Four Key Points of the Gospel

We're going to turn in our Bibles to the book of Acts today. In Acts chapter 10, we're going to go back to our walking through the book of Acts. That was a good introduction here, Brother John gave for the message.

So, starting in Acts chapter 10, we left off, and I'll just give you a little bit of review. We've been a couple of weeks since we've been in the book of Acts. But let's remember, starting off, that Jesus is standing with these 11 apostles, and he gives them what we call the Great Commission.

And they are told to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And you and I read that, and we think they should have understood this, that it's the whole world and every creature. And they heard those words, but probably it filtered through their Old Testament mindset, their Jewish culture.

They might have thought, all the world where Jews are, and every creature that's a Jew. But the Lord has in mind all the world, preaching the gospel to every creature. And they perhaps missed the Old Testament story of Abraham, when God blessed Abraham and said, Out of your loins is going to come a seed, and through that seed he will bless all nations.

And so, maybe they're struggling with their understanding of all these things. But God is now going to start reaching out into the Gentile world. And Peter is faced with going into the home of this man called Cornelius.

And he's a Gentile. But the Lord has directed them out. And Peter is having a hard time, and probably every Jew would.

But Peter is having a hard time understanding that this gospel is to go to the ends of the earth. And every creature, whosoever will, may come. And so it takes three visions.

We looked at that last time, three of these visions, three times. The Lord has to drop this sheet out of heaven, show Peter on the housetop all these unclean animals, say to Peter, Rise and eat, before Peter gets past. Not so, Lord.

I have never eaten anything unclean. Peter had a habit of saying, Not so, Lord, a number of times. And here's not a good situation here.

But Peter has a real hard time with this idea of going into the Gentiles, and even caring about the Gentiles, even caring about their souls. But here, and we left off in verse 33, but just to jump ahead here, in verse 34, these are the first words, the first concepts that come to Peter's mind as he stands before Cornelius in verse 34. It says, Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive.

I have finally come to realize that God is no respecter of persons. It doesn't matter your culture today. It doesn't matter your race, the color of your skin.

It doesn't matter your social status. It doesn't matter your ethnicity. God is no respecter of persons.

But in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. So that's one of those lightbulb experiences Peter has. It's finally hit me.

I perceive now this idea that God is no respecter of persons. And every person, every nation, every ethnicity, every skin color, God will accept them. Those that we'll see here in just a minute seek him.

And this was not only an issue that Peter was facing, but all the Jews were facing this issue. And it's largely a theological issue, a cultural issue. But even in the early church, this is why they were staying in Jerusalem, staying in Judea.

This is why the church was not moving out. It's because everybody had this mindset. Why should we reach outside of our community here? Why should we reach outside of the box? God is not interested in the heathen.

God is not interested in the Canaanites and the Asians and the Romans. He's not interested in them. And so with that mindset, you see how it's easy just to kind of stay amongst the Jewish people.

But as I've said before, and this is all review, there is a greater good than staying in Jerusalem, staying in Judea, and enjoying the church fellowship that they were having. And if you ask me, what's the perfect church? Well, the perfect church is the first church. It's there in Jerusalem, fellowship, great teachers, great leaders, the power of the Holy Spirit, miracles happening.

I mean, who doesn't want to be a part of that church? Healings, man at the gate, jumping up, shouting. This is all happening in Jerusalem. And what a wonderful place to be.

And you'd have thought, as I've shared before, that God would have just said, this is such a great church, let's just try to keep it this way. The only problem with this church is that they forgot, go into all the world and preach the gospel. And here's the amazing thing.

And I believe this is happening all over the place. We don't recognize it. But God was willing to say, I'm going to let Saul come through here and dismantle this perfect church.

Because it's not a perfect church, because they're not doing the thing that I commanded them to do. And that is to, your main thrust is to go into all the world and preach the gospel. So just to remind you here today, God is not interested in us forming a small, closed up society where everyone is perfect.

