The Gospel of God

We open our Bibles to the first chapter of the Book of Romans, Romans chapter 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle separated unto the gospel of God. Verse 3, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Verse 16, For 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.

You will notice, my friends, if you read these verses carefully, that we have mentioned here the gospel of God. Secondly, we have his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Thirdly, we have the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then we have the power of God unto salvation.

Oh, how blessed, my beloved friends, tonight is the proclamation of the gospel of God. Surely there are many of us in this room tonight that can look back with joy to that time when the gospel of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord touched our poor dead hearts and we came out of the devil's darkness into the broad daylight of the grace of God. We were brought from death to life.

We were brought from the power of Satan to God. We were brought from that road to hell unto that road to heaven. And I am sure there are some in this room tonight that have never yet believed the gospel of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

And you are here tonight, my friend, and I ask you what you have in this life. You have absolutely nothing, I am sorry to tell you, for I was on that broad road to destruction and I know something of the heartaches and the sorrows of life and all that the devil has with his plans and schemes to bring you down to hell. And he has nothing for you but a grave and eternity because you have to leave the world.

You just can't stay here. No matter how rich you are or how poor you are, you cannot stay in this world. You have to go into God's eternity.

And you have to stand before God. There may be in this room tonight an atheist or an infidel or somebody else who says, But I don't believe that. But that doesn't matter.

As far as God is concerned, you have to leave and go out into eternity. And you have to stand in the presence of a holy God. What a solemn thing, beloved.

I'd like to point out, too, that the gospel of God is not concerning you. And the gospel of God is not concerning me. And the gospel of God is not concerning any man in the world.

But the gospel of God is concerning Jesus Christ, our Lord. But I would say to any in this room who have never yet received the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior, that you had better be concerned by the gospel of God. It's not concerning you, but you should be concerned by the gospel of God.

Now, the next thing is this, that the gospel really means God's good news. You know, this world is full of bad news tonight. You can read it in the press.

I suppose you can hear it on the air. You can see pictures of it as you walk down the street, and all you see is ruin and the whole business collapsing all around us as man loses control of the situation. And our governments come to the place where they put up their hands and say, We're sorry, we can't do anything.

We can't do anything. And my friend, tonight you should be concerned about these things. You should be concerned about the mess the world's in.

You should be concerned about what is going to happen in this world. For I assure you on the authority of God's word that God is going to pour out onto this world his judgment. The world is hopelessly lost.

Like a sinking ship going down under the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and nobody, I'm sure, takes much time to try to repair a sinking ship, you have to leave it. And my friend, tonight there is a refuge for you outside of this world, and that is in Christ. In Christ.

Now, I thought tonight that I would look at a couple of passages in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament where we have, I believe, the gospel of God concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us look first back to the beginning of the Bible, the third chapter of Genesis. Now, this is a well-known chapter to most of us, but like all the Bible, it never grows old, never grows old.

It's the same old book that our great-great-great-grandfathers read and enjoyed, and today in 1976 we can still open the word of God and read from its holy pages. Genesis 3, verse 15, and here we have God himself speaking. It's the gospel of God.

Here we have in this 15th verse, God speaking to the serpent, and he says, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Isn't that a wonderful verse? Oh, thank God for Genesis 3, verse 15.

It's a hope, my friends. It's God's gospel, and we have often said that God himself reserved to himself the privilege of being the first gospel preacher. Himself God, in this verse, presents the gospel.

Oh, what wonderful, blessed news we have here of the promise of a deliverer of a Savior. Let us notice now about this verse that God says, I will. This is one of God's I wills in the Bible.

I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. Notice, my friends, it's her seed. Nothing to do with Adam.

It's her seed, the woman's seed. And this brings before us in connection with the gospel of God concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, that he was born of a virgin. Now, there may be some in this room, because we do not know everybody here, may be some who say, well, we don't believe in the virgin birth of Christ tonight.

Then I say you are not a Christian. You cannot be a Christian and deny the virgin birth of Christ. Now, there are children, you know, that don't understand this, and we don't expect them to understand this.

But you who are older, you who are grown up, you who have reached the age of responsibility, I stand here tonight in the presence of God and say, I believe in the virgin birth of Christ. And if the Lord Jesus wasn't born of a virgin, he is not the Savior that I'm going to preach tonight by the grace of God. Oh, my friends, he was born of a virgin, sin apart, the holy, spotless, eternal Son of the living God, the Creator of all things, and the one who sustains everything and holds everything in place by his mighty power, the Christ of God.

