HEARING THE GOSPEL FOR THE FIRST TIME

W. Dickson

Acts 8: 34, 35; 16: 28–31; 17: 30–32; 26: 15–18

The persons to whom these preachings were addressed had never heard the gospel before. It was the first time they had heard the gospel, and I would like to preach, with God’s help, from that standpoint tonight. I do not want to preach to you as having heard the gospel a hundred times, a thousand times; I want to preach to you tonight as if you had never heard the gospel before, which will, of course, mean raising some very simple questions. The raising of them may probe your conscience; it may cause you to question the understanding you have of God’s thoughts towards you in grace, as to whether by faith you have taken them up for yourself. We are living in serious times and the very foundations are being sapped. Children go to school and the very things they are taught in the homes of their parents are undermined, are questioned; they are told they are fables. What will help them? The only thing that will help them will be an absolute conviction in their own hearts, as having had to do with a personal Saviour, and that they trust in Him with regard to His finished work, and so have present peace and an assured hope for the future.

Here was this man in Acts 8; he was reading his Bible and as he read it he would ask the question, ‘Why would it be necessary for this Man to die? This Person who underwent such sufferings, why was it necessary?’ Is everyone in this room convicted as to why the death of Jesus was necessary? Are you among those who would say,

‘Would it not have been a happier state of things if, instead of the death of Jesus, God had, in His own sovereign grace and mercy, decided to save every person, no matter what the sinful state, without calling upon them to repent and to make acknowledgment of the need of a Saviour?’ There are thousands of people in this world tonight who think that way; who think it would be much happier if, so to speak, God had wiped the slate clean and just taken every man, woman, and child into relationship with Himself.

Why was the death of Jesus necessary? You young people, just ponder that question, think it over. O, beloved, the God that we have to do with has a throne of righteousness, of infinite majesty, and holiness; that throne was sinned against by man, which brought in its train a terrible heritage of death and sorrow; and while God loved His creature with a heart so great, so wonderful human minds could never penetrate the depth of the heart of God—yet the majesty, the honour, the righteousness of that throne stood out in the face of the universe as having been impugned and challenged by sin. How could God take into relationship with Himself every human creature without raising with them how they stood in regard to the claims of that throne? That was why Jesus died.

You say, ‘I thought He died for me’. Indeed He died for you, but, first of all, He died to meet the righteous claims of that holy throne of God, which had been impugned by sin, that God’s heart might come out in all its blessedness and all its compassion—

‘The river of His grace;

Through righteousness supplied,

Is flowing o’er the barren place

Where Jesus died’. (Hymn 13)

O, beloved hearer, that is why He died. That is why that holy, sinless, spotless life, so pleasing, so delightful to the heart of God, was given up; it was in order that the claims of the righteousness of God might be met and a basis provided whereby you and I, as guilty sinners, in simple faith might draw nigh and take full advantage of that work, and, in virtue of it, stand before a holy God with not one single charge against us.

Have you ever let that basic truth sink deep into your heart? Have you ever sat down and said to yourself, ‘Without the death of Jesus my need would never have been met; without the death of Jesus I would for ever have been shut out from all that favour and blessing and joy that is in the presence of God; without the death of Jesus it would never have been mine’?

Do you wonder that this man in Acts 8 went on his way rejoicing? I do not. It was the first time he had heard the gospel, the first time he had heard the good news, the first time he had heard that great evangelist, Philip. Oh what a preacher Philip must have been; I would love to have heard Philip preach; not only to hear the words that he used but to see the spirit in which he would speak tenderly of Jesus. The eunuch says in effect, ‘Why should I remain here in this world that crucified Jesus?’—and he went down into the water of baptism and went on his way rejoicing. Are you rejoicing? Are you going on your way rejoicing? There is no testimony so great as a happy christian. No preaching like a happy christian. Beloved George Herbert used to say, ‘I would rather see a sermon than listen to one any day’. When you go to the office, do they see a sermon? In saying this it is, of course, important to remember that practical salvation is connected with the confession of the Lord’s name. As this eunuch went up to that queen’s palace, he would say, ‘I went down into that water of baptism and identified myself with Jesus in His death and I have no place here; my joy, my life, is to testify for that Saviour and to live for Him here; even in the queen’s palace I can testify and live for Jesus’.

In Acts 16 we have this gaoler. He had never heard the preaching before, at least so far as we know; it is very unlikely that he had; but God in His ordering had placed him in touch with these two men, Paul and Silas, in the prison, and God came into his circumstances in His wonderful mercy, making him feel the need of salvation, and Paul preached this short sermon in answer to the man’s request, “What must I do that I may be saved?” Have all present asked that question? Now let us go back in our history. Can you recall the day when you said,

‘What must I do to be saved’? I believe in conversion; I believe in a revolution in souls as affected by the grace of God that will effect an about-turn, an about-face; instead of facing towards the world you face towards Christ, you face towards God. Here was this man and he uttered that cry, “What must I do that I may be saved?” Would it go without an answer? No, I do not think so. I do not think heaven would allow a cry like that to go unanswered.

