​A gospel minister once visited a lady who was living in what John Bunyan called, “Doubting Castle.” She suffered from persistent doubts and fears and was filled with all manner of misgivings about the future Judgement. (By the way, none of us are always entirely free from such bombardments of unbelief. Even the most mature believers are not always immune).

To try and answer her concerns, the preacher quoted 1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love."  He then asked her,
" Do you know what that means? "
 She paused for a moment, and then replied,
 "I suppose it means that when I love God perfectly, I shall get rid of my doubts and fears "
“Yes, certainly you will,” he replied “but that will not be until you arrive in glory. This verse is about Jesus, not about what you are supposed to do.  It is about what He has done!”

The dear lady’s face took on a look of entire astonishment. The evangelist then continued,
 “Just look at the verse through gospel eyes. Think of God's love instead of your own. Our verse says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.”  It is His love, Christ’s love, that is perfect, not yours. Your love will never be perfect until you are face to face with the Master in glory.”

He then continued, “But think of the perfect love expressed when Christ came to die for us and consider that that His love is still flowing from glory. Believe this and enjoy life. Believe and apply the gospel and your fear of the future Judgment will be banished."

It was quite a new thought for her, and she learned to look at this verse from a finished work, gospel viewpoint.

To enjoy being saved we need to learn the forgetfulness of self.  We need to know we are not the center of the gospel.  In fact, the gospel is not about us, it’s about the Lord Jesus Christ, His perfections and accomplishments.  We of course are the beneficiaries of the gospel, but the gospel is not about our doing and dying. It’s about His. We will never enjoy assurance if we continually look inward. We might as well look for warmth in the Arctic Circle as investigate our hearts to find the perfect love of God.

But think of God's great love to you in the gospel; believe it; take Him at His word about the finished work and you will have peace with Him (Romans 5:1). and you will enjoy the Holy Ghost shed abroad in your heart (Romans 5:5). For the believer, Judgment is not a future event; it is past (see Isaiah 53:4-6; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

We have no acceptable righteousness of our own, but we have been given the very righteousness of Christ.  He has been judged instead of us. If you believe this, you will enjoy being saved and will spend much less time in Doubting Castle.

The more we grow in our appreciation and love for the gospel the less we know anything of the continual fear of the Judgment Day. The more Christ’s perfect love for us is grasped, the more fear is thrust and hurled away. 

And that’s the Gospel Truth!

“And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (see 2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

Sometimes people say that Jesus came into the world to reconcile the Father to us, but that´s nonsense! It is not God who needs to be reconciled to man, instead, it’s the reverse, man needs to be reconciled to God.  
 
God has never changed.  He was in the beginning what He is today. He has no need to apologize. It is man, on the other hand, who changed; it was and is man who sinned and sins. Man needs to be reconciled. People need to be brought back to God. For reconciliation, to take place, sin had to be wiped away. Which brings us to Jesus.
 
Jesus was a  man of prayer, but His prayers could not wipe away our sins.

Jesus was a man of compassion, but the combination of His tears and empathy could not blot out the least of our sins.

Pure and holy as He was, His presence could not take away our sins.
To remove our sin and bring in reconciliation, He had to die!  It took the pouring out of His blood, for “the life of the flesh is in the blood"(Leviticus 17:11). Only by that stunning and awful death of Jesus could sin be put away and man become reconciled.

Jesus was the holy, blessed, spotless Lamb of God. He didn´t come to die for the respectable and religious, but for sinners.

He came for those who were unfit for Him.
 
He died for the ungodly. As Darvin Pruitt said, “The Lord saves only the Un-People:
The Unprofitable,
The Ungodly,
The Unrighteous,
The Undeserving,
The Unlovable,
The Undone!”

Jesus became our propitiation (an offering that takes away wrath). What a breathtaking event. The sun shone till noon, and then darkness plunged over the entire land until about three o’clock.  In those terrible hours, at the cross, atonement was made as the sinless saviour exhausted the wrath of God on His people and offered Himself, as a sacrifice to the Father. Nothing but His death could reconcile us to God.
 
The basis of reconciliation, then, is laid in the death of the Lord Jesus.  Although we cherish the truth of the incarnation, our confidence is not that He has come into the world. Our confidence is in the Saviour's blood.  Let me ask you a question. Have you told yourself lately, “He loves me; He gave His Son for me, I am reconciled to God by the death of his Son ?¨(see Romans 5:10). Don´t ever be afraid to preach the gospel to yourself.

On the cross, Jesus declared, "It is finished." That means all that is needed for reconciliation is wholly done. There´s not a single thing left to be accomplished. God reckoned Christ to be what I am—sin,—that I might be made what Christ is—the righteousness of God.