And here God himself has given out his gospel. And even in this 15th verse, we have back in Romans 1, verses 1 and 3, the very thing we have in Genesis 3.15. This shows how important this is to God. The gospel of God and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ our Lord.

You see, beloved friends, when God talks about his gospel, he brings us right back to the time when sin entered into the world. And that solemn verse tells us, And death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sin. This is a very serious thing, you know.

To be here tonight in this room, not to hear a sermon, God forbid, but to be warned, my friend, that you are going out to meet God and that you are going to spend eternity with the devil and the damned unless you are saved. And that covers every man in the world that ever lived from Adam's time down. For tonight in this room here, there are, I suppose, two kinds of sinners, and only two.

Those who are saved and those who are lost. Those who are heaven-bound and those who are hell-bound. And, my friend, I warn you tonight, I solemnly warn you that hell is not a dancing hall and hell is not a place where men gather to drink beer or drink strong drink.

And hell is not a place where men go to have a good time. But our Lord Jesus Christ, the only man who ever lived who never told a lie, said, There shall be weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth for how long? Forever. You know, you can hardly imagine it.

Forever. Never to stop, never. In this life, man says, Well, I'm suffering agony, but I know that death is coming very shortly to take me away.

But in that place there is no end. No end. And I want to ask you, because we live in a day where men don't believe the Word of God.

And I've talked to men and women, too, who say, But I don't believe the Word of God. But they will believe someday. They will believe someday.

And I tell you, my friend, if I may use this expression, as an escaped prisoner of the devil, brought out of the devil's jail and prison and penitentiary, the devil's penitentiary, into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, I solemnly warn you that after my conversion, I literally trembled as I realized how close I was to hell. Friend, you can't imagine, you can never even enter into your mind or my mind what it will be like to have the Lord Jesus say, Depart from me into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Can you imagine that? It's so solemn.

Oh, I often wished I could live in the 19th century and attend a gospel meeting by some of the old servants of God and see men and women in their chairs weeping. Weeping. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing if we looked into the audience tonight and saw men and women weeping and we could get down and say, What are you weeping about? And they said, Oh, I'm lost, sir.

I'm going down to the dungeons of the damned. I'm lost. I must get saved tonight or I'll never get out of this building.

I refuse to leave this building until I know I'm saved for God's eternity. But my friend, we don't live in that kind of a day. We live in an ungodly age.

Where everything is becoming more wicked every day of the year. And if the Lord doesn't come soon, we're going to see it so wicked and so terribly bad that we'll just absolutely long to leave it and to go to be with Christ, as many of us desire by the grace of God tonight. Friend, I warn you, before I go on to my subject, the next point, I tell you solemnly young man who has a Christian mother or father, young lady, you are playing a losing game.

And when you come to the gospel meeting and snicker or smile and laugh, you know, you're not fooling anybody but yourself. Because I say again, you are playing a losing game. You can't play with the devil and win.

Absolutely impossible. You will never win, my beloved friend. If you play with the devil, he'll rob your soul as sure as you're breathing.

But I want to look now at another verse in this chapter. And that is the 20th verse of Genesis 3. To continue on with our subject. Verse 20, And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

Notice, my friend, sin came into the world. Death passed upon all men. And here's a man who dares to call his wife the mother of all living.

Why? Because he had faith. And in the next verse, notice what happens as a result. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothe them.

Here we go back again now to Romans chapter 1, verses 1 and 3. The gospel of God concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. For when God spoke to our first parents, I believe, about these coats of skins, he was really saying, this is my gospel. And when he produced the coats of skins, he as much as said, And this is concerning my Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

You see, my friends, the animal, and I believe there was only one, the animal from which these skins were secured is a picture or type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we notice here in our verse that these coats of skins were made by God himself. You see, God didn't, I speak reverently, God didn't ask Adam to kill an animal and make coats of skins, no.

Man could make nothing when it comes to a covering to be in the presence of God. He can't do anything, nothing. My friend, you can't do anything to save yourself.

