THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE: (9 of 12) RAMIFICATIONS ON PREACHING & EVANGELISM

TWELVE 5 CHURCH

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THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE: (10 of 12) OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINES

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All righty. So, how nice was it to not have homework this week?

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Who didn't do their homework this week? Everybody. That was, it's nice to have a little bit of a break.

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We get a little over halfway through and we just kind of stop for a moment and process.

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And then last week we got to hear from some brothers and sister, brothers and sister on just how these doctrines have impacted their life in a very practical way.

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And I, for one, was blessed by that. I know that many of you, as I've spoken with you over this past week, there were things in last

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Wednesday evening that were said that impacted you in very tangible ways.

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And that was the whole point of it. Because we go through things like these doctrines, we dive into truth, we see it, we see who

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God is. And then we begin to ask the question, what's the significance?

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I see it as truth, but how does this practically play out in my life?

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How does this actually apply? Do I really need to know this truth?

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And it comes with good and bad because Paul said knowledge puffs up, right?

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He doesn't give an exception to that. He just says knowledge puffs up. But then we're also to study to show ourselves approved.

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We're also to grow in the fear and knowledge of God. So what is Paul saying? Paul is telling us to gain knowledge, to grow in knowledge, but our flesh will always take that knowledge and distort it at times.

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We will misuse it. We will misapply it. And we see with this doctrine particularly, the closer you get to truth, the easier it is to fall into one ditch or the other.

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This road is narrow, and it's easy to fall off on an extreme of one side or the other.

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And then how does this affect the daily life of us in ministry? You see tonight, lesson nine, we're gonna be speaking of the ramifications of reformed theology in particular, involving soteriology, which is the doctrines of grace, the ramifications of this truth on preaching and on evangelism.

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And when I say preaching, I am very specifically speaking of the thing that happens here on Sunday mornings and oftentimes on Wednesday nights where there is preaching, a proclamation going on, but it also applies to what you're called to do, which is to share the gospel, to proclaim the gospel, to preach the gospel, to preach the gospel to your children, to preach the gospel to your neighbors, to your family members, to your friends.

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And so what are the ramifications of the doctrines of grace upon those things? And just as I've said before, when you're on this fine road, it's easy to fall into this ditch or another ditch.

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And we're gonna be able to see some of those things tonight as we dive in. So before we do, let's go to the

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Lord in prayer. Let's ask that he would be honored in our discussion, that he would give us clarity and that we would be molded by his word.

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Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for tonight. We thank you for the truth that we see in salvation that is not of us, that is faith alone and Christ alone accomplished by you, the triune

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God. And we pray that as our minds are being renewed by your truth and by your word, that our flesh would not take that and run with it and now be puffed up, arrogant with knowledge.

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Father, guard us. Lord, I pray that this truth would percolate into our hearts and that as we do that, as we speak tonight specifically on the ramifications that these doctrines have on things like preaching and evangelism, sharing the good news, the gospel,

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I pray that we would be molded by it. God, I ask,

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I beg of you, that you not allow us to be the frozen chosen. God, I am asking that you not allow us to be conceited and arrogant with what we think we know.

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I'm asking you, God, that you guard us from ourselves and our propensity towards pride and then taking glorious truths like this and making them some type of, some type of weapon that we can use against others.

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Father, guard us. May these truths mold this congregation, these people, the saints here at 12 .5,

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may it mold us in a way that gives us a bold fervency to love, to love as you've loved us.

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May it give us a desire, a deep desire to share the good news of the gospel with those around us.

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Father, I ask you, do not allow us to fall into complacency. Use us for your kingdom work.

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We thank you in Christ's name, amen. All righty, well, open up your books to page 65.

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We're in lesson nine, lesson nine here. The first thing we're going to look at is a biblical definition of evangelism.

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You see right underneath that, you see the Greek term for evangelism is euangelion.

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Would you have pronounced it that way by looking at that word there? Euangelion. This is the

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Greek term that we get evangelism, which is translated gospel in English.

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The English noun gospel, it comes from an

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Anglo -Saxon term, godspell. You ever heard that in Old English, the term godspell?

