GENERAL SUBJECT:
THE FOUR GREAT PILLARS IN THE LORD’S RECOVERY
Message Four
The Fourth Great Pillar—the Gospel
Scripture Reading: Mark 1:1, 14-15; Matt. 24:14; Rom. 1:1-4; 1 Tim. 1:11; Eph. 6:19-20
I. Most Christians have a limited, superficial, and mistaken view concerning the gospel, and they preach a gospel that is low and superficial—John 3:16; Eph. 2:8.
II. The gospel includes all the truths in the Bible; the entire Bible is the gospel of God—1:13; Col. 1:5:
A. The truth is the gospel, and the light of the truth is the light of the gospel—Mark 1:1, 14-15; John 8:12, 32.
B. The unique commission of the church today is to preach the gospel, the content of which is the truth; our preaching of the truth is the preaching of the high gospel —Mark 16:15; 1 Tim. 2:4.
III. The gospel that we preach in the Lord’s recovery is the purest, highest, and most complete gospel—Mark 1:1; Rom. 1:1; Matt. 24:14; Eph. 2:17; 6:19-20; 1 Tim. 1:11; 2 Cor. 4:4; John 12:24:
A. The gospel is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament—Mark 1:1, 14-15.
B. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with all the processes He passed through and all the redemptive work He accomplished is the content of the gospel; hence, the gospel is of Him—Mark 1:1; Rom. 1:1-4.
C. The gospel was planned, promised, and accomplished by God, and it is the power of God unto salvation to all believers that they may be reconciled to God and regenerated by Him to be His children; hence, the gospel is the gospel of God—vv. 1, 16.
D. The gospel brings the believers into the realm of the divine ruling that they may participate in the blessings of the divine life in the divine kingdom; hence, the gospel is the gospel of the kingdom of God—Matt. 24:14; 1 Thes. 2:12.
E. Christ Himself is peace, in His death He made peace, and as the Spirit He came to preach peace as the gospel; hence, the gospel is the gospel of peace—Eph. 2:15, 17; 6:15; Acts 10:36.
F. The gospel is the gospel of the glory of the blessed God—1 Tim. 1:11.
G. Paul’s gospel is centered on the Triune God being our life in order to be one with us and to make us one with Him, that we may be the Body of Christ to express Christ in a corporate way—Rom. 8:11; 12:4-5; Eph. 1:22-23.
H. The highest point of God’s gospel is that God became a man that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead—Rom. 1:3-4; 8:3, 29:
1. God became a man through incarnation and then passed through human living, death, and resurrection in order to have a mass reproduction of Himself—John 1:14, 29; 12:24.
2. The one grain—Christ as the first God-man—has produced many grains—the many God-men, and now these many grains are blended as one loaf, which is Christ’s Body, His reproduction; this is highest point of the gospel —v. 24; 1 Cor. 10:17.
