From Clochr Valley in County Tyrone we present Let the Bible Speak. It's good to have you join us as Gospel Minister the Reverend Peter McIntyre is here to let the Bible speak and preach Christ in all his fullness. There are a couple of verses I would like to read to you from Romans chapter 1. They are the verses 16 and 17. 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. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. We know that God will bless the reading of his word to our hearts. Today I want to talk to you about the Gospel of Christ. In the verse 16 of Romans 1, Paul declared that he was not ashamed The Gospel of Christ. When we talk about the Gospel of Christ, we talk about this great word, the Gospel. And what is the Gospel? We associate it with the writers, with the evangelists, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John. We associate it with the people that recorded the events of Christ's life. But what is the Gospel? the word gospel itself comes from two anglo-saxon words the first word is the word god the second word is the word spell now the anglo-saxon word god was actually their word for good they used the noun god and the adjective good interchangeably and we can immediately Understand why? Because God is good. We say that all of the time. Goodness comes from God. Therefore it is not an accident that the word God and the word good look very much alike. because the two words come from the same anglo-saxon root and so we have the word spell as well and the word spell it means to relate a story the word spell today is used in two ways it is used of a a witch somebody that practices devilish things and they pronounce their incantation they pronounce their spell and they cast a curse on people. What is that spell? It is a form of words. That actually is where the word spell comes from. It is a form of words. When you put your words together you form a story and it could be a bad story or it could be a good story and we use the word spell also in terms of putting the various letters together that form a word. And those letters when they are put together they form the word and that word is part of the story and so the word spell it actually means the story. And so what is the gospel then? It is the God spell. It is the good story. It is God's story. It is not a spell that produces a curse it is a spell that produces life. It is the greatest story, the greatest message that ever was told. You see, whenever we bring God's Word to you on the radio, I'm not bringing you the message of a church. The message that merely comes from a church is meaningless. The church is the custodian of God's Word and the church's responsibility is to relate the Gospel of God. or as Paul would put it here, the gospel of Christ. Now who is the one that gives us this good story? He is our creator. He is our judge. We are accountable to him. We ought to have a keen interest in discovering his story and discovering his message. There is nothing more important than having an ear open for the Word of God, to learn what God would have to say to us. This is so vital. Now we find the story of God in the Scriptures, in the Bible. The Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi, the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation. This contains the story of God, the Gospel, why we associate the Gospel with the events of Christ's life. The message itself is so much wider than that because the message began in the Garden of Eden and God finally closed off this message in terms of everything that he wanted us to know in the book of Revelation. This is a most expansive story. This story is told to us through the lives, through the teachings, through the prophecies of people who lived over a period of centuries and yet their story is woven together into one message, into one gospel. It centres upon the life of Christ himself when he came into this world and we discover all of this from the Word of God and the Word of God is not like any other book. We read a history book and we must always be mindful that the history is told from one person's perspective, one person's viewpoint, one person's idea, one person's philosophy and while the facts might be there yet they can be embellished in a certain way, some facts may be hidden in another way, perhaps the writer was not fully aware of everything and therefore we don't quite get the full picture. We read the newspaper we might have the facts but yet the news may be related from the perspective of the reporter and his political viewpoint his particular ideology and so we don't quite get the full picture. In life we are constantly being bombarded with half-truths with innuendos, with implications, and we have to separate truth from fiction. But the Bible is not like that. The Bible is fact, pure fact, because it comes from God, and God is pure. In fact, we are told that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And that word inspiration, it means the breath, The Bible is the very breath of God. It is a product of God himself. And while Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote up their stories, the story of Christ's life, they were prompted by the Holy Ghost. Moses was prompted by the Holy Ghost, as was Joshua, as was David when he recorded the Psalms, as was Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and all of the prophets. as was the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter. These people recorded the message that God gave to them, that God put into their hearts. Therefore, the story of the Scriptures is the story of God, and it's an utterly and completely reliable story. Old books, they fade away, they become dust, they become unreadable. If we were to