Questions & Answers

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Well, tonight we're going to do a Q &A. I might have time for some of your questions just on the spot, but probably not.
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I don't have any questions that I put in here that I wanted to put in here. Sometimes, just a trick that we'll tell you pastorally behind the curtain, between lay people and the priesthood, is that sometimes on these
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I'll put in my own question. I'll say, well, you know, this would be good to talk to the church about, so I'll put my question in and just add it in, and then
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I guess you think it's from you, but it's a question from the congregation. Am I not a part of the congregation? But this,
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I didn't add any of my own questions, so if you don't like the questions, you can blame yourself. I guess we'll start with that.
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But a variety of questions that are interesting, most of them, we'll look up Bible verses because I want you to know your
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Bible, hence Bethlehem Bible Church. Some are a little more philosophical and some very practical. I'll do my best, why don't we pray, and we'll start.
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Father in heaven, we look forward to that one day where we no longer have to walk by faith, but it's going to be sight and to see the
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Lord Jesus. He's in a human body now, and He's ruling and He's reigning, and we will see
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Him. And with the glorified body, we will worship Him and praise Him with the saints, with the angels, and if there's anything you'd want us to do, we would be glad to do it.
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And now on earth, it's the same thing. You are ruling and reigning, and you are sovereignly controlling everything, and we want to be responding with faith and then obedience and faithfulness.
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And so would you just help us even tonight, encourage these dear people, help them to learn as we want to be better equipped, not only to worship you, but also to preach the gospel to our friends and neighbors.
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In Jesus' name, amen. Well, the first question I have is, do you believe in parachurches?
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Do you believe in parachurches? And so if you don't know what a word is, I just think, okay, parachurch, that's not p -e -a -r -a church, it's para like the
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Holy Spirit is called what? He's called the paraclete, one that comes alongside. And so para just means to come alongside.
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If I called one of you up and said, Pradeep, come up here and help me with some of these difficult questions, he would be alongside of me.
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He'd be a paramic to come alongside of me. And so parachurch, that would be difficult. Do you think there's one mic and you have problems with?
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What if there was a pair of mics? And so parachurch means something, an organization or an institution that comes alongside of the church.
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And they could be good, they could be bad. Is this a parachurch? A seminary.
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Is this a parachurch? A publisher. Is this a parachurch? Ligonier Ministries, right?
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They're all three parachurches unless you have a seminary that's in a local church. And so we would recognize there's some wonderful parachurches, right?
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Seminaries, publishers, people like Ligonier Ministries, they are wonderful. They come alongside the church and they try to help the church with things that maybe they're not very good at.
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If the church was good at everything, and she should be and we should try to be, we wouldn't need them, right?
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Let's say VBS curriculum. We oftentimes would buy VBS curriculum from a parachurch organization because they have a good five -day musical skit and verses and all that stuff.
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And when we do buy it from them, we end up bulking up the biblical stuff, right?
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We make sure it's really solid and doctrine. Parachurches aren't always bad, but they tend to go bad because they need money and they need people and they need to grow.
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And the more you grow or have a desire to grow and a need to grow, you can cut corners and say, well, we need to be more trans -denominational and non -denominational.
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And before you know it, it's easy to compromise. If you take your Bible, I want you to look at Matthew chapter 16.
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And while I'm not against parachurch, I think they're as good as their leadership team. They can run into trouble because they're trying to be too deluded and then compromise.
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But I want you to be reminded that it is the church, this church included, that Jesus has promised to bless.
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He does bless parachurch ministries and lots of people have all kinds of wonderful things that have happened to them through parachurch ministries.
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I mean, if God can bless through TikTok, he could bless through Ligonier, right? So it has nothing to do with Ligonier per se or anything else, but it's the local church is where God's special favor lies.
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And one of the things that I want to do in my life, I never thought about working for a parachurch because I wanted to be in the center of where God blesses.
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The local church is where it's at. So Matthew chapter 16, just a good reminder that all parachurches should help the church.
