Stop Defending The Bible (part 2) - [1 Corinthians 1:17ff]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Does this sound familiar to you? Charles Spurgeon, the best way to spread the gospel is to spread the gospel.

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I believe that the best way of defending the gospel is to spread the gospel. Suppose a number of persons were to take it into their heads that they had to defend a lion, a full -grown king of beasts.

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There he is in the cage and here come all the soldiers of the army to fight for him. Well, I would suggest to you,

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Spurgeon said, if they would not object and feel that it was humbling to them, that they should kindly stand back and open the door and let that lion out.

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I believe that would be the best way of defending him for he will take care of himself. The best apology for the gospel is to let the gospel out.

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Never mind defending Deuteronomy or the whole of the Pentateuch. Preach Jesus Christ in him crucified.

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Let the lion out and see who will dare approach him. The lion of the tribe of Judah will soon drive away all his adversaries.

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This was how Christ's first disciples worked. They preached Jesus Christ wherever they went and they did not stop to apologize, but boldly bore their witness concerning him.

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Last week I gave a quote to start the sermon from Charles Spurgeon about a lion, which was a little bit different.

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He loved that story so much that he often used it in his sermons. So I thought I would follow Charles Haddon Spurgeon this morning and quote it as well to remind you that the most important thing about evangelism is giving people the good news.

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Very simple this morning. We'll follow up from last week. And that is I don't want you to waste your valuable time defending the scriptures.

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I want you to be proclaiming Christ Jesus. As you know, there's no salvation alternative.

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It'd be one thing if there were two saviors, right? Jesus and someone else.

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And then you could spend maybe not so much time on Jesus, you could spend time preaching that other salvation. But since there's only salvation in Christ Jesus, Acts 4 .12,

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there's salvation in what? No one else, no other. There's no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

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I mean, if there was another perfect sin bearer, we don't have to spend as much time preaching

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Christ. If there was someone who was a heavenly father, who loved sinners so much that he sent his son, who also loved sinners so much and who could be the sin bearer and perfect life liver, then you know what?

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Maybe we don't have to preach Christ as much. But God has told us that we are to preach the gospel.

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Dear friend, as you know, every person that you meet will either go to heaven or hell, right?

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There's no in -between. When I want to be motivated for evangelism, I think of hell because I say to myself,

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I deserve to go but I don't because Jesus paid for my sins at Calvary. And also,

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I don't want other people to go. Do you want your family members to go? Of course not. Do you want your friends to go? Of course not.

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You don't want anybody to go, even your enemies. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living

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God. And no one ever gets saved by talking to them about manuscript evidence and defending the

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Bible, but everyone who's saved gets saved when we preach Christ Jesus the Lord.

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Romans 10, How shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?

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How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they're sent? Just as it is written,

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How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things.

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Have you ever looked at feet? Really? Your feet are the weirdest thing. How about you?

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How do you make feet beautiful? By bringing the good news. Feet are beautiful of those who bring glad tidings of good things.

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So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Not defense, not arguing, not debating, not bickering, but a proclamation of the free gospel that Jesus Christ has earned for sinners.

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That's what we need to do. I don't want anyone, even my enemies, to go to what the

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Bible has described hell as like punishment, torment, fire, unquenchable fire, eternal fire, lake of fire, destruction, second death, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, the pit and the worm.

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Hell is eternal and hell is forever. And we have been rescued from that wrath. And we have good news for people.

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So if you take your Bibles, please, and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, I'd like to pick up where I left off last week, and that is very simple outline this morning.

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Reasons you should stop defending the Bible. Reasons you should stop defending the Bible. We want to evangelize properly.

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And if you have 10 minutes to talk to somebody about the Lord, I don't want you to waste a lot of time on things that aren't important.

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I'm not saying you can't answer a question. I'm not saying you can't say something about fossil records. But I want you to get back on target.

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If you've got 90 seconds and you're in an airplane, and the pilot says, both engines are out, we're going to crash, prepare to meet

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God. What do you say in those 10 minutes? What do you say in those 90 seconds?

