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Gospel Tidings

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The Gospel Preached

Article / By Andrew Rowell / September 29, 2021

Vol. 18 No.1

Gospel Tidings

MARCH 2003

THE GOSPEL PREACHED

Sermon preached by the late Mr. G. J. Collier at Jireh Chapel, Tenterden, on the evening of 18th May, 1983

‘Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved.’ I Cor. 15.1-2

There are five great points in this word before us. I will just mention them, so that we can retain them as a base for our subject. First of all, this word ‘declare.’ ‘Moreover, brethren, I declare.’ Secondly, ‘I preached’; thirdly, ‘ye have received’; fourthly, ‘ye stand’ and finally and fifthly, ‘ye are saved.’ Tremendous points of truth these five points are, demonstrating the inspiration of God’s Holy Word and also demonstrating God’s grace toward the people of His choice.

I often feel that we do not give enough of our time to reading the Bible. We may have our casual and spasmodic turning to it and reading here and there a chapter or two, but I feel that one of the great things is to read the Word of God from beginning to end. I have just freshly started from Genesis to Revelation and a friend of mine told me the other day that it was his practice to read the Bible through once every year. It is the all-important factor for knowledge and understanding of the Word of God.

I would like to tell you a little private, domestic experience of mine, over sixty years ago now. I used to receive letters from a young lady and I used to read those letters. I did not just look at the beginning and then turn over a few pages to see who was writing, and then put it in my pocket! I think if that had been my practice, we should not have been in close union for sixty years. You see, I not only read the letter right through but I read it many, many times. It was from a person who loved me and it was written by a person I loved.

And here we have the Word of God from Him who loves His own people with an eternal love; and He sends to us, out of that immeasurable love, the Word of His grace, the Word of His truth. My dear friends, we ought to take it to our hearts far, far more than we do. There is nothing so profitable as the reading of God’s Holy Word. There is always something to gain.

Sometimes we may well find ourselves examined right to the very heart of our beings by the Word of God. We may also find the way in which we must walk; and in taking that way, we may find precious nearness to Jesus and know the things of God in their real power and blessedness.

Let us consider the first point. Paul said, ‘I declare.’ He did not invent the gospel. It was not the product of his own intelligence. Although Paul was a mighty, intellectual man he knew full well that the gospel had no origin in himself. No, Paul was declaring what God had declared before time began, before the world was made; and every minister of the gospel since Paul’s days, declares only what was from the beginning. It is unalterable, unchangeable, the glorious foundation of fundamental truth. So Paul says, ‘I declare unto you the gospel,’ and he felt it was a great privilege to be raised up and called by God’s grace, and ordained and sent forth as a minister of the gospel, that he might declare the wonderful truths of God.

You remember that when Paul was at Ephesus he told the Church after two years’ ministry there, that he was called to go to Jerusalem and as he parted company with those dear saints at Ephesus, they all went down to the shore to see the last of their faithful servant and minister, and they were weeping. But just before they parted company Paul said this, ‘For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God’ (Acts 20.27). And he was able to say that he was free from the blood of any man; no one at Ephesus, or anywhere else for that matter, could lay a finger of condemnation at Paul and say, ‘You only taught us part of the truth; you only declared some of the gospel.’ Paul was able to say, ‘I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.’ And this is a faithful place and solemn position indeed, which God requires from all His servants. We cannot avoid the fact that not all of the truths in this glorious gospel and in the Word of God are so palatable as others, but we are required nevertheless to ‘declare the whole counsel of God.’ Some men who go forth and claim to be ministers of the gospel, only present the easy, softer, and more acceptable aspects of the gospel. But you see it is all balanced in a wonderful way and manner. There is medicine in it. There is food in it. There is correction to be found in it and learnt by it. There is
encouragement for the least; and for the worst; and for the weakest. There is sometimes a building up; and sometimes there is a pulling down. All these are parts of the great and glorious declaration of the gospel, and Paul says in the text, ‘I have declared unto you the gospel.’

And you will notice the place in this epistle where the text appears. It is after fourteen chapters (of course, there were not chapters when Paul wrote this letter), but after this long period of exhortation, admonition and declaration, Paul comes to this point as he closes this great and wonderful epistle. He says, ‘Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel’! Well, my dear friends, what a wonderful thing it is! The heavens declare the glory of God as the Creator; and the gospel declares the glory of a Triune Jehovah in its wonder, blessedness, and greatness The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost receive all honour and glory by the declaration of the gospel.