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All parachurches should assist the church. There should be no competition. Her job as a parachurch ministry should be what the
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Lord Jesus points us to, and that is the local church. Now we're going to look at Matthew 16. Of Matthew 16, a commentator,
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James Montgomery Boyce. How many people have heard of James Montgomery Boyce? Many. He would be good for you to learn from and learn of.
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He was in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia at 10th Presbyterian Church.
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I believe he died in 2000. Wonderful commentaries. Boyce said of Matthew 16, every chapter of the
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Bible is important, but you know what they say about all persons being born equal. Some are equaler than others.
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I think that's animal farm, isn't it? So also with the
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Bible, some chapters are more important than others, though all are important. Matthew 16 is one of these more important chapters.
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It is central chapter in Matthew's account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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So you know what's going on. We're in Caesarea Philippi. There's false gods worship there. I think we actually are going to try to start up an
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Israel trip for next February based on prices. We had to cancel this last year because of all the issues that went around the world.
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We're going to try to go back and we will take you to this place where there's water. You see the big false god thing there, and then this happens right in the middle of Caesarea Philippi.
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Verse 13. Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the
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Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say
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Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am?
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Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered him, blessed are you, first time he uses his full name,
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Simon Bar -Jonah. How did he figure this out? By his own intuition, by his own deduction, by his own logic, by his own brain power.
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No, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
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Of course, you can learn about people and doctrines and everything in scripture, but to really know and to understand, it has to be revealed.
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I tell you, Peter, excuse me, I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell,
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Hades, shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
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Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the
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Christ. Peter, you did figure this out, but not on your own, it was revealed to you, and then you believed.
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But the one section I want to draw your attention to is verse 18, and the gates of, does your text say hell or Hades?
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Most everybody says hell, right? Does anybody say Hades? Someone, what translation do you have? The LSB?
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Okay, the LSB is the Legacy Standard Bible, it's the New American Standard Bible with a few updates.
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Does the NAS say gates of Hades? Keith, what does yours say? Here's an
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NIV. Okay, well, I was going to try to make it a joke, but I don't think we're going over well.
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Hades is what it says. So what's he saying here? I often hear people say, the gates of hell will not stop the church.
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Is that a true statement, by the way? Can Satan stop the church? Can Satan say, you know what? God has chosen people in eternity past, and I'm going to make sure they never come to faith.
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I am going to make sure that the Spirit of God never applies the work of Christ to their account.
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Can Satan stop God? Obviously not. Remember, Luther called Satan his hardest working servant, because Satan can only do, think
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Job, what God has ordained. But here, the gates of Hades, and what's this whole gate thing?
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Is this referring to death, or is this referring to hell? Now, does death stop the kingdom of God?
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Does death stop the church? Well, hell can't, death can't, but what's going on here? Let me read to you what
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Leon Morris said. That the gates will not overpower the church is a little puzzling since we think of gates as part of defense, not offense.
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But gates were important parts of fortifications. Wooden gates would be overlaid with bronze, thus they lend themselves to the imagery of strength.
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The gates of Hades, probably regarded as especially strong, did they not keep in all the dead?
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Jesus is then saying that the gates of Hades are not strong enough to prevail against the church, and that the church will never die.
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There may be the thought that Hades is strong, and the dead do not come back from it. It is not strong enough to contain
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Jesus, and it is not strong enough to contain the Christian dead. Morris, whether we can understand all the detailed imagery or not, it is clear that Jesus is giving his followers assurance that nothing in this world or the next can overthrow the church.
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So I think that'll be a good study for you. Is it hell? Is it Hades? Certainly Satan can't stop the church, and death can't either, because we think about the
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Lord Jesus and his resurrection. So am I against parachurches? I love good parachurches.
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Bad parachurches? May they rest in peace. May the gates of Hades take them.
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Can I say that? No, no, I won't. I don't mean them personally, but the ministry. All right, number two.