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And everything in us, I think, wants to defend the Bible. And I want to make sure you realize that you don't need to defend the

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Bible. To quote the late J. Adams, when he said to some male seminary students, just between us girls, we don't argue with unbelievers, we evangelize them.

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That's what we're after, telling people the good news. The first reason we saw to stop defending the

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Bible last week is not found in 1 Corinthians 1, but just a quick review. The first reason is the Bible never defends itself.

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Remember, we looked at Genesis and its start, John and its start. We looked at Hebrews and its start. And even if I looked at the book of Revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ which

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God gave Him to show His servants the things that must take place soon. There's just this bold proclamation in the book of Revelation.

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The Gospel of Mark, it says in 1 .1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is a declaration, not a defense.

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He is not back on His heels, He is on His proverbial toes. The second reason we looked at last week that you should not defend the

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Bible is that you're never told to defend the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it say, defend the

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Bible, it needs defending. Some had asked the question, well, what about 1 Peter 3 .15?

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You're supposed to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

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And literally in the Greek, for the hope that's among you all in ye. What's the hope that we all have?

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Our own personal testimonies? The hope that we all have is the hope that 1 Peter 1 talks about, the hope of eternal life through the resurrection of the dead.

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We all have the same reason for the hope that's in us. That's not a verse to defend the

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Bible. That's a verse to talk about who Jesus is. Thirdly, we looked at last week why we shouldn't defend the

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Bible, is since you can't prove the Bible to be true with anything less than the Bible, don't defend it.

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In other words, how would you defend the Bible? With what? Logic, rationale, archaeological digs?

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Those won't work, especially if miracles don't work. What did Jesus say in Luke 16?

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He said to them, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

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The greatest miracle of all, raising someone from the dead, that doesn't change a heart. People say, well, you know what,

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I watched that show, I went to hell and back. And a boy in Nebraska writes a book, you know,

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Heaven is for Real. A, he didn't go to heaven, that boy didn't, and B, nobody's gone to hell and back.

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But if they somehow could go there and come back, that's not going to change the heart because miracles don't change an unbelieving heart.

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And the fourth review is from 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Stop defending the

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Bible because you are to give unbelievers what they don't want. They want an argument about Scripture.

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They want to engage you about these things to prove the Bible not true. But we're not supposed to give them that. Do you remember what we saw?

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Look at 1 Corinthians 1 .21. Just the classic text about God's great wisdom through a crucified

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Messiah. 1 .21 of 1 Corinthians. For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know

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God. God was okay with, no. God was, you know, so -so with, no.

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He was well pleased. What's God well pleased with? Through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

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This is what God wants us to do. To talk about what the Lord has done. Who He is. Verse 22.

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We know what people want. Jews ask for a sign. Some big to -do. Greeks, you know, they're philosophers so they search for wisdom.

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But we have a different message. Paul has a divine mandate. We have a divine mandate. We preach.

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We proclaim ongoing present tense. Christ, the Messiah, crucified. And do the

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Jews think it's a big sign? No, it's a stumbling block. Do Gentiles think it's wisdom? No, they think it's foolishness.

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I mean, how do you market the cross? Remember back at, well, at least I remember back at University of Nebraska in 79 taking marketing classes.

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And they talked about the four P's of marketing, right? Product. I guess you didn't go to school there.

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Place, price, and what's the last one? Promotion. How do you market a product?

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How do you market the cross? The Jews knew about crosses.

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Just listen to Deuteronomy 21. If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he's put to death, you hang him on a tree.

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His corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day. For he who is hanged is accursed of God.

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You mean to tell me this is the Messiah, this cursed one who hangs on a tree? Yes. Yes.

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Christ crucified. We don't discuss, we don't debate, we don't argue, we don't defend, we proclaim.

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It sounds like hate speech, I know. But we proclaim anyway. You mean to tell me that my sins against this holy

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God deserve an eternal wrath? Yes, that's what I'm telling you. It's like taking a stick and jabbing it in someone's eye.

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They don't like it. This is intolerant. This is rude. We don't accept it. Oh, they will accept manuscript discussions, and did men write the

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Bible, and all this other stuff about archaeological digs. They'll talk about that. And now we move to the new information.