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It just simply means glad tidings, okay? This is translated from the

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Greek. This word was connected to a military triumph. So this word we're looking at is referring to military triumph.

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So the New Testament writers use this word, why? Because of the triumph of Christ in the gospel, right?

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This is what the gospel is. We see in 1 Corinthians 15, one, now

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I would remind you brothers of the gospel. There's that euangelion that I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand.

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What is Paul saying? He's giving them an understanding that this is a declaration of victory.

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This is great news. This is good tidings. And you see number one there, the gospel, this equals good news.

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Y 'all have heard it before, right? Good news. Like I said, the New Testament translators use this word specifically for that reason.

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Because what better news do we have than the fact that the second person of the

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Godhead came to be like us, to represent us, and then defeats death, takes the death that we deserved, and then raises from the dead and defeats death?

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That is the ultimate victory. So this is most certainly good news.

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Yes, this is good news. This is great news. Number two, evangelism is the proclamation of the gospel for the purpose of reaching the lost with the free offer of salvation.

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Now that's great news. Evangelism is a proclamation.

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We're gonna talk in more detail about this a little bit later, but the gospel can't be shown through your life.

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The gospel must be heard, right? The specifics of the gospel must be heard because it is good news.

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Just living a good life isn't enough. That's not the gospel. We'll talk about that here in a moment.

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But there in that box, we have some quotes here. Andrew Fuller, when he's talking about the gospel worthy of all acceptation, acceptance is really a better word there.

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But he says, the preaching of the gospel is fully compatible with the doctrines of grace.

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Only when misunderstood do they hinder the freedom of gospel proclamation. What is

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Andrew Fuller getting at? He's saying that when you truly teach accurately and understand accurately the doctrines of grace, they then promote things like evangelism.

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They promote holy living. They promote all of the right things. The only time that we get that wrong is when we don't understand the doctrines properly and we distort them.

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And so we've talked about that early on in this, you know, the hyper Calvinist, where they began to look and say, well,

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God's sovereign and we're basically just robots. And man, this is a distortion.

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This is not the truth. You know, I meet people all the time that are like, oh man, you're a

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Calvinist. And I'm like, well, what's a Calvinist? And then they explain it to me. It's nowhere near what we've been teaching.

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Like it's nowhere near. It's some kind of distorted, ugly version of it. And that is a problem.

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But gospel proclamation is hindered when you misunderstand it, but it will flourish under a true understanding.

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William Carey, the doctrines of God's sovereignty give preaching authority and the preacher unbounded confidence and enthusiasm.

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Y 'all know my quote around here, right? The doctrines of grace ensure 100 % success rate with evangelism.

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Well, it's the same way with preaching. When we understand these truths, it's a 100 % success rate because the word of God is gonna go forward.

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Number three, the gospel is the power of God to salvation.

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We get that from Romans one, don't we? For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. This is the power of God unto salvation. There's no power in convincing somebody of a miracle.

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There's no power in convincing somebody of a young earth creation. There's no power in convincing somebody that the flood actually took place and that Noah built an ark, no power in it.

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People can believe those things wholeheartedly and there's no power in that.

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The power is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so when we understand the doctrines of grace and we understand the power of God unto salvation that how are they to know unless someone tells them that they must hear the gospel, well then we quit trying to convince the world that science isn't accurate and that God created the world.

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They don't even have the power to understand and even if they did believe it, it would be of no benefit to them. Go and share the gospel.

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Quit trying to argue with dead people over things, just share the gospel and trust the Holy Spirit's gonna awaken who he's gonna awaken and the power of those words go into action.

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B, much of today's evangelism is not biblical. I think we all kinda know that, don't we?

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I think we've seen the problems with evangelism which it's not in the notes here,

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I just wanna say this. Evangelism, if you ever noticed over the past few decades, we have to, in churches, we have to create a script for our people.

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Anybody ever done Romans Road? Anybody ever used evangelism explosion or faith?

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That was an acronym, I think the SBC used it for a long time. We have to have programs, why?

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Because the church doesn't do this. They refuse to equip the saints for the good work and so the saints don't even know the gospel.

