The
Indestructible
GOSPEL OF CHRIST
by:
Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
THE
ETERNAL GOSPEL OF CHRIST
Incomparable,
Indestructible &
Irresistible
"For
I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to every
one that believeth."
(Romans 1:16)
St.
Paul was a preacher of the
gospel for many years and was
called the 'Apostle to the
Gentiles.'
His
encounter with Jesus Christ on
the 'Damascus Road' made such
an impact on his life that he
recounted it repeatedly in his
preaching and before important
people like Governor
Felix and King Agrippa!
Writing
to new converts in Rome, he
stated: "The Gospel of
Christ is the power of God
unto salvation..." (1
Corinthians 1:16) The
gospel is the power of God.
What an awesome statement!
Paul
was anticipating a visit to
Jerusalem and ultimately to
Rome - where he knew he would
suffer imprisonment - so he
wrote the epistle to educate,
prepare and strengthen the
saints, who would also suffer
such a fate for their belief
in Jesus Christ!
Christians
everywhere were being
persecuted and undoubtedly,
many believers were afraid to
witness their faith publicly
or were ashamed of being a
part of a movement that was so
maligned, and that made them a
laughing stock before their
peers!
Apparently,
Timothy was feeling the pain
of Paul's persecution and
having anxious moments about
his own life being so closely
allied to the great Apostle.
JESUS
DEMANDS TOTAL SURRENDER!
St.
Paul admonished Timothy:
"God hath not given us
the spirit of fear, but of
power, love and a sound mind.
Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of
our Lord, nor of me His
prisoner: but be thou partaker
of the afflictions of the
gospel according to the power
of God:
"Who
hath saved us, and called us
with an holy calling, not
according to our works; but
according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the
world began." (2 Timothy
1:7)
"Onesiphorus
oft refreshed me and was not
ashamed of my chain."
(1 Timothy 1:16) To
Church at Philippi, he wrote: "For
me to live is Christ, and to
die is gain." (Philippians
1:21)
Jesus
didn't pull any punches.
Jesus didn't make it easy for
people to follow Him. He
demanded all or nothing and
because He gave all, He
expected His followers to do
the same.
Our
Saviour said: "Whosoever
will come after Me, let him
deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his
life shall lose it; but
whosoever shall lose his life
for My sake and the Gospel's,
the same shall save it." (Mark
8:34-36)
To
the man who exclaimed: "Lord,
I will follow Thee
whithersoever Thou goest",
Jesus answered, "The
foxes have holes, and the
birds of the air have nests;
but the Son of Man hath not
where to lay His head."
Our
Lord said to another,
"Follow Me", but he
said, "Lord, suffer me
first to go and bury my
father." Jesus
answered, "Let the
dead bury their dead, but go
thou and PREACH the Kingdom of
God."
According
to Jewish tradition, the
eldest son had first right to
the inheritance and had to
take charge of family matters
when his father died. In
this case, the man's father
may have still been alive but
he felt it his duty to stay at
home until his passing.
Jesus
had a different view on the
matter. His message
is this, if you are called to
follow Him and proclaim His
Gospel that trumps other
obligations that are not as
important. Even if the
man's father was already dead,
others could be assigned to
bury him!
In
other words, let those who are
spiritually dead bury their
dead and allow those that are
spiritually alive to preach
the gospel and save precious
souls to Christ!
"And
another also said, Lord, I
will follow Thee; but let me
first go bid them farewell
which are at home at my house.
And Jesus said unto him, No
man, having put his hand to
the plough, and looking back,
is fit for the Kingdom of
God." (Luke
9:57-62)
What
is Jesus teaching us through
this? Jesus is serious
about our spiritual life and
eternal salvation. Everything fades into
insignificance when you
compare temporal things with
the spiritual needs of the
individual. Jesus came
to seek and to save the lost.
He came to heal the broken
hearted and mend sick bodies
and spirits. (Luke 4:18-19)
Nothing
is as important as pleasing
God and sharing His mercy and
love to family, friends and
neighbors. He stated:
"Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind. This
is the first and great
commandment. And the
second is like unto it, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself."
(Matthew 22:37-39)
JESUS
IS STILL THE GREAT PHYSICIAN
Jesus
gave His life so that we may
live. Jesus is our
Saviour, Redeemer, Deliverer,
Healer and Sustainer.
His Gospel is the greatest
news our sinful and sick world
could ever hear.
He
stated: "Greater
love hath no man than this
that a man lay down his life
for his friends. Ye are
My friends, if ye do
whatsoever I command
you." (John
15:1)
"I
am the Good Shepherd, and know
My sheep, and am known of
Mine. As the Father
knoweth Me, even so know I the
Father and I lay down My life
for the sheep." (John
10:14-15)
"For
when we were without strength
(hopeless), in due time
Christ died for the ungodly.
