The Gospel of Christ

Theme: The Gospel of Your Salvation
“Him you also trusted, after you heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation…” (Ephesians 1:13)
Date: October 18, 2003 - Saturday P.M. - (During a Gospel Meeting October 17 Through 19, 2003, at the Northeast church of Christ, Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Speaker: Mack Lyon, Speaker on the In Search of the Lord’s Way Television Program
Main Scripture: Matthew 5; Romans 1:13-16; 1 Corinthians

I love the little children. I tell you, they are so sincere, and they’re honest. The observations they make and some of the things they do and say are just absolutely remarkable.

A young man, who attended last night, drew a picture of me. I expect Brother George Bailey and Brother John Phillis [both Gospel preachers and in the audience] both have had this happen to them. While I was here in the pulpit, the young man sat there and drew a picture. I thought it was good, and I wanted it, but he wanted to take it home. I wanted to put in a collection of some pictures, like this, that I have.

And somebody came along and told me, then, about their child, saying something about my preaching, and how so attentive to the TV program their child was when I’m on the air.

That reminded me of an incident that occurred over in Atlanta, Georgia. I was beginning a meeting over there a few years ago. I was staying with one of the elders, and that particular elder was the one that was assigned to open the building on Sunday morning. So, when we got there, we were the first ones there.

Among the very first people who came in was a woman, a young mother. She came right down the aisle to me and said, “I have a little pre-school daughter. She’s in there in one of the pre-school classes right now.” She said, “She watches your program intently, as though you have her mesmerized, or maybe you have her hypnotized, or something. She sits in front of that television program, in front of that television, and watches you and never moves until you go off the air.” The young mother said, “She has two programs like that, that she watches. She watches yours and Mr. Rogers, both, that way. On Sunday morning, when you’re on the air, my husband and I,” she said, “eat breakfast together, but my little girl does not move from in front of the TV. Now, after you’ve gone off the air, she’ll come to the table and eat breakfast, but she doesn’t move from in front of the TV until you’re off the air.”

Well, I’d heard of that before. I’d had other people tell me that about the little children. So, I wasn’t too amazed about it. But between Bible class and worship, here the young mother came down the aisle leading this little girl. And she led the little girl up to me and she turned to her and said, “Honey, do you know who this man is?” And the little girl said, “Of course I do! It’s Mr. Rogers!” So, a little case of misunderstanding or false identification. But the little children are so that way.

I was sitting in the Edmond [Oklahoma] church one day, and we had a cross aisle, an aisle that went crossways, about middle way back. I usually sat right on that aisle. There were doors coming in from the side this way, and came across.

I was sitting there on one of those front seats. This woman came in when it was right time to start. Ken Helterbrand [song leader] just insisted that you be there in time to start, and don’t disturb the worship in song. So, everybody tried to get in their seat before worship started. Ken was up [to lead singing], and he was waiting for her to find a seat. She was dragging this little girl; poor little thing—the woman was literally dragging her across there. You know, one step for that mother meant three or four steps for that little girl. And that mother was hurrying across to get over there to her seat where she usually sat. And the little girl, as she went by me, said, “How’s show biz?”

Let’s turn our minds to things more serious now.

The apostle Paul, in preaching the Gospel to the Gentile people, wanted to go to Rome to have some fruit among the people—the members of the church there—some spiritual results, or some spiritual blessings bestowed upon them through his work in the ministry of Lord to the Gentile people. He had attempted to do so in times past; he had been prevented each time, and some of the Christians had begun to think that Paul was merely deceiving them, that he really didn’t intend ever to come, and he was just trying to be friendly toward them.

So, in this book of Romans, the first chapter, I’m going to begin at verse 13 [KJV]: “Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto [but was hindered],) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. ¹⁴I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. ¹⁵So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also. ¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek,” [Romans 1:13-16]. And the Message continues, but that’s enough to give us the basis for our study tonight.

We’re studying about the Gospel. The word, “Gospel,” literally means “Good News” or “Glad Tidings.” We mentioned that last night, and we mentioned that we use this word strictly religiously. We don’t apply it to other things that may be a good message or glad tidings. We just reserve it for religious purposes, like: Gospel meetings, Gospel literature, Gospel songs, Gospel music, and all that sort of thing.