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So they can't share what they don't already know. So what do we need to do? Well, we gotta come up with a game plan.

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Give them a script. We'll give them just the right verses, we'll allow them to memorize this whole thing and then they can use it to go and then those people go all arrogant.

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They're like, I've got my script down. They knock on the front door and some guy starts asking them questions they don't know and they're like,

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I'm never doing this again. That didn't fit the script, right? Because they're not being equipped.

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I'm saying that but there's problems with today's evangelism like crazy. That's just the start of it. But number one, modern methods of evangelism are dangerous and unbiblical.

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You know me, I like to say extreme things. I'm just gonna throw a bomb out there. Modern evangelism is dangerous and unbiblical and we're seeing the fruit of it.

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We have churches full of goats. Earl Hulls in his book,

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The Great Invitation, which is a great book by the way. You should check it out. He's an author and a Baptist pastor.

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Says, through preaching, it is possible to appeal to people and the whole of their being. Mind, affections, conscience, will.

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Various forms of inviting people forward to the front after services or after preaching have been devised.

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Talking about the altar call, isn't he? This method has become very popular. Many of those who use some form of public appeal acknowledge that there are dangers.

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Billy Graham, for one, even acknowledged the dangers of how he did it. Church history shows over and over again that slight errors, okay?

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So, I get the question all the time, what's wrong with inviting people to respond to the gospel?

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There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it, does there? But how are we doing it? Are we doing this properly?

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We must do evangelism based on what we understand from God's word. And slight, slight errors develop into serious errors which soon become heresy.

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It's a slippery slope. In this case, one of the most serious heresies of our generation has developed.

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Namely, the idea that human decision is the cause of regeneration. We have an entire

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Bible belt of people who have grown up saying the sinner's prayer or walking down the aisle and doing the things.

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And now they think they're Christians. I can't tell you how many guys and ladies in this community that I have talked to that claim

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Christianity, they claim Christ. They went down the aisle one time, they were saved, they were baptized, and they do not live for the

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Lord at all. We have just created an entire culture of some type of ugly

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Frankenstein Christendom just because we used improper means, improper teaching on what salvation actually is.

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Number two, the accusation of us Calvinist, you know that bad word, being non -evangelistic is totally unfounded.

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It's unfounded. We get this accusation all the time, constantly.

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It just kills evangelism. You guys don't go out and tell people about Jesus.

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We did this in the historical context early on if you were with us. The founders of the

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SBC, they were primarily Calvinist. Most missionary endeavors, all modern missions, but most missionary endeavors by a long shot were developed and started by Calvinist.

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Most of the greatest preachers and theologians were and are Calvinist. I talked to a non -reformed pastor not too long ago, and he told me that he pretty much only reads the

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Calvinist. I asked him why. He said, I'll be honest with you, they're the only ones worth reading.

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They're the only ones that actually take academics seriously and actually have answers, and so I have to read them.

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I'm like, well, why don't you agree with them? Well, I just can't get there. I just, here's what it boiled down to.

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He would lose his $80 ,000 a year package job if he did. We know that for certain, don't we?

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The reformers, the Protestant Reformation, these guys all thought like Calvinist, didn't they?

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So this accusation of us being non -evangelistic is crazy to me.

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I don't understand where this is even coming from other than just some people that have seen some of the frozen chosen little churches out in the middle of nowhere, and they're so small and insignificant that they don't even count.

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Just leave them out there. They're no different than a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness. Let them do their thing out there in the country.

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They're just waiting for people to show up, but for the most part, this is not true.

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Well, I don't have, oh, I don't have it in my notes, but number three there, I don't have it on the screen, methods which are not biblical.

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I told you we were gonna talk about this for a second. How many of you prayed the sinner's prayer?

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A lot fewer of you than I thought. That's pretty predominant in Christendom, the sinner's prayer.

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It's interesting because there's absolutely no record of any such thing until the 19th century.

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Isn't that odd? We think that the sinner's prayer, that's how people get saved, right?

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That's how our culture treats this type of evangelism is you lead people in that prayer, but it didn't exist until the 19th century.

