Alright brethren, let's turn in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now, Paul gave an exhortation in chapter 14 on the importance of preaching the gospel clearly and understandably The importance of a service that's conducted decently and in order. And then the Spirit moved Paul to remind the Corinthians of the gospel that he preached to them. The gospel he preached to them. Verse 1, he says, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel. Now listen to me, there's only one gospel. There's only one gospel, THE gospel. Now men have imagined all kinds of doctrine and have preached all different sorts of messages that they call the gospel. But scripture says the Lord Jesus Christ went about teaching in the synagogues, preaching, teaching THE gospel. Just one, the gospel. He said unto those he sent forth, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The gospel. Paul told the Galatians, I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another. But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed. Men will say, well, you believe there's only one gospel. What about all the other religions and all the other gospels? God said through Paul, though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we've preached unto you, let him be accursed. That's God speaking. That's God speaking. That's not the opinion of a man. That's God speaking. The gospel is God's gospel. It's promised in all the scriptures, and it's concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to Romans 1. I want you to see this before we go further. Romans 1, and look here at verse 1. Paul said, He said, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. It's the gospel of God. He said, which he had promised afore, beforehand, by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. All the Old Testament Scriptures are the gospel of God whereby he promised all His people salvation in these Old Testament Scriptures. And verse 3 says, and it's concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the Gospel. The Gospel is not the message of morality and the message of you doing something to make yourself accepted of God, which is 99% of what's preached. The Gospel is concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And God's chosen method of delivering the gospel is through preaching. Declaring the gospel through preaching. Paul said, Moreover brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. Now again, preaching is not just one method God chose to use. Preaching is the method God chose to use. How then shall they call on Him of whom they not believe? 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 be sent? As it is written. There's the Old Testament Scriptures again. As it's written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. God said, I will provide you pastors after mine own heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and with understanding. Before departing from here, I had one man tell me, he became so delusional, he told me, he said, I don't think Christ preached the gospel. He didn't go over where preaching the gospel, and he said, I don't think we have to be preaching the gospel like we're doing in our day. Can you believe that? Somebody told me that. Listen to the scripture. After that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. After God in His wisdom showed that this world cannot know God, throughout the ages He showed that. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Through preaching, God works faith in His people. He says there in verse 1, O brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also you're saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. Those that God irresistibly calls by His grace through this message, They receive the gospel, they stand in the gospel, they're saved by the gospel, and they continue unto the end trusting the Lord Jesus through this gospel. That's God's irresistible grace at work. Those who do not hold out to the end, those who go backwards, go way backwards, they merely made a profession which was all of themselves. But it was not the irresistible grace of God. Those that God calls, they continue to the end. That's what he's saying there. And the preacher that God sends, that God uses, he saved the exact same way. He says there in verse 3, For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received. Now let me ask you this, your mail carrier that brings your mail, does your mail originate with the mail carrier? Does he write down what he will and put it in an envelope, put it in your mailbox? Well, the message God's preachers preach do not originate with the preacher. They merely deliver the message that God would have them to deliver. The same message by which they themselves were saved and God made them to receive it. Now that's just so. So today I want to declare to you that which I also received. I want to declare to you the gospel that I also received. I didn't receive it like Paul did. He was saved directly by Christ. But I did receive it through the preaching of the gospel and I want to give you what I received. through the preaching of the gospel. And the next two statements, Paul concisely defines the gospel. This is what every child God saves, receives, and believes, and by which we're saved, right here. 1 Corinthians 15, 3. How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Now, the gospel is concerning Christ's death according to the scriptures. How that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Now there's almost everybody that claims to preach the gospel, that claims to preach Christ, will say Christ died for our sins. But that's not what Paul said. Paul said how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Not according to man's ideas on how Christ died. According to what God says. According to how God says it. There's not many that preach that. Now at this time, New Testament scriptures were not written yet. He's talking about Old Testament scripture. He's talking about the Old Testament. Jesus answered some people one