says. There's no difference. Jew, Gentile, church person, person in the world. No difference. The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. And both have to call upon Him. The drunk, wallowing in the gutter needs to call upon Christ to save him. And the decent religious person in the pew needs to call upon Christ to save him. Both the same way. It's the grace that puts us on the same level. There's no difference. And that's why you see the Jews in the New Testament days, they looked askance at these Gentiles. And they saw the publicans and the harlots coming into the kingdom. And these Pharisees and the scribes, they thought, we don't need this Christ. We don't need this Gospel. And it was from among the sinners of the Gentiles that there were those who flocked to Christ. Jews, with their holier-than-thou, kept themselves back because they did not need this message which insists that they, with all their background and privileges, are on the same level as the harlot and the tax collector from the Gentiles. Oh, I hope there's nobody here this morning who, because you have come, perhaps, to this church for years on end, that you think that the people out there need saving, but that you somehow don't need saving, and that your attendance here is your salvation. And it's because these people never come that they're not saved, not at all. Salvation sets us all on the same level as needy sinners and insists that we acknowledge that we are all at bottom, guilty before God and needing to be saved in the same way by the blood of Jesus Christ. Others may have gone further into sin in open, flagrant ways than we have. We, by the grace of God, may have kept ourselves more upright and moral. But that's just a superficial, outward difference. At bottom, we're both fallen and corrupt and sinful and lost and going to hell. And the blood of Jesus Christ must cleanse us both. The frequenter of the boar's head and the frequenter of Holywell Evangelical Church. Both of us must be saved the same way through one Saviour, Jew and Gentile. Thank God it's preached to the Gentiles as it is available to the Jews. No difference. No difference. But isn't it an amazing thing, dear friends, as we think of the going forth of the Gospel, that someone like the Apostle Paul could be entrusted with this message to the Gentiles? Look at chapter 2, verse 7 of Timothy. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not. A teacher of the Gentiles. in faith and verity. Paul gloried in this that he was chosen especially to take this gospel to the Gentiles, to preach it to them. Peter will preach it to the circumcision, the Jews, and the other apostles will work among their fellow countrymen, but Paul especially sent out the apostle to the Gentiles. But here is this man who before his conversion detested Gentiles as much as he detested Christians. He would have written the Gentiles off as dogs, scum, the off-scouring of the earth, filthy idolaters and wicked heathen, not worthy of even the attention of a Jew. And now he's glorying that the Gospel is preached unto the Gentiles and he's one of the preachers. See how the grace of God can overcome such deep ingrained prejudice. And what a new creature Saul of Tarsus became. As he was brought to love Christians and love the church, who once persecuted it. So he came to love Gentile sinners, whom he once detested and had no time for. And he burnt himself out going up and down the length and breadth of the Roman Empire, taking the Gospel, preaching it to the Gentiles. Oh, what a marvellous work of grace was wrought in the Apostle Paul that he should write these words. preached unto the Gentiles. Ah, he magnified his office. There's no prejudice the grace of God can't overcome. There's no deeply ingrained bias that the Lord can't straighten out. And if a Saul of Tarsus who felt like that against the Gentiles at his conversion became the preacher to them, there's hope for us all that God will change us where we need changing. The going forth of the Gospel. Now here's the second thing. The reception of the Gospel believed on in the world. Now notice the record, the history of it. Notice it doesn't say believed on by the world. Believed on in the world or among the world. The truth is that this gospel is what the world sorely needs. But it's not a gospel that the world will receive. not by the whole world, but in the world. There is a people, a people in the world, all over the world, Jew and Gentile, who are destined to hear this Gospel and respond to it by repentance and faith. And here's the record, Acts 13 verse 48. This is how it went. And this is how it ever goes. Acts 13 verse 48, And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region. You see, believed on? in the world, by those who are elected to salvation, by those throughout the whole earth, multitudes, multitudes, millions, millions, millions of them, ordained to eternal life, they will believe. I like that phrase, don't you, in verse 48? As many as were ordained to eternal life believe, not as few. or as little, as many. Don't think that election is to be conceived as something which narrows it down and shuts people out. Election is something which encompasses vast multitudes. A multitude no man can number and shuts them in and brings them in to the blessings of the Gospel. As many as were ordained to eternal life believe. We Christians are part of the as many. All who get saved these days are part of the as many. And the Lord knows who they are. We don't know who they are. That's why we preach the Gospel to every creature. And we proclaim Christ freely as a Saviour who can save