But God commendeth His love
toward us, in that, whole we
were yet sinners, Christ died
for us." (Romans 5:6,7)
At
the Council of Nicea in AD
325, ATHANASIUS the intrepid
Champion of the true deity of
Jesus Christ vigorously
opposed the spurious attacks
of ARIUS and the UNITARIANS
who denied our Saviour's
divinity. A wishy-washy
friend warned the great Man of
God thusly: "Have a
care Athanasius: The
world is against you!"
Athanasius answered: "Then,
I am against the world!"
 WHAT
MAKE THE GOSPEL SO POWERFUL?
What
was it about Jesus of Nazareth
that so captivated the
apostles and early disciples
that they forsook all earthly
conveniences, fortunes and
zones of comfort to follow
Him, even to their deaths?
What
impressed Matthew
the tax collector, Luke
the physician and Zenas
the lawyer, to forsake all and
follow the Master? And
what has inspired millions
more down through the last two
Millennia to worship the Lord
Jesus Christ as very God and
to make known His name to
multitudes everywhere, often
at the cost of their lives?
What
was it that caused Peter
and Andrew, Thomas
and Bartholomew to
follow in the footsteps of
Jesus? What was it that
caused the proud Pharisee Saul
of Tarsus to humble himself,
repent of his folly and become
the greatest of all Gospel
preachers, after his encounter
with Jesus Christ on the
Damascus Road? What made
this 'Jewish terrorist' and
injurious persecutor of
Christians and blasphemer of
Jesus, make this sudden
switch?
What
inspired Silas
and Timothy, Barnabas
and Apollos, Jude
and Agabus, to
pick up the torch of this
Evangelical Gospel? What
was the reason that Justin
Martyr and Polycarp
declared their faith in Jesus
Christ at the cost of their
lives?
What
made John Huss
go to his death so that the
Gospel of Christ would not be
compromised? What
inspired Bishops
Lattimer and Ridley
to shout God's praises
and continue to confess Christ
from Papal Rome's Burning
Stake?
It
was, my beloved friend, the
indisputable, indestructible,
unmistakable call of the Holy
Spirit of God upon those whose
love for Jesus Christ and His
gospel had become greater than
life itself!
JESUS
CHRIST: GOD INCARNATE !
Jesus
stated: "My sheep hear
My voice, and I know them and
they follow Me: And I
give unto them eternal life;
and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck
them out of My hand. My
Father, which gave them Me, is
greater than all; and no man
is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. I and
My Father are one.
"Say
ye of Him, whom the Father
hath sanctified, and sent into
the world, Thou blasphemest;
because I said, I am the Son
of God. If I do not the
works of My Father, believe Me
not. But, if I do,
though ye believe not Me,
believe the works: that ye may
know, and believe, that the
Father is in Me, and I in
Him." (John
10:27-29, 36-38)
It
is the amazing truth that
Jesus of Nazareth who was born
in a stable in Bethlehem was
more than a man. He was
the Eternal Son of God from
Heaven and the Creator of all
life. He was God
incarnate (God in human
flesh).
He
came to earth on a specific
mission to redeem Adam's
fallen race from sin, fear,
sickness, disease, death and
demons!
JESUS
OF NAZARETH was born to die in
order to defeat Satan, the
enemy of our souls. And
to rise from the dead,
victorious over death, hell
and the grave! Jesus
Christ is truly the Saviour
of the world, the Liberator
of sinful man, the Healer
of every sickness, the
Emancipator of the human
race and the Possessor
of Eternal Life!
Here
is the final victory speech of
St. Paul who was personally
recruited by the Lord Jesus
Christ to spread His glorious
Gospel across the Gentile
world:
"For
I am now ready to be offered,
and the time of my departure
is at hand. I have
fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have
kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up
for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, shall
give me at that day: and not
to me only, but unto all them
also that love His
appearing." (2
Timothy 4:6)
The
Gospel is the GOOD NEWS of
God's unconditional love,
unmerited mercy
and prevenient grace toward
lost and perishing humanity.
How do I know all this? God Himself says so.
His
Holy inerrant Word proclaims
that it is so. And He
cannot deny Himself, change,
make a mistake, fail or lie!
HISTORICAL
RECORD VERIFIES AND CONFIRMS
THE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND
MERCY OF GOD
The
historical record verifies and
confirms it. God's
dealings with mankind recorded
in sacred as well as secular
writing show His unconditional
love for carnal, lost and
ungodly men by providing a way
of escape from Satan the
perverted Evil One called
Satan the Hater, Oppressor and
Adversary of God and man!
His
greatest mission of
unconditional love, overcoming
all barriers of sin, death and
judgment was manifested on
Calvary's cross nearly 2,000
years ago when the incarnated
SON of God paid the ransom
price for the souls of lost
humanity, meeting the demands
of Divine Justice through His
perfect, vicarious and all
atoning death and glorious
resurrection from the dead!