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Who is your favorite uninspired author? Somebody asked you, who do you love to read that's not inspired?
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I mean, if somebody says, what's the best book on baptism? I would say Galatians, right? So they knew, this person knew to say your uninspired author, because we could say
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Jesus, we could say Paul, we could say Peter, we could say Isaiah. By the way, this morning, I think people thought
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I was talking about Isaiah chapter 11, verses 49 and 59. Did you think that to start? That's my bad.
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But I eventually explained it, did I not? Isaiah chapter 11, chapter 49, chapter 59. Okay.
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Who's your favorite uninspired author? Well, I'm going to give you a lot, not just one. I'm going to take the liberty.
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So I'm going to look at the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s, and I'll give you my favorite authors in that time period.
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And I do this because when I was where you were, I often said to myself, there's so much to read.
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I just need somebody that I can kind of trust, right? You should trust me to some degree, or you shouldn't be here, but you shouldn't trust me completely because I'm fallible.
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And so therefore, you have to, as my father would say, trust me as far as you could throw me. And these days, as I'm shrinking in size and in weight, you could probably throw me farther than before.
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I'm telling you this so that when you say, all right, there's all kinds of crazy people to read, I have one life to live.
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Should I read good stuff? Secondly, I want you to read people that have died because they've stood the test of time.
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And if you only read popular authors who are the latest pastor writing something, I think you're going to deprive yourself from these works that have stood the test of time.
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So read old guys, read old dead guys. 1500s, my favorite uninspired author. It's a tie,
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Luther and Calvin. Calvin has a little more finesse when he writes. He often talks about, of course, predestination, but he does it in a very warm way.
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When you read Calvin on prayer, he's not staid and stoic and some kind of, you know, you think of a
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Calvinist who's really, he just has no emotions. That's not him at all. And Luther, he's just a tiger.
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If you're going to try to add works to your standing before God, he is going to jump down your throat.
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You stand before God based on Christ's work and Christ's work alone. So I would suggest to read
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Luther and read Calvin. In the 1600s, I would read John Owen. I like John Owen for lots of reasons and John Owen, one of the reasons
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I like him, this is not the main reason at all, but he dressed well. They call him a dandy.
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And I thought, you know what? I think pastors should dress well. And so I kind of like that. I think last week
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I looked like a dandy with that crazy checkered sports coat or something.
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I didn't think it looked kind of weird until I saw myself later. John Owen will help you.
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And he loves to talk about the glory of Christ. He's known for mortification of sin, killing sin, putting sin to death.
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But that's just because we want to learn about what we should do first. And Owen will make you say, do you know what?
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The glory of Christ. Read about the communion of Christ. Read about Psalm 130.
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John Owen, I think you'll be encouraged. That's the 1600s. 1700s, there's a man, his name's
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John Cahoon. It's spelled C -O -L -Q -U -H -O -U -N, but it's pronounced
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Cahoon. John Cahoon. And he writes on law, he writes on gospel, all kinds of other things.
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1800s, Horatius Bonar, born in 1808, died in 1889. You'll see some of the books around the church, little pamphlets.
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God's way of holiness. Very, very encouraging. How to live a holy life that's not based on what you have to do unassisted by God.
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God justifies, God sanctifies, and we respond with holy living. And he gets that template right.
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Horatius Bonar. In the 1900s, any guesses? Who would you like for the 1900s? Okay, Spurgeon would be good, but I don't think he made it to the 1900s.
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19th century, yes, but he was in the 1800s. Can you imagine Spurgeon was preaching during the Civil War? Isn't that weird?
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You kind of think of that. In the 1900s, I'm going to pick J. Gresham Machen. You ought to read
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Christianity and Liberalism. You ought to read What is Faith? And you would be very, very encouraged because he will stand up for the truth at all costs.
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And then in the 2000s, I'm going to give you a live person and a dead person. The alive person is
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Sinclair Ferguson, and the dead person is Jerry Bridges.
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And I think if you read Jerry Bridges, you will think about God more biblically.