to the uttermost, to all who turn to Him. But as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Now that's a great incentive to evangelism, isn't it? Critics of Calvinism say, oh, if we believed in your doctrine of election, we wouldn't bother to evangelize anymore. Because only the elect get saved and if they're elect, they'll get saved anyway and they don't need our preaching and our soul winning. That's all false biblical reasoning. The truth of it is this. If God has as as many ordained to eternal life who will believe, then let's take the gospel Let's find them. Let's preach it to all. And the as many will be called. And our Gospel will not be in vain. Far from stultifying evangelism. It's a great spur to evangelism. We know that we're not fishing in an empty bucket of water. We're fishing in a great lake stocked with fish. And we shall have catches as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. In these barren days, When we hardly see any conversions, surely it's this great thing that keeps us going, isn't it, in evangelism? As many ordained to eternal life will believe. We may not see many here, but there are others in the world who are being called by the Gospel because they were elect from before the foundation of the world. We may not in this country be knowing at the moment seasons of refreshing and blessing and conversions on a big scale, but in other countries of the world like the Philippine Islands, some countries in Africa, in India, places in the Middle East, a man can preach the Gospel and there can be 5, 10, 15 people converted in an evening. It's not that he's preaching on any other gospel. It's the same gospel. Believed on in the world, as many are being called. Some countries are more favoured at some times than others. There are times and seasons of blessing. here and not perhaps there. But God has his time and God has his season. But it's this truth that he's commanded us to preach it unto the Gentiles and that it will be believed on in the world that keeps us going. And we say, Lord, as we preach the Gospel and share the Gospel with the Gentiles here, May there be many who will believe on it in this place. And may our time of visitation come again. The reception of the Gospel. But dear friends, I close with this. Notice that it says, Believed on in the world. And there's a reason for that. Because there is such a thing as this world and there is such a thing as the world to come. And this world is this present life. And the world to come is eternity, heaven or hell. And the Gospel and Christ Jesus the Saviour must be believed on in the world, this world. because this is the only time of opportunity to do so. When you die and when your soul leaves your body and enters eternity, that will be then too late. Believed on in the world. Have you believed on Jesus Christ in the world here and now? so that in the world you are living as a Christian, a converted, saved person. Oh my friend, if you die, there'll be no further opportunity. It'll be too late. You don't get a second chance. When you've left this world and you wake up in eternity and you face God, and you then know for sure that you're not saved, you are not then given another chance. And you can't then say, well, I believe now. Please receive me. Please save me now. I've changed my mind. I can see it's all true. Please now save me. No, no. The door of opportunity will be closed. Believed on in the world. That's why the scripture says, behold, now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. There are some people who seem to say, Lord, make me a Christian, but not yet. I'll be a Christian when I've enjoyed life a bit first. I'll be a Christian when I'm older and got more time. And those people, they tend to be like Felix. who say to Paul, go thy way. When I have a more convenient season, I will call for thee. And the little boy or girl says, I hope to be a Christian when I'm a bit older. And the teenager says, well, let me just find my way and get my education behind me and get a job and then I'll think about becoming a Christian. And then the young person who's just begun the job says, well, let me just get married and have a family and get established, and then I'll think about it. And the person in middle life says, well, wait till I'm retired and I've got more time on my hands. I'll think about these things then. And the devil just blinds the minds of people and kids them into thinking they'll have more time. There'll be a future, a better season. And such people, more often than not, die in their sins. They never get round to it. They die in their sins. They wake up in hell. And they have not believed on Christ in this world. And the devil has succeeded in bringing them down to be with himself, lost, condemned forever. It's a warning, isn't it? We only have one life. We have a season of opportunity and who knows that by next Lord's Day when we meet together for worship and Malcolm reads out the notices and he's got to inform the church that a tragedy has taken place and one of our number has been killed in a road accident. and a great solemnity and grief descends upon the congregation. And the question, when we've got over the grief and the loss, and we won't get over it, but the next thought after that is, where is that person's soul? Where is that person spending eternity now? Believed on in the world. Oh, may it be. May it be as this Gospel of Christ is preached unto us Gentiles. It will be believed on in the world and we shall have passed from death unto life and that we shall go to heaven when the next world comes for us. May it be so, for His name's sake.