day. The Lord said to them, He said, you do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. Do you know the Old Testament Scriptures? A man's not going to be saved who does not know the Scriptures. Because the Scriptures bear record of Christ. And God's going to save through a witness. for a witness. When they came to arrest Christ, Peter drew out his sword, you remember, and he cut the soldier's ear off. And the Lord Jesus said, Peter, do you not know that I could right now call to my Father and He would send me twelve legions of angels? He said, but then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled which they must be? They must be. And it says there that everything that happened, Everything that happened, everything that was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Everything they did. Now, every promise of the Old Testament, every type in the Old Testament, every prophecy recorded in the law, in the prophets and in the Psalms is concerning the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus Christ and they all had their fulfillment in Him. Everything in this Old Testament book is concerning Christ and what He would accomplish by His death. Let me give you some examples. In the Scriptures, in the Old Covenant Scriptures, God said they would hate Him though He had done nothing wrong to anyone. Psalm 69 verse 4 said, They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head. Those that would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. And then in John 15, 24, Christ said, If I had not done among them the works that no other man did, they had not had sin. But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, they hated me without a cause. You see, the sin he exposed, the sin that Christ exposed, the men that hated him were not the harlots and the publicans and the immoral sinners. It was the folks in religion that hated him. And the reason they hated him is because his works, being so perfectly obedient to God, exposed their supposed law keeping as nothing but a sham. It showed that none was righteous, no not one. That's why they hated him. That's why men in our day won't preach Christ. If churches started preaching Christ and Him crucified, Christ would reveal that everything they had done in religion whereby they thought they were made righteous or holy and more holy was all a vain show. And men will not do that. They hate Christ because He's righteous, and they're not. That's exactly right. According to the Scriptures, He'd be brought before the assembly of the wicked, and they'd pierce Him on the cross. Scripture said, dogs have come past me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. Then in Matthew 26, verse 57, They that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. There was the assembly of the wicked. We're not talking about some of the hell's angels, some biker gang. We're talking about Pharisees and scribes and the Sanhedrin. We're talking about the highest up in religion, the wicked assembly. And then saith he to Thomas, after he was crucified, he said, Thomas, reach thy finger here and hold my hands, where they have pierced me. Reach your hand here and thrust it into my side. Be not faithless, but believing. The Scripture said that's what they would do. It said that's what they would do. They would bring him before the assembly of the wicked and then they would pierce him, nail him to a cross. Scripture said he'd be smitten and he'd be spat upon. It's even down to the least little detail. Isaiah 50 verse 6, I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. And then in Mark 14, 65, It says, "...as He hung on the cross, some began to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to say unto Him, Prophesy! And the servants did strike Him with the palms of their hands." According to the Scriptures, it said He'd be crucified between two transgressors. Isaiah 53.12 says He was numbered with the transgressors. Numbered with the transgressors. Luke 23, 33 says, when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the male factors, one on the right hand, the other on the left. There's so much more we could go through. So much written in the scriptures. He was mocked of men. Psalm 22, 6 said that. Matthew 27, verses 39 through 44, you find it. He gave him gall and vinegar to drink. Psalm 69, 21 said that's what they'd do. John 19, 29 said that's exactly what they did. He heard his own prophetic words repeated to him in mockery. Scripture said he would. He did. Intercession for his enemies. As he hung there on that cross, he said, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Scripture said he'd do that. They cast lots for His coat because the Scripture said they would. Not a bone was broken. Psalm 34 20 says, He keepeth all His bones and not a bone of His is broken. They came there, these self-righteous holy men said, we better get them down off the cross. If we don't get God off the cross, we're going to break the law. And we can't break the law. God won't receive us if we break the law. So let's get him down off the cross. And so they came to the two male factors and they broke their legs and they come to Christ and they said, he's already dead. And they didn't break his leg because it was written. It was written. Now here's what Paul preached without fail though. All that's so, but here's what he preached without fail. God said his death would be for the sins of his people and that he would heal them. by His death. Isaiah 53, 4. Look there with me. Isaiah 53, 4. It says in Isaiah 53 and verse 4, Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. You see, that substitution, that's a vicarious suffering. That's Christ going to the cross to lay down His life for a people. That's Christ bearing the sin of a people, bearing the judgment of a people, satisfying justice for a people. That's Christ going to the cross for somebody in particular. Who are they? You know how you can tell that it was a particular people that God chose. Here's how you can tell. Just like you learn everything else. Look