But we only use it with reference to the religion of Christ. It’s a word that isn’t even found in Judaism back in the Old Testament. Not once is the word, “Gospel,” found in the Old Testament. The Bible does say that the Gospel was first preached to Abraham, but, of course, that’s a reference to the promise that was made to Abraham of being the seed from whom the Messiah would come into the world [Galatians 3:8 - KJV: “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” ]. And, so, we understand about that. But the word, “Gospel,” itself, does not appear at all in the Old Testament.

But it appears 101 times in the New Testament. Sometimes it has a qualifying phrase, as we mentioned last night. Seven times it is called, “The Gospel of God.” And then, eleven times it is called, “The Gospel of Christ.” This is one of those times in which it has that prepositional phrase that makes it distinctively a “kind” of Gospel.

Last night, we studied about “The Gospel of God,” the Good News that God is to the world today. And I appreciate very much the prayer that Brother George Bailey prayed for us a while ago, concerning the things that are happening in our country today to rid us of every influence of God. That’s what we talked about last night.

But, God is Good News, and we needn’t be intimidated whatsoever by professing to be believers in God. 92% of the people in America, according to a recent poll, said that they believe in God. That leaves only 8% of the people, then, who are not believers in God. That means, then, that 8% of the people may be intimidating us into silence, because so many of us are not active, and not saying much, about our faith in God.

There is a battle on against Christianity today. There is a war against Christianity, trying to silence the church and those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we’re not going to be silenced. We’re going to increase our efforts, God willing and being our Helper, to get this Message, this Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the whole world.

Now, I want us to think about this Gospel of Christ tonight. Why is it called a “Good News Message”? I suspect that if we were just to throw this open to a discussion, a class discussion, you could list any number of reasons why you believe that the Gospel is the Gospel of Christ, AND that the Message of Christ really is Good News, if we gave you an opportunity to do that. And you might just take one of those cards out of the back of that seat, and you might just list a number of reasons—you might be able to give as many as a hundred reasons why the Message of Jesus Christ is really and truly Good News. We could do that, and go on and on and on tonight, but I’m going to try to summarize what we can in the time which we have tonight, and talk about three reasons WHY the Message of Jesus Christ is a GOSPEL Message, WHY preaching Jesus Christ is preaching the GOSPEL, or the Good News of Him.

These three reasons are, as I said, comprehensive. We’re going to try to bring in some of the other reasons that we might put under these titles, along with some others, but we’re just going to bring them together and talk about three good reasons why a person really ought to want to be a Christian and a follower of Christ. That’s really the basic message.

The first reason: Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. When Jesus was about to be born in Bethlehem of Judea, Joseph and Mary were not yet married. They were espoused to marry, and that espousal was a stronger expression of their commitment to each other than what we usually think of in our “engagement” process in American society. Nevertheless, they had not become husband and wife at this time when it was known that Mary was with child.

Of course, this troubled Joseph, because Joseph had been faithful to Mary; he treated her as a lady, and, it seems now, that she has been out with another man, and she has had sexual relations with another man. It troubled Joseph. The question in his mind was simply this: “Am I going to go ahead and take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife? Will I accept her as my wife when, apparently, she has been out with another, and she has been untrue to me and the commitment that she has made to me in the espousal?”

Well, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph while this was troubling him and said to him, “Now, Joseph, you take Mary to be your lawful wedded wife, and that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; and thou shall call His Name ‘Jesus,’ for He shall save His people from their sins.” [Matthew 1:20-21: “But while he [Joseph] thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. ²¹ And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His Name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins.” ]

Now, about the same Message was also conveyed to Mary in Luke, chapter 1 and verse 31. [“And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shalt call His Name JESUS.”]

So, to both Joseph and to Mary, they had received the Message from angelic beings that they were to call the baby’s Name “Jesus.” Well, “Jesus” was a rather common name, and so we read of Him in the New Testament as “Jesus of Nazareth” to specify that One. The name “Jesus” and the word “salvation” come from the same root word in the Hebrew language. And so, when they gave Him the Name “Jesus,” they were saying that He was to be the Savior of the people—not only of the Hebrew nation but also the whole wide world. He’s going to be Savior to all who would come into this world.