He
sought us before we knew Him
or even thought of Him! The songwriter scribbled these
words: "When He was on
the cross I was on His mind.
He loved me before I knew
Him.." And St. John
wrote: "We love Him
because He first loved
us." (1 John)
It
is the power of God because it
changes those who receive its
life giving message. It
not only transforms the inner
man but it heals sick and
diseased bodies through the
efficacious power of the shed
blood of Jesus that was given
freely for us on Calvary's
tree.
THE
RIDDLE OF THE CHANGED CALENDAR
Almost
2,000 years later, Dr. A.U.
Michelson, another prominent
Jew wrote in 'The Riddle of
the Changed Calendar' as
follows:
"What
mighty earthly monarch decreed
and ordained the rise and fall
of the tides? We all
know there was none. It
is a decree of nature,
of a force not set in motion
by man. Nor could the
entire human race do anything
to check its regular flow and
ebb.
"Again,
what earthly monarch decreed
or commanded, or even
suggested that all civilized
peoples should date their
calendars backward and
forward, B.C. and A.D. from
the birth of Jesus Christ?"
"History
furnishes no clue to this
question; for there never was
such an edict; no such
suggestion ever came from the
lips or the pen of any world
potentate. Each human
ruler would much prefer to
impose upon the face of
history a date system whereby
some great deed or victory of
his own should forever be
commemorated. Such
futile attempts were
repeatedly made; some even
simultaneously with the slow,
but inexorable, forward march
of the Christian
calendar."
"The
most notable attempt in modern
days to find a new starting
point for civilized time was
that undertaken by France in
1793. This revolutionary
calendar fell with the cause
it represented. It
lasted just thirteen years,
and its only legacy to history
is the tangle of dates which
confuses the record of these
thirteen years."
"Ancient
history also is strewn with
these forgotten way marks of
time - Babylonian Eponyms,
Greek Olympiads, Roman
Consulates. For
centuries before the birth of
Christ, the letters A.U.C.
designated the founding of
that great city, And, yet
when, and by whom, was it
decreed that the letter A.U.C.
should give place to A.D. and
B.C.? No imperial
edict forced this change; yet
all civilized time bears the
signature of Jesus Christ.
How did this come to pass?
Again history is mute in
answer to this question."
"Who
is the person to whom the
whole civilized
world gives
daily recognition?"
He
was a humble inhabitant of an
obscure town in a small
province of the then existing
Roman Empire. His public
life was short. He wrote
no book. He overthrew no
government. He left no
great band of highly
influential followers. In fact, after three years of
pedestrian itineraries, He was
put to death as a criminal.
His followers, few and humble,
forsook Him and fled.
To
reject the claims of Jesus as
being equal with God, as being
God the Son, the very almanac
of the modern world is an
incredible absurdity.
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If
a jury of historians
had to explain, on
purely historical
grounds, the letters
A.D. and B.C. which
now serve universally
as the point from
which civilized time
is reckoned, they must
report that "some
force",
mysterious in origin,
and independent of
human will, but with
range and energy
sufficient to affect
all civilized nations,
and persistent enough
to run through all the
centuries, has
"somehow"
put the impress of
Christ's hand on all
history! |
What
possible explanation is there
for this enigma?
Here
is a man of the darkest age of
the world. He lived in a
subject province. He
never wrote a sentence that
has been preserved. He
died when He had scarcely
reached manhood; and He died
cast out by His own race, and
abandoned by His scanty band
of followers.
And
yet, twenty centuries after He
hung upon a cross, His birth
is accepted by believers and
unbelievers alike, at the
point from which all centuries
are dated. Every morning
all the newspapers of the
world, even though some are
impregnated with hatred and
ridicule of Jesus Christ,
adjust their dates to His
cradle. The very dates
on our cheques and letters,
all governmental records, all
legal documents, all
literature, yes, all are
unconsciously a testimony to
the birth of Jesus Christ.
There
can be but one explanation for
this riddle of the 'Changed
Calendar.' It is that He
who hung upon that Roman
cross, was, at He claimed,
more than a man, that he was,
in fact, God incarnate. God in the person of His Son -
Himself the Creator of Time.
And this Lord of Creation
performed upon that cross a
far mightier work than all
human achievements put
together - namely, the
redemption of the human race;
available to all who will
believe and receive Him as
Redeemer and Lord.
DEATH
BED CONFESSION OF NAPOLEON
BONAPARTE
Frederick
W. Kates, writing in The
Churchman says, "It
is hardly to such a man as
Napoleon Bonaparte one would
turn for spiritual
enlightenment: but it is
interesting indeed to note
what he said about Jesus of
Nazareth and the Christian
Religion".