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Reason number five. I have kind of a blunt way of saying it and a nice way of saying number five.

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Which one shall I go for? The blunt. Honestly, that's what I love about this congregation.

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I love you because you want the truth. Right? Just please tell me the truth.

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Maybe I'll go for the nice way first, and then I'll tell you the other. I'll give you both. How's that? The fifth reason why you should stop defending the

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Bible is that God purposely uses evangelists and people who match the foolish message.

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He purposely has the foolish message, and he has what at least other people would think foolish people deliver it.

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That's the nice way. Here's the blunt way. Wanting to look good when you evangelize is a sin.

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I want to win this argument. I don't want to look stupid. I don't want to look like some kind of old, you know, ancient, you know, cave dweller.

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But God's choices when he has evangelism preach and God's choices of the message makes him show no concern what men want.

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People match the message. Do you see down in verse 26? For consider your calling, brothers. That means think about it for a long time.

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Go for an hour walk and think about this. Not at just a passing glance, but he says, for consider your calling, brothers.

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Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.

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But God chose. Does God choose? Verse 27, God chose. Verse 27, God chose. Verse 28,

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God chose. How does a choosing God? Verse 27, God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world. He's talking about us.

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Even things that are not. Lower caste people to bring to nothing things that are for all one great glorious grand purpose so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

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God uses people like us to evangelize. I bet you if we went around the room and talked about personal testimony, so we would just see in the province of God.

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Oh, my six year old came home from a wanna and I just wanted some time away from my child.

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So I dropped him at this place called Bedlam Bible Church and they learned a bunch of Bible verses and they had to repeat them to adults.

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And God used those words from my five year old son and I became a believer. I bet we'd hear those kind of stories.

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How God providentially brought someone into your life to give you this message. Maybe it was a 90 year old frail grandma.

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But the word is powerful to do its work. The point is you never have to feel or think that you're incompetent to give the gospel.

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If you're a Christian, you know the gospel. You know, Christ life, Christ death, Christ burial, Christ resurrection,

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Christ ascension, and you know about sin and you give them the message. Like, well, what if they're more more if they're smarter than I am?

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Yeah, they probably will be. I mean, I was never in the military, but I wish I was just so I could kind of talk shop with people and maybe get some,

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I don't know, respect from military people. I don't know, make myself look good. But I would be if I was in the military,

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I'd be a grunt Marine on the front lines. Because I don't know about all this kind of stuff and watching your back and coming over and getting cut off and all these kind of getting put in some kind of fire sack and all these terms.

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I have no idea about any of that stuff. So do I have to be the general to evangelize?

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Do you have to be the colonel to evangelize? Or can you just be the grunt? God sends you out.

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And I don't want you to evangelize on company time because you're told to make widgets on company time or whatever you do. But there are plenty of opportunities.

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You, in other words, know plenty. So minimize time defending and maximize time talking about the

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Lord. And you see that with Paul. You see that with Peter. See that with Jesus. You see the John the Baptist. That's what they did.

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I love it when I meet somebody that I know is twice as smart as I am. But God has chosen to work that way.

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Foolish, weak, yes. Strong, no. I've got the message that can do its work.

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By the way, why is anybody a Christian? Verse 30. What's the efficient cause of you becoming a

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Christian? Was it your evangelist friend or mother or brother or child? No. And because of him, the triune

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God, he's talking about here the Father, you are in Christ Jesus, became to us wisdom from God.

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What's wisdom from God look like in Jesus? Righteousness, sanctification. He set apart redemption.

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So that, as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. If you're not a blue blood, rich, influential, powerful person, can you evangelize?

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And the answer is yes. The gospel, dear friends, does not depend on perfect people preaching it.

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What if you're not Cornelius Van Til or R .C. Sproul? Can you evangelize? Of course you can.

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It's by his doing. Weak people are part of the program. But as many as received him,

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John says, to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. So what we do as Christians is we say, we have been redeemed.

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We have been saved. We've been reconciled to God. And therefore, we would like to do what he says because we'd like to live a life of gratitude as Pradeep even prayed.