God is interested in us getting out into this world and taking the gospel. And I believe many churches split. Many churches have problems.

Many churches have fussing. And it's all because God is saying, don't try to build this perfect community. I want you to move out and into this world and preach the gospel.

And so trying to settle in and trying to form something, I think is a mistake. And it was a mistake, even in the perfect church, in the early church. And so we still have the Great Commission.

The Lord said that the church is to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, even until the last day. And, Lo, I am with you always. So the Lord sends Saul.

And I believe Saul was used to the Lord to make havoc at the church, scattered them everywhere. And that was a good thing, because as we've been noticing, Philip goes down to Samaria and preached Christ. And God is with Philip.

And now Peter is going over to Cornelius. And God is in that. And so things are happening because of Saul's work.

So everything works together for good. Amen. To them that love him and are called according to his purpose.

So that's important for us to remember. God has a greater work. And his heart and burden is still for the teeming masses in this world.

And I believe this place here, this fellowship here is a support group. And we are to support each other in that great work. It's like an army.

An army that sits around the mess hall and eats and fellowships and plays cards and enjoys their army buddies and goes through a lot of classes and learns a lot of things about the military really is not the purpose for the army. The army is to be out fighting and warring. And, yes, there is a mess hall.

Yes, there is a hospital. There's all those things. But the ultimate end for the army is to fight and overcome and to win the victory.

So Peter is learning these things. And so now he comes. And I'm going to go down from verse 34 down to verse 43.

There's some wonderful things in here we could spend a lot of time on. But we're just going to take a look at a couple of things and learn some things from this passage. So let's pray.

And then we'll begin this morning. Heavenly Father, we acknowledge your great purposes, Lord, for us. And how much you desire that none perish, but that all should come to repentance.

And, Lord, may we learn from the scriptures today. May our hearts be open. Even as this congregation at Cornelius' house were sitting in anticipation of what the Lord would speak to them.

And they responded with faith, Lord. So bless each one of our hearts. Teach us and instruct us.

Motivate us in your will. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So starting here, verse 34, I said this last time, but what a great congregation to preach to. I don't know how many people are there. It looks like there might have been, say, 50, 100 people there.

Many of the relatives and friends are called here. And Peter walks in the door. And Peter opens up his mouth.

And here's what Peter says again in verse 34. Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.

Now God is looking for people around this world who are trying to seek his face. And Cornelius is a great example of this. As a matter of fact, we've already seen a great example of this.

The Ethiopian eunuch who is seeking God. He is not a Christian. He is going to the feast.

He is returning. And instead of looking at his phone or instead of reading a novel, he is searching the Scriptures. He is reading the book of Isaiah.

And I don't think that was something like Philip called him during his devotion time. I think he was constantly seeking. He had a heart.

And he was seeking after the things of God. And I think it's amazing how that God knows where these seekers are. And the Lord makes sure someone gets to a seeker.

I believe this with all my heart. If you seek God with all your heart, wherever you are in this world, God will get someone to your doorstep. He'll get someone there to preach the gospel to you.

He'll tell an angel to tell Philip to go join yourself to that chariot over there because I have a seeker. He'll get Peter on the top of a rooftop and say, Peter, get over there to this gentleman Cornelius. I have a seeker.

And so I think it's important to understand if you're a seeker here this morning, I don't care where you are, what social status you are, that the promise in the Bible is that God will get what you need to you. And in both these examples, the eunuch and Cornelius, it was the salvation of their soul. It was the gospel that they needed.

And so the Lord is looking for hearts that are seeking after him. And these here, the Ethiopian and Cornelius are both Gentiles. And that's the amazing thing about them.

They are Gentiles and Ethiopian. And here is Cornelius seeking the Lord. My Bible says you shall search for me and you shall find me when you shall search for me with all your heart.

And so that's an encouragement for all of us. We are not finding the Lord because we are not seeking for him with all of our heart. There are many other things in the heart that are hindering us from finding him in his fullness.