I was surprised recently to find that somebody had said, though he shouldn't be surprised, that Christ has done 50 percent of the work on the cross, and the poor, dead, hopeless sinner does the other 50. What a hopeless gospel that would be. My friends, God made the coats of skins from an animal that I believe he himself killed, bringing before us very clearly Calvary and the cross, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God on that cross, dying on that cross for sinners in order that God himself might clothe us with a coat of his own righteousness.

Because unless you have God's righteousness, you will never get into heaven. And hell is going to be filled with men and women who led good, clean, respectable lives, upright and moral and clean and religious, who rejected God's gospel and God's Son. You know, the Lord Jesus made a marvelous statement when he was here.

Among his many statements, he said these solemn words, If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins, and where I am there ye cannot come. And if all the wealthy millionaires in North America tonight pulled all their money together into millions and millions of dollars, they couldn't buy one soul out of that lost eternity. My friend, tonight there is a Savior for you.

He is God's Son. And he is a living Savior, as we had in the first chapter of Romans, we're preaching about a living Savior. Because tonight, as you sit in those chairs and I stand on this platform, there is a man, but there's a man in heaven tonight, and his name is Jesus.

And he is seated on the throne of the majesty of Almighty God. He's right there in the heavens. And if those heavens opened tonight, we would see the very throne of God, and on that throne is seated the Lord Jesus Christ.

And my friend, nothing happens in this world unless he allows it. He is over everything, everything. In him we live and we move and we have our being.

The very breath that man uses to curse God's name is given to him by God. You see, you are a dependent creature, and so am I. Friend, are you saved tonight? Have you personally received the Son of God as your Savior? You know, men speak as if to get saved is really doing God a great favor and a great honor, because, you see, man likes to be somebody. Men like to be somebody important.

They like to be able to say, well, you know, I did this and I did that, and I came to the gospel and I did this and I did that. They like that because it gives man a place. But, you see, God says, no, man is nothing, man is nobody, but my beloved Son is everything.

And to have my Son as your Savior means you are brought into the very favor of God, so that he becomes your Father, as we are going to see in a few moments. Oh, how blessed is the gospel of God concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. And my friend, he is the only Savior.

There is no other Savior. All the religions of the East, they are only false religions. Their leaders lived and died.

The ones who started them, they are gone to the dust years ago, but our Savior burst the bonds of death and came forth. You know, somebody told me the other day, they said, you know, the scientists say that Jesus Christ really didn't die at all. And you'll pardon this expression.

I said, well, the scientists are liars, because God says he did die, and I believe what God says. Not what man thinks, but I believe what God says. And I would advise you, my friend, tonight, to believe what God says at all costs.

Believe what God says concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. You see, God has to punish sin. I would point out here, just look back again to that 3rd chapter of Genesis, and I want you to notice the 7th verse, right after Adam and his wife disobeyed God and sin came into the world.

Now notice what happened. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Isn't that a strange thing? If God made the coats of skins, Adam and his wife made the fig leaf aprons.

That was what man did. He did that. And tonight, my friends, this world, and I refer especially to this country in which we are living tonight, there are millions of people who are making their fig leaf aprons because they know they have to meet God.

It's a strange thing, but men, no matter how wicked they may be as a rule, when it comes to death, they call the preacher, and they say to the preacher, I'm going out into eternity and I want you to pray for me. Why do they say that? Because they have a God-given conscience that tells them that after death they have to meet God. They know that.

Their conscience never turns infidel, but they know. You know, my friend, tonight, if you're here without Christ, you know you have to meet God. And Adam knew it.

The first man that sinned in the world, he knew he had to do with God, and he tried to make himself ready for the presence of God with these fig leaf aprons, but he had to confess in the presence of God, I was naked. Even though he had the fig leaf apron on, he could say, I have nothing on. I'm naked.

And all your good works and all your religion and your baptisms, oh, man loves that. He loves to say, I was baptized. But it means nothing, my friends.

Without Christ, it means nothing. In the eyes of God, it's worth not even a cent. All your baptism, your confirmation vows, your membership, your attendance, even your Bible reading, without Christ means absolutely nothing.

Fig leaf aprons. What a contrast, these coats of skin that God made, and God clothed them. Isn't that blessed? The more we read that verse, the more wonderful it becomes that God didn't even allow Adam and Eve to put the clothes on.

He covered them. He clothed them. And my friend, tonight, God clothed you and I who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

He wraps us in Christ. There we stand in the presence of God, accepted in the Beloved. Who is the Beloved? It's Christ himself.