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It leads also to, and we've talked about it a little bit, is altar calls. Y 'all remember talking about Charles Finney?

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He had his anxious bench that he would have down at the inn and have people come and pray at that and then they could talk to them.

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Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday, have y 'all ever heard those names? Big evangelist in the

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Baptist world. They used these same tactics from Finney. It was called hitting the sawdust trail.

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Any of y 'all ever heard that phrase? It's kind of an old phrase. They would have big tent revivals and so out there it would get very muddy.

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They would bring in sawdust and they'd make all the aisles sawdust so you'd be hitting the sawdust trail and that's where altar calls started.

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Before then, churches had never done an altar call. They just didn't exist.

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There was no such thing, but they made this popular and the term altar call actually originated with the holiness movement and with the

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Pentecostals. So you've got the Baptist over there doing the sawdust trail, not giving it a name, but then the holiness and Pentecostal movement comes in with their emotionalism and hyping things up and they give it a term and it starts to be known as the altar call.

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Anybody know that? Yep. You see it all the time.

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I watched a Baptist church the other day and at the end of their speech,

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I don't wanna call it a sermon. It was the saddest thing I've ever heard. It was pathetic.

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At the end of it, they had all the people come down to the altar and pray and it was all emotional and everything was worked up and people had tears and everybody just kinda gets worked up on all of these things.

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I know of another church, it's actually a pretty successful church in the area. They have all the men come down at the end, like at the end of all the service and it's just this emotional thing where everybody feels involved and you're like, where's the power of the word?

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You didn't even preach enough truth to get people that emotionally involved.

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I'm not against emotion. Y 'all have seen me on Sundays. I'm pro emotion. Emotion stemming from and feeding from truth.

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But everything is emotionalism. It gets to the next thing, emotional music.

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Emotional music to create the environment. We must create the right environment for these people to make a decision.

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I remember being a teenage boy and I literally still had a hangover from the night before.

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And my dad's up there really kinda drawn, just really, let's do one more stanza of just as I am.

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You know what I'm talking about? And you're hanging on to the pew, you're white knuckling like I'm gonna die, go to hell. You know what

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I mean? And then in the moment you start breaking down and you're just emotionally worked up and everybody's singing and there's others going down and crying.

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So then you go down and you rededicate yourself and you rededicate your life. So that I can start drinking again next

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Friday. That was just the pattern. We've all grown up with that kind of world, right?

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It's emotionalism. There's no power behind it because the gospel is barely even present.

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Yeah. I actually caught a pastor not too long ago. I was at a thing and he did that and I was watching from the back, not a person raised their hand and he was going,

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I see you brother. I see you sister. I was like, you're such a liar.

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Oh yes, I did. I didn't think I was amongst Christians. Non -theological preaching.

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This emotionalism is all they want. They don't want the deep truth. They don't want to be taught.

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They don't want to know who God is. They just want to feel good and have an emotional response.

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Personal testimonies and not the gospel. You ever seen somebody try and witness, do evangelism?

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And like you listen the whole time, the whole thing's about their story. The whole thing's about what

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God has done for them and brought them out of. But there's no real gospel in it.

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It's just all about how they've changed and God's changed them and all this stuff. It's your testimony. Your testimony is not the gospel.

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It's not. The gospel's the gospel. Your testimony may be a tool that can be tacked on and used for the purpose of understanding and feeding into the gospel, but it is by no means the gospel.

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If you came to me and you said, I have this great, amazing testimony. Man, I was a heroin addict and I had killed 73 people and I was in a ditch dying bloody and all of a sudden

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Jesus saved me because there was an old Bible and I read the words for God so loved the world and I was saved and my whole life has changed.

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Now I go around preaching to all these places and if they say that, you give me, you give me a young lady who says, at the age of 10,

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I just knew I was a sinner. I knew I'd sinned against God and I knew that Jesus had paid for me, had represented me and took the death that I deserved and then rose from the grave defeating death and I believe and I turn from my sin.

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Give me that every day of the week other than the big fancy story. But in our world of evangelicalism, man, that story gets emotionally worked up and hyped up.