into Christ on the cross. Here's how you know that it was a particular people only that Christ died for. Here's how you know. Look here. Verse 5 at the end says, With His stripes we are healed. Everybody Christ died for, He healed. Everybody Christ died for, He saved. Everybody Christ died for shall be saved and shall not perish. Is everybody in the world... Does everybody in the world believe on Christ? Obviously not. Does everybody in the world pass from this life believing on Christ? Obviously not. But it says here, everybody He died for will, He healed them. They're going to believe Him. You see, Christ succeeded in what He did. Romans 5, 8, Paul preached this. He said, God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for us. Much more than being now justified by His blood. Not by our work, by His blood. We shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Do you see there how it says He did save, He did reconcile, He did justify by His blood, and He did this when as yet His people were enemies. That's telling you who the our are for whom He died, those He justified, those He reconciled, those He saved, those He shall save. For if by one man's offense, death reigned by one. You couldn't stop death. You couldn't do a thing about it. You didn't work the one who did the transgression that caused you to die. It was by Adam. By one man's offense, death reigned by one. Nothing you can do about it. The good news is, the good news is, And they which receive much more, they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. You're not going to have a thing to do with it, you're not going to be able to stop it, nor are you going to want to stop it. Because by the abundance of His grace, by His gift of righteousness which He purchased, which He bought, which He brought, which He gave, which He gives freely, Life is going to reign by Christ. By Christ. See, the gospel is substitution. We were represented by one man God created in the beginning who knew no sin and he was the head and representative of everybody that would be born of him. That was Adam. And there's one more. His name is the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam. And He is the head representative of everybody that shall be born of Him. This is the gospel I'm telling you right here. This is the gospel. This is the only message out of every religion in the world that does not give the sinner at least something to do to be saved. This is the message that says God is God, God saves, God saves whom He saves, God saves any son, and God gives all the glory for it. This is the only message that gives God all the glory for salvation. All of it. You know, every so many years some nut job comes along and he's got some crazy doctrine he's come up with and people just latch on to it and just believe it like it's an ancient old message and it's brand new. And yet, this is the message that's been from the very beginning that God's declared from the garden. It's verified in our history. It's why you have warring nations today. It's why you have these different Jew and Gentile, the so-called Jew and the Gentile. This is history. This is his story right here. Yet men won't believe it. Did you know that Andrew Carnegie, he read a story about a guy who found a dinosaur. And he decided he wanted it. And he had the money to buy it. So he wrote this guy, said, I want the dinosaur. I want the skeleton. I want the bones. And the guy wrote back. He said, well, the truth is we only found one bone. And he said, well, I want it. I want a dinosaur skeleton. Well, then just in a little while, guess what happened? Somehow they found the old perfect skeleton. And so he put this skeleton of this big giant dinosaur in. Well, then somebody else wanted one. So you know what he did? He just paid and had one made and sent it to them. And then when he built libraries all over the world, he just sent them another copy and sent another copy so that they're all over the world. And people think all those are dinosaur skeletons that were found and they believe it. Many scientists say they found these dinosaur bones that are billions of years old. We can't even tell when a man was murdered that was murdered this month. We can't narrow it down, and yet we can tell you when something lived billions of years ago. I can tell you this, it wasn't before Adam fell in sin, because until he sinned, there wasn't any death in the world. It's as old as the world is, that's all. That's all. Why do we believe just anything? We won't believe the gospel. It takes God to make you believe the Gospel. That's right. You believe anything and everything, but it takes God to make you believe this. Let me show you one more thing. We preach how Christ was buried and rose again according to the Scriptures. Scripture said He would be resurrected from the grave. And Jonah being three days and three nights in the whale's belly was a type of it. And Christ said that. Christ said that as Jairus was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He really died. Christ really died. You talk about faith? What kind of faith do you have? Is it this kind? You bear the sins of my people. You bear the justice that my people deserve. You die. And you trust me, in three days I'll raise you again. You got that kind of faith? I'll lay down my life, I'll die and I'll trust you'll raise me in three days. That's faith. That's faith. That's perfect faith. Christ believed the Father. And the reason he said that it was pictured in Jonah and it was so is because he knew he would satisfy justice and he would finish the work and God would be satisfied and God would honor his promise because God is faithful. And Paul declared that very word. He declared him victorious. He said he'd ascend to the Father. Psalm 68, 18 says, Thou hast ascended on high. Thou hast led captivity captive. Thou hast received gifts from men for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them. Paul said he did it. He's victorious. Paul said he ascended up on high and he led captivity captive. He took all his people