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THE KING’S BUSINESS
II. What Is the Missionary’s Message? W e come then directly to the question, What is the Missionary’s Message? What is the message with which the Lord Jesus has entrusted His messengers and ambas sadors ? In regard to that we are not left to our own speculations or guesses. The texts which I gave at the beginning tell us very plainly and unmistakably just what is the message o f the Messenger or Ambassador o f Jesus Christ: “And He, said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). “And Jesus came to them, and spake unto them, saying, all authority hath been given unto me in heaven and upon earth. Go ye therefore, and maké disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and o f the Son and of the Holy Ghost : teàching them to observé all things whatsoever I commanded you : and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:18-20). It is very evident from these two passages which contain our Lord’s parting statement of the message that He would have His messen gers carry to the ends o f the earth, that the missionary’s message is “the Gospel,” the exact and full Gospel. He said to His disciples, His first missionaries, ' on this occasion, one o f the most solemn in all this world’s history : “ Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature,” and as Matthew records it, He added: “ Teaching them to observe all things what soever I commanded you : and lo, I ’am with you aiway, fevqn unto the end o f the age.” This makes it plain that it was not merely the Gospel that was to be their message, but the full Gospel. That brings us to the question, What is the Gospel ? We \are not left to speculate about that either, God Himself has defined the Gos pel. “ Gospel” means, as you all know, “ Good News.” What is the Good News that- the Lord Jesus bade’ His disciples to go and preach to every creature, and that He bids the modern missionary, either at home or abroad, to preach to everyone to whom he has opportunity to preach? ’ The
greatest missionary in all the history of the church, the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit, has answered that question and defined “ T h e G ospel ." He says in 1 Cor. 1-4, “ Now I make known to you, brethren, the ■Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, wherein also ye stand . . . . for I delivered unto you first o f all that which also I received, how that Christ died fo r our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried ; and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” This is God’s own definition of thè Gospel. 1. We see then that the first part o f the Good News is that “ Christ died fo r our sins.” That is the first part o f the mis sionary’s message, the message that Jesus Christ commanded the missionary to take to all lands, the atoning death o f Jesus Christ. Any man who is not preaching and iterating and re-iterating the atoning death o f Jesus Christ is untrue to his God-given commission. He is not a true missionary o f Jesus Christ. T h e’ Holy Spirit through this same Apostle Paul, the greatest missionary in the history o f the church, has developed this part of the Gos pel again and again in his epistles. For example. Paul says in his. epistle to the Galatians (Gal. 3:10-13), “ for as many as are o f the works of thé law are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is èveryone who. continueth not in all things that are written in the book o f the law to do them. .' . . Christ redeemed us from the curse ó f the law, having become a curse for us: For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” He says again in 2 Cor. 5 :21, a letter written to another community where he ha'd worked as a foreign missionary,- “Him who knew no sin He made to; be sin on our behalf; that we might become the right eousness o f God in Him.” Hé says again, writing to the church at Ephesus, where he had also been a foreign missionary for more than two years, in one o f the most successful missionary enterprises, not only O f his life, but o f all history,-iii Eph. 1:7:
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