Always being Reformed

Here I Stand Theology

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We have intentionally chosen this passage of Scripture from the book of Acts chapter 2.

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When we read the text, we're going to read from verse 22 down through verse 42.

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And as most everybody probably is aware, we are celebrating the 9th anniversary.

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And for years, I've never really been... I don't know if this is what churches refer to as homecoming or not.

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I've always, over the years, never really been aware of that or known that. But, you know, it's somewhat of a homecoming because it's a celebration of the years that the church has been established.

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And this passage of Scripture that we're going to read to you is truly the basis and the foundation of what

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Reformation Baptist Church is founded on. And simply, as you hear almost every week, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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It was the message the Apostle Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost. And it ought to be the message every week that we teach, preach, and proclaim from the pulpit and from the classrooms of this church.

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It ought to be in the songs that we sing in this passage of Scripture. There are all the great doctrines of grace that we see laid out in the

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Scriptures. And this morning, I want to... I think

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I always think this and sometimes I may say it. I want to keep it as clear and as simple and even as short as possible because I know that we've got folks ready to eat.

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I know we've got burgers and hot dogs and everybody sees and smells all the food back here and what a joy that is.

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But friends, the basis of our fellowship is not on the physical food that we have and that everybody's worked so hard to prepare.

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But the basis of our fellowship is the spiritual food that Jesus Christ provided.

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He is the bread of life. He is the water of life. And it's very, very important.

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It's also very important, I would say, that you understand and you know the church's history.

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Do you not think it's a good thing to know about the history of the body that you're a part of?

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Amen? I mean, you don't choose... Amanda, you didn't choose John without knowing anything about him, right?

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You had to find out a little bit about him and once you found out about him, you decided if you really liked him or not.

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And here you are. So, I think it may not be so interesting.

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I like... I think the older I get, the more I like church history and the more interested

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I am in it. But the church named Reformata Baptist Church was an intentional name.

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Reformata means reform. That's the Latin word for reformed. It came from the statement that came out of the

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Reformation back in the 1500s. The statement simply said this,

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The church reformed and always being reformed according to the word of God.

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That doesn't mean that the church was to change on every whim and fancy of the imagination of the thoughts of men.

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But the church, the people of the church, those whom God has redeemed, those who have been born again by the

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Spirit of God, having been justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, are being sanctified throughout our lives.

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This ought to sound familiar. It's what's been preached continuously. The sanctification process is part of our life.

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And we are reformed or we are continually made new according to the word of God.

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When you read the word of God, if you are a Christian, you cannot read the word of God without understanding and recognizing the truth of this fact, that there is a

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God and you and I ain't Him. Now, ain't good English, but it is what

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I said. And I'll continue to use ain't because I like the word. I've got some aints and uncles.

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Right? So, but getting back to the point here, it is so good to be able to rejoice together, is it not?

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A merry heart does good like a medicine. And it's times of fellowship like this that folks really seem to be happy.

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But friends, our joy and our hope and our bond and our uniting together is in Jesus Christ.

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So, reformed and always being reformed according to the word of God, that has always been the name of this church.

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It was an intentional selection of the name just to give you all a bit of history here. Before we get into Scripture, I want to give you some of the history of Reformation Church, because some of you may not be aware of it.

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It was an intentional name chosen due to much study, much reading, trying to make sure that this body of believers was what it ought to be, biblically based.

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Everybody knows from the beginning that what we referred to in the beginning as a vision statement is simply a creed, which creeds and confessions have been used throughout church history to help folks know what they believe and put it into words.

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At Reformation Baptist Church, our creed, our vision statement has always been to be a glory of God centered.

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Number one, to be a glory of God centered church. That means that everything we do, it ought to point toward the

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Lord. And if it does not glorify the Lord, then that is our sign that we need to adjust and make changes.

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So, glory of God centered, Bible saturated. Bible saturated means that what we do, what we say, what we teach, what we preach, what we sing ought to have its grounding and ought to have its founding from within the pages of God's Word.

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And to be very clear about this, God's Word is the canon of Scripture as we have it in the 66 books of the

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Old and New Testament. Amen? 39 old, 27 New Testament books.