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You will rest in your assurance of salvation more thoroughly, and you're really going to be motivated to obey because of what the
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Lord has done. Jerry Bridges. Everybody know who Jerry Bridges is? Navigator Press, right?
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That's like the one thing that Navigator Press got right because they were in so much psychology in their publications that some people called them
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Nav -depressed. But Jerry Bridges, he is excellent, and I suggest you read him.
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All right, question three. Do you believe preaching should be first evangelistic?
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Corresponding with the Lord's words to the disciples, he said, Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men, considering also that the preaching of the
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Puritans was primarily evangelistic. So let me read the first part again.
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Do you believe that preaching should be first evangelistic? Well, let's turn our Bibles to Acts chapter 20. I don't think the template for all our preaching is forced underneath the rubric of follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
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I also don't think that the primary preaching of the Puritans was evangelistic, although they were heavy on that.
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And I don't think all preaching should be thought of as evangelistic. Here's what I'm going to say.
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Let me say it this way, rather. If you preach the Lord Jesus Christ, both believers will be encouraged to obey and thankful for what the
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Lord has done, and unbelievers, when they hear about the Lord Jesus, as the Spirit of God wants to apply Christ life and death and burial resurrection to their account, or life and death specifically, then he will.
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So I think it should be a Christ -centered preaching, but not always evangelistic. Like my number one goal today is to think, there's a lot of people here that maybe aren't believers, and I'm going to try to root you out.
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I think that's the Lord's job with wheat and tares. And so I think I'm going to just make sure I preach the whole counsel of God.
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And isn't it amazing how, and again, to go back to the TikTok thing, you can hear Scripture preached, and it could be from the most obscure passage, and then you get convicted, or your friend gets convicted and gets saved.
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So when I stand up, I don't say to myself, oh, I noticed 14 visitors today, and they're all unbelievers, and my passage is on the armor of God.
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I just preach the armor of God and let God do his work through his powerful word. So Acts 20,
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Paul is talking to the Ephesian elders. You guys know anything about Ephesus or the church at Ephesus or anything?
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Verse 17, now from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.
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And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day
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I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the
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Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both the
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Jews and Greeks of repentance towards God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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And now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem constrained by the spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the
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Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself.
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If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
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And now behold, I know that none among you whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.
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Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
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Then he says in verse 32, after warning them about wolves and being alert, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
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Paul's mission was, I'm just going to preach everything in the Bible. Paul's duty was, I'm going to preach the whole counsel of God.
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My own personal ministry, I don't think I'm going to make it through all the Bible, right? If I live long enough, well,
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I just keep preaching the Bible. If I preach through every book of the Bible, I just start over again. But our duty is to preach the whole counsel of God.
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And therefore, when Paul says, I want to do that, I never say to myself, maybe like Martyn Lloyd -Jones,
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Sunday morning was for edification, Sunday night was for evangelism. I don't think it's wrong.
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There was enough people in London for him to do that. But my goal is not, well, every sermon needs to be evangelistic.
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I regularly say, did I say it this morning? If you're not a Christian here today, I exhort you to believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. I think we should regularly say that. But I don't think to myself, except for Christmas and Easter, I'm going to make this especially evangelistic, unless the passage is especially evangelistic.
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Therefore, I don't think that I say to myself, my sermons should first be evangelistic.
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I think my sermons should first be Christ -centered. And by the way, Christ -centered is good news. And therefore, if unbelievers hear, great.
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If believers hear, great. Does that make sense? You meet somebody and you say, let's make it practical.
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You meet a friend, like, I don't know if they're saved or not. I wonder if they're a believer.
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Well, what do you do? What do you talk about? Well, just talk about who the Lord Jesus is anyway, and tell him how great he is and what he's done for you in your life and how he's helped you and how he's not forsaken you, how he's been there when everybody else left.
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And lo, I'm with you always, even at the end of the age. Even though I sometimes deny Jesus, he's never denied me.
