Don't Be Ashamed Of Jesus # 3

Don't Be Ashamed Of Jesus # 3

2. You can approach Christ despite the multiplied misdeeds in your past life. You can come just as you are, unclean, impure, unworthy, to learn, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

3. Your redemption is free. You cannot buy your salvation, for Christ has paid everything. One drop of His precious blood can outbalance all your transgressions, for here is the unbreakable promise: "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son,cleanseth us from all sin."

4. To receive the full Gospel blessing you need only believe, only approach God as a poor, miserable sinner who accepts the Saviour's grace. Divine truth assures us, "By grace are ye saved, through faith."

5. Your forgiveness is unquestioned and positive. Our text calls the Gospel "the power of God" not of man. "Heaven itself" and earth shall pass away before this supreme pledge is violated.

These five theses present to you the most sacred and sublime love which even God Almighty can give. For your souls salvation I ask you to study their life-and-death certainty. Wherever you are, let me direct to your home one of the thousands of pastors who work together with me for this same glorious Gospel and who can help you declare in the fervor of sincere faith, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ!"

If We Have Reason To Be Ashamed Of His Gospel.

Now, with all the pardon and perfect peace Jesus can speak into sorrowing, aching hearts; with all the light His Gospel offers for life's darkest hours, should be not expect that every person on earth would accept His message as the highest good and the greatest blessing? Did you ever hear of anyone being ashamed of the friend who rescued him from death? Have you ever read of a nation which does not pay tribute to those who fought and fell in its defense? Why, then, with Christ's offering deliverance from death's grip,sin's slavery, hell's tyranny, do millions blasphemously reject Him? How does it happen that some theological seminaries in the United States have not one man on their faculties who believes in the inerrancy of the Scriptures or in Jesus' atoning death and life-giving resurrection?

How can we account for the fact that Christ is pushed aside in many modern churches which ban all hymns concerning the Cross and the Blood? Why do we sometimes behold, even in Gospel churches, lukewarmness and indifference toward the Saviour? Why does a nation as wealthy as ours rob God? (If our people gave only 10 percent of their income for religious purposes, the churches would have $4,000,000,000 annually for the extension of the Kingdom. Actually they receive only a fraction of that amount). Why is it that a country founded by Christian pioneers, settled by Christian colonists, developed by Christian frontiersmen, richly endowed as no other nation in any other part of the world or in any previous age, now has more unbelievers, more public enemies of Jesus, than ever before?

Ask the large group of those who, despite the appeals of this "Go to Church Sunday," have kept their distance from every place of worship, why they are ashamed of the Gospel, and they will answer, "Christianity has failed because it has not prevented this World War." Nothing could be more unfair than to cry out, "The churches have been tried and failed in this crisis." Rather should we admit that our age suffers its sorrows because it has failed to try Christianity. The postman recently brought a letter with one-cent postage due to a Duxbury, Massachusetts man, who refused to accept it and pay the penny. Back it went to the dead letter office, where it was found to contain $450.00. Does any one charge the United States postal system with failure when the fault lay entirely with the man who would not accept the letter? Why, then, blame Jesus for the war when multitudes within our boundaries spurn the free offer of His help and mention His name only in foul-mouthed profanity? Recently we read that the chaplain of the United States Senate died because a druggist had mistakenly compounded a prescription with fifteen times as much narcotic as the doctor ordered. Does any sound-minded person hold the doctor responsible for that pharmacist's mistake?

Is it fair, then, to charge the Gospel with failure in this world of war, when many, ordained to preach the whole Bible, offer an erroneous substitute, a destructive counterfeit? If Jesus' Gospel were universally accepted His teachings followed, there would have been no Second World War. But because men hate Christ and love sin; because selfishness, carnal ambition, avarice, lust, love of power, and worship of money make them trample the rights of their fellow men, the world has been turned into bloody shambles. Jesus pleads, "Love one another!" but willful unbelievers insist, "Hate one another!" Jesus gave the Golden Rule, but dictators lay down the rule of steel and blood and iron.

~Walter A. Maier~

(continued with # 4)