Our Message
Once when Lord Tennyson was on vacation in a country village in England he asked an old Methodist woman with whom he was staying, "Is there any news?” "Well," she replied, "there is only one piece of news that I know, & that is that Christ died for my sins."
Tennyson responded, "That is old news, & good news, & new news." And that is our message and it can be summed up in the word
s of Jonah the prophet, ‘salvation is of the Lord’ (2:9). Very simply put, ‘we preach Christ crucified’ (1 Cor. 1:23). This is the message that every soul needs to hear.
We simply believe what the Bible teaches that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Thus we have a message of grace and salvation to preach to a needy world of lost sinners.
Salvation is the comprehensive term used to describe the complete deliverance that God, through the Person & work of Christ, and by the operation of the Holy Spirit, gives to His believing people. It includes such things as regeneration, conversion, justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification.
The Word of God shows fallen man in a dead & desperate state (Eph. 2:1-3). He urgently needs to be saved (Acts 4:12), or he must perish eternally (John 3:3). But, being depraved and dead in trespasses and sins, he cannot do a thing to effect his own salvation (Eph. 2:9; Titus 3:5).
Only the Lord Jesus Christ can save him (Matt. 1:21; Acts 12:4; 15:11; Eph.2:8-10). The whole purpose of His coming into the world was the salvation of His people (1 Tim 1:15), and this He purchased by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross of Calvary (Heb 5:8, 9; 9:12).
The only merit upon which a lost, guilty sinner may be saved is Christ’s merit and righteousness (Rom. 5:18, 19). Even the act of faith (Acts 16:31; Rom. 5:1), by which a man or woman reaches out and receives Christ, is a divine gift, given on the ground of His grace (Eph. 2:8; Phil 1:29; 2 Pet. 1:1).
The salvation which Christ imparts to His believing people is all-embracing. As to time, it deals with the past, the present, and the future (1 Cor. 1:18; Rom. 5:9). As to the entire man, it deals with body and soul and spirit (1 Thess. 5:23). It gives us a new legal standing before God (Rom. 5:1; Gal. 4:5).
It makes us partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), renewing us after the image of God (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), and assures us of eternity with Christ in the heaven that He has gone to prepare (John 14:1-3). It is an irreversible work – the Scripture speaks of the lost being saved, but never of the saved being lost.
This is essentially the message of the gospel. It is the greatest story ever told and the best thing about it is that it is absolutely true. In a world drowning in bad news, we have good news for you. It comes with all the authority of Almighty God and goes to the heart of the deepest needs of your life.
This is our message and what a message it is!