Well, we talk about a “Savior,” and sometimes people say, “What are we talking about when we say, ‘Savior’? Why did the world need a Savior?” Truth of the matter is, all of us need a Savior for the simple reason that, we have sinned. And within ourselves, we find ourselves incapable, or unable, to save ourselves, and so, we need someone to be our Savior.

When we talk about needing a Savior, we’re not talking about be a Savior from poverty, as you hear preached so much on television today. That isn’t what we’re talking about, being saved from poverty.

Jesus Christ came into this world for a higher and more noble purpose than that. Of course, if He had come into this world for that purpose, then it would be true that, from that point onward, a baby should never be hungry. No one in all of the world would ever go hungry again, or go to bed hungry again. Well, that would have been a noble purpose, but Jesus had a more noble purpose than that, because He didn’t come to save us from hunger, or from poverty. That message, that “gospel of wealth” just is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But He didn’t come to save us, either, from illness, or sickness. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that, God wants all of His people to be healthy. And if you’re saved, you’re saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, but when you’re saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, according to Isaiah, chapter 28, by His stripes you’re also healed—by the blood that He shed on Calvary’s cross, you’re healed as well. That’s what the Bible does say, BUT it’s NOT talking about a physical healing. He’s talking about the national healing of Israel, who had sinned, and they would be forgiven that sin.

Well, Jesus Christ is also our Savior from sin and not from either poverty or illness. Sometimes these very preachers…. I used have a fellow who preached after I did on radio every Sunday morning. He always preached that, “By His stripes, you are healed; and if you’re a Christian, your healed and you’re not sick, and if you’re sick, you’re not saved.” “In other words,” he said, “if you’re healthy, you’re saved, and if you’re sick, you’re lost.” One of our ladies happened to be a nurse to one of the doctors in the community, and she was treating his leg. He was about to lose one of his feet and leg up to his knee because of a diabetic condition he had. So, if you’re sick, you’re lost, and if you’re healthy, you’re saved—that’s what this fellow was preaching on the radio. My friends, it isn’t true, because nearly all of us are going to be sick from time to time. There will be times in our lives that we’re going to have problems with our health, and so that would mean, then, if I’m sick, I’m lost. And then, tomorrow, if I’m healed, or if I’m feeling good tomorrow, then I’m saved. That would be a yo-yo kind of a situation, up and down, up and down, depending on your health. God doesn’t promise that. He sent Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the world from sin!

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 [“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God…”]. In Romans 5:12, the apostle Paul said, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned….” No, he didn’t say in that passage that, death is passed upon all men for that we have inherited the guilt of Adam’s sin. He’s simply saying that because all of us have sinned, then the death sentence has been passed upon us. He’s not talking about physical death; he’s talking about spiritual death.

God said to Adam and Eve in the garden, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” [Genesis 2:17]. They did stretch forth the hand; they ate of the forbidden fruit and that day, they died.

But somebody argues the point by saying that Adam and Even didn’t die that day, because, if you recall the Old Testament Scriptures, they lived on and they even had some children after that. There were Cain and Abel and Seth, and then there were some girls also, because they [the men children] found some wives for themselves. There were other children in the family.

Well, of course, we understand that God was not talking about their dying physically. Death is a separation. That’s what the word “death” actually means—“to be separated, or, a separation”. And James says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also,” James 2:26. The spirit does not die, but the body dies when the spirit leaves it. When there is that separation of the body and the spirit, then the person is dead—he’s pronounced dead, and we conduct a funeral and we bury the body. We don’t bury HIM, we bury the body, and the spirit returns to God [Ecclesiastes 12:7: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it.”] But, then, other kinds of separation would be death in that sense, and that’s the kind of death that Adam and Eve died that day—a spiritual death. They were separated from God by their sin.

You remember that the Bible says that God loved Adam and Eve. He came down in the cool of the day, and He even walked in the garden and talked with them, had conversations with them. He loved them, and they were enjoying this communion. God enjoyed it, and so did they. BUT, that relationship ended when they committed the sin, and they were separated, alienated, from God. That’s what happens to us when we sin. When we transgress the Law of God, for sin IS a transgression of the Law of God, then, we are alienated, or separated, from God.