Well now, we must pass on to the second point, which is, ‘I have preached unto you,’ You may say, ‘What is the difference between the declaration of the gospel and the preaching of it?’ Well, there is a difference and it is important that we should lay hold of it. You see the difference is this, as I view it – the declaration is a declaration of God’s truth – unalterable, unchanging and glorious, God-honouring truth. But the preaching is God’s instrumental way of the application of the truth. True preaching is by instruments whom God has chosen and ordained. God has ordained that by the foolishness of preaching, as we were reading just now (1 Cor. 1.18), He should save them that believe. There is nothing to my mind more wonderful in this world, or in the whole economy of God’s grace, than the ordination and the use that God makes of feeble men to preach the everlasting gospel. The

Lord our God had His angels at His beck and call: angels who have never sinned; who have never disobeyed; who have never transgressed anything that was sacred; yet He turns from the angels and He appoints poor, fallen men, who by His grace have been raised up from death and darkness, and He appoints them – poor, weak, sinful, dependent men – to go forth and preach the everlasting gospel, the words of truth and grace, to sinners’ hearts. I say, what a profound wonder is this!

When Cornelius saw that great vision of an angel coming in to him and saying unto him,

‘Cornelius’, the angel said, ‘And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter (Acts 10.3,5). The angel could not preach the gospel to him. He had to send all the way to Joppa to hear from the mouth of poor Peter the words of grace and truth and life; Peter being ordained of God to be the first preacher to be used to bring the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. And, O my dear friends, I daresay you have had some experiences in regard to preachers. You love them, not because of what they are, but because of what they preach, and what they set forth; and if you have had any experience of the preciousness of

Jesus Christ through the words of a minister of the gospel, you cannot but be attached to that minister. You love the memory of him and you cherish every thought that comes to your mind of how the Lord used him to bring you into a true state of the knowledge of Christ and

His gospel.

Now you dear young people, I remember the time when I used to hear some very eminent ministers of the gospel, and they were especially used in my case to bring me to a place of understanding, and a place of seeking – a place where I revered the sacred things of God and highly esteemed those precious words of truth and righteousness which were preached. And how

I loved to attend, and cherished the time which would come so slowly, as I thought in those days, when I could enter the house of the Lord and hear from the lips of one of His own chosen ministers the words of truth and grace. And I daresay you find sometimes that there is a thought in your heart, as it was in mine, that the minister in the pulpit must have known all about you – somebody had told him.

Only the other day I had one of my congregation come to me and say, “You told Mr

So-and-so” (who was preaching in my place) “all about me.” I said, “I have done nothing of the sort: I only had a quarter of an hour with him before he went into the pulpit, and we had no time, and I had no intention to give any details about your case.” “Well,” she said,

“it is a most wonderful thing, because everything he said seemed to apply directly to my case, my feelings and my experience, as if he knew and was unravelling the very thoughts of my heart. It must be the Lord that knew: it must be the Lord who gave him the word and brought that message to my soul and it was a means of great encouragement.”

Yes, preaching! ‘I have preached,’ says Paul, and what a wonderful statement. No man since the Day of Pentecost has preached like the Apostle Paul. We only know a little of his sermons but we can see the effects of his preaching by what we have here by the Holy Spirit and elsewhere. We know that he was a man sent of God, raised up and chosen by Him, as the

Lord Jesus said of him to Ananias, ‘he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel’ (Acts 9.15). ‘I have preached the gospel.’

Now there are just one or two things that I must say about preachers. One is this: they must be sent. ‘How can they preach, except they be sent?’ (Rom. 10.15). I am quite sure that every real minister of the gospel is oftimes deeply concerned about whether he has really been sent. The devil will try to persuade him that he hasn’t been sent. Anything that can possibly deter a real servant of Christ will be used by the great adversary. There will be such a felt lack of fruit; there will be so little evidence of effects; there will be few that are moved; people will come and go seemingly without any impact having been made upon them; and the question will go on in the heart and conscience, ‘Have I really been sent?’

But I find this, that when one is down in these depths, the Lord wonderfully sends a singular evidence that one has been sent.

On one occasion during the war – it was in 1941 I think – when I was preaching at

Peterborough, there was a bombing raid on, and we had to bring the service to an abrupt end. I went away and thought, ‘Whatever have I accomplished? whatever has been done? it seems a complete blank, utterly and unavoidably.’ But then in 1969 I attended a service and a lady came up to me at the end of it and said, “Do you remember preaching at Peterborough when we had an air raid and it was very dangerous and difficult.” I said, “Madam, I do remember it.” She said, “That was the time when the Lord broke into my soul and delivered me from Satan’s power and darkness.” You see, the Lord will keep His people and His servants when they get discouraged and cast down, and He will prove that they are sent by Him. It is not the bold, confident and proud – not those who are so sure of their credentials and so certain of the minister in the pulpit must have known all about you – somebody had told him.