 Reconciliation is now a matter of righteousness: Since Christ has died for us and taken the wrath that our sins demanded, it is righteous of God to give us that which is due to Christ.

The Father is satisfied; more than that, He is glorified (see Philippians 2:5-11). There at the cross the sinless, pure and innocent Lamb of God was executed because of our sin.  Because of this, rebels are reconciled to the Father. 

Think of it, it is not merely that we go to glory because of the mercy and love of God, but we go there because of righteous grace. The person and work of Christ are perfectly righteous. Sin has been condemned and its consequences paid for. The Father has now, "committed unto us the word of reconciliation." What a privilege to tell about these things!

And that´s the Gospel Truth!
 ​

The gospel is wonderfully simple. It is the good news of the doing, dying and rising again of the God/Man. This gospel work was and is both finished and successful. As proof of this, we have, at this very moment, a glorified saviour seated in the place of cosmic authority (Hebrews 10:12).

So, let’s ask, how does God get rid of the believer’s sins? To answer this question, the Lord has taken great pains, in His Word, to show how completely He has done this. Watch how He employs word pictures that are so easily understood.

For example, (1) in Psalm 103:12, we read, "As far as the east us so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Where is the East? Where is the West? No matter where we are on the globe there is always an east and a west. But who can tell us their actual location? If we begin traveling west, we will still be westward bound after many days of journey.  Similarly, if we set out to discover the ultimate location of the east, we will never finally arrive.
As far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our transgressions from us. This is how God got rid of our sins.

2) In Isaiah 38:17, we read, "Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." What a precious passage to assure us that God no longer sees our sins. Who can see behind his back? No one. The good news is that He no longer sees our sins. He Himself hurled them behind His back…. And not just some of our sins, … all of them.

All our sins;
Every sin in thought, word, or deed;
Every secret sin;
Every presumptuous sin;
All our sin!
He cast our sins behind His back. This is how God got rid of our sin!

3) In Micah 7:19, we read "Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Again, we find it is His work. He Himself cast our sins there. Not simply into the sea, but into the depths of the sea. If a person on board a ship empties some coins over the ship's side, how much of it he will get back again? Not a red cent! All the coins would go down into the depths. So also with our sins. God cast them, great and small, into the depths of the sea, never to be brought back again.
This is how God got rid of our sins!

4) In Isaiah 44:22 we read, I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins." Have you looked at the sky recently? There was a cloud there yesterday, an imposing one. Where is it today? … It is gone! And so it is with our sins. One day our sins rise up as a thick cloud between us and God, but God Himself blots them out because of the blood!
This is how God got rid of our sins!
 
5) In Isaiah 1:18, we read, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Scarlet and crimson are two of the most difficult colours to destroy, but God Himself took our scarlet sins, purges them, and, as it were, makes them white as snow.
This is how God gets rid of our sins!

It is our privilege to know, as David did, that we are, with reference to sin, made whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7). God has gone to amazing lengths to get rid of our sin! (See also Hebrews 10: 17, Ephesians 1:7 and Romans 4:7-8).

Is Jesus precious to you?  He remembers our sins no more. He forgives us according to the riches of His grace. Who can compute this kind of love and mercy?

And that’s the Gospel Truth!
 ​

“Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6)


Have you ever thought of yourself as a bad Christian?  You look at your life and all you see is flaw after flaw. You fail in your thought life.  You fall easily.  You don’t read the word or pray the way you could.
 
Here’s some good news, your Saviour does not condemn you for these failures. There remains no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
 
All of us, no matter in what stage of growth we find ourselves, need to hear the Gospel on an ongoing basis. That's because we forget it on an ongoing basis.  We need to remember the words of Elizabeth Prentice who wrote: “The greatest saint on earth has got to reach Heaven on the same terms as the greatest sinner; unworthy, unfit, good-for-nothing; but saved through grace.” 
To grow in grace, we need to hear about Jesus, His person, His doing, His dying and rising again.
We need to be immersed in the truth that Jesus is the God-man…God manifest in the flesh. 
We need to know that Jesus has perfectly satisfied God’s justice.
He has magnified God’s Law.
He has entirely met God’s demands on us.
He has forever put away sin.
He has completely routed the devil.
He has defeated death.
He has cleansed our conscience.
He has perfectly loved His people.
He has perfectly hated His people’s sins.
He has perfectly cleansed His people’s sins.
He has perfectly taken them away.
He has perfectly paid for them with His blood.
His Gospel is Good news and more good news.
The Gospel is finished, it is complete.
His Gospel is unsearchable but not incomprehensible.
 