"I
see in Lycurgus, Numa, and
Mohammed only
legislators who, having the
first rank in the state, have
sought the best solution of
the social problem"; said
Napoleon, "but I see
nothing there which reveals
divinity ... nothing announces
them divine. On the
contrary, there are numerous
resemblances between them and
myself, foibles and errors
which ally them to me and to
humanity."
"It
is not so with Christ",
he continued in this
conversation with General
Bertrand, one of his
companions during the twilight
days of his meteoric career.
"I
search in vain in history to
find the equal of Jesus
Christ, beyond the march of
events and above the human
mind."
"Everything
in Him astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and
His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else
in the world, there is no
possible term of comparison.
He is truly a Being by
Himself. His ideals
and His sentiments, the truths
which He announces, His manner
of convincing, are not
explained either by human
organization or by the nature
of things."
"His
birth, and the history of His
life; the profundity of His
doctrine, which grapples the
mightiest difficulties, and
which is, of those
difficulties, the most
admirable solution; His
Gospel, His apparition, His
empire, His march across the
ages, and the realms, is for
me a prodigy, a mystery
insoluble, which plunges me
into a reverence which I
cannot escape, a mystery which
is there before my yes, a
mystery which I cannot deny or
explain. Here I see
nothing human."
"The
nearer I approach, the more
carefully I examine,
everything is above me,
everything remains grand - or
a grandeur which
overpowers."
"His
religion is a revelation from
an intelligence which
certainly is not that of man.
There is a profound
originality, which has created
a series of words and of
maxims before unknown. Jesus borrowed nothing from
our sciences. One can
absolutely find nowhere, but
in Him alone, the imitation or
the example of His life."
In
another place Napoleon wrote:
"I know men; and I tell
you that Jesus is not a man.
Superficial minds see a
resemblance between Christ and
the founders of empires, and
the gods of other regions.
That resemblance does not
exist. There is between
Christianity and whatever
other religions the distance
of infinity...."
Napoleon
states his conception of the
Christian religion in the
following words when he says
it is "neither ideology
nor metaphysics, but a
practical rule which directs
the actions of man, corrects
him, counsels him, and assists
him in all his conduct."
"The
Bible contains a complete
series of facts and historical
men, to explain time and
eternity, such as no other
religion has to offer. If this is not the true
religion, one is very
excusable in being deceived
for everything in it is grand
and worthy of God."
Referring
to Christ's empire and His
Church in contrast to his own
passing fame and glory,
Napoleon who has been
described as the "world's
greatest traveling man of
slaughter" said:
"You
speak of Caesar, of Alexander,
of their conquests, and of the
enthusiasm they enkindled in
the hearts of their soldiers;
but can you conceive of a dead
man making conquests with an
army faithful and entirely
devoted to his memory? My armies have forgotten me,
even while living, as the
Carthaginian army forgot
Hannibal. Such is our
power!"
"Such
is the history of the invasion
and conquest of the world by
Christianity. Such is
the power of God of the
Christians; and such is the
perpetual miracle of the
progress of the Faith and the
government of His Church.
Nations pass away, thrones
crumble, but the church
remain. What is, then,
the power which has protected
this church, thus assailed by
the furious billows of rage
and the hostility of ages?
Whose is the arm which for
eighteen hundred years, has
protected the church from so
many storms which have
threatened to engulf it?"
"Alexander,
Caesar, Charlemagne, and
myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the
creations of our genius?
Upon force! Jesus Christ
alone founded His Empire upon
love; and, at this hour,
millions of men would die for
Him."
Then,
and rather pathetically, the
great Napoleon remarked to his
companion: "We are
mere lead now, General
Bertrand, and soon I shall be
in my grave. Such is the
fate of great men! So it
was with Caesar and Alexander,
and I, too, am forgotten, and
the name of a conqueror and an
emperor is a college
theme."
"Behold
the destiny, near at hand, of
him who has been called the
great Napoleon! What an
abyss between my deep misery
and the eternal reign of
Christ, which is proclaimed,
loved, adored, and which is
extending over all the earth!
Is this to die? Is it
not rather to live? The
death of Christ - it is the
death of God!"
TO
GOD THE FATHER BE GLORY -
THROUGH
JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD
St.
John the Apostle had been
exiled to the Island called
Patmos for his testimony about
Jesus Christ. It was while he
was serving his sentence
there, that he was visited by
the Eternal living and
resurrected Son of God in all
His glory.
At
the very presence of the
Glorified Christ, John fell at
His feet as dead but Jesus
laid His hand upon him,
saying: "Fear not;
I am in the first and the
last: I am He that
liveth, and was dead; and
behold I am alive forevermore,
Amen; and have the keys of
hell and of death."
(Revelation 1:17, 18) To
God be all the Honour, Praise
and Glory forever and ever.
Amen.
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