Only the other day I had one of my congregation come to me and say, “You told Mr

So-and-so” (who was preaching in my place) “all about me.” I said, “I have done nothing of the sort: I only had a quarter of an hour with him before he went into the pulpit, and we had no time, and I had no intention to give any details about your case.” “Well,” she said, “it is a most wonderful thing, because everything he said seemed to apply directly to my case, my feelings and my experience, as if he knew and was unravelling the very thoughts of my heart. It must be the Lord that knew: it must be the Lord who gave him the word and brought that message to my soul and it was a means of great encouragement.”

Yes, preaching! ‘I have preached,’ says Paul, and what a wonderful statement. No man since the Day of Pentecost has preached like the Apostle Paul. We only know a little of his sermons but we can see the effects of his preaching by what we have here by the Holy Spirit and elsewhere. We know that he was a man sent of God, raised up and chosen by Him, as the

Lord Jesus said of him to Ananias, ‘he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel’ (Acts 9.15). ‘I have preached the gospel.’

Now there are just one or two things that I must say about preachers. One is this: they must be sent. ‘How can they preach, except they be sent?’ (Rom. 10.15). I am quite sure that every real minister of the gospel is oftimes deeply concerned about whether he has really been sent. The devil will try to persuade him that he hasn’t been sent. Anything that can possibly deter a real servant of Christ will be used by the great adversary. There will be such a felt lack of fruit; there will be so little evidence of effects; there will be few that are moved; people will come and go seemingly without any impact having been made upon them; and the question will go on in the heart and conscience, ‘Have I really been sent?’

But I find this, that when one is down in these depths, the Lord wonderfully sends a singular evidence that one has been sent.

On one occasion during the war – it was in 1941 I think – when I was preaching at

Peterborough, there was a bombing raid on, and we had to bring the service to an abrupt end. I went away and thought, ‘Whatever have I accomplished? whatever has been done? it seems a complete blank, utterly and unavoidably.’ But then in 1969 I attended a service and a lady came up to me at the end of it and said, “Do you remember preaching at Peterborough when we had an air raid and it was very dangerous and difficult.” I said, “Madam, I do remember it.” She said, “That was the time when the Lord broke into my soul and delivered me from Satan’s power and darkness.” You see, the Lord will keep His people and His servants when they get discouraged and cast down, and He will prove that they are sent by Him. It is not the bold, confident and proud – not those who are so sure of their credentials and so certain of being able to deliver satisfactorily to their hearers – that bear evidence of being sent. It is the tried, tempted, struggling souls who often have difficulty in finding a text and very little encouragement in preaching from it – they are the men whom God has sent. And be sure of this, whom God has sent He will use to His own glory and to the gathering in of His elect from the four corners of the earth. So much then, for ‘the preaching.’

Now we come thirdly to the great central truth of our text and that is, ‘received.’ ‘I preached unto you, which also ye have received.’ Now my dear friends, if we have come under the preaching of God’s word indeed, and with any degree of power, then there has been a receiving of God’s truth in our heart. That does not mean to say that the creature, the person, the individual, has done anything meritorious in this matter. You see it is all the work of God. When the Lord Jesus was here, He gave an illustration and the illustration was this: ‘Behold, there went out a sower to sow’ (Mark 4). Of course, he took good seed with him. It was good seed that fell by the wayside; it was good seed that fell on stony ground; it was good seed that fell among thorns; but none of these places yielded any fruit. It was not the seed that was faulty – it was the ground. Then He says, there was seed sown in good ground. It was good ground because it was prepared ground and it received the seed and brought forth fruit in abundance.

Now when God intends His people to receive, He will prepare them for it. Sometimes this preparation is lengthy, severe, and deep. It is needful it should be. We do not want anything like the wayside experience in hearing the Word of God. I hope none of you when you leave this house of prayer, will have lost everything that I have tried to say. I hope none of you will prove to be wayside hearers, but I do hope there might be a real receiving of the truth as it is in Jesus. You see, my text says, ‘ye have received.’ ‘And as many,’ says the Word of God, ‘as received him,’ that is, the Lord Jesus, ‘to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God’ (John 1.12,13). It was by the power of God that there was a receiving. Oh that is something which is very important: and this receiving of God’s truth in the heart should be a concern with all who truly seek after the things of God.