Christ is the Beloved. Oh, how blessed that we tonight who know the Savior are his Beloved people, because we are accepted in the One who is the Beloved. Now, let's look at that chapter we had last night.

I like to say, for one, many others join, we amen everything our beloved brother said about the blood of Christ. Friend, there is no salvation without the blood of Christ. For any child of Adam's race, no salvation.

It's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, that cleanses us from all sin. Exodus 12, verses 12 and 13, which bring us back to Romans 1, verse 1 and 3. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord, and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Oh, my beloved friends, the gospel of God, his very word, I will pass over you. But there is the blood of the slain Lamb, which brings us back to verse 3, concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

We remember what our brother told us last night. Maybe some weren't here. So let's speak a moment or two on this verse.

The land of Egypt, the world. Egypt was the world. There were those houses occupied by the children of Israel.

There on the doorposts and the lintel of those doors of God's people was the blood. Maybe people laughed. Maybe the poor Egyptians mocked at them and laughed at them.

But you know, they had two grand things. I want you, my friends, tonight to have these two grand realities that God's people in Egypt had that night. They had the word of God and the blood of the Lamb.

Now, the blood of the Lamb made them safe, and the word of God made them sure. You haven't got to leave this room tonight and say, well, I wonder if I'm safe. You can know it on the authority of the living God.

You can know it on the word of the living God. No matter what anybody says, you may meet a man outside. He may say, I went to college for 20 years.

I don't believe that. That doesn't matter. The living God has spoken.

He says, when I see the blood, what is that? The death of the Lamb. The Lamb had died. Its blood was shed.

And if one of those children of Israel had said, but I am one of God's children of Israel. I don't need the blood. I got my six children here, and we all believe in Jehovah.

We all know there's a Jehovah. We all know he's God. I don't need the blood.

The angel of death would have struck that home, and the firstborn child would have been dead. Why? Because God said, when I see the blood. He didn't say, when I see the children of Israel.

He didn't say, when I see my people. He said, when I see the blood. And my friends, tonight God values the blood of Christ just as much as he did when it was shed on the cross of Calvary.

The blood. I say again, there is no salvation without the blood. It's the blood of Christ, my friends.

Are you under tonight the shelter of the blood of Christ? Young men, young ladies, what does it matter whether you have 10 initials after your name or even 20 if you land in hell? What does it matter whether you're the best educated man in Canada or the United States? What does it matter whether you're the president of the largest corporation in the world if you go to hell? What does it matter? You've got to leave everything behind. We just read the other day about a billionaire who died, and what did he leave behind? Everything. He left everything behind, and he went out into eternity to meet God without a cent.

And if he didn't have the Savior, he's lost for all eternity, and his billion dollars will not get him into heaven. Never. It's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, that cleanses us from all sin.

You see, it's the gospel of God, God's Word, I will pass over you. God's Son, the Lamb. If you notice this chapter carefully, you'll find the Lamb was without blemish, which brings us right back to the virgin birth of Christ, the sinless, holy Savior, the Lamb of God himself, who shed his blood.

I was speaking to a Jewish lady on Wednesday afternoon in Montreal, and she was telling me that around six o'clock tonight, she said, that the Passover begins, sir, about six o'clock tonight. And I said, what do you know about the Passover? Do you believe the story in the Old Testament of the Lamb dying and the blood was shed and put in a basin? She said, I sure do. I believe that.

I said, do you believe the blood was put on the doorpost and the lintels? Oh, yes, she said. We read about that many times in the Old Testament. Then I said, lady, listen, in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, shed his precious blood, and every born-again believer in that glorious Savior is under tonight, the shelter of the blood of God's Lamb.

She said, that is wonderful. Well, my friends, how good to know tonight we're under the shelter of the blood of Christ. Young lady, you've come tonight.

Somebody may have brought you here. Are you under the shelter of the blood of the Lamb? You may say, well, sir, I've been here since yesterday at one-thirty. I was here at the prayer meeting.

I was here at the Bible reading. And we're glad to hear that, but that won't save you. To come into this room at the Bible reading will not save your soul.

You must have Christ. You must have personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ. You must receive that Savior into your very heart.

