HOW unfailing is grace! "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." Who but Jesus would have said, "beginning at Jerusalem?" There He was crucified, betrayed by one apostle, denied by another, forsaken of all, delivered (by the heathen judge who had acquitted Him) to the will of the Jews; for the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. Before then, yet knowing all that was coming on Him, He beheld the city and wept over it, saying, "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day the things [which belong] to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." Judgment must befall it, "because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation."
Nevertheless when risen from the dead, in sending out the gospel, His word is "beginning at Jerusalem," as from the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." "Because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they fulfilled [them] in condemning [him]. And though they found no cause of death, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain.”
Yes, Jesus bade His servants begin at Jerusalem. It is grace most fully and expressly. It was to be preached among all nations; but "beginning at Jerusalem." All that heard the gospel must know that there the guilt was foulest, there the hatred was deadliest. Yet there the crucified and risen Lord said the gospel must begin. Such is divine grace. The most opposed, the most rancorous, must first hear repentance and remission of sins preached in His name. And the one most honored in preaching there was the very apostle publicly known to have denied Him! Oh, what grace! If the Jews took and crucified the Messiah by hand of lawless men, God's determinate counsel and foreknowledge turned it to atonement and salvation for everyone that called on His name. The evil was man's; the good was wholly God's. This is sovereign grace. And the same day that Peter thus preached there were added three thousand souls.
Now the glad tidings are preached to you of the Gentiles. This is as truly of the Lord as that the preaching should begin at Jerusalem. Be not ashamed of the gospel; do not doubt it. It is the power of God unto salvation. If you believe it not, you are yet more guilty than the Jew; for you have the Gospels, and the other inspired writings of Christianity as the Jew has not; and the great apostle of Gentiles makes this the chief boon that unconverted but favored men can possess. Have you received the gospel to the salvation of your soul?
To receive it on its evidence to reason is not to believe unto salvation. Compare John 20:8, 98Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 9For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. (John 20:8‑9). Believe the gospel because of your sheer need; believe God Himself Who speaks to you in it as a guilty sinner; believe on Jesus His Son Who suffered once for sins, Just for unjust, that He might bring us to God. It is a question of testimony; and what can match God's testimony to His own grace? Oh, sinner, believe Him as to His own Son, Who died, not for the good, but "for the ungodly." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Life is in the Son; and he that hath the Son bath life. If you believe the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.
GOD never gave you grace that you might live upon it, but grace that you might live upon Christ.
I have found that my sin bearer is my sorrow bearer.
TO bear an evil name for Christ has put many a man’s religion to the test, yet it is a yoke that Jesus requires all his disciples to put on.