And so we cannot blame the Lord on that. But here is Cornelius. And it says in verse 35, in every nation, he that fears him and works righteousness is accepted with him.

Now this is not a salvation by works. But God is saying I will honor and I will bless and get you the gospel or whatever you need for those who are willing to pursue me and seek me with all their heart. Now someone asked me a few weeks ago about Cornelius' salvation.

Whether or not Cornelius, it sure sounds like he's a great guy. He's a devout man. He gives alms.

He fears God. He has a good report among all the Jews. If anybody would have been saved, it would have been Cornelius.

As a matter of fact, I told you last time, it seems like Cornelius got a better testimony than most Christians do. But here is Cornelius. He doesn't understand the gospel.

He doesn't understand the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And God has already said, unless you believe the gospel, you cannot be saved. And so God cannot go against his word.

So here you have a very, very heart-seeking man who is trying to find his way and yet he is still unconverted. And so if you look over here, Peter tells the story again when he comes back to Jerusalem. But it says in Acts 11, starting in verse 13, Peter is talking here.

And he showed us how he had seen an angel in his house which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. And so Cornelius, great man, godly man, a man that's seeking God, a man that fears God, has his family in order. They fear God.

They're seeking God. But they're unconverted. They haven't found what they're looking for.

And so if salvation were of works, Cornelius would certainly be a good candidate for it. But Cornelius needs Jesus and he needs the gospel. So Cornelius is a seeker.

And just to throw this out, we could probably spend a lot of time on it. But if God has out there in this world seekers, then we need some of the Peters and Philips to be out there in the vicinity. You know, Philip is close to where this man is.

Peter is close, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 miles down the seashore. But God has to use us to get the gospel to seekers. And so it's good to be out there.

Because if you're out there moving about, God can say, here's where I want you to go. I got a seeker over here that needs the gospel. Well, in verse 36, it says, this is what Peter says.

And again, the word all there references, this is what Peter is saying. He is Lord, not just to the Jews. But he is Lord over all.

And he is preaching peace through this person whose name is Jesus Christ. And that's not talking about peace around the world, that there'll be no more wars. Although I will say this, if everyone gets right with God and finds peace with God, there won't be any more wars around the world.

But this peace is what Romans 8 says, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so Peter is referring to this peace. I am preaching a message of peace, and that peace comes by Jesus Christ.

I thought about those shepherds out there in the field when Jesus was born. And they came and they sang a song. And the shepherds heard them say this, glory to God in the highest.

And what? Peace on earth. And that peace on earth comes from the next phrase, good will towards men. You know, when you have peace with God through Jesus Christ, you can have good will towards men.

And that's the problem with our world today. And you'll find this in your own life and my life. And you'll find this in the brotherhood.

When people do not have peace with God, real peace with God, they war with their neighbor. They war in their relationships. They war with their wives and husbands.

They war with their brothers and sisters in the church. Peace on earth and good will towards men. You know, a life of conflict with people is a testimony that you don't have peace with God.

Peace with God brings good will. Towards men. And really a lot of our problems around the world is just people don't have peace with God.

You know why Cain slew Abel? It says because Cain didn't have peace with God. He brought his offering to the Lord and the Lord did not accept it. In other words, Cain was trying to resolve the guilt in his heart by giving of the fruits of his own hands.

And that didn't resolve the guilt in his heart. And that anger and frustration caused him to kill his brother. And many people sit in church pews and because they can't find peace with God, their anger and frustration causes them to lash out against their brother and sister.

But you know, if you have peace with God, you can take a lot. And so, that's the message here. Preaching peace by Jesus Christ.

Good will towards men. Now, this message that Peter is being sent to preach, this is the introduction. He perceives that God is accepting everybody and he wants to let them know here.

And this sermon probably is a lot longer than what we have here. But all these people are listening. Now, Peter is going to preach the gospel.

