ROM. i. 16. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.”

IN the Apostle’s days there were some things about the
Gospel which might seem things to be ashamed of. It
emanated from Judea, and the Jews were a hated race.
It told of salvation through One who had been crucified.
It proclaimed that the Crucified One had risen again.
There are still nowadays people who are ashamed of the
Gospel.
I. We have no need to be ashamed of the evidence by
which the Gospel is supported. The glad tidings which
Paul loved to proclaim were of Divine origin.
1. The historical proof of the Divine origin of the
Gospel.
2. It is also proved by prophecy being all fulfilled in
Christ.
3. The moral argument by which the Divine origin of
the Gospel is attested. Christ was not a development of
His generation. Think of the perfection of His intellect-
ual and moral greatness, and say how that could have
been the creation of His times.
II. We have no need to be ashamed of the intellectual
calibre of those who have been the chief representatives of
the Gospel of Christ. Some of the greatest names on the
historian’s page are those of the ensign-bearers of the cross.
III. We have no need to be ashamed of the effects
which the Gospel has produced among those and through
those who have accepted it. It has revolutionized the cha-
racter of individuals—it has elevated and purified domestic
life—it has stood between class and class as the good
Samaritan of society—it has laid deep and broad the foun-
dations of civil and religious liberty. These are things
to glory in. To all the blasphemies of her assailants the
Gospel may make reply in the words of her Divine Master:
“Many good works have I shown you from My Father;
for which of these do ye stone Me?”
W. M. Taylor, D.D.