Your life is your Lord and your Savior, and be able to say, I am under the shelter of the blood of God's Lamb. It's the only way of salvation. The Lord Jesus said when he was here, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh to the Father but by me. The word of God distinctly says neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. The word of God clearly says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And all through the scriptures we're pointed again and again to Christ, for there is no blessing without Christ. There is absolutely no blessing without Christ. And even in the heavenly scene above, in the fifth chapter of the book of Revelation, we have them singing, worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and his precious blood that cleanses from all sin.

You see, my friends, it's not what you think. It's what God says. You may have your ideas.

You may say, well, you know, my church teaches. People have asked me, what does your church teach? And I say my church teaches nothing. It's the word of God that teaches.

And everything that's taught, my friends, is false unless it's founded on the word of the living God. Everything in connection with God's things that cannot be backed up by God's word, they're false. And I don't believe them.

There was a lady who came to the house the other day. She tried to tell me that she could tell me how I could learn the scriptures. And we asked her, by the grace of God, what she thought of the Lord Jesus.

And she told me what she thought. Man's thoughts. I said, my dear friend, you're going to land in hell, as sure as you're standing at the bottom of the stairs.

You're going to land in hell. You have denied the Son of God. You have made the Son of God a creature created by Jehovah.

You're a poor, lost, blind, dead sinner, and you're heading for hell at full speed. And the young girl, who was only 15, I guess, who stood beside her, I said, my dear young girl, you're going to land in the dungeons of the damned if you follow this satanic religion that you're linked with. Oh, my friend, are you linked with any false religion tonight? Anything that tries to add to the work of Christ is not of God.

For the Lord Jesus has finished the work on the cross all by himself. He did all the work himself. And so we're brought into blessing through the matchless grace of God, who has spoken in his word of the gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, in the New Testament, in Luke 15, we have it again brought before us, and I believe it's very precious. We know the story of the prodigal son, so I don't want to read the whole story. You've heard of this young man in the far country, and there may be right now tonight some young girl or some young man that's in the far country, and I want to tell you that your pathway is going to end in sorrow not only in eternity but in this world.

Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. A Christian friend of mine went to a car one night to speak to a man, and this man said, Sir, there's a verse in the Bible that I'm really afraid of. And he said, What is it? He said, Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

You can't escape that, and neither can I. You can escape, my friend, the wrath of God falling on you by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord. Now, let's look at this 15th Luke for a couple of minutes. Notice what it says.

The young man returns to his father, and he arose and came to his father. If you read about the elder son, later on you'll find that the elder son drew near to his father's house, but the younger son realized in his miserable, wretched condition he comes to his father. This is exactly what God wants tonight.

He wants you to come to himself. He wants you not to come to heaven. He wants you to come to himself.

He wants you to come to Christ. He wants to hold you in his arms because he loves you and longs to bring happiness and joy into your poor, sad life tonight. Notice what it says.

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. Wasn't that good news? Doesn't that remind us of the gospel of God? We see here, and I speak reverently, God running. When God acts in judgment, he moves very slowly.

He waits and waits. I think one brother said in one case he waited 300 years. Just imagine.

But he doesn't wait 300 years when a poor sinner says, I'm lost, I'm sinking down to hell. Then God doesn't wait 300 years or 300 seconds or one second. He runs.

He runs because God is in a hurry to bless man, and he's not in a hurry to judge man. He's going to judge, that's sure. But he's not in a hurry to judge man, but he's in a hurry to bless man.

So it says in the 21st verse, And the Son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. Is there somebody in this room tonight that's willing not to say this to me or to any other Christian here, but to say it to God himself? I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. Are you willing to say that tonight? Is there some honest man, some honest woman, some honest boy or girl who's willing to say, I have sinned? Not my neighbor sinned, not my cousin or my uncle or my grandfather, but I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight.

And the young man said, I'm not worthy to be called thy son. But notice now the Father said, the Father said, the gospel of God, the Father said unto his servant. The young man wanted to be put onto the staff of the servant, but this Father didn't want servants, he wanted his son.

And he was welcoming home his son. And he said to his servant, you see he had the best robe. It's Romans 1 verse 3, concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord.

The young man who came back home, dressed in the filthy garments where he fed the swine, now finds himself wrapped in the best robe provided for him by his Father without cost. If you go to buy a suit today, I refer to the men, you ought to pay a lot of money for a suit today. But you know there was no charge made for this best robe.

It was provided by the Father, it was ready for the boy long before he came home. And God has been waiting for you, young lady, and God has been waiting for you many years. And you've heard the gospel, and you've heard it again and again and again.

