The Gospel

 

The Gospel is a joyous response to the worst news you can possibly get. To really understand how great the good news is you must first understand just how devastating the bad news is.

We all must die. Everyone knows this to be a fact of life. All of us will die, most of the time sooner than we think, and this temporary life will be over with our eternal life beginning. It doesn’t matter who you are, you are immortal and before entering your eternal life a judgment will be made (Revelation 20:12-13). God will be the judge and He will judge us against His perfect standard, not on how we compare against each other.

We all are sinners (Romans 3:23), having deceitful hearts with wicked thoughts and actions and will come no where close to meeting His perfect standard. God is a good God and Judge (Psalm 7:11) and for this reason justice in the purest sense will be carried out. God has a record of every action we have done and every thought that has went through our minds from a lifetime of sinning (Ecclesiastes 12:14). Because of our sinful ways and our well kept unrepentant heart we are adding God’s wrath to us each day (Romans 2:5). In the day of judgement, God’s righteous justice demands payment for our sin. The only fitting sentence to us from a perfect and eternal God is to be cast away to eternal punishment in hell where God’s wrath will be on us forever(Revelation 14:10-11) (Psalm 75:8). 

We need to understand why our nature is so directed at sin. This all consuming attraction to sin is why we deserve God’s wrath and will not be accepted into His kingdom.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). In this beginning God created the first man (Adam) and the first woman (Eve) and they lived in a garden called Eden (Genesis 2:8). He gave them one restriction; do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). After some time the serpent, who in Revelation 12:9 was revealed as the devil, came to Eve and deceived her into eating the fruit from this tree. She then gave it to Adam who also ate (Genesis 3:6).

Through this disobedience Adam brought sin into this world and through sin all manners of sickness and death came (Romans 5:12). This is our inheritance, our sinful nature. Our present situation because of our sinful nature is that we are enemies of God (Romans 5:10). None of us seek after God because none of us understands the truth. We all, every last one of us has turned our backs on Him and gladly follow the voice of this world’s ruler, the devil (Romans 3:12) (2 Corinthians 4:4). Our realm of sin is all we know and are satisfied by what all it has to offer. There is nothing in us that would allow us to follow God, believe in His Word, repent from the sins that we do and to truly love Him (Romans 3:11).

Long ago God gave us His laws and commandments (these are written in the first five books of the Bible and are known as the Mosaic law), not to save us from our sins but to show them to us and how we constantly sin and don’t have the ability to follow them. These laws are ever present in our lives and condemning us, so that when we are judged, we have no excuse. Your actions and thoughts will be presented for all to see and you will be judged by them. Justice for these sins will fall on you to pay and the sentence carried out will be an eternal one in a place of darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and a separation from God’s glory. Only His wrath will constantly be there consuming you.

The eternal torment is really unfathomable, but to me it seems the worst thing is that there will be no hope. Hope in our lives drives us through the worst of times to continue on. Dreams, aspirations, ambitions and any other hope filled words about our future are forever gone. You are left to be completely emerged in your sinful nature, without conscience or morality, just rage and bitterness.

You might want to argue against such a devastating eternal fate by saying; I do good things in my life. Does God look at that?

No, He doesn’t. This is because no one can do good works (Romans 3:12). Doing a good work is to bring glory to God (Matthew 5:16) and this is just not possible in our current sinful state. Therefore the fair and just sentence for our life of sin is everlasting punishment in hell. There can be no news coming from this world that could ever be as bad as this reality. Really think about your justice being carried out and deserving the unimaginable horrors that will consume you forever. There is absolutely nothing you can do to change it and no way of making your situation right with God. This is our reality and this truth should put more fear into you than anything else possibly could.

The Good News

God, by His own good will and nothing that we did or would do, made a way for us to be saved from hell and to eternally be with Him! His justice for our sins has not been compromised in the least and His wrath has been carried out fully. But how, with God keeping His holy character upheld completely can we make it to heaven?

In the Old Testament we learn about the Messiah, the Anointed One, that through Him our salvation would come. There are many, many prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament so we would recognize Him when He did come. God wanted us to know without a doubt that if someone claimed to be the Savior, we would know. For any one person to fulfill just half of these prophesies would be utterly impossible. To complete all of them, there would be no question that it would have to be of God.

One man did this! He fulfilled all the prophesies of the Old Testament and is the long awaited Messiah and His name is Jesus of Nazareth. The One through whose life, works, death and resurrection God’s chosen will be fully saved!

Jesus claimed the old prophecies had been fulfilled through Him (Luke 4:14-21) in the temple of His hometown at the beginning of His ministry. Jesus preached the truth to the world and He preached in a way the people had never heard. He had power and authority in His words and even the evil spirits obeyed His commands (Mark 1:27).

Jesus preached what the character of those who will follow God should be and led by example (1 Peter 2:21). He preached against false religions and false teachers and taught more than anyone the ways to hell and hell itself. Jesus performed miracles of healing, feeding multitudes and displayed power over nature and the supernatural. He showed compassion, mercy, love and taught the way to salvation. Yes the good news, the Gospel, the way we can be saved from hell and be with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit forever!

Jesus who is God the Son, came down from heaven and became man, leaving behind only His will, to do the will of God the Father (John 6:38). Jesus was fully man and fully God (Colossians 2:9) and He walked this earth without sin. The only One who ever has or ever will be able to do this, keeping all the laws of the Father and the Father’s will.

Jesus willingly laid down His life on the cross for us while we were still sinners and enemies of God (John 10:18) (Romans 5:8). He did not deserve the penalty that sin demands, which is the mighty wrath of God and death. He was the innocent lamb and His blood is what His people are purchased with (1 Peter 1:19). On the cross all of the sins of His people were placed on Him and He became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). He took the full wrath of God to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). Meaning He satisfied the wrath of God for our sins.

On that day we were crucified with Jesus and died with Him so the body of sin is done away and we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). Jesus took our sins on Himself and accredited to us His perfect, sinless life so we can be justified before God.

Jesus said that He came for sinners, not those who believe themselves self-righteous (Luke 5:32). No matter what you have done or how far you have went with your sins, if you still have breath in you, you can be saved (1 John 5:16-17). Those who believe their actions and traditions earn them salvation have been misled. A sad fact is if they die believing this way they will enter into hell instead of heaven.

It is you who He came for, the wretched sinners, the uttermost. The ones who believe themselves unworthy of God’s grace because of the depths of sin you freely went. Sinner, God and He alone is the One who has chosen His people to be saved and to inherit the kingdom of God. Jesus says in John 6:44 that no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. In the Father’s drawing the Holy Spirit gives you the gifts of faith and repentance, necessary gifts for salvation that we need.

To those who truly seek after Jesus Christ for their salvation and Him alone they will find Him (Matthew 7:7-8). This is a promise, because no one would seek Him without the Father’s drawing. If you truly have love for Him and believe, you truly are saved.

If you are finding an interest in God’s Word or possibly sermons from biblical preachers are having new meaning to you, where you are thinking about God more and more; this could be your drawing. Pray to the Father for belief and a Godly repentance. Pray for salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.