who were captives in bondage, in prison, under the bondage of death, sin, and hell, and he took them out and he led them to be his captives. And he made Satan his captive. And he ascended. It says he gave gifts unto men. He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. for the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ. And here's what Paul preached without fail, who was delivered again for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. You see brethren, there's one gospel. There's one gospel. It's concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and the death He accomplished for His people. That's the message of Scripture. beginning and the end. That's the message script. Now we got the New Testament. That's the same message of the New Testament. It's just given to us more clearly to help us see it all through the Old Testament. They complement one another. You know, we We can sit and listen to, I got you on my mind. We can listen to that all day long. But it comes to Christ and His Gospel and we glaze over and tune out. We got better things to do, bigger fish to fry. We got something important like a soccer game. We got something that's so infinitely important like a picnic or go to the mall this afternoon. We're thinking about that. Do you realize We don't believe we're even going to die. We got a long time to think about that. There's one gospel and we need to hear it. We need to believe on Him. God's salvation is sovereign salvation. That's the gospel. Scriptures declare His death was appointed by God and it was voluntary by our Redeemer. Sovereign salvation. He's in control the whole time doing everything according to His eternal purpose. Scripture says he died for a particular people that God chose in Christ. That's the gospel. Scripture says Christ didn't try to save, He didn't make us savable. It says Christ saved His people fulfilling all the demands of holy law, making a definite atonement, putting away our sin. Seventy weeks are determined. Scripture said, upon thy people, upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision of prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Witness the New Testament tells us he accomplished that when he said, it is finished. Scripture says every promise of God are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's yay and amen. All the promises of God in him are yes and in him an amen to the glory of God. To the glory of God. How do I know if what I'm hearing is the gospel? The gospel. How do I know if what I'm hearing is the gospel? God said. to the law and to the testimony. Right here. According to what's written in this book, if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them. You start out and you say, well, I don't believe that book's the Bible. Satan's got you. And you're probably going to perish in your sin. God is probably going to harden your heart. If you will not consent to the truth that this is the Word of God, We got no basis to even talk. You've been beguiled by Satan worse than the biggest fool in this world, if that's the case. But this Word is God's Word and the way you know what's true is you take what a man says and you go to this book and you look it up and you see, is that what's true? And listen, when you hear me preach and you follow along in the scriptures that I preach, don't just do it here. Go home. Don't you want to learn more of what I said? I bet you in our jobs and whatever it is we're going to build or whatever we're going to do, if it's some new application and we really want to learn it, we don't just listen to it one time and we go back to the desk and open the book and we study it and try to figure out how is this properly applied. Well, you don't do that with something as important as eternal life either. You go back and you read on it. If you want to learn more about it, apply yourself. God said, you walk in the light I've given you, I'll give you some more. But this is how you know who gets the glory. God alone. And where is it written? Show me in the scripture where it's written. I've given you all these scriptures today. I can't possibly turn to them in the amount of time we have, but I'll send you the notes, and you can read them, and you can look them up, and you can see. I'll send you the notes from the ones I didn't go through and show you. all through the Scriptures. It looks like they went down a checklist and said, well, now we've got to part his garments. Now we've got to sit down and watch him. Now we've got to give him gall and vinegar. Now is the time we're going to have to bury him with the rich. All these things just right down the list because God's in sovereign control. All right, brethren, let's stand together. Father, we thank You. We had no interest in this Word, no interest in this Gospel, no interest in these Scriptures. And one day You pricked our heart and You gave us a desire to know You and You continue to make us desire to know more of You. Lord, we pray now that you would truly take this word and apply it to the heart of some needy, lost, dead sinner. Make him live, make him hear, make him draw near to you. Lord, you can do that. We believe you will for all your people. And we ask you, Lord, do it now. If it's your will, do it now. We pray for our loved ones, our children, Oh, how we pray for our children. Don't want to see them get swallowed up in this earth like Korah and all his band of rebels. Start looking like this world and talking like this world and just carried away with the philosophy and the vanity of this world, Lord. We ask you to ground them in faith and call them and set them down at Christ's feet. Keep them by your grace. Lord, continue to teach us. We need to be taught. We don't know. We don't apply ourselves as we ought. Make the things of this world to become vanity to us. Make them become so unimportant to us and make Christ become the all-in necessity we have to have. Lord, we ask now you bless the Word and do so in the next hour. Forgive us our sins, Father. For Christ's sake we pray. Amen.