Oh, if anybody in this room tonight is in any sense not in the gain of the gospel, not in the gain of salvation, will you not utter that cry tonight—‘What must I do to be saved’? From the world? Yes, salvation from the world; salvation from sin; salvation from the flesh. ‘What must I do to be saved?’ O what a cry! “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt he saved”. It is not only the death of Jesus, but “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved”—a glorious, living Man there in the presence of God; your Priest, your Advocate, your Saviour, your Lord, your Friend, your Shepherd, your eternal hope—

‘O what a Saviour is Jesus the Lord!

Well may His Name by His saints be adored!’ (Hymn 169)—a Person so glorious, so available to you in all your need. “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”—and thy house; what a promise! It means, in effect, that everything about you circumstantially will come under the blessed rays of God’s grace, and what a transformation it will be!

O, you young people, I would again impress upon you the simplicity of calling upon the Lord’s name, just turning to the Lord and calling upon Him. There is nothing like it in any circumstance in which you find yourself, whether it be an inward thing or an outward thing; whether it is a sin that besets you inwardly or a tie, an association, or some friendship that you find it difficult to break; its cords have got you tightly and you long to break it; you feel it is sapping your spiritual life away; you feel it is not honouring to the Lord that you should continue in it—“Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved”! Confess His name and prove the power of it; such power comes into your soul if you take that name upon your lips and cling to Jesus as the living Man up there available to you.

In Acts 17 these people had never heard the gospel before. It must have been quite a test to preach at Athens. These philosophers were questioning Paul about his gospel. These men were all agnostics, and there are more agnostics in the world than there are infidels or atheists. An agnostic is a person who will say, ‘Yes, we know there is a God, but it is not within human capability to be certain as to how He can be approached’.

That is an agnostic. Do you think like that? Has the light of the revelation of God in Jesus not affected you? “To the unknown God”—that is how their altar was dedicated. You could not say that, could you? Could any in this room say that?—“To the unknown God”—surely not!

Paul’s spirit was painfully excited in him and he started to preach to them about the resurrection of Jesus.

Again I want to speak very simply. Is everybody in this room, from the youngest to the oldest, convicted as to the resurrection of Christ? You say, It is unnecessary to raise a question like that. It is not. I have known persons forsake the truth and, when asked why they were taking that road, they said they did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus; they found it impossible to grasp with their natural minds the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead. You will not grasp it with your mind in any case, you will only grasp it by faith! Think of this, young people! Think of this, because if you have the light of a risen and glorified Christ in your soul it will give you conviction and a power that nothing will be able to shake. Paul said that God has given testimony of the fact that He is going to judge the world in righteousness by that Man in having raised Him from the dead. These are great basic matters; Paul devotes the whole of 1 Corinthians 15 to this great matter of the resurrection of Christ, because “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain”. You have no basis for justification, no basis for acceptance in the presence of God, no basis for hope, apart from the resurrection of Christ.

These cults that come into colleges and offices, with all their strange teachings, seek to affect young believers. What is your safeguard? Absolute conviction that God raised Jesus from the dead, and that that Man is your Saviour, and that you have a present living link with Him by faith.

In Acts 26 you find another man who had never heard the gospel before, a king. He was sitting on a throne with Bernice amidst all the pomp, and Paul—a happy christian—preaches the gospel to him. I have often been very, very interested as to the character of the preaching of Paul to king Agrippa in these verses we read, as to why Paul preached the gospel in this particular way to him. It was quite remarkable to speak to a heathen king, who had never heard the gospel before, about an “inheritance among them that are sanctified”. What was he meaning? Oh I think I know what he was meaning! What, in effect, he was telling king Agrippa was—‘I know something of the glory of God and the great thoughts of God in purpose and blessing, and were you to give me your throne and your kingdom it cannot match what God has given me—an inheritance among the sanctified’. Do you feel that way, young people? If the world was to offer its best to you tonight, its very best, if it was to offer you fame, honour, and wealth tonight, has the Spirit of God so wrought with you that you would say, ‘My place amongst the people of God is greater than all’. Would you say that?

Agrippa would say, ‘That man there, looking up at me, that man has more than I have, a thousand times more. That man there is preaching to me, and me a king, and he is telling me that he has an inheritance among those that are sanctified’. The historians tell us that his link with Bernice, by his side, was an immoral one, and there was a man preaching about an inheritance “among them that are sanctified”, sanctified, and Agrippa’s whole life was in need of the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. What an arrow to his conscience!

May these words come to you tonight as if it were the first time in your life that you had heard the gospel. There are some days, some nights, when persons get a convicting touch; they have gone on for a long time until the Spirit of God meets them in their souls with a convicting touch. Agrippa acknowledged to Paul that he was almost persuaded to become a christian. Almost—you remember the hymn, ‘Almost persuaded’? Oh how many have been almost persuaded. Are you among them tonight?

Almost persuaded? Or are you going to say tonight, I am fully persuaded “that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him”, 2 Timothy 1: 12. I trust that these basic truths will affect your heart and give you to see the reality and power of the gospel, that it is no myth but is founded on the Scriptures and centred in the living Person at the right hand of God. May you be drawn to Him tonight, every one of you, for His name’s sake.

Preaching at Gillingham
25 March 1979