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It's because you're not understanding truth because the power of God is in the gospel, not your testimony.

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Use your testimony but make sure your testimony is sandwiched with the gospel, the clear unadulterated gospel, right?

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And then that leads us to lifestyle evangelism. You know,

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I have some brothers that would use this properly lifestyle evangelism. They would say, well, my life is geared towards trying to find opportunities for evangelism.

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On that, I'm like, good, good, good. But most people don't really mean that. Most people mean, well, people will see my life, my good life and they'll come and ask me then.

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I'm not gonna go around and try and push the gospel onto them. I'm gonna wait for them to see my light.

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No, it doesn't work like that. That is the dumbest thing anyone's ever said.

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Preach the gospel, use words if you have to is the dumbest statement ever.

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Because one, you didn't preach the gospel unless you proclaim it. Now, could you take a

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Bible, open up to a verse that shows the gospel and have them read it? Well, yes, but the gospel must be present.

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Your lifestyle should be a reflection that the gospel that you proclaim is true.

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You get what I'm saying? Your lifestyle should be a reflection that the gospel that you're proclaiming is true, but the gospel must be proclaimed.

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Yes, yes.

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I think what Lloyd -Jones is getting at is exactly what I was just saying, which is he would never denounce what

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I just said in the sense that the gospel must be proclaimed. What he is getting at is here we are proclaiming a gospel, but then not living the gospel.

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If we lived the gospel that we were proclaiming, that's salt and light, that that is reaching the people.

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That's good. All right, so C, next page, page 67. Motives for evangelism.

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Well, people ask, okay, if this is true, if God saves and, man, we are dead in our sins, we can't do anything, why do we evangelize?

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Why don't we just let God save who he's gonna save? Like God's gonna bring a Bible to that person.

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There's no way he's not gonna, Jesus said, all the Father gives me, I'm not lost to one. He's finding them, right?

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Why evangelize? We're commanded to. We're commanded to go, right?

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Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Acts 118, but you will receive power when the

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Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

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You will be my witnesses. I'm using you, you're the tool, you're commanded to go. Number two, it is the means that God has chosen.

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Why has he commanded you? Because these are the means that he's chosen. Romans 10, verses 14 and 15.

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How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how were they to believe in him whom they have never heard?

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And how were they to hear without someone preaching? And how were they to preach unless they are sent? This is the means that God has chosen to use in his sovereign will.

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Think about our study through Ephesians over the past. Year and a half, two years, whatever it's been.

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We've seen the union that we have and that we're the body of Christ with him as the head. We're his body on earth, carrying out his purposes and his plans.

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That's why we're commanded to because these are the means that he's using. Number three, overwhelming confidence of success.

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There's that 100 % success rate, right? In Acts 18, verses nine and 10, says, and the

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Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you.

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And no one will attack you or harm you for I have many in this city who are my people.

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It's great confidence in that. If God is telling you to go, if he's commanded you and he's using that as the means, then we have confidence.

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First Corinthians 117, it's there on your next page. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.

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And not with words of eloquent wisdom. That's partly what we run into a lot of times.

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We're afraid to evangelize because we're like, man, I can't speak as well as that brother or that sister.

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Maybe I don't know all the vernacular. Maybe I don't know all the passages. What if they ask me questions?

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Paul's saying, I didn't come with you with eloquent wisdom and speech. Why? Because there's no power in it.

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Me getting all riled up and passionate has no power. You know that, right? I could get up here and get really riled up about strawberry pop tarts and maybe get you emotionally riled up about strawberry pop tarts, but there's no power in it.

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The power is in the truth. And Paul says, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

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That's a great question. So there's differing opinions about that. So I think it's meaning both.

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I think what he's getting at is, I already have some saints here. Like we've already saw that previously there.

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If you read through Acts, you see that there's saints right there, but then also the ones that he hasn't awakened yet.

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And that's why I want you to stay here and preach the gospel. Why else is he staying here to preach the gospel? That's a great question though.

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Well, there in 1 Corinthians again, down near the end, he says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

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There's the power of God again. There's a great confidence in this. Because we know the great power of the gospel.