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And we believe that the Word of God, according to the Word of God, is inspired, which simply means this, that it is

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God breathed out. That God breathed out His Word through holy men of God, according to the

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Word of God. And they spake as they were moved by the Spirit of God. And so we have the preserved

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Word of God within the pages of the Old and the New Testaments. So, we desire to be

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Bible saturated. That means sometimes being very unpopular.

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That means sometimes being popular. It takes both sides of the fence sometimes.

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Nevertheless, no matter whether it's unpopular or popular, we're always called to stay within the boundaries laid out in the

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Word of God. There truly are boundaries. We cannot and ought not to speak more than what the

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Word of God says. Any of you ever know anybody that does that? They just keep talking and digging a hole and digging a hole and digging a hole?

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We don't need to do that. We need to speak where the Bible speaks and we'll be silent where the

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Bible is silent. And so, glory of God centered, Bible saturated, missions focused.

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Missions focused simply means that as a body of believers we desire to be evangelical.

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So, by the way, evangelical comes from the Greek word evangelon, which means evangelist or good news and the bearer of good news.

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We are called to bear the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world in which we live.

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And then the last part of that, our creed, our statement is simply this, that we desire to be

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Holy Spirit empowered. Which means that according to the

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Word of God that we trust and we believe that when a man is born again by the

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Spirit of God, justified by God, where the righteousness of Christ has been imputed unto us by God on the behalf of Jesus Christ, that the work of the

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Holy Spirit takes place whereby we are empowered to live lives that are pleasing unto the

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Lord. So we are called to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Someone might say that, well,

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I think I've been saved but I don't know if I have the Holy Spirit or not. Then you have not been born again.

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Because the Spirit is the earnest of the inheritance that God has promised to His children.

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You can be certain that you are saved. You can be certain that you are saved by the biblical evidences and assurances laid out in the

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Scriptures, particularly if you want to look at those on your off time in 1st, 2nd and 3rd

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John, evidences and assurances of salvation. So the term

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Reformed comes from the Reformation time. Now, back in the 1500s, leading up to that time,

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I believe it was in that time, if I've got my dates correct, I have some notes, I don't have a lot of notes, but leading up to that time, the

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Catholic Church kind of had the preeminence and the Catholic Church taught things that were contrary to the

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Word of God. And so the Protestant Reformation that took place in 1517, or was annualized in 1517, the

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Protestant Reformation means this, that Martin Luther, being a monk himself and being part of the practices of the

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Catholic Church, found himself alone with the Word of God. The Word of God spoke to his heart, he was regenerated, born again, made new, and he came to understand that the

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Catholic Church, the people, that the priests of the Catholic Church were not the only people that needed to hear the

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Word of God, but that every man needed the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And so, having been born again and having seen the evils perpetrated by the

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Roman Catholic Church, he took and wrote out what are famously known as his 95

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Theses. He took these 95 Thesis statements, is what they were, statements concerning what the

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Catholic Church was doing contrary to the Word of God, and he took and nailed them to the church door at Wittenberg in Germany.

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Now, he nailed these to the door, this was not a total act of defiance, but the door of the church was a posting place for theologians to put their ideas so that they could get together and they could discuss these things.

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However, all of the theological ideas typically were in agreement with the Catholic Church, and Luther's statements were against and contrary to the

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Catholic Church, they were in protest to the Catholic Church. Just to read you a few of those that he put up there,

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Statement number 21, he said this, Those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences.

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The Catholic Church taught that if you just donate money to the church, that you will get what were referred to as indulgence letters, and these indulgence letters would allow you, quote -unquote, to skate by on issues of sin.

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So, the Scripture does not teach that, that forgiveness of sin is granted by the

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Pope nor any other priest. By the way, you've always heard that, and you should always continue to hear this, when you come to pray, when the

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Holy Spirit convicts your heart, you come to the altar to pray, you do not need to come to me.

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You do not need to come to another man, you need to go to the Lord Himself.

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He bought and He paid for that privilege and that right for you as the child of God to come unto

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Him. And so, Martin Luther stated that those preachers who said that this was okay, that they were wrong, that they were in error, he was calling them out.

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He goes on to say in statement number 32, those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned together with their teachers.

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Men must be especially on guard against those who say that the Pope's pardons are the inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to Him.

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Now, it doesn't really seem like much to you all, and some people will say, well, why do we need to know this?