And if you ever want to know what the gospel is, right here is the gospel. And it's the same gospel that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 15. And I'll just repeat it here in a little bit.

But this is the purity of the gospel. I love the Bible in this way. I can sit here in the morning this morning and I can say this is the gospel.

This is the purity of the gospel. And we don't have to doubt it. Here's what Cornelius needs to believe.

Here's what the friends of Cornelius need to believe. Here's what you and I need to believe. We need to believe this to be saved.

The gospel. Well, let's just look at it. There's four points in the gospel that need to be believed.

Let's start out here in verse 37. The word, I say, you know, which was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him. The first thing that Peter brings out is who is Jesus Christ? That's important to know.

Jehovah's Witnesses don't understand who Jesus is. The Mormons don't understand who and the Muslims don't understand who Jesus is. And so Peter starts out with Jesus, who he is.

First of all, he says he's the anointed, God anointed Jesus. And by the way, that word anointed, if you take your Strong's Concordance and you look up the word Christ, you'll find the definition, the anointed one, the Christ. He is the anointed one, the one that was prophesied in the Old Testament.

He is the Messiah, God anointed Jesus. He is the Messiah. And back in verse 36, he is the Lord of all.

You understand who he is. He is Lord and he is anointed. He is the coming Messiah.

And so you have to understand, first of all, you know, we work with a young man. I mentioned his name, Dwayne. You maybe see him up here in town every once in a while, but I've been trying to help him for 20 years.

Dwayne cannot get past this right here. I can preach the gospel, but he cannot get past who Jesus is, who he is. And you have to come to the place like Peter.

I believe that thou art the Christ, the anointed of God, the Messiah. And you're the Lord of all. And it starts there.

If you can't get past there, Jesus, some prophet, oh, he saved me by dying with sins. He's a prophet or he's some angel or he's just some man. You're not going to get salvation.

You're not going to get any grace until you, first of all, believe what God says. He is the anointed Messiah. He is the Lord of all.

And so that's where Peter starts out here. Then in verse 39, and we move on to the next thing, he says, And we are witnesses of all these things which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Number two, this anointed Messiah, the Christ, died on the tree.

He was crucified on a tree. They slew him on a tree. I'm going to read to you here in Galatians chapter 3 what Paul writes a number of years later.

It says this in Galatians 3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham, remember we talked about that, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. And so this is a Gentile here. And so Peter brings out the fact that Jesus died.

And so if you're witnessing to someone, I think it would be a great thing to do, to follow these four steps. Number one, establish who Jesus is. Number one, he's the Son of God.

He's the Messiah. He's the anointed of God. He's the one prophesied who would come and die for our sins.

And then number two, establish the fact that he did that very thing. He was crucified and he died for our sins. And Brother John spent some time here already this morning talking about that, and you're all familiar with that.

Number three, verse 40, God raised up the third day and showed him openly. Here's the third thing that is a part of the Gospel. Not only did he die, but he was buried and he rose again the third day.

That's an aspect of the Gospel that needs to be preached, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So he's Messiah, he's the Christ. He was crucified and died.

He was buried and rose again the third day. And, of course, that's very important because he took sin, and he took the judgment on sin, and if sin would have overcome him and he had stayed in the grave, we'd all be in trouble. Death overcame him, but he overcame death, and he paid the entire penalty for the sins of the world, and yet after that came out of the grave.

And that's important. We don't have a dead Savior. We had a living one.

If we had a dead Savior and we're worshiping a dead Savior, we'd be in trouble because death overcome him, we're in big trouble. We're going to get overcome ourselves. So he was raised up, and that's the third aspect of the Gospel.

And then here's one we don't oftentimes talk about, but Peter does here. Verse 40, it says, Him God raised up the third day and showed him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with him, after he rose from the dead. He was seen of many witnesses.