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That's why these kinds of doctrines are so important. That's why we're talking about the ramifications on preaching and evangelism, is when you know these doctrines, they give you that boldness.

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They give you the confidence. Number four, because we love God and man.

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John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, right? In 2

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Corinthians 5, 11 through 14, as a matter of fact, I'm just gonna read the bottom section of that.

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For if you are beside ourselves, for if we are beside ourselves, it is for God.

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If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us.

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Love of Christ is in us, right? God is working in and through us.

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Romans 9, 3. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers.

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He's speaking of the Jewish people that he loves so dearly that he is a part of and once was, he loves them so dearly.

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Section D is not in your notes. I don't know how it didn't make it to your notes, but I'm gonna put this up on the screen if you wanna take a picture or jot this down.

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Section D is Calvinists should lead the way in preaching and missions. Calvinists should lead the way in preaching and missions, which we often do.

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Number one, because true theology always leads to passion for God and souls. Again, that truth, if understood properly, it produces fruit.

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His truth is good. True theology always leads to passion for God and souls.

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And secondly, evangelism flows out of the priority of the church. Evangelism flows out of the priority of the church.

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What's the priority of the church? To preach the word, is that the priority?

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What's the chief end of man? That's right, that's us.

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You're glorifying the Lord, that's right. The glory of God is our priority.

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And evangelism flows out of that priority. We want to be obedient to God.

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We want to see his name made great among the nations. Anybody need me to keep that on the screen any longer?

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Okay, we'll give you a 10 second countdown. I'm moving too slow tonight, guys.

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I'm gonna have to speed this up. How much further we got? Oh yeah, I gotta speed up.

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All right, E, the goal of preaching. The goal of preaching, there's a section right there you can write, it's the glory of God.

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To Pastor Keith's point, right? That's the whole point. Preaching and its purpose is the glory of God.

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Scottish preacher James Stewart said, the aims of all genuine preaching are to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.

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What is the chief end of man? And enjoy him forever. Yes, Dalton.

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Well, I think that's what James Stewart in that quote is getting at. Is because true preaching with truth is magnifying the holy name of God.

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It's bringing to light who God is and calling to a submission and obedience to him, which is glorifying

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God because he's God and he is worthy of that praise. Every knee should bow and every tongue confess and preaching is a call to that and a reminder of that and a declaration of that.

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That's his Christian hedonism. Yeah, that's good. I like that. Enjoying God and to glorify

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God by enjoying him forever. That's very good. All right, number one.

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This is the goal of preaching, right? In the glory of God, to proclaim the supremacy of God in all things.

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Supremacy just means superior to all others and authority, power and status.

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God is supreme. Preaching should point to that. Have y 'all ever gone to these churches where the pastors get up and give these

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TED Talks and they use scripture to do it? They'll open scripture, they'll exegete a passage, but it never really seems to just magnify the name of God, just to point to his superiority above all.

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It doesn't lift your eyes up to the heavens, to God, to glory.

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We just prayed for brother David Miller's family just recently who passed away.

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I'd mentioned it to y 'all a few weeks ago and when you heard him speak, the word of God flowed out of him and everything that he spoke made you feel like you're actually looking up and this giant sky opens up and you're looking into the very heavens of the supreme creator, because that is preaching.

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That's what we long for. That's the goal. That's the purpose of preaching. The grand design,

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Cotton Mathers, it's 17th century period, it said, the grand design for the Christian preacher is to restore the throne and dominion of God in the souls of men.

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This is preaching. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as the servants for Jesus' sake.

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He said in Colossians 127, to them God chose to make known how great among the

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Gentiles are the riches of the glory of the mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

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Don't settle for preaching that doesn't point us and proclaim to us the supremacy of God in all things.

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Number two, the goal of preaching is to pronounce the sovereignty of God.

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That's where the doctrines of grace and things like this come into play, to pronounce the supreme power and authority of God.

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Not only is he superior to all things, but he is superior in power and authority in everything.

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Paul said in Romans 11, he says so too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by God, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

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When we exegete that text, so many preachers today, what are they gonna do?