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Well, because you need to know that Reformed Baptist Church is still protesting the practices of the

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Roman Catholic Church, and we will not be in alignment with those practices because they go contrary to the

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Word of God. But those practices still go on and they are still accepted because people remain to be unaware of why we say that we are

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Protestant and why we say we are Reformed. Salvation is not given by an indulgence letter from the

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Pope or any other man. Salvation is of the Lord. That is why we still protest.

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Another statement, statement 37. Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the

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Church, and this is granted him by God even without indulgence letters.

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Now, this is his 37th statement into the 95 statements that he posted on the door at Wittenberg.

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And he is still hammering on the issue of indulgences. We are not called to indulge ourselves or to receive indulgences from others.

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We are called to trust in Jesus Christ and Him alone.

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I will leave off these thesis statements by reading 76 and 79 to you.

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He said, Luther said, We say on the contrary that papal indulgences cannot remove the very least of venial sins as far as guilt is concerned.

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The people thought that by going to the priest and the priest giving answer to the

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Pope that their sins might be forgiven them, and even the guilt of sin would be removed because they thought simply they professed their sin to a priest at that time that they were absolved of their guilt.

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But there is one who will give you the forgiveness of sins, both of the penalty and the guilt of sins, and that is

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Jesus Christ and Him alone. Again, you say, we hear this every week.

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I was listening to a sermon this week. The preacher that was preaching was stating very soberly and very clearly, and it was so dead in this great congregation of people.

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He was laying out the doctrines of justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone.

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And he looked out over the congregation. It was a group of pastors, full, filled up the place.

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And he said, I know some of you are saying, yeah, yeah, we know all this. And then

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MacArthur stopped and he looked. It's like he looked at everybody in that room. There had to be 500 people in that room, if not more.

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And he just said this. He said, I know you say that you've heard this, but I do not hear any of the rest of you saying these things.

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So when you come to church and you hear these things every week, it is because it is important that you hear these things.

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It is important that you repeat these things. So we are reformed, having a history coming from the

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Reformation. The Reformation was not the beginning of the Gospel. The beginning of the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ was when Jesus Christ was born into this world.

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Amen. That's what the Word of God teaches us. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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But the Gospel truly even goes back all the way before time as we know it began, because Jesus Christ was of a lamb without spot and without blemish, foreordained to die as the propitiation for our sins.

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So it goes back further and further. Historically speaking, we say we are reformed, and we've got

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Baptists on the sign out there. We've got Baptists on the documents from when the church was formed.

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Because guess what? Historically, Baptists have been reformed in doctrine and theology.

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Baptist history, it can be traced back generally. Baptist history, I'm not talking about church history, but Baptist history.

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You can go back to sometime in the 1600s. In the 1600s,

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Baptists began to form. There were different groups of Baptists. There was General Baptist, Particular Baptist, Primitive Baptist.

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All these groups were formed. It was amazing hearing these things. And I mention

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Primitive Baptist because my wife and her family have came up through the

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Primitive Baptist church. And the truth is that Particular Baptist and Primitive Baptist have generally been right in the same line the entire time, historically speaking.

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And so the reformed faith goes back further than truly many and most folks are aware.

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As a matter of fact, in 1793, there was a survey done of Baptist churches in America.

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And there were about 1 ,032 Baptist churches in America at the survey time.

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And of those 1 ,032 churches, 956 of those churches were reformed in theology.

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So reformed theology and reformed doctrine goes back a long, long ways.

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It is important that you are aware of that. I'll say this.

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Reformed Baptist churches continue to thrive around the world. Commonly held views of such churches include

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Believers' Baptism. Was anybody aware that that's primarily why we're called

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Baptists? Because there were groups who held to immersion for baptism rather than sprinkling?

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Truly, that's a secondary issue, so I'm not going to make a big point about that. It doesn't matter if you've just been sprinkled or if you've been baptized.

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That's not going to dip down and held down until you can quote John 3 .16 underwater. That doesn't matter.

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Truly. Because the water is not what saves a man. It is the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Having been applied through the work and the person of the Holy Spirit in the heart and in the life of the individual.

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But we are Baptists because our historic Baptist roots held to baptism by immersion.

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Also, our Reformed Baptist historical doctrinal heritage, if you would have it.

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Because it's important you know your heritage. Our heritage has been rooted and founded in the sovereignty of God.