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And that life of gratitude is to evangelize to the glory of God and do it his way and not our way. And by the way, just as a reminder, if you've ever,

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I guess the word to get your attention, chomped it in evangelism. Have you ever thought, I'm just ashamed and I didn't say the right thing or I bit my tongue or I should have said that and I didn't say it?

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Dear friends, you stand in Christ Jesus. Did you know that? The greatest evangelist who ever lived.

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And when God sees you, he sees the perfect evangelist because he sees the son. You're forgiven for all your evangelistic faux pas, sins and mistakes.

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Let me give you another reason why you should stop defending the Bible. Is that men and women who are unbelievers are depraved.

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Men and women are depraved. Turn to Ephesians chapter 4, please. I want to continue this theme with the

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Pauline apostle. We will. The apostle

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Paul, I want to go back to 1 Corinthians, but for now, go to Ephesians chapter 4. I want to remind you that when you evangelize people, they might be smart like Plato.

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They might be wise like Socrates. But there's something about their mind.

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You need to know that will help you when you evangelize. It will remind you. Oh, yeah. I wanted to try to debate and rational rationalize and reckon with them and do all this stuff and evidence demands a verdict type of thing.

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But I have to remember something about the fall. Remember the New England primer? A. In Adam's fall.

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Didn't sound too good, but I heard you. We sinned all. Right. Good. What happened at the fall?

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Well, Paul has been talking about what it's like to be in Christ with this great plan of God. And he gets into this practical section in chapter 4.

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And he says this. Please remember this when you evangelize. Now, I say this. All right.

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Now, this I say. Verse 17 of chapter 4. And testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as Gentiles, unbelievers.

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Don't walk like they do. How do they walk? We're not talking about walking, walking.

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But what's their life? They walk in the, don't forget this, futility of their minds.

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Unbelievers have defective minds. They have a mind that's meant to worship

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God and they don't. A mind meant to honor God and they don't. A mind meant to thank

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God and they don't. This word futility means you've got a goal and you can't get there.

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And the goal is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and they can't get there. Think of the words like this. If their mind is meaningless, worthless when it comes to spiritual things.

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I'm not saying they can't build a bridge. I'm talking about when it comes to spiritual discernment. Useless.

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There's God's revelation in the book. There's God's revelation in nature and their mind, it does not compute, does not compute.

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So why would I spend time trying to argue with somebody whose mind doesn't work? I would rather say, you know what?

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Let me give you, I don't know how God does this, but somehow the end is salvation and the means is evangelism through this powerful word, through this weak person.

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So I'm just going to stick to what I've been told to do. One translation of this word futility translates as good for nothing notions.

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As I've been taught and I've taught you, you've got the unbeliever, they've got the AM antenna and we've got a message that's going out on FM.

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And to make things worse, their antenna is broken. Their minds are futile. They can't recognize spiritual truth, the capacity they have for understanding the

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Bible isn't there. Verse 18, this is almost like the spiral of sin leads to more sin.

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As Augustine said, the punishment of sin is sin. They are darkened in their understanding. Think about a dimmer light just going from off slowly, from on slowly off, alienated from the life of God.

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Why? Because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart, their calloused heart.

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I've been told don't trust a man without callouses on his hands. But one thing

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I know about every unbeliever, their hearts are calloused. What can pierce through that callous?

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It's got to be the word of God, it can't be my intellect. I know they believe in God, Romans 1.

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I know they have a conscience, Romans 1 and 2. So therefore, I'm just going to proclaim it. I don't have to defend. Verse 19, they become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality.

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I mean, they are all in. How all in are they with sin? How morally calloused are they?

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How insensitive are they to spiritual truth? They're greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

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It's like Proverbs 10, doing wickedness is a sport to a fool. The will of God is affected by the fall.

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The conscience is affected... I'm sorry, the will of man is affected by the fall. The conscience is affected by the fall.

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You looked at yourself in the mirror today, if you did, and you said the body is affected by the what? Fall. If you say,

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I'm going to talk to someone and they're neutral. Their minds are just in neutral and they're kind of coming to this, you know, freely and no other kind of external things, no other internal things.

