ROM. i. 16. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is
the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to
the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
PAUL was not a mere declaimer. He gave to the haughty
Jew and the philosophic Greek the most conclusive reason
for his noble avowal.
The subject is, the Power of the Gospel. What does
the Gospel profess to do? Has the Gospel been success-
ful? In what does its power lie?
I. What does the Gospel profess to do? It professes to
save from the wrath to come all who believe in it. Its
chief grand aim is to lift up the ruined moral nature of
man and make it as holy as God is holy, and therefore fit
it for the songs and services of the eternal. To understand
the nature and magnitude of this work, look at the condi-
tion of unsaved man. It is enmity against God, and that
is the hardest thing to overcome. Knowledge does not
tame this enmity. The man himself cannot do it. No-
thing takes it away but the power of God.
II. Has the Gospel been successful? It has. It has
done all it professes to do, not on a few, but on many;
not upon one class and that the best, but upon all classes,
even the worst. See what it has done in England, how it
has changed Madagascar, how it has transformed the
Sandwich Islands, how it has warmed the heart of many a
dweller amid the eternal snows. To-day it is as power-
ful as ever. It will slay any sinner’s enmity now as sharply
as it slew Saul’s on the way to Damascus.
III. In what does its power lie? In many things, and
in this among others—it represents God in a very vivid
way loving the sinner. We are always attracted and over-
come by love. The Divine Father looked down on the
only Son He had, dying. If you have in your heart the
slightest enmity against God, think of this.
Then the power of the Gospel lies in this too: it is
accompanied, when preached, by the Divine Spirit.
Alexander MacAuslane, D.D.