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They're gonna fixate in that text, you, their main point and purpose and focus of that text will be you, not the sovereignty of God, as that text proclaims.

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The third, let's see here, to plead for the submission of the human heart, to plead for the submission of the human heart.

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We got you some John Piper quotes here, Wesley. He says, the goal of preaching is the glory of God reflected in the glad submission of the human heart.

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And the supremacy of God in preaching is secured by this fact, the one who satisfies gets the glory, the one who gives the pleasure is the treasure.

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It's not enough for a preacher to stand up in a pulpit with his weak theology to tell you about you, and it's also not enough to just stand up in the pulpit and proclaim the supremacy and sovereignty of God without a purposeful call to you, the follower, to submit for your heart to be molded to that truth, for your heart to desire to be in alignment with that truth, to rest in that truth, to submit to that truth.

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F, the ground of preaching. What is the ground of preaching? It's the cross of Christ.

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Any sermon that doesn't point back to Christ, is that even a sermon?

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Like, what are we preaching about? Number one, the validity of preaching, the validity of preaching, the effectiveness, the legitimacy of it.

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You see down there below, it says, the obstacle of man's sinfulness is overcome in the cross of Christ.

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So I always say that the gospel is the power of God into salvation. Not only is it the power of God into salvation, but the gospel is what we continually needed to be reminded of.

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That's why preaching must be grounded in the cross of Christ. Paul said in Romans 3, 23 through 26, it says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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You know the rest of the text. That's preaching. It's grounding and it's the validity of it.

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It's the foundation of preaching. Number two, it's the humility of preaching.

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The humility of preaching. Pride and arrogance have no place in preaching.

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And when you go to a church and you see somebody that's not pointing you to the text and pointing to the glory of God in that text and pointing to the gospel in that text, that man is arrogant because he thinks his words have power.

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And it's of no value. There is no purpose in it whatsoever. If that's the case, listen to a

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TED Talk. The world typically has more wisdom than that foolish, prideful man that's going to eisegete the text.

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Paul said in Galatians 6, 14, but far be it from me to boast except in the cross of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That's a preacher right there.

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The apostle Paul, of all people, had things to boast in, and he's like, I got nothing to boast in.

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I boast in the cross. That's why I keep going. That's why I make a beeline for it every chance

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I get. You want me to preach a text? You give me a text, I'll preach you the text, but notice how quickly

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I make it to the cross. 1 Corinthians 1, 21.

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For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

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It's a humbling thing. I can tell you right now, for Pastor Keith, for Pastor Jeremiah and myself, when we stand in this pulpit, here's what we know.

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Anybody that watches our feed online that's in the world is laughing at what we're saying.

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They think we're the dumbest, most foolish people on the planet, wasting our lives, don't they?

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It's the foolishness of the cross that brings humility. G, the gift of preaching.

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What's the gift of preaching? It's the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of the

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Holy Spirit. He's the one that must work. That's why number one here is the preacher is utterly dependent on the

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Holy Spirit. The preacher is utterly and completely dependent upon the

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Holy Spirit. He doesn't have any power of himself. Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, in my speech and my message, were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power.

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At the end of verse nine in 2 Corinthians 1, he says, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

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I'm telling you guys this because I want it to resonate with you what the ramifications of the doctrines of grace are on preaching and on evangelism.

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This is important so you can understand what makes a church and what makes a group of people that are just gathering with seemingly good ideas.

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And number two, the preacher is always broken of self -reliance. I can tell you for certain, and I know

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Pastor Keith can affirm this, and I know Pastor Jeremiah does, the more you stand in this pulpit, the more you realize you're incapable of it.

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And any man who comes up willy -nilly just thinking that he can pull this off, preparing his sermon for two or three hours on a

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Saturday before the Sunday, he's not being broken of self -reliance.

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He knows he has the gifting to accomplish what these people are wanting, and he can give it to them. But a preacher is broken.

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Paul even said it in 2 Corinthians, he said, so to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh.

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God was not gonna allow him to be arrogant. He is going to humble him.