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They're neutral and I'll just talk to them. Colossians 1 says people who are unbelievers are hostile in mind.

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They can't... You do the four Ps of marketing to the gospel. If the gospel is powerful, and it is, it does its work.

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If I do the four Ps of marketing to some kind of rationalistic explanation and always on my heels defending, it's not going to work.

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Proves nothing to the unbeliever. Number seven. Reason number seven, and as every preacher knows,

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Pastor Steve knows this and the other men that are here that are preached, there's something in your sermon that you're kind of waiting to tell people.

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You're like, you know what? This is a good section. This is a section I can get fired up about.

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I mean, I can get fired up about the whole thing, but this is that point right here where you think, I can't wait to say this.

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And so we'll close in prayer. We'll do this next Sunday. Oh, no, sorry. We still have time.

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There is a clock up there. I have no concern about the clock. Number seven.

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Why shouldn't you defend the Bible? Answer, you can't even prove the Bible is inspired to yourself.

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How did you figure out the Bible to be true, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient? Did you figure it out?

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No, who did it? The internal testimony of the Spirit of God. I couldn't make myself believe in the

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Bible. Why am I trying to get other people to believe in the Bible? Turn back to John 10, please.

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John 10. As you know, R .C. Sproul was a wonderful Bible teacher. And if you go to Ligonier Ministries, I would firmly and commend their wonderful ministry.

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R .C. always gave Latin words. And so I'm going to give you four Latin words today that are pretty simple.

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Only Latin I like is words that are very similar to the English words. And so this is the testimonium internum spiritu sancti.

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Please translate that. Internal, internum, testimonium, testimony, spiritu, spirit, sancti,

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Holy Spirit. The internal testimony of the Spirit of God. That's how we know the

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Bible is true. Nobody proved it scientifically. Now, when

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I go see the Pilate stone outside of Caesarea by the

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Sea in Israel, that he discovered in an archaeological dig, a stone that talks about Pontius Pilate, I say to myself as a

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Christian, this is real. This is history. But do you know how many thousands of people, how many thousands of Jewish people walk past that?

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That doesn't save anybody. It confirms what we know that's wonderful for us.

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It's the testimony, the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. We can't prove inspiration.

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Who does? The Holy Spirit. And you see that recognition here. Not in an audible voice.

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Dear God, why is the Bible true? I said it's true. Dear God, how do

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I know this book is true? My bosom is burning. Book of Mormon. Dear God, teach me that this book is true.

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You see the effects of it here in John chapter 10, verse 25.

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Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness among me.

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But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. Mark this, dear congregation, verse 27.

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My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. The Spirit of God bears witness to our spirit and we understand.

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Verse 28, I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the

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Father are one. This is the inward work of the Holy Spirit and we see the fruit here. We see the evidence right there.

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Reason number eight that you shouldn't defend the Bible. Very closely related but I just wanted to make another point.

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Reason eight, you can't talk people into loving what they hate and into hating what they love.

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You say, but I could try. You can't talk people into loving what they hate and hating what they love. John 3, and this is the judgment.

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The light is coming to the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.

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Sinners love sin. Unbelievers love sin with their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, here's the question.

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Why don't you take a look at 1 Corinthians 2? Let's go back there for a second. 1 Corinthians 2, why do people love sin so much?

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What's the deal with all this? And I think if you understand the reason, it might help you stay on target.

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And that is talk about law and gospel, God's standard of holiness. And then how Jesus met that and offers it by faith alone.

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1 Corinthians 2, 14, the natural person. That's the unbeliever.

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That's not the supernatural person, the believer. The unbeliever does not accept the things of the

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Spirit of God. They are folly to him and he's not able to understand because they're spiritually discerned.

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Why do people disbelieve? I'll give you the answer through two ungodly philosophers who at least have the decency to be honest.

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Nietzsche. We immoralists, sexual immoralists, are trying with all of our strength to take the concept of guilt and the concept of punishment out of the world again.

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I want to sin and I don't want a conscience and creation to somehow condemn me.