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It's been rooted and founded in the authority of Scripture. It's been rooted and founded in the autonomy of the local church.

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And in the doctrines of grace. The five solas that came from the Reformation.

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Sola means alone and only. Were simply these. Salvation is by faith alone.

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Sola Fide. Sola Gratia. Sola Grace alone.

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Sola Christus. Christ alone. Sola. I'm sorry.

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Sola Scriptura. The Scripture alone is our basis and sole authority for all matters of life pertaining to godliness.

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And then the pinnacle on those five solas is simply Sola Deo Gloria.

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Glory to God alone. That's why in the Scriptures you'll hear the apostles when they write the letters to the epistles and the letters to the churches.

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You'll hear Paul in one place say, Under him, God, be glory in the church.

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The world is not expected to glorify God. But the church is called to glorify

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God. And so we glorify God by upholding His precious and holy word.

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Every single week. It may not be that the church has as many fantastic things that goes on from Sunday to Sunday as other churches do.

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But friends, it is the ordinary means of grace by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ that men will be saved.

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So, that being said, I just wanted to kind of share that with you so that you have a bit of historical background.

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And so now let's read the Scripture. I'm going to read the Scripture. Give you what the Scripture says concerning the word of God here.

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And then we'll be done and we'll be able to enjoy the rest of our time together that God has given us.

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Acts chapter 2 verse 22. The apostle Paul says this. By the way, the context is this.

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Jesus Christ has died, risen, ascended to the Father. And He said,

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I'm going to send the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, to you. He said, you wait until you're endued with power from on high.

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They wait for 50 days. The day of Pentecost comes. The Holy Spirit falls.

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And the Bible says this. That there were things that took place. Things that happened. The Scripture is clear in what it says, explaining these things.

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The Spirit set down in cloven tongues of fire. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they began to speak with other tongues.

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That word tongues is the Greek word. And even in the Old Testament in the Hebrew, it's a glossolalia, which means languages.

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They began to speak with other languages. Not some mystical language that no one knew, but different languages that God had created.

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Because from all the corners of the earth, people were gathered here in Jerusalem to celebrate

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Pentecost. And so on this day, in verse 22, we pick up the reading of the

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Scripture. The apostle Paul says this. Men of Israel. He is addressing the people, the men of Israel.

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And he says this. Hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth.

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We have the focal point of the message. Jesus of Nazareth. A man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs.

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Which God did through him in your midst. As you yourselves also know.

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Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God.

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You have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death.

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Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death. Because it was not possible that he should be held by it.

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So in the beginning of this message, Peter makes clear who he is speaking to.

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Men of Israel. And he says, this is what I want you to do. Hear these words. And I want you to hear the content, the subject of the message.

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Remember, if you remember, about a year and a half ago, preached a message concerning the importance of biblically correct preaching.

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And what biblically and doctrinally sound preaching does. It produces conviction. Convicts us of wrong.

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And convicts us of what we need to do to be right. It will rebuke us.

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And it will exhort us. It will encourage us. Instruct us in the right way. And so what the conviction here is this.

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Is that Jesus Christ, and the doctrinal content is this. That Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

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And he speaks to that because he is aware that many of the people who were there in this time were aware of the

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Old Testament scriptures. And what they taught about how Jesus Christ would be born in a manger.

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And we could go through those prophecies that were laid out and they were given. And he makes

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Jesus Christ the focus. And he says, Jesus Christ was of Nazareth. He was a man attested by God to you by miracles, signs, and wonders.

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The things that Jesus Christ did no other man could do. It was the sign that he was the only

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Messiah. There were many who came, tried to perpetrate fraud. Who tried to pretend.

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Who tried to pose themselves as Messiah, no doubt. And yet no one could do the things that Jesus Christ did.

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And he says, you know this. And then he says this. He really puts the thumb in the sore spot if you would have it.

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And he says, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God.

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We have here the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. That God in his sovereignty and through means of providence, naturally occurring events, allowed it and made it so that so at this time,

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Jesus Christ was born into the world, lived a sinless life, died an atoning sacrifice for the sins of his people, and raised again, ascended to the

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Father, and will one day return. He said by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, the

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King James uses the word wicked hands, have crucified him and you have put him to death.

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But, he said, whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be held by it.