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He is going to crush him. He is going to use the broken vessels, yes. He doesn't study because he's totally dependent on the

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Holy Spirit. He should go and depend on the Holy Spirit to help him sell cars down at the car lot instead of preach. Because Paul said to study to show yourself approved.

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So that's just pure foolishness because how does the Holy Spirit speak to a preacher? That's another,

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I'm gonna get on, you're gonna get me on a tangent. You distract me here. Yeah, y 'all ever talked to somebody, they're like,

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I'm just seeking the Lord's will right now. I'm like, so how are you doing that? They're like, I'm just going and I'm just spending some time in prayer.

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I'm just seeking the Lord's will. Is God gonna send it like Bluetooth to your brain?

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Is that your plan? Is that how the Holy Spirit speaks? No, he speaks through his word.

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You wanna know what God has to say, go to his word. And when you don't comprehend what his word says, go to his body and help other gifted brothers and sisters help you see what his word says.

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That's how you know the will of God. That's how you know that you're being spirit led through the word. I gotta stop, okay.

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It aggravates me when people say that. I'm just trying to follow the spirit's prompting. I'm like, no, you're not. You just wanna do what you wanna do.

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It's dumb. Number three, the preacher is to rely on the word of God, which gets to our point there, right?

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He must rely, 1 Corinthians 2 .13. And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

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2 Timothy 4 .2, preach the word. Preach what? Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.

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Be ready? What does that take? Sitting under your tree, just kind of waiting for God to send it to your brain?

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No, just study to show yourself approved. Hey, I did make it to the end.

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Lookie there, I made it. Six steps that every preacher should follow.

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And I wanna say this, this doesn't just apply to us who are preaching. I want you to think about these six steps in your own life because the qualifications and the call to a pastor, a shepherd, is the call to every

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Christian. That's the reason the pastor should be aligning with those things because he's an example for all of us to follow, okay?

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So I don't want you to check out here and go, well, I'm not a pastor, I don't need these six things. These six things are for you because you do proclaim the gospel, or you should be, right?

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Admit to utter helplessness without the Lord. Study to show yourself approved of God.

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Pray for Holy Spirit assistance. Notice those orders. You study and then you pray for the assistance that those words that have been renewed in your mind would penetrate into your life and be used by the

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Holy Spirit to speak to you. Trust in God's goodness and his promises. Act in the confidence that God will fulfill his word.

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That's where the doctrines of grace come in. Everybody else can say that they have confidence in God fulfilling his word, but God's only fulfilling his word as long as sovereign man says he can.

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You get that when I say that? Other theologies are basically, when you follow them to their logical conclusion, are saying, yeah,

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God can do and accomplish his purpose. He can accomplish his plans as long as man cooperates.

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When God sets in the heavens and laughs and does as he pleases. When God takes no counsel from man.

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That's why these doctrines are important. Act in the confidence that God will fulfill his word.

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Thank God for sustaining us and preaching through us to the glory of his name with thankful hearts.

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We made it to the end, I did it. Well, there's not a lot of homework this week, but there is a lot of homework this week, okay?

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It's just in one place. We're gonna read the book of Acts together this week.

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Sound like a good plan? Well, if you can read it every night, go for it.

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But we're just gonna read, read through the book of Acts. Read a few chapters a day, you'll get through it.

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Let's read through the book of Acts together. And I think that's gonna prepare us for next week as we talk about objections to the doctrines.

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But it's also gonna help us too, because I don't know if many of y 'all know this, but we have our new sermon series for the beginning of the year.

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It's gonna be Acts. It's exciting, isn't it? So we're gonna be going through that starting next year.

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So let's get a jumpstart on it. Guys, let's pray. And then if anybody got questions, I'm gonna be around.

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We can talk through some of these things. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you once again. We pray that you would be honored in our lives and our actions.

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Lord, help us to rely upon you. Lord, I pray that these truths would penetrate our hearts in a way that would cause us to go and be obedient to your call to go and make disciples.

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That we get to be a part of that. That we get the privilege of walking and being used by the spirit, in the body, for your great purposes.

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It's overwhelming. Oh, Father, mold us in that. Help us.