And Peter is one of them. And Peter mentions this. And so those four things, and I'll talk about these witnesses here, but who Jesus is, he died, he was raised, and he was seen of many witnesses.

Now, 15 years later, Paul writes to the church at Corinth. And here's what he says about the Gospel. Same thing.

Moreover, 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 are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ, who is the Anointed One, died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen of Cephas, son of the Twelve. After that, he was seen of about 500 brethren at once.

So it's the same thing, the Gospel. Christ died, he was buried, he rose again, and he was seen of many witnesses. And that's what the Gospel message is.

And let me throw this in, because I think the word repentance is an important aspect. But that message, listen, that message only takes root, John, in a repentant heart. That message will not take root in a heart that is not repentant.

And that's why the Bible says, repent and believe the Gospel. And it always says, repent first. It never says, believe the Gospel and then repent.

It says, repent, break your heart, acknowledge your sin before God, break yourself, a broken and contrite spirit, then the Gospel can find a place in your heart. So I want to make sure that I mention that word repentance. Repent is a preparatory.

It's like when we go out into the garden. I get my rototiller out in the spring, and the first thing we do is we boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, through the garden. You probably do the same thing.

We till it up. Why do we do that? So we can get prepared to put seed in the ground. And if you till it, you get seed and you get life, you get fruit, you get wonderful things.

If I go out there and just throw seed on hard ground, I'll probably get nothing but a bunch of weeds, no fruit, no life. And so repentance is that plowing up of the ground to get the heart to a place where, Lord, I'm a wicked sinner deserving of hell. God, have mercy on me.

Then the Gospel falls on that heart, and you have some good things. And that's one of the reasons why you can preach the Gospel to people over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Unless there's a repentant heart, it's not going to do any good.

It's not going to do any good. But these people are sitting there and, you know, their hearts are wide open and they're seeking God, and so these hearts are just ready to roll. And so Peter preaches to them.

And then he says this in verse 42, And he commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God, that anointed one, to be the judge of the quick and the dead. Now I want to just throw this in here. I know this is one of those things it's hard to convince people, but notice what Peter says.

He says he, speaking of Jesus, commanded us to preach the Gospel. And you already know that I've shared this before, but Jesus, when he stood there and he said those last words to his disciples, he said, Now you go and preach the Gospel to every creature. I'm commanding you.

Peter says, He commanded us. And then the Lord says, Now you command them to keep everything I commanded you. And so Peter can then turn.

I was commanded by the Lord. As a matter of fact, I heard him myself. He commanded us to preach the Gospel.

Now I'm going to tell you, you do the same thing. You preach the Gospel. Go unto all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.

Now here's something interesting. I don't know if many of you maybe think about this, but at the end of verse 42 it says that God has ordained him to be the judge of the quick and the dead. Do you know when the quick, that's the living, that's the Christians, and the dead come to judgment? Do you know who's going to judge them? A lot of us think God's going to judge them.

Well, Jesus is God. But the Bible says that God has given all judgment under the sun. And that's interesting.

You know, it's not going to be God the Father who's going to send people to hell. It's not going to be God the Father who's going to reward people and welcome them into heaven. It's going to be Jesus the Son who's going to do it.

In John 5.22 it says this, For the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment under the sun, that all men should honor the Son. Oh, that's a good thing there. God says, I'm going to give everything to my Son.

You better honor my Son. He's going to be the judge of everything. Now, what is this judgment going to be about? Well, you can imagine.

In the end, and I'm going to give you some examples of this in the Bible, but in the end it's just going to be this. What did you do with my sacrifice? Right? I'm the judge. What did you do with the sacrifice of myself on the cross? Did you accept it or did you reject it? What did you do with my sacrifice? And I thought about here a couple of passages, and there are many of them, but listen to these judgments, the day of judgment, and it shows you how that the Lord is the one who's going to bring judgment.