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Conscience either accusing or excusing. My conscience is accusing me because adultery is written on my heart, that is, do not commit it.

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So I've got to come up with some kind of machination so that the world is meaningless and I can do what

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I want. That's how the unbeliever thinks and at least he's honest. And by the way, if you're a

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Christian, you grow up in a Christian home and you're 18, 22, 25, and you begin to say,

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I'm not really sure I believe in the Bible anymore. You know what I always say to you? If a young man comes and says that to me,

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I always say, I'm sorry to hear that. What's her name? And the same goes true for young ladies and for older people who want to do things they ought not to do.

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Huxley, who wrote Brave New World, if you've never read it, that's okay, we're living in it.

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I had motive for not wanting the world to have meaning. Consequently, assumed that it had none and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.

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One click away on Google if he was in our century. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with the problem in pure metaphysics.

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It's not metaphysics, it's not like some philosophy. He's concerned to prove there's no

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God for a valid reason. Why? He personally should not do as he wants to do.

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Or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in a way to find most advantageous for themselves.

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Here's the punchline for Huxley. For myself, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.

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I'd like to be sexually free to do whatever I want. I can't have this be true. Man wrote it.

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There's contradictions. Archaeology doesn't match up. And you see the machinations going through their mind. There's a reason for that.

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How can you cut through that with your own rationale? There's no possible way.

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Unbelievers stand accused by creation. They're already condemned.

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How can I then rationalize with them to be out of that scenario? I need to give them not general revelation or my own thoughts.

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I need to give them special revelation, the gospel. How do you deal with people in Romans 1?

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Even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.

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Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four -footed animals and crawling creatures.

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How do you evangelize people that worship bugs and scorpions and money and fame?

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The fool has said in his heart, there's what? They're not stupid.

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It's not an IQ issue. It's a moral issue. And then lastly, why should you stop defending the

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Bible and we'll go out on a very, very high note, and that is the Lord Jesus never defended the

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Bible. Jesus never defended the Bible. And I know you could say to me,

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WWJD doesn't always work. That's true. Does anybody here still have a bracelet on WWJD?

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Nobody? Wow, that's amazing. Very mature congregation. There are some things

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Jesus does we can't follow his example. Right? He's the perfect God -man. He dies a subordinary death.

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There are some things we can imitate, and when we watch him pray, and then he says, pray like this.

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Oh, he's taught us to pray. There are some things when we watch Jesus that would be good for us to learn. What was

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Jesus' view of the Old Testament? Jesus comes on the scene, and at age 30, he's instituted into the ministry of proclamation, and he's prophet, priest, and king.

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What would be the first thing Jesus would do if there were errors in the Old Testament? The Old Testament's pretty big.

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There's a lot of stuff in the Old Testament. The first thing Jesus would do if he had any business being the prophet is that Jesus would come, and he would tell us, while some of this is true, this whole deal with Jonah, you know, and some fish, and spitting him up, and all that.

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I mean, it's just like this allegory of Israel, and, you know, Song of Solomon, or whatever. 400 years after Malachi has been written in our

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Bible, or 2 Chronicles in the Jewish Bible, 400 years is a lot of years for manuscript evidence, for other things to get involved, books added, books subtracted.

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What did Jesus do? Before he ever said, you ought to repent of your sins, let me correct the

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Bible. The most amazing thing about Jesus' view of the Bible is what he didn't do, and he didn't defend it.

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It's striking reassurance that the Bible is trustworthy because Jesus didn't correct it. 400 years since God has spoken.

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Jesus the Messiah would arrive and say, you know what, I demand a pure text. I demand an inerrant text.

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I demand that these things be corrected. I'm the Messiah, let me correct them. But he didn't do it.

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He didn't do one of those things. Jesus had a full confidence in the reliance of Scripture.

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By the way, this is the template for me, and I want it to be for you. When you think of the Bible, have the most worshipful view of it, and that is the view of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Sit at his feet and watch how he interacts with the

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Bible. Sometimes he just spoke things, yes, but many times he had a phrase that he used. And do you remember the phrase?