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And then he begins to quote the Old Testament to them. And he says, for David says concerning him,

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I saw the Lord always before my face. For he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken.

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Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest in hope.

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You will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.

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You have made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of joy in your presence.

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And he gives the explanation in verse 29. Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you of the patriarch

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David, that he is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us to this day.

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You see the contrast here. Peter has preached and proclaimed the crucified risen

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Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. And then he says, but know this, that the man that I just quoted to you, he is dead and he is in the grave unto this day.

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Speaking of David. He said, therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the

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Christ to sit on his throne, he foreseeing this, speaking David, foreseeing this through the

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Holy Spirit, he foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of the

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Christ. That his soul was not left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption.

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This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

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Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the

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Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this, which you now see and hear.

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What's going on? He said that the Lord, the Father, has poured out the

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Holy Spirit for David. Verse 34, David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, the

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Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Verse 36,

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Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this

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Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

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He is both Lord and Christ. Now, when they heard this, the

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Scripture says they were cut to the heart. They were convicted of their sin.

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They were convicted of the righteousness and the holiness of God. And they said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles,

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Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them,

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Here it is, here was the invitation, here was the altar call.

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Now, I know that many times over the years, that a lot of folks have become accustomed to, at the end of the service, playing the song, inviting folks to come forward.

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But friends, let me say something. If God calls and elects and draws you unto salvation, you do not need to sing 34 verses of a hymn to get saved.

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You don't need for me to stand up here and say, Now you can come. Or sir to stand up here and say,

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Now you can come. But you come when you are drawn of the Lord.

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Don't get me wrong. I got saved in Nashville, Tennessee, at what might be termed as a traditional invitation time.

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But it was not the traditional invitation that saved me. Friends, God saved me.

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I got born again that day because the Holy Spirit of God convicted me of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

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So Peter gives the invitation. And this is the invitation. He said, Repent. And let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.

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And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here is the beautiful part.

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For the promise is to you and to your children. Meaning to your posterity.

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Meaning the promises of God are not just temporary for a time back then, but are as eternal as God himself.

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This promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off.

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By the way, there are a great many people today who may not feel like they are afar off from God.

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And I am just going to go to the Scripture and to say, You must recognize that you are as far away from God as a man, woman, boy, or a girl can possibly be.

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And the only way you will be saved is by the mercy and grace of God leading you to salvation.

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To as many as are afar off, as many as the

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Lord our God shall call. Salvation is of the

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Lord. In verse 40, And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying,

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Be saved from this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.

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And this is just where it comes to where we are now. And they continued steadfastly.

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Well, preacher, I think I got saved way back then, but I really have not had an interest in the

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Bible, I have not had an interest in being in church, I have not had an interest in loving people who are supposed to be

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Christians as well. Friend, you have not continued in the faith, and by your non -continuance in the faith, you have demonstrated that you have not been born again, because the word of God says that when you are born again, you will love your brethren, you will love

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God, and you will love His church. They continued, they continued, they continued, though you all are saying,

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Please stop continuing, just let us eat. I want you to get the point. They continued steadfastly.

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Not broken here and there, but steadfastly continued. And they continued steadfastly in the

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Apostles' Doctrine. What is the Apostles' Doctrine? It is the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is in the letters laid out to the churches scattered throughout

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Asia, scattered throughout Rome, scattered throughout where they were all scattered there.

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It is the Apostles' Doctrine, the teaching of Jesus Christ. These doctrines are what the

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Reformed theology refers to when they speak of the doctrines of grace. They continued steadfastly in the

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Apostles' Doctrine, and in fellowship, in being together, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

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Then fear came upon every soul, and listen closely to what the

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Word says, and many wonders and signs were done through the

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Apostles. This is why that a great focus and emphasis has been placed on holding to the

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Word of God. The work of the church is not to do signs and wonders. The work of the church is to glorify

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God. And we glorify God by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Proclaiming it in word, in truth, in your lives. But I will always go back to what the

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Apostle Paul exhorted the church at Corinth to do, and it is this, every week, examine yourselves.

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To see whether you are in the faith or not. Because friends, the

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Lord is eternal. And if salvation is of the Lord, then His work of saving grace is a continuing work in the life of His people.

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Are you following Christ? Are you walking daily, as the old song says, in the light of His Word?