O that all the churches would preach the Gospel and its multiplied applications! At best,  however, we get a little bit of grace to make us feel loved, a big bit of law to try to make us behave and a major amount of condemnation when we don’t make the grade.
 
But that is not the pattern for New Testament ministry.
 
Speaking of condemnation, even we who are grace preachers sometimes leave our listeners with the impression that there is now, therefore, still condemnation to those that are in Christ." 
 
But that’s wrong! Let’s try it again.
 
‘There is now, therefore, only a tiny teeny bit of condemnation to those in Christ.’
Never!
 
There is  NO condemnation to those who struggle and fail. The Gospel is about good news, good news and more good news (Romans 5:20-21). And that’s what we need if ever we are to grow in grace.
 
Do you remember the story of the prodigal son? That scallywag disregarded his father and then disgraced himself in every way possible. One old time preacher said, "Do you know the difference between the son in that pig-pen and the pig? The pig never said to himself, ’I will arise and go to my father.' 
 
No indeed, it’s not in the pig’s nature to leave the Pig-pen but the Child of God hates it there.
 
And the truth is, we’ve all been in the Pig-pen at various times.  We have all failed, disappointed ourselves, and felt condemned. But the good news is, all the wealth of the righteousness of Christ is ours and all our guilt is His. He is the shepherd who seeks until He finds. Yet we hide from Him and turn away in fear and shame, not because we don’t love Him, but because we don’t know His love for us.  We don’t know the Gospel.

And that’s the Gospel Truth!       


 ​

There are those who say that Jesus was an enlightened teacher, but not God.  Well, of course, He was a brilliant teacher. Just think of His influence compared to that of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.  They taught for a total of 130 years, but Jesus taught for only 3. Yet those 3 years turned the world upside down and impacted more people than did Plato and the boys put together. 
 
But, Jesus was more than an excellent teacher; He was God manifest in the flesh.  This means that He was the greatest teacher ever. And, in addition to teaching, He did things worthy of Deity.  For example, He gave the gift of eternal life. Which of the other praiseworthy teachers of the past gave the gift of eternal life?  Not Plato, not Socrates, not Aristotle---none of them.
 
And while we are considering this, let’s ask, just who exactly is qualified to give eternal life? Even someone who has not read the Bible knows the answer to that one.  The only one who can give eternal life is someone who has it to give.  I can neither give eternal life to you nor can you give it to me….we are somewhat deficient in the eternal life department.  But God is the possessor of eternal life, and if ever we are to be given it, we must be given it by God. That’s why we are informed in Romans 6:23 that, whereas the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life.  No one else but God can give eternal life.  Moses for all his thundering could not give it, Isaiah for all his holy living couldn’t give it, Jeremiah in spite of his immense compassion couldn’t give it, none of the Prophets, Priests or Kings of Israel could give it, for it wasn’t theirs to give.

Then along came Jesus.  This man refused to be put into the category of merely a good teacher. One day, as He sat talking to His disciples about sheep and shepherding, he fixed His gaze on them and announced,
 
“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.” John 10:27-28.

Did you hear that? “I give unto my sheep eternal life and they shall never perish!” So what’s He saying here … He’s saying, “I’m God.”A man who is merely a good teacher, in spite of other abilities, cannot give eternal life to anyone. Only God can give eternal life, for the gift of God is eternal life-----so if Jesus is telling the truth, then He is God.  I like what John Gill has to say on this subject,
 
“Christ gives eternal life to his sheep ---- he gives them himself, who is the true God and eternal life, and whoever has him has life; he gives them the knowledge of himself, which is life eternal; and he gives them his righteousness, which is their justification of life, or what entitles them to eternal life;  --- this is a pure gift, it is of grace, and not of works; and it is in the gift of Christ as Mediator, who has power to give it to as many as the Father has given him.”         ----John Gill: Exposition of the Bible.
 
When Jesus claimed the ability to give eternal life to His sheep, He was declaring his infinite Deity.  He was putting Himself on an equal footing with God!  And this was a legitimate exercise on which to embark since He was the eternal God walking around in human form.   However, if Christ were not the eternal God manifest in the flesh we, once more, must denounce Him as a madman or an evil worker.  If He’s not God, He’s a fraud!  Making those outlandish claims, yet having no power to back them up, qualifies him as one of the greatest kooks of all time!  But if He is God, trust Him with your soul, follow Him and worship Him.
 
"Come All Harmonious Tongues
Your noblest music bring;
"Tis Christ the everlasting God,
And Christ the man we sing."
 
And that’s the Gospel Truth!