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There is this friend, the Lord Jesus, who loves me and gave himself for me. Could I talk that way to an unbeliever?
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Absolutely. Could I talk that way to a believer to encourage them? Absolutely. So when I get up here, I think to myself,
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God, my words will go out of my mouth, frail words of a man like me, and you could take those and make them run in the heart of a person, and they could go from death to life.
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They could hear that when they have testimonies and baptism. By the way, I've said TikTok a few times, so let me just say this.
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Ray, I think you're going to be a preacher, right? I thought Ray, Ray, Ray is the preacher, preacher.
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I was sad. That was excellent. And if I had some kind of charismatic gifting, and if I was an apostle,
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I would say, God told me that you're going to be a pastor, but I don't need to do that. I can say,
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I heard some wonderful preaching. Did that not encourage you? We were Christians encouraged by a testimony of a man talking about the
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Lord. There were unbelievers here. I knew some unbelievers here today. What do you think was going through their mind? Hopefully conviction, but they're still hearing about the
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One, the object of our faith. But I'm not joking around. I thought that was excellent. I thought, there's a preacher right there.
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Let me retire first, okay? What's your first name again?
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Yes. Ramon? Okay. How'd you get Ray, Ray as a name? Yes. Okay.
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No, no, I like it. It's easy to remember, right? Perfect. Okay, next question.
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Since justification by faith alone is the most important doctrine in all scripture, why aren't more churches teaching it today?
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Well, of course, when we say justification by faith alone, I mean, the most important doctrine in scripture would have to be the triune
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God, right? One God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And then what that God does, not only who He is, but what
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He does. And of course, then we see that, especially with the life of our Lord Jesus, as the Father sends
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Him to be obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, and the Spirit of God empowering Jesus, and of course, giving us
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His righteousness by faith. And so if somebody says, is this important doctrine?
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Yes, this is the doctrine that basically is the standing or falling doctrine of a church, the reformers would say.
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Why isn't it taught? Well, one of the reasons it's not taught much is because pastors are taught to be relevant.
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I have to give you a relevant message, a practical message to kind of help you get through the week, and something abstract like justification by faith alone, and you're no longer condemned in Christ, some people just, they kind of take that as, well, that's what we believe, theoretically, but operationally in the church, we're on to bigger and better things now, how to get through the work week, etc.
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I want you to turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 14, and I want you just to get this in your mind, that justification by faith alone is one of the most practical doctrines and the most relevant doctrines of all the
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Bible, not just because of your standing before God, but also if you know that you're good with God, and that God sees you in Christ, and that He sees you as He would
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Christ, righteous, doesn't that affect what we do then? And so think about Romans, how many chapters of Romans?
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16. How many doctrinal chapters? Well, it's a trick question, I could say 16, but essentially he says 1 to 11, here's who you are in Christ, 12 to 16, live out who you are, be who you are, conduct befitting a gentleman, or an officer.
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Which chapters talk about justification by faith alone? Remember, the opposite of justification is condemnation, the judge has a gavel, we've sinned before God, and he says, you're condemned.
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Well, why doesn't he say condemned to us? We've sinned, we all know we've sinned, but he takes the gavel and he says about Jesus, Jesus, you're condemned.
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Remember, and the Lord responds with, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So Jesus is condemned.
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Remember the song, in my place, condemned he stood.
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So Jesus, of course, is our sin bearer, and our righteousness earner, and therefore
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I think it's pretty relevant and practical to realize that I get to go to heaven one day based on the work of another.
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Is that relevant? I hope so, I mean, we're talking about eternal life, eternal truth. But there's something else, the chapter 3 at the end, chapter 4 and chapter 5 talk about justification, what it is in chapter 3, who received it,
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Abraham did, remember God justifies the ungodly, David was a man who did some pretty bad things, and he was justified, and then the benefits of justification, peace with God, access, and now we come to chapter 14 and 15, and it's very, very practical in the sense that what we want to do with our preferences and Christian liberties is determined by our standing before God because of justification by faith alone.