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And so, let's just stop there. I said I was just going to read to 42, I think, but I read through 43.

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So, verse 43, I'm just going to stop there. And I want to say that, again, that was intentionally chosen today.

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I intentionally chose this passage of Scripture because it is what we desire to do.

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It is the core and the foundation and the all and the everything of what

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Reformation Baptist Church is about. And we are going to strive to cling and to continue in these things.

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I want to say this to you all. Let me look around at you all. If some of you all are asleep, I want to ask you to wake up for just a minute and look up at me.

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I want to say thank you to you all for your patience.

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You know what? Dealing with pastors, elders, teaching things that are challenging and hard,

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I'm not going to lie to you, it's tough. It's tough for me. However, I will say this, that Jesus Christ is worth the effort.

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There's going to be plenty throughout time that you're going to disagree with what I say. And I may or may not be right in it.

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However, we're always going to take time just to sit down, to talk, and to look, and to see what the

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Word of God says. But it will never be a quick process. It will take hours.

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It will take days. It will take weeks. Don't be scared. It will take months.

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It will take years. And we will never, even at that, if we devoted 23 hours a day to studying the

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Word of God, we will never know everything.

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But it is worth the time and the effort to know what we can.

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And what we can know is what God has revealed unto us.

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Well, what about the things God don't tell us in the Word? Just like I said earlier, then we won't speak to those things.

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Right? We won't add to and we won't take away from it. People like the don't add to it, but they don't want to like the not taken away from it.

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Go buy you a Sharpie, and I challenge you this week, get you a

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Sharpie, and give four hours this week to reading the

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Scripture. And every sentence that you come across that rubs you the wrong way, just take your

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Sharpie and mark through it. You're saying, mark my

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Bible up with a Sharpie? Mark out what the Bible says? I'm saying you can do it, but it don't matter. It's still there.

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It's still the Word whether we like it or not. Whether we agree with it or not a lot of times.

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But I want to encourage you to study the Word. Test the Scriptures. Test the message.

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Test the things weekly that you hear. Some of you say,

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I don't even know what to study about. Get a copy of the message that's preached every week. Pick it apart.

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I mean pick it apart. You'll find stuff that is wrong probably that I say, or maybe not intentional but misspoken.

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But pick it apart. And make discernment whether what's being said is intentionally wrong or intentionally undoctrinal or unbiblical.

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But rejoice in the things that are true. Rejoice in those things.

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So in that being said, I appreciate you all. I love you all with all my heart.

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I mean that. And I look forward to whatever time we've got ahead of us.

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Ma 'am, I've been preaching to a bunch of flowers. I thought you was... I do.

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I love you all. And I thank the Lord for you all. We thank you for the privilege and the honor that we get to be here every week with you all.

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So that being said, I'm going to ask

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Jeff, if he would, to bless the food. And before he blesses the food,

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I want to ask folks this. When we eat and when we finish,

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I would ask everybody that's able to, I know not everybody's able to physically, but everybody that's physically able to help, helping to clean up, help picking everything up, helping us get everything set and ready to go for the end so that it's not too much on just a few.

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All right? Love you all. We're kicking off our Sunday school classes for our children,

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June the 3rd, the first Sunday in June. So we'll have classes for nursery all the way through high school.

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June the 3rd? Yes. Awesome. We're going to be updating, and we're going to have a blowout that Sunday morning for our

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Sunday school. Cool. I thank God for the message today, and for your truth.

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And I thank God everybody's come out today. I thank God for keeping the church alive.

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If the church doesn't help, most of them leave the church, they die off.

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They quit coming, they quit voluntarily supporting the church, one thing or another, and then it just goes away.

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You're a tenant of your church. It really is.

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And the day that we leave, and there's so much that has been added to it and taken away from it that often those people hurt their feelings.

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This thing in the heart of the gospel hurts my feelings, but it doesn't make any difference. It's still the truth.

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This thing that I don't like to read, but it's still the truth. And I praise

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God for it. Today, when we get done, we need to clear a path through here.

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We're going to take the things out of the rooms and have some help get the stuff out of the rooms so we can clean the carpets this week and have a fight.

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So that's all I've got to say, so I'm going to go right over here. Lord, we'd like to thank

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You for the time You've given us. We're not here to do this for nothing.

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We ask You to keep us.