Great Rock, for weary sinners made,
When storms of sin distress the soul,
Here let me rest my weary head,
When lightnings blaze and thunders roll.

Within the clefts of his dear side,
There all his saints in safety dwell.
And what from Jesus shall divide?
Not all the rage of earth or hell.

Blessed with the pardon of her sin,
My soul beneath thy shade would lie,
And sing the love that took me in,
While others sank in sin to die.

O sacred covert from the beams
That on the weary traveler beat,
How welcome are thy shade and streams;
How blest, how sacred, and how sweet!

(Tune: ‘Just As I Am’ Pg. 249)

Henry Mahan said so many times that “A man cannot tell what he does not know any more than he can come back from where he has never been”.

He of course was talking about preachers who could not preach man’s utter ruin in sin and his inability change his nature, or Gods absolute right to do what he will in his world, and to save whom he will.

They know nothing about how a sinner is brought to life, because they don’t know he is dead, or how the Holy Spirit brings sinners to Christ.

It is also true they do not know anything about who Christ died for, they don’t know a sheep from a goat, nor the power of the Blood of Christ to cleanse his people from their sin.

There is but One Gospel that gospel is the power of God unto salvation, for it reveals the righteousness of God and how he justifies sinners by his son the Lord Jesus Christ through faith in him.

~~~ O ~~~

Christ did not die to win our sympathy, nor did He die to win our friendship. He died so that a holy God could save our souls. He died so that “GOD COULD BE JUST AND THE JUSTIFIER OF THE UNGODLY.” His death is not a PATTERN but a PAYMENT. His death is not an EXAMPLE, but an ATONEMENT. His death does not REVIVE US, but it REDEEMS US. If you are not saved, it is not because His blood is not sufficient nor does not have the power to save, but because you reject this remedy. God will not pardon without satisfaction by the blood of Christ. If you ever see this “Fountain opened,” you will cry with the woman of Samaria, “Give me this water, that I thirst no more.”

When we really believe the Gospel of the Grace of God when we really believe that it is the power of God unto salvation, the only power of salvation in this wicked world of ours it is a comparatively easy thing to preach it, to preach it in its purity, to preach it in the face of a scoffing.

Believe this Gospel, and you can and will preach it. Let men say what they will, and do what they will, let them injure, ridicule, persecute, slay, believe this Gospel and you will preach it.

Men often say of some element of the Gospel: "I can’t preach that." Sometimes they mean that the world will not receive this or that. Sometimes they mean that the world will not endure this or that. Sometimes they mean that they cannot so preach this or that as to win the respect or the sympathy or the acceptance of the world. The Gospel cannot be preached?

It can be preached if you will believe it. Here is the root of all your difficulties. You do not fully believe this Gospel! Believe it! Believe it! And then it will preach itself! God has not sent us into the world to say the most plausible things we can think of; to teach men what they already believe. He has sent us to preach unpalatable truths to a world lying in wickedness; apparently absurd truths to men, proud of their intellects; mysterious truths to men who are carnal and can not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Shall we despair? Certainly, if it is left to us not only to plant and to water but also to give the increase. Certainly not if we appeal to and depend upon the Spirit of faith. Let Him but move on our hearts and we will believe these truths; and, even as it is written, “I believed and therefore have I spoken”, 2 Cor. 4:13 we also will believe and therefore speak. Let Him but move on the hearts of our hearers and they too will believe what He has led us to speak.

What care we if it be unpalatable, if it be true? For if it be true, it is urgent.

May God write these words on our hearts to his glory and our good. Amen