read them, we couldn't understand them, and yet the Bible has been preserved. Why is that? Because the Bible alone is the living Word of God. Because the Bible is God's Word, the Bible is as perfect as God is perfect. To argue that the Bible is in some way contradictory is to say that God is contradictory. And if we are to say that God is contradictory, that God makes mistakes, then God is not God. And therefore we have nothing to rest upon. The Bible is infallible. It is without error. It is without contradiction. The Bible is God's Word. If God be God at all, therefore we can't rely upon it. And so this good story, it comes from the book, the best book that we have, the Word of God. So what is it that is at the very heart of this story, this good story, this story of God? Well, Paul calls it the Gospel of Christ, for good reason. Because God sent his Son into the world. God who lived from all eternity before there was a heaven and an earth. God who lived together as three persons in the eternal council chambers of his glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God the Father decided to send forth his Son into the world. Now because his son is equal to him in power and glory. It was the son's decision every bit as it was the father's decision. The father, son and holy ghost they made this joint decision that the son would come. The father sent, the son obeyed. But he did so willingly. There was not a murmur. There was no resistance. There could not be for he is perfect. But why did they do it? Why did Father, Son and Holy Ghost decide that Christ would come? Why did the Father decide to give up His Son, His only Son, to live in this world? Why did the Son agree to come? Why? Because they loved. And remember God is good. The two words, God, good, they are part of the One. True goodness comes from God and whenever we think of goodness we think of love. Love is the great outworking of goodness. The Father and Son, they acted out of love. Love for men and women, love for me and you and this is what lies at the very heart of this Gospel. If you feel unloved today, if you feel lonely, if you feel rejected, if you feel sorrowing, God loves you. Always remember that and He loves you more. than you ever could understand or appreciate. But just look at the story of Christ who came into the world for us and there you see the very heart of this love, this pure perfect love of God. And so the father sent and the son obeyed. They did so willingly. They did it out of love. Out of love for you and out of love for me. The son became a man. He offered himself to die as a man for the wretched people who had rebelled against him and his father and the Holy Ghost. in order that those wretched people might live forever as the children of God. The son became a man for a people who were cursed. He became a man by being subject to all of the curses which they were subject to. He suffered the deprivations of this world. But not only that, he went to the cross and in the human flesh, he died and he took upon himself the guilt of men and women in order that we might be saved, in order that we might be redeemed. It is such an amazing story, only a story like this could have come from God. This is truly the Gospel, the God story. It is so unselfish, the father giving up his son to die that cruel death. The Son coming into this world, lowering Himself, something that we as human beings are so poor at. Lowering ourselves. He lowered Himself. He was the Prince of Glory and yet He lowered Himself. He dwelt in a glory that was unapproachable and yet He took upon Himself the form of His wretched creatures. In fact, Isaiah said that there was no beauty in Him that we should desire Him. He was rejected, He was abused and He went to the cross and he died the father gave up the son and the son gave up himself. We live in a world of death and through this death of Christ there is hope the dark shadows are all around us and yet there is this ray of sunshine that comes from the hill of the cross but why is there sunshine from the hill of the cross? why is there a beacon of light that shines from this place that represents the most cruel form of death that ever was because he took my place he died for me and he didn't just die for me but he rose again for us out of love and so we are facing death we're looking to the grave our final resting place but here there is hope one who loved us who died for us he rose again for us this is love indeed this is the gospel of god is this gospel in your life is it in your heart you might know the facts but Does the Gospel fill your soul today? Have you come to trust Jesus Christ as your Saviour? Bow your heart, surrender your soul. Ask Him for forgiveness. Find eternal life today. I pray that you will do this very thing. I thank you so much for listening. you've been listening to Let the Bible Speak if we can be of any further spiritual help or if you would like to receive some free gospel literature we invite you to write to us our mailing address is Let the Bible Speak Rev. Peter McIntyre 13 Willand Crescent, Five Mile Town, County Tyrone BT75OQL that's Let the Bible Speak Rev. Peter McIntyre Thirteen, Willand, Crescent, Five Mile Town, County Tyrone, BT75, OQL. You may hear Mr. McIntyre preach each Lord's Day here in Clocker Valley Free Presbyterian Church at 11.30am and 7pm. For further information you may phone us at 028 8952 1611. 028 8952 1611. We assure you of a very warm welcome at all the services and look forward to having you visit with us. Thank you for listening today. May the Lord richly bless you, and don't forget to tune in on this same station at the same time next week, when once again we turn to the scriptures and let the Bible speak.