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That is to say, if you decide to eat meat, or you decide not to eat meat, if you decide to eat something offered to an idol, or you decide to abstain, you decide to drink alcohol, not drink alcohol, you decide to do this, that, or the other, go hang out with gentiles near the temple, or not, guess what, that doesn't change your standing before God.
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And that's everything in 14 and 15 where we call the liberty passages, and passing judgment on people because they're not just like us with preferences.
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Verse 5 of Romans 14, one person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.
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Verse 10, why do you pass judgment on your brother? Back up to chapter 14, verse 1, as for the one who's weak in faith, criticize him.
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Whoa, sorry, it didn't say that. Does anybody have a Bible that says criticize him? No, what do you do for the one who's weak in faith, who doesn't think they can do everything that Christian liberty allows them to do?
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What do you do to them? Welcome them, but not to quarrel over opinions. You don't say, come to my house because I'm going to teach you the right way to think of Christian liberty and fight about it.
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What's the point, pastor? Here's the point. Justification by faith alone is relevant to our eternal life, obviously, but it's also relevant in the
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Christian life and in the church life, because what you eat, what you drink, does not affect your standing.
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Should you get drunk? Obviously, the answer is no, but if you say, I have liberty to drink, I have liberty to,
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I mean, are there verses in the Bible that says you can't take some dry leaves, roll them up, put them in your mouth, light them on fire?
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I don't know, there might be. I'm not advocating it. I'm just saying it doesn't change your standing, and so, therefore, when
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I think to myself, am I having a problem with my liberties in Christ? The answer is found in Sola Fide, justification by faith alone, and if my friends at the church have been justified by faith alone, and I've been justified by faith alone, then we both have our own liberties as we're maturing in our thoughts about Sola Fide to do what we think is good or right.
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Is it practical? I think it's practical. Why isn't it preached? Because it doesn't fill seats in the minds of the pastors.
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Why is this church full? It's because, remember,
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I told everybody, I told Scott to say this this morning, but Scott Brown did not obey me. I told him to announce that under one of the seats, one of the pew seats, there's a free car wash, and if you're a visitor, you get a free car wash, and you might get lucky, and you might get a car wash here, so that's why we want you to come to the church.
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Isn't that at all what people want to know about? What they're dying for is, I want to hear about the Lord. I've got enough lists to do, and I don't even do those.
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Remember Promise Keepers came out years ago? I'm thinking, I can't even keep the Ten Commandments. I don't need seven more to disobey.
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Can you tell me somebody who did keep the commandments? Can you imagine Jesus? Every commandment you go through, and you think, he honored his father and mother.
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He never looked at somebody with lust, and the list goes on and on. Why don't people preach it? I think they're sadly mistaken, and I think they somehow think that it's too abstract, and people will say, you know what?
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I just need to learn about how to communicate better, and how to manage my money, when I think if you get the
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Lord Jesus right, you'll figure out the rest. And by the way, there's a lot better money managers than I am, so if I'm going to stand here, it better be about the
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Lord Jesus. When I was dying, and I thought, well, I thought I was dying, and I gave a little text message to Pastor Steve, and I just said, thanks for being a friend.
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You've been a better friend to me than I have of you. Make sure the church leadership takes care of Kim if I die.
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And one of the things I told him was, and make sure you preach Christ every week. And I know he would, and he did, right?
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That's the important thing. It's not, how am I going to be relevant? And by the way, if Sola Fide isn't relevant,
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I'm going to preach it anyway, because I'm under charge to preach these things, and it's not for me to think, how can
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I get the people coming? How can I get the people excited? How can I get the people back? Well, what if I say, the thing that you need more than anything is another message about who
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Jesus is, so we'll see you next Sunday. And by the way, next week, it's John chapter 20. Jesus shows up after his resurrection, and he sees the disciples, and what does he say?
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Peter, you loser. You denied me in front of a girl. You are the lamest.