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Well, the Mishnah said, if it had been written, the Jewish tradition said,

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I know Moses said but, there's a lot of different writers in the

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Pentateuch. They sound different. Maybe one's this guy, J. One's this guy, P. One's this guy, who knows what.

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But he didn't do that. He used three English words regularly. It is written.

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It's written. It is written in the Greek as simple. It is written. It stands written, and it will always be written.

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Relevant throughout all the ages. Why did Jesus say, go make disciples, teach them, baptize,

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I'm with you always, even to the end of the what? Even until the Bible's no longer relevant, you know, there's a lot of changes we have, and different things, and different takes psychologically.

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No, even to the end of the what? Age, it's that relevant. Regularly, Jesus said, it is written, using language of Old Testament legal attestation.

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I put in my hand up, and I swear to God, this is true. But Jesus answered

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Satan and said, it is written. Man shall not live on bread alone. Jesus said to Satan, on the other hand, it is written.

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You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Jesus said to him, go Satan, for it is written.

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You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. This is the one Jesus said about whom it is written.

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Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you. And Jesus said to them, it is written.

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My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a robber's den. The son of man is to go just as it is written of him.

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But woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.

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Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written, I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.

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If the Old Testament had errors, it would be disingenuous of the Messiah to say such a thing.

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Unless they were 100 % true, it would be a manipulation of people. It would be sheer and shrewd audience manipulation.

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Here's what this text says if it has no authority and import. It would be

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Jesus for egregious, sinful, personal gain. I mean, you'll have to study sometime in Matthew 22.

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Did you know Jesus won an argument with false teachers based on a verb tense of the Old Testament?

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I love that. I didn't even know what a verb was until I went to seminary. I should have paid attention in elementary school.

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I did watch TV, though, so I do know that a conjunction is function.

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I do know that. They hook up clauses and phrases. You know, in seminary, to get to the

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Greek class, we had to take an English refresher. What's a participle? What's a gerund? What's a passive? What's an indirect object?

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All those things. Jesus argues with the Sadducees, and he wins it with a proper verb tense, so precise.

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It wasn't like, well, you know what? The big picture of the Old Testament's true. There's a Creator. He's a

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Redeemer. But, you know, like the minutia, we don't go for. No. And you may correct

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Billy Graham on some of his theology, but when Billy Graham often said, the

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Bible says, I think that'd be good for us to say regularly. The Bible says.

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It's written. I mean, I can't make you believe it. I want you to believe it. I once thought like you.

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You can say whatever you'd like. When Jesus looks at the Bible, not only does he see the minutia, but he sees the most supernatural things in the

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Bible. Lot, Sodom, Gomorrah, Adam, Eve, Noah.

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I mean, I'd want to hide those if they weren't true. And that's what Jesus talks about. The most unbelievable or supernatural passages,

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Jesus corroborates their validity, their historicity, by quoting them. He confirms the most supernatural sections of the

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Old Testament that have confounded liberals to this day. I know when you meet someone, you don't have to be rude and say, you know what?

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I was told by the pastor, I can't talk about any of these things. And so therefore, let me talk about Jesus. There's times, but if I've got 10 minutes,

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I'm not going to waste my time. I need to preach

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Christ Jesus. That's what saves people. And you know what? You might not ever see those people get saved.

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You might die. And then 40 years later, they come to faith. You'll see them in heaven. How powerful is the

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Word of God? You see what God did even with Exodus. Your job here,

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Moses and people, is to just stand over here and be quiet. The Red Sea parts. Mountain here.

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Mountain here. Egyptians here. What am I going to do? The Red Sea's there. I have no way out.

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And the Word of God is powerful. It creates. The Word of God incarnate. We just give people the

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Bible. And I know what's going to happen. They're going to think we're just Bible weirdos, that we're bibliologists.

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But when we preach Christ, here's the most wonderful thing maybe. This Savior is such a good

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Savior that you don't have to do anything to get saved. In the sense of earning, of being good, of being better, of coming to the

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Lord Jesus, figuring out all my sins and stopping them, we believe in what?

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Sola Fide. Don't we not? And we offer. Here's faith.

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If you want to say repent, fine. Here, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because God saves sinners. There's nothing antecedent to faith.