But God knew that Adam and Eve would sin, and He knew that all of the rest of us would sin. Even before He began the creation process, He had built into His plan a Way that we could come back, and we could be made alive again, revived, if you will. That plan called for the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ, into this world. And so, what was conceived in Mary was of the Holy Spirit, coming into this world to be the Savior of the world—meaning all of us who have transgressed God’s Law.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, the apostle Paul wrote and said, “…if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ….” Man is reconciled to God IN Christ. That’s why Jesus would say during His personal ministry, in the Gospel of John, the 14^th chapter, verse 6, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” There’s no other way to come to God. God built into His plan of creation, His redemption plan, this plan of reconciliation. Now, all who will come, believing what Jesus said and trusting that, to the Lord Jesus Christ can be reconciled to God. And that is the salvation of which we read here in this passage.

So, He’s our Savior. You call His Name “Jesus” because He’s your Savior. He’s the only Savior you ever will have. It’s in His Name, and His Name ONLY, that we have salvation. The apostle Peter said, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which, or through which, you must be saved.” [Acts 4:12: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”] And so, we’re lost, we’re alienated from God because we sin; and then, we can be reconciled to God. We can be saved through Jesus Christ.

That’s one good reason, and that would probably be the first reason that you would write down as to why the Message of Christ is Good News. There is no other such Good News as this! In Christ Jesus, we have salvation!

Let’s move on to the second reason that I would say that the Gospel Message is a “Good News Message.” If you hear me preach much on television, you’ve heard me say many, many times, “I believe that the Lord taught us the best way to live that’s ever been introduced to the family of man .” Now, there are critics of the Lord’s Way. They tell us that it’s too strict, that it’s binding on them, that it deprives them of some of the freedom and the blessings that they need.

I had a man from Dallas write me the other day on the Internet [E-mail], and he said that, from my preaching people are bound in Christ Jesus, rather than free in Christ. Quoting from Galatians, he said that we are free in Christ Jesus, that Christ has set us free, and so we’re free to do as we please. That’s the new definition of “freedom”—a person’s liberty to do as he pleases.

But that isn’t the kind of freedom that we’re talking about, and that isn’t the best way to live, to just live as the way we please. The best way that we’ve ever discovered for living this life and getting along with each other in peace and tranquility is the Way that the LORD taught.

I had a professor at the University of Oklahoma, an atheist, in the study of the Philosophy of Religion, who would say very often, “The greatest sermon ever preached in all of world literature is Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Second would be Paul’s sermon on Mars’ Hill, and third, the Gettysburg Address.” And then, he would always emphasize that by saying, “in that order.” Now, here’s a man who doesn’t even profess to be a believer, but he comes back to say that the best way to live that man has ever discovered, that’s ever been introduced to the family of man, is the Way that Jesus taught.

Now, for fifteen hundred years the Ten Commandment Law was respected and highly regarded as the highest and noblest way to live. But then, Jesus comes along and He introduces an even better Way than that. You remember the Ten Commandments; it had those moral laws in addition to establishing man’s relationship to God. In the first ones, He tells us, “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery,” and all of those things [see Exodus 20:1-17]. But Jesus comes along, and He gives us an even better Law.

I’m going to read just a few Words of the Lord’s: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: ²² But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause… (that’s the King James Version—“without a cause” is not in some of the other translations)…but whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire,” Matthew 5:21-22. Now, what Jesus is saying here is, not only are younot to get so angry that you’re going to do something drastically harmful to your brother, or to your neighbor, whoever it might be, but you’re not going to let this bitterness build up in your heart to the point that it would lead to that overt action, or result in that overt action.

Later on, in that same sermon, Jesus says, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; ⁴⁵ That ye may be the children of your Father Which is in heaven,…” Matthew 5:44-45, and so on. Now, again, He’s saying the same thing. Rather than to let this hatred build up in your heart to the point that you’re going to do something drastically evil to your brother, don’t entertain that kind of thinking. Jesus is striking at the heart, the kind of heart that we ought to have.