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And you think, you know what? I sinned this week, and what's God's response to me? What a loser.
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No, no, not once, not twice, but three times, the Lord Jesus says to those frail disciples, peace to you.
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Peace. We're fine. We're good. I've taken care of you. So that's what we need to hear.
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Okay, what do we have? We're never going to get through all these. All right, here's one.
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I'm not going to tell you who sent this to me, but they actually sent it, and so I'm going to do it. What does parsing verbs mean?
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Why is it important, and can you give us an example? Parsing. Well, parse means, it's
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Latin for part. So you look at a verb, and you say, what are the parts of the verb?
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Because, as Luther said, in these last days, God has spoken to us in Greek and Hebrew letters, right?
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The Bible's written New Testament Greek, Old Testament, mainly Hebrew, a little bit of Aramaic, and so we have to understand the specifics about God with language.
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That's why when you go to seminary, the first thing they make you do is to take an English class. What are the parts of speech?
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Verbs, subjects, objects, etc. And so with parsing, why don't we go to Ephesians 6 .10,
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because this person asked me for an example, Ephesians 6 .10. With parsing, we're analyzing grammatical parts of a verb, so we know what it means, or says at least, and then how it's going to be connected in a sentence with other words, so we can understand and analyze all the parts.
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Ephesians 6 .10. I made reference to this today quickly. Everything this morning was quickly.
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I had several people say, I just wish you could have split that into another part. And I said, well, the
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Latin word for part is where we get the word parse. Finally, be strong in the
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Lord. That's right. That's similar to the language of 2 Timothy 2. Be strengthened in the
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Lord is what it means. So if you parse something, it's going to tell me what does that verb mean.
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For instance, this verb, be strong, is a present passive imperative, second person plural.
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That's how you parse it, and you have to learn that in Greek class. It is a present passive imperative, second person plural.
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So if I'm at seminary, and they say parse the word to be strong, that's what I have to write down.
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Present passive participle, excuse me, present passive imperative, second person plural.
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So that would simply mean, present means, is it one point in time? Is it future?
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Is it ongoing? And present is, it's ongoing. So you should be strengthened all the time. It's not one and done,
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I would strengthen at salvation. Passive, instead of me saying be strong, I would say be strengthened.
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Right? I hit the ball, I'm active, the ball was hit by me, passive. And so this tells you who's the actor, who's on first.
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So present passive, I'm to be strengthened by God. Imperative, what's that mean?
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Well, is it a suggestion? No, it's a command, right? God commands us to do things. Second person plural.
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So if I say second person, you, is that second person?
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If I say second person plural, would it be ye? Y 'all? Y 'all, y 'all?
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What do people say? Yitz? Yitz? I don't know that.
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Oh, it is. Second person plural for Pennsylvania, ye is yinz? Ooh, that's just more strange comment than what's parsing.
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I've been doing this, did I mention Scott for 25 years I've been here? I've never been asked this question.
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So parsing, I mean, if I read other Bible translations, and by the way, let me just encourage you this way.
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Let's say you're studying a passage. If you have no commentaries, and by the way, if you have an internet, you can easily pull up John Calvin's commentaries.
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They're rich and devotional, concise, and trustworthy. If you have nothing else, if you get four good
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Bible translations in English and set them out, it will help you study a lot.
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So I'm going to have the New American Standard, I'm going to have the NIV, I'm going to have the ESV, and I'm going to have
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King James. Here, King James says, my brethren, be strong in the Lord.
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Christian Standard Bible, be strengthened by the Lord. American Standard, be strong in the
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Lord. Aramaic Bible, be strengthened. Contemporary English, let the mighty strength of the
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Lord make you strong. So parsing is simply analyzing a word to understand exactly is it for now, is it for later, is it a suggestion, is it a command, is it a statement of fact, and is it to me individually, or is it to me plural?
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I didn't say this much this morning, but that whole passage in Ephesians 6 is plural, because imagine if all of us at the church put that huge door up that was a shield, and we were all under that shield, standing next to each other, locking arms.