And God is waiting. He has the best robe, which is his own righteousness, Christ himself, to wrap around you. Isn't that wonderful? The best robe.

But notice what else he says here, and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. You see, the young man was going to have the ring on his hand to forever tell him of his Father's never-changing love. And how blessed.

As we get older as Christians, we find how more wonderful and wonderful the love of God is as we gaze upon the ring that he's placed on her hand. The ring, my friend, telling us of God's love. And the Savior could say, and the Father himself loveth you.

And as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. Continue and join my love.

It's the very love that the Father has for his beloved son. Oh, how blessed. How wonderful.

Sinner, friend, I feel sorry for you. You are dressed in the filthy rags. Your cruel, sarcastic, wicked master holds you in his power like a child with a puppet.

And he turns you here, and he turns you there. And he sends you here, and he sends you there. And you search like a hunter for pleasure and amusement to try to drown out the sorrows of your poor heart as you wend your way to eternal damnation under the judgment of the Almighty God for rejecting the best robe, for rejecting the ring, and for rejecting the shoes.

Because the young man was not a servant. The servants walked barefooted. And I want to tell you tonight, my friends, the devil's servants are walking barefooted.

They are connected to the world. But the child of God has on those shoes that separates them from this Christ-rejecting world, who are under judgment. And nothing else will satisfy the heart of God that the poor sinner who comes to Christ will receive all the blessings of heaven.

Isn't that wonderful? What a gospel! What a Savior, my friends! The gospel of God concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Now notice the 23rd verse, "...and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it." Oh, here was something else. There was no end to the Father's resources.

Why, the calf was there. If the robe was there, the calf was there. He had fatted the calf up for the arrival of his Son.

And oh, how blessed God is ready now. Great ready, you say, like a man set out in Wina Park in California. He said, Sir, I noticed as we were speaking on this very chapter, he was weeping.

And I said, Did I see you weeping? Yes, Sir, he said, I was weeping. Oh, I long to be saved. Please, Sir, I long with all my heart to be saved.

And I said, Then why aren't you saved? This is what he said. He said, I'm too wicked a man. I said, My friend, you are adding to your sins now, because you are telling a lie.

For God has saved the sinner's chief, the Apostle Paul, and taken him into the very glory of God. And praise God, he can save the worst rascal, the worst sinner in the United States or Canada. He can save you tonight, whether you are a self-righteous Pharisee, a self-righteous hypocrite, a self-righteous church member, or a median attender.

He can save you tonight if you'll come to Christ and you'll say to God, I've sinned. I've sinned. You know you've sinned.

And God knows you've sinned. And God tells you you've sinned. Oh, the fatted calf, beloved.

What else does it say? And let us eat and be merry. Who is this? The father and his boy. Let us eat and be merry.

For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. Now, if you're here tonight without Christ, if I could talk to you alone in private, and I'll be glad to meet anybody at the end of this meeting and talk to you in private, and you could say to me, Sir, I want to tell you something.

I've heard the gospel tonight, and I heard what you said. I'm going to say it right now. If you haven't got Christ, you're a spiritual corpse right now.

You're dead. You're dead. You say, Well, if I'm dead, I'm not responsible.

Oh, yes, you are. You're a dead sinner, but you're responsible to God. You've got to do with God.

You've got to stand before God. You can't get away from God. You've got to meet God.

Then it says he was lost. If you haven't got Christ tonight, you might be a very respectable young lady, a very fine daughter, or a very fine son. But if you haven't got Christ, you're lost right now.

Not when you died, but now, tonight, you're lost. And then it ends up in these wonderful words, And they began to be merry. Who? The Father and his returned son.

They began to be merry. And you know it will go on for all eternity. There will be no devil to interrupt the joy of heaven.

It will go on for all eternity. They began to be merry. The boy, earlier in the story, began to be in want.

But his father met every need, every desire, every want of his heart, and they began to be merry. Oh, my friends, this is the gospel of God concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Is Jesus Christ your Lord tonight? Can you look up into the very heavens and say, The man this world hates, the man this world nailed to the cross, the man this world spit upon, the man this world nailed between two criminals, he's the Christ of God.

He's the Lord, for God has made that same Jesus whom he crucified, Peter said to the Jews, both Lord and Christ. For God has made Jesus the Lord Jesus Christ. And if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in thine heart that God