And then again, in that sermon, He says, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: ²⁸ But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,” Matthew 5:27-28. What He’s saying is, you not only don’t commit adultery, you just don’t think about it! Get it out of your mind.

Well, there are other things that He taught us likewise. He looked around, and He saw people who were marrying and divorcing and, according to some of the writers about that period of time, even some of the religious leaders were marrying and divorcing, and marrying and divorcing, and they wouldn’t stay married to one woman more that two weeks, sometimes. This would be happening among some of the leaders! But Jesus said, “It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement…” But I have a better Way, He is saying. “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery,” Matthew 5:31-32. And so, He says, just don’t behave that way; don’t entertain it in your heart.

Well, Jesus looked around and He saw people who were greedy. They were constantly pursuing the things of this world. He said to them this good Message: A man’s life consists not of the abundance of the things which he possesses. [Luke 12:15: “And He said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”] Don’t get carried away with the possession of the things of this world. That’s one of our problems today, isn’t it?—greed. That’s one of the problems that man has always had, and so the Lord says, I have a better Way.

He tells us, in that same connection, that a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things. And an evil man out of the evil in his heart brings forth evil things, Matthew 12, verse 35. [“A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”] Now, what He is saying is, My Way is better because it controls the life of a person from the inside outwardly. Jesus Christ is the only religious leader in all the world, in all of history, Who has sought to control the person’s life from the inside outwardly. Everybody else puts the rules on the outside; you conform to the rules. And Jesus says, I have a better Way.

You see, really, Christ IS Good News to us! He gives us a better Way to live! You can’t put enough policemen on the streets; you can’t build enough prisons; you can’t appoint enough judges to control the behavior of a world like ours. People just need to be able to control themselves from the inside outwardly. That’s what makes the Lord’s Way the best Way to live. So, my second reason for saying that the Message of Christ is really Good News is for that reason.

I’ll explain my third reason why the Message of Christ is really Good News. One of the greatest questions that has every burdened the heart of man is the oldest question, perhaps, that’s ever burdened his heart. Going way back to the book of Job, perhaps the oldest piece of literature that we have—it antedates anything else that we have—in the book of Job, we read the question, “If a man die, shall he live again?” [Job 14:14a] That’s an important question that every one of us wonder about. We come to the time to die—is that the end of us?

Well, of course, we could go to science and ask the scientists, What do you think about it? Well, they can’t answer because it’s beyond the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method does not deal in values and in philosophies of that kind. These things can’t be put in a test tube in the laboratory and proven to be right or wrong. And so, we go to the wrong source.

If we go to philosophy, well, philosophers have been troubled by this question from time immemorial. They really don’t have the answer to the question, “‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ Is this the end of all when we come to the grave?” Some people have tried to give us an answer to that, but they’ve never given us a satisfactory one.

The humanist says to us today that, there is not sufficient evidence to believe that life survives the death of the body. Well, that doesn’t give us much hope, does it? And we could go on and list a lot of others.

Well, you say, let’s turn to religion and see what we can find. If we look at Buddhism or Hinduism and most of those, well, they deal with life after death. It’s called “reincarnation.” They say, yes, there is life beyond the grave, and you’ll be reincarnated when your spirit leaves this body, and it goes over yonder, and then it will come back and live the life of some other creature. It may be human, or it may be an animal of some kind.

I was preaching one time on television about this immortality of the life of man, and I mentioned this idea of reincarnation, and how erroneous it was—that instead of that, we believe in the resurrection. A lady from Oregon wrote me a letter. She said, “You’re mistaken about it” [reincarnation], and she gave me some Scriptures, which she interpreted to teach reincarnation—the Scriptures didn’t teach that, but she interpreted it in that way. And she said, “You know, I’m a lover of cats; I love cats.” She said, “In fact, I have about 34 cats in my house now.” Well, bless her heart, she must love cats to have that many in the house. And she said, “And when I die, I want to come back reincarnated in the life of a cat.” Well, I don’t have to tell you, without being disrespectful at all to her, that I have higher ambitions than that for life after death than to live the life of a cat. Don’t you? That just is not satisfactory, do you think?

