Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2339
“He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” Mark 16:16.
IF our congregations were what they ought to be, it would be a very simple matter to preach, for a sermon would then only need to be like the orders given by a commanding officer to his troops—short, sharp, plain, clear, distinct! Our hearers would not need illustrations and metaphors—they would simply ask to be told what they must do to be saved—and the more plainly they could be told, the better pleased would they be. I am going to try, this evening, to preach that kind of sermon, sinking the preacher into the teller of good news, plainly speaking of the way of salvation. If you want to be saved, listen to my message. If you do not care for salvation, yet, perhaps, while you hear it, you may be set a-longing, and God may bless you. My text is preceded and followed by other important words, “Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned.”
The Gospel, then, is for “every creature.” Wherever there is a man, woman, or child—an intelligent creature—the Gospel is to be preached to such a person. You who are gathered tonight are clearly within that description and, therefore, the Gospel is to be preached to you. But if we are commanded to preach it, it is implied that you are commanded to hear it! To hear it without attention—to hear it without resolving to obey it—will be useless work. Hear it, therefore, as I desire to preach it, remembering that Christ stands here to hear me preach and to mark how you accept the message from Himself that I am to deliver.
This Gospel is sent to every creature because every creature needs it. Whether the creature knows it or not, he is lost—lost by nature and lost by practice, too—so much lost that he cannot save himself! He needs to be saved. Will you all believe that? If you have not believed in Christ, you are lost, and you cannot save yourself. Begin by believing that fact. But then rejoice that there is sent to you a Gospel which can save you, a Gospel which is adapted and meant for the salvation ofjust such a person as you are, for to you God says—“He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.”
My fellow Christians, you who have believed in Christ, it is time for us to bestir ourselves, for we have not preached the Gospel to every creature, yet, by any stretch of the imagination! Some persons have never preached it to anybody— some, I mean, of the very persons who are commanded to preach it to every creature! A quaint preacher says that if some of God’s people were paid ten dollars an hour for all that they have done for their Lord, they have not earned enough, yet, to buy a gingerbread cake, and I am afraid that statement is true. So very little have some persons done for the spread of the Gospel that the world is none the better for their being in it! Do I speak too severely? If I do, you can easily pass over what I say, but if not, if it is so that any here have never yet fairly and squarely spoken of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, begin at once!
When you get home, tonight, speak of the Gospel to your nearest relative, and go out, tomorrow, to your next door neighbor, or to the friend whom you can most easily reach, and tell them of the good news that your Lord has revealed to you, and so help to preach the Gospel to every creature! An army chaplain once said to the Duke of Wellington, “Do you think that it is of any use our taking the Gospel to the hill tribes in India? Will they ever receive it?” The duke replied, “What are your marching orders?” That was the only answer he gave! Stern disciplinarian as that great soldier was, he only needed marching orders and he obeyed—and he meant that every soldier of the Cross must obey the marching or-
ders of Christ, his great Commander. Go you, therefore, as far as your position and capabilities allow you, and tell to every creature the word of the Gospel as it is recorded in my text, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.”
I want to do my part, tonight, as far as my feeble voice will permit me. And I will speak a few words, first, concerning belief. Secondly, concerning Baptism. And, thirdly, concerning being saved. We shall get the whole text clearly in considering those three points.
I. First, CONCERNING BELIEVING. This is the main point. This is the hinge of salvation, for he that believes in Christ is not condemned—he that believes in Him has everlasting life.
Now, concerning believing, let me, ask, first, What is to be believed? Well, you are to believe that you have broken the Law of God and that, consequently, you are under condemnation. But that God, in His infinite mercy, has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world that you might live through Him. His Divine Son—His only-begotten Son—was born of Mary, as a Man of the substance of His mother, feeling as we do and was, in all respects, most truly Man. Being here, He obeyed His Father’s will and, when the time came, He gave Himself up as a Sacrifice for guilty men. He died, “the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” Himself being without sin, He took upon Himself the sin of His people— “Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” Being found with human sin imputed to Him, He suffered in the place of those whose sins He bore. On the Cross His blood was shed—for without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin—and by that shedding of blood He blotted out the iniquity of all those who put their trust in Him. This is what you have to believe, that—