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You don't have to do anything in order to. This is such great news that I offer you that you can be saved while you're in your sins and you will be then saved from your sins.

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Here's the sin bearer and you must believe. I read this week John Owen. I'm trying to read a lot of John Owen lately.

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And John Owen said, we are Sola Fideans. I'd have that on a t -shirt, but nobody would know what it meant.

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We are Sola Fideans. I offer you salvation, full and free. Every other religion, you've got to work for it.

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And by the way, you better work hard. Here's the offer to unbelievers as we tell them about the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

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Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come and buy and eat.

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Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. I offer you the gospel.

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And your response should be belief. Your response should be thinking differently, repentance. Your response should be, and it will be that when the

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Spirit of God moves. If you're here and you're not a

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Christian, I don't need to defend the Bible. But you've heard the good news today that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. Christ dies for ungodly people, just like me, just like you. And the response is faith.

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And for you as Christians, I've been asked this question a lot. Dear pastor, we're new to the church.

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What's the program for evangelism here? Great question. What's the answer? You're the answer.

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You are the program for evangelism at Bethlehem Bible Church. Could anybody be saved?

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Right? I'm included. But that's how God has done it. We gather to be edified, and we scatter to evangelize.

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Oh, we have given the Jesus movie to every household in West Boylston in years past.

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But we're the ones. We hear about the good news on Sunday. All week long our conscience says, Law, law, law, law.

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Our boss says, Law, law, law, law. And we come on Sunday to serve God. Yes, in one way, but to be served.

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It's called the worship service. Who's serving whom? And frail, sinful people like me serve you the riches of Christ through these very scriptures.

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God is serving you and reminding you, Christian, you don't have to pay for your sins. You're free and clear with God.

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He's not mad at you. He's not angry with you because He took out all the punishment for your sins even this last week on Jesus.

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So you are free to evangelize. You're free to trust God. You're free to be thankful. You're free to go tell people about the good news.

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Even though you're a hypocrite just like me, we still tell people the good news. And somehow God uses that foolish message through foolish people to save people.

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Oh, eternity will only show us people and how they got saved in different ways.

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The word of God is powerful. Martin Luther was asked the question, How did you start the

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Reformation? What do you think he'd say? How do you start the Reformation? I did this,

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I did that. Luther said, I preached the word of God.

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Then I went to Wittenberg with Philip and Ann Storf and had a beer. And then

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I went home and went to bed. And the word of God did its work. Isn't that wonderful?

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If you don't like that and you're offended, let me give you the different version. I preached the word of God. I went and had no duels.

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I'm sorry. The Baptists don't usually talk about the beer in Wittenberg.

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But it doesn't matter. I just went home and the word of God did its work. So dear Christian, give people as much gospel as you can.

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You talk about the law, you talk about the law keeper and the law breaker who bore it, the one who bore our sins of law breaking and the resurrection, and just put it out there.

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The Bible says it is written. Simple. And God gets glory from that.

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Whenever I evangelize, I never say to myself, oh, you know, tell me, you know, if a friend says, well, was it successful?

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I always say this. Yes. Then they got saved? No. How can it be successful if they didn't get saved?

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Answer, God loves to hear about his son as you proclaim the truth about the

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Lord Jesus to other people. Whenever I read the

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Bible and it talks about contentment, guess what happens to me that week? Read the

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Bible. It talks about being humble. Guess what happens to you that week? It's like, you know, when you read something from the scripture, then he gives you an opportunity, the spirit does to apply that.

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What do you think is going to happen this week? Two sermons on please preach Christ crucified, the risen savior.

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What do you think is going to happen? I think

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I know what I want to happen and I'm going to pray for it right now. Bow with me. Father, would you please give us an opportunity to open our mouths this week, protect us from somehow feeling led, help us to obey and give people the good news from the great commission.

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The great commission isn't feeding people or being kind, although that's wonderful.

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The great commission is to tell people about the risen savior, Jesus. Would you give people ears to hear as you put them purposely in our path this week so we can tell them about the

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Lord Jesus, our king, our priest and our prophet. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.