In Matthew 25 it says this, When the Son of Man, and that's the Lord Jesus, shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Are you going to hear those words I trust from Jesus? Come, ye blessed of my Father, I'm the judge, inherit the kingdom, prepared for you from the foundation of the world. But on the other side, verse 41, Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Now you know that's not God the Father speaking those words, it's Jesus.

So he is the judge in the end. And he will send people to hell based upon their response to him. Jesus said, If you do not believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins.

Here's another judgment scene, Matthew 7, 21, And not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is Jesus speaking. But he that doeth the will of my Father.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, Jesus, Jesus, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I, Jesus, never knew you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity. So I think many people think of God the Father as some mean individual and Jesus there by the side.

Oh, Lord, oh, Father, it's awful that you have to send them to hell. No, it's Jesus who said those words, depart from me. You curse it into everlasting fire.

You know why you're cursed? Because I took your curse for you on that tree. And you didn't believe. And you rejected me, my offering of salvation.

2 Thessalonians 2 is another example of judgment coming. And there's many I could read, but here's one. And to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There's the issue, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. And I'm not going to read this one, but Revelation 19 has the Lord on a white horse and he comes and he takes vengeance on the world. And so God has given all judgment to the Son.

And there at the sixth seal in Revelation, they say, they look up and they run to the mountains and to the rocks and they say, Hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne. In from the what? The wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come.

And who shall be able to stand? So this is Peter's message. You know, here's what's going to happen. These people, let's say there's this many here listening to Peter preach and he's just giving these words and these people are hungry and he doesn't even need to give an invitation.

It says, as he is preaching these words, people are believing and the Holy Spirit is falling upon them. That's a hungry group there, isn't it? Don't have to give an invitation. Don't have to do any counseling.

Just Lord, I believe. And they received it in their hearts. Well, let's keep reading here this last verse here.

To him, give all the prophets witness to Jesus that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive the remission of sins. And oh, there's nothing more important. Young people, old people, middle-aged people, there's nothing more important than this passage and it's repeated over and over in the entire New Testament.

John read some of it here this morning. Whosoever believes in him shall receive the remission of your sins. I tell you what, in the day of judgment, you are so desperately going to want the remission of your sins.

Whosoever believes in him. Well, the Old Testament prophets bear witness to these things. And I won't go through and read all the Old Testament prophets, but Peter says, you know, to him, give all the prophets witness.

You can go back and every prophet in the Old Testament, they witness of Jesus, his suffering and death. I think of Moses who was a prophet, one of the first prophets. Moses said, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.

Isaiah, a very familiar prophet said in Isaiah 53, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. All the prophets, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, they all bore witness. To him, give all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive the remission of sins.

And I believe Brother John preached my message here on this subject, but your faith, what do you really believe in your heart? What do you really believe in your heart? He that believeth is the one that will receive the remission of sins. Think about it this way. Sin is separating you from God.

Your iniquities have separated you from your God, and if you don't believe on the Lord Jesus, you'll die forever separated from God. It's basically very simple. You are walking through life separated from God, and if you die in that condition, you'll forever be separated from God.

If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be connected to the divine. You won't be separated from God, and you'll die in that state, and you'll be united with him. Where are you right now? Are you separated from God? Some people said, me personally, I would not take 30 seconds, 15 seconds, 10 seconds separated from God with the risk of me dying in that 10 seconds.

That's terrifying to me. Some people don't care. Some people live life separated from God.

It doesn't matter. They don't believe the word of God. He that believeth shall receive the remission of your sins.

It's very simple. Jesus is Christ. He died for your sins.

He was raised from the dead. Many witnesses saw him. You either believe that with all your heart or you don't.

If you do, you're going to go to heaven when you die. If you don't, you're going to go to hell. Very simple.

Believe on his son. And I don't know how many times that's said in the New Testament. It might be said 100 times.

You go and look at your concordance word, believe or believeth. It's all over the place. The Lord tells you this over and over and over again.