You will never be satisfied with merely hearing the Word. You will never be satisfied just because you come to hear it, in the place where it is declared. You will only be satisfied when you can really feel this honestly in your hearts, ‘I have received the precious Word of the Lord in my soul.’ Oh, and it will have a great effect upon you; it will change everything; it will turn darkness into light; it will turn the love of sin out of your poor heart, and it will place within you a real reverence and love for the things of

God and for Christ Himself. There were many described in the Word of God who did not receive and we are told why they received not – it was because they knew not Him who had sent Him. That which ye have received.’

Our time is going and I must come to the fourth point and that is ‘wherein ye stand.’

Now, if you want a real proof of your having received the Word of God savingly and blessedly in your soul, here it is
– you will stand. You will stand when everything else seems to be breaking away and decaying around you. You will stand fast, as Paul says in the sixteenth chapter of this same epistle and the thirteenth verse ‘Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.’

This is how Paul concluded this wonderful epistle to the Corinthians – ‘Watch
– stand fast.’ Waverers just simply demonstrate that they have never truly received. Persons who cannot stand adversity, opposition or tribulation really declare that they have never truly received. God sends these very things to prove to His people the need for grace that will enable them to stand. And they will stand in spite of all that the devil can do and despite all that their own poor, fickle, unworthy hearts car lift up against them. They will stand! ‘Wherein ye stand,’ says Paul ‘Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness’ (Eph. 6.14). And Paul in the

Ephesians gives us that wonderful catalogue of spiritual armoury which God supplies to all His saints – the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit and the helmet of salvation, so that, having done all, you may stand.

You may see people going away from the truth: you may see people depart and never return; you may feel saddened by these things in these days. But the real secret behind it all, is that they do not stand simply because they have not received. This is a very great principle. I firmly believe it and therefore I declare it.

And now we come to our last point, the fifth in our text, ‘By which ye are saved.’ O my dear friends, what a wonderful thing this is – to be saved! The word is often used, bandied about sometimes, talked about by men who, it might appear, know very little about its real nature. But to be saved by the Lord, and by His grace, what a marvellous, infinitely glorious thing it is, ‘wherein ye are saved.’ This last point is connected with the first.

It was what God declared before the foundation of the earth that would be verified and fulfilled in every vessel of mercy in time, in God’s own way and in His own time. He did indeed appoint a way whereby His people might be justified. He declares that justification; and those who are saved are made to rejoice in the justifying power of God. They say, with the Apostle Paul, ‘The just shall live by faith’ (Rom. 1.17).

If He, then, declares that such a soul shall be called out of the world from the very depths of disgrace, and ruin, and wretchedness, by one single word being dropped into the heart, that declaration will be fulfilled in time and that sinner will be brought out by God and called by His grace and saved with an everlasting salvation. Such are the saints of God, saved by Jesus Christ. We were singing precious words this evening about the blood, the blood of the dear Redeemer, the suffering of that glorious Son of God. This is the very heart of salvation and this is the experience of God’s saved people, loved and redeemed.

They want more and more to know the power of that precious blood of atonement in their hearts so that they can really feel they are saved and can see their sins blotted out and their souls cleansed by the blood of Christ; saved with an everlasting salvation, without money and without price. There is no human merit – no creature work can ever come into this great subject. It is from first to last the work of God and this is a great comfort to us because, if it was by us, if we had to play a part in it, we should never be saved. It is essential that we should praise Him who ever liveth, for our salvation – He who can never change; and who fulfils His own glorious will in the great salvation of His people. He is the One who saves, and saves for evermore. Whilst we are here in this world, we can only know in part – I was going to say a small part, but it is a wonderful part nevertheless. The greater part – and for some of us it will not be long before we reach it – will be heaven, when the undimmed glory will be revealed, when the preciousness of Christ will be seen in all its fulness and the beauty of the Lord will shine in a glowing which we could never stand here. The redeemed soul must enter into heaven to behold it. That is what salvation means. It means that your life is taken up by God and your soul is possessed by His glory.

It means that your whole being, your will, your heart, your affections, are gathered unto the Lord Himself and under His command, and in His control, to the everlasting glory of His name.

So these, my dear friends, are the five great points that Paul here brings before us. May

God bring them into our hearts and may we not only receive the truth, but may we be saved by the truth. Amen,

No softening like Gospel-softening; no hardening like Gospel-hardening.

George Swinnock

Spirituality is the genius of the Gospel.

Stephen Charnock

The waters of the sanctuary flow only through the channels of the Gospel.

Stephen Charnock

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