Well, we turn to the Lord Jesus Christ for the answer. That’s the only place we’ll find a satisfactory answer. Jesus Christ is called “the firstborn from the dead.” [Colossians 1:18: “And He is the Head of the body, the church: Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.”] He is the first one to be resurrected from the dead, to be raised from the dead to die no more!

The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 1 through 8: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; ² By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. ³ For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures….” That’s Good News! “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….”

Then, Paul begins, at that point, to give a list of witnesses, numerous witnessesand NAMES of witnesses!—men who were currently living at that time! These witnesses could bear testimony to the resurrected Lord! They had seen Christ after He was raised from the dead! There was ample proof! He was seen by James! He was seen of all the apostles! He was seen by Cephas [Peter]! And Paul says, “And last of all He was seen of me also….” Paul is saying, I saw Him; I had a conversation with Him after He was raised from the dead.

Then Paul says, “Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen…,” [1 Corinthians 15:12-13]. And that’s reasonable. Then, he goes on a bit later in this same chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, and he says, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept…,” (verse 20). “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” (verse 22).

One of the beautiful passages that we have from Jesus Christ our Lord, one of the most beautiful and reassuring statements that we have from our Lord Himself, is found in the Gospel of John, the 14^th chapter. Jesus had spoken to the apostles about His immediate departure—it’s going to happen real soon. They were saddened, and He said, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me,” (verse 1). And then, down here a little bit later in the same chapter, He says, “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also,” (verse 19).

So, when it comes time for us to die, and that time will come for all of us, we know, then of course, we have this promise, if we’re Christians, that, because He’s alive, we’re going to see Him. We’re going to live on, and we’re going to see Him. A little while, He’s not going to be seen, and then, soon we’re going to see Him and be with Him. That’s what He promised in John, chapter 14. He said, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also,” 'font-size: 12.0pt;color:black'>[verses 1-3].

Well, He died; and He went to heaven, Acts, chapter 1, verses 9 through 11 [“And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight. ¹⁰ And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; ¹¹ Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, Which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” ]. This Scripture says that He ascended into heaven, and the people saw Him; the apostles saw Him ascend into heaven. As He is in heaven, He’s gone to heaven to prepare a place for you and me so that, where He IS in heaven, you and I can go there, too.

Say! I’m saying that the Gospel, the Message of Jesus Christ, really IS Gospel, isn’t it.

There are some other reasons that I’d like to discuss with you, but our time is up. These reasons embrace ALL that Jesus has said. There are things we’d like to talk about in detail, but there is not enough time. We’ll list these three reasons, again, why the Message of Christ is really Good News:

Number One: Jesus Christ is our Savior. That’s Good News! We are not going to remain lost if we come to Christ. We’ll be reconciled to God IN Christ. That’s Good News—we have a Savior!

Number Two: The Way that Jesus taught us to live here on this earth, just among ourselves, here, day by day, is the best Way that we’ve ever found anywhere.

Number Three: When this life is over, we have a hope. And it isn’t a vain hope. Oh, there is assurance and assurance—that empty tomb shouts loudly around the WORLD tonight, Christ arose! And since He arose from the dead, you and I can also be raised and live with Him.

Are you a Christian tonight? If not, you ought to be a Christian before you leave here, because NOW you know that Christ is your Savior! NOW you know that His life is the best life. And NOW you know that in HIM you have a hope of heaven—heaven, that place we sing about; that place we read about in the Bible; the eternal abode of the spirit of man. You want to go there, don’t you? I do. I mean, if I fail in everything else I’ve ever attempted to do, I MUST be successful in going THERE! And my success depends on my Savior. He came to save me, and He can DO it!—and only HE can. Don’t you want to come to the Lord tonight?

You believe in Him as the Son of God? Confess Him here tonight that He is so in your life. Turn away from you sin in repentance as Peter said, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” Acts 2:38. Do that tonight, would you? Don’t just think about it. Don’t go away and say, “Well, I…I…I’ll give some thought to it.” DO it tonight! “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the Will of My Father Which is in heaven,” Jesus said [Matthew 7:21]. Will you? If you’re not a Christian, come tonight to Jesus Christ; be reconciled to God. Be saved.