He that believeth on the son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3.16. For God so loved the world that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Just a couple more verses. Look at Acts 8 here in verse 35. Just some of the examples we've already seen.

Philip opens his mouth and begins at the same scripture and preaches unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came into a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.

Now what's Philip saying? Eunuch, if you believe with all your heart, we'll baptize you and you'll be converted. If you believe. Not if you did this work, that work, the other work, all this stuff.

No, if you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ. By the way, who shows you who Jesus is? I think David mentioned it today. God the Father reveals that to us.

Remember when Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. I believe in him, sure. Then the Lord said, Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven.

Count it a privilege that you sit here this morning and you believe with all your heart that Jesus is the Son of God. You're blessed. The Philippian jailer.

We're going to get to that story probably in six months. But the Philippian jailer comes to Paul and Silas and said, What must I do to be saved? Wasn't a long list of things to do. He just said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And thou shalt be saved. Well, it's a very simple message, a very simple gospel. And it's so simple that anyone who's not converted here, who's not a believer, can choose to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even today. And I want to read one more verse and I'll close. This gets to the root of the wrath of God upon those who do not believe the record that God has given his Son.

This is what it says. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar.

Wow. Jesus said, The devil's a liar and the father of it. If you don't believe the record that God gave his Son, what you're saying to God is, You are a liar.

And I wouldn't ever say that to the Lord. He who is the truth is being accused of being a liar. Because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son.

We better believe the record God gave his Son. And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

And so it's not a small thing to say, Well, I just don't believe what God says. In essence, what you're saying, I believe he's a liar. And when you stand before God someday and you stand before the Lord Jesus, they're going to bring that up to you.

You know, the fact that you don't believe the record that was given to you in his word, you basically made me out a liar. And that will be enough to condemn you. Now, just one closing thought.

I know we in America, you ask the average person on the street, Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe the gospel? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all do that. But the Bible also throws something in and I just want to throw it in here at the end. And it says also that faith without works is dead.

A man may say that I believe and yet, if there is no works to testify in the life that there is true faith, that faith is dead. And just to let people know so that no one is deceived, if your life, let's just face it, and it happens here with these at Cornelius's house, when they believe in their heart that Jesus is the Son of God, the Spirit of God comes upon them and they begin to magnify God and the fruits of the Spirit come forth out of their life. If there was no true belief in their heart, those things wouldn't happen.

There wouldn't be fruit. And if someone here this morning truly believes that Jesus is the Son of God, it will change his life just believing that. But then also having the Spirit of God in them, really will change their life.

Amen. The fact that we say we believe and yet our life continues on the same direction is an evidence that faith is dead. Faith, believing in Jesus without works that follow, is dead faith.

And so God in His mercy probably foresaw our day where everybody believes. And He says, let me just show you what real belief is. There should be some works that follow that faith.

And so faith without works is dead. So I want to encourage you, all of you, there's probably 80 of you, 90 of you here, 75 of you. I don't want to see any of you perish.

I want to make sure all of you believe the record that God gave His Son. It's very simple. He died.

He was buried. He rose again. And He was seen of many witnesses.

And that's something that has to happen in your heart. You have to lay hold on it and believe it. And I would, if I were you, get in a closet somewhere and just deal with your soul and say, Lord, I am a worthless wretch.

I'm a sinner. I'm in bondage. I'm in a bad place.

Oh God, I choose to believe on the Lord Jesus. I choose to believe. I embrace Him.

Give me the Spirit of God. Save my soul. Deliver me from this mess.

So if you're outside that faith, I just want you to know that if you die today, you're going to go to hell. That's reality. You're going to go to hell.

So let's make sure we're truly believers on the Lord Jesus. I got a feeling that if someone came in here with a gun and said, all right, all of you who truly believe, line up in the front. How many of us would come up to the front? I'm not going to deny the Lord I believe.

How many of you would bolt for the door? Is your belief able to take you through death? Or are you going to hold on to this present world?