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That's what he's after, the churches together. Now the danger of parsing words is that sermons can just end up being, the
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Greek word is used this many times, and I mean sometimes I'll say it's a present tense, it's ongoing, it's durative, but if that's the sermon every single week and everything that I say about English language and then
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Greek language, I think that's a bad sermon. I have been taught to do word studies, look at the minutia, find out exactly what's going on, that's good to know, but it's not good for me to just say that's the sermon.
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I mean I guess I could have a five -point sermon next Sunday during Easter, since all preaching is evangelistic preaching, and I'd have my five or six points, point one present, point two passive, point three imperative, point three second person.
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No, a good movie is filmed with 14 hours of film, but everything except 90 minutes is on the cutting room floor, and they just edit together perfectly.
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What makes a good meal? You go out to your favorite restaurant, what's a good meal? They give you tons of food heaped up with really low quality, right?
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No, no, a good food is, it's excellent food, and there's not much of it, and it looks great, and it has to contain the word drizzle in the menu.
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Every time I see the word drizzle, I'm thinking that's marketing. Cilantro, that's a different story, but you think, okay, it's my job to know this is a present, passive, imperative, second person, plural, but I can't lead with that and preach that because it doesn't really preach much.
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It's good for a seminary class, but not for preaching, and it makes me kind of look at the scripture like this instead of look at the scripture like this.
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I see the tree, oh, it's a present imperative, but I don't see the forest. Oh, this is after chapter 1 and 2 and 3.
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It's in this section of put on, put off. It's in this section about be filled with the Spirit of God. Oh, that's where the section is.
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And so many times I think I get down in here, especially young pastors, young preachers. I'm sure I had this,
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I did this 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago. You feel like the pastor on Sunday morning is just backing up the dump truck of just data.
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Beep, beep, beep, beep, and you're like, I'm dying, but this is better than the liberal church down the street, so I'll stick it out.
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Thanks for sticking it out. I appreciate that. Thanks for praying. Luther's small catechism.
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What is the correct understanding of the Bible? The key to this? Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, is the heart and center of scripture, and therefore the key to its meaning.
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So if I've got a verse, and I've got a verb, and I've got an imperative, and I've got this parsed out thing,
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I need to make sure how is this relating to either who Jesus is, what he calls me to do, or something else.
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Does that make sense? These scriptures testify about the Lord Jesus. All right, well,
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I think we're going to just do one more. I have lots of questions, and I have one here about animals talking. So I'm going to try to find the one about animals talking.
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I've got questions like, is it possible to recognize if a Catholic priest is saved? I've got, would the definition of a
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Chalcedon creed be reliable? I have, what about the Athanasian creed that says
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Jesus is equal to the Father in regards to divinity, less than the Father as regard to humanity? I have that there in my answer.
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I have, should all churches, if able, go through creeds and confessions on the Lord's day? I have
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Nicene creed questions. I have all kinds of things, but my fingers are not finding that.
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Okay, here we go. Here's the question from one of Bethlehem Bible Church people. In Genesis 3, the serpent talks to Eve.
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Her question is, this person's daughter's question, did other animals talk as well during Adam and Eve's time in the
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Garden of Eden? P .S., she's recently watched Narnia. So, I don't know, we go from the obtuse what's parsing to do animals talk in Scripture?
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Do animals talk in Scripture? Tell me some animal that talked in Scripture. A donkey, very good.
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Balaam's donkey talked, right? Very good. So can animals talk?
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Well, I think that's true. Do animals talk? That's another question. Animals, well, let's turn to Genesis 3 to make sure we figure this out.
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I mean, we can think about parrots. They just kind of mimic and they just, you know, say whatever the Master teaches them.
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That's not really talk. We go to Genesis 3 and there's all kinds of issues that aren't answered.
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What's the origin of evil? How did God let evil in? What does this do to the character of God? What was the nature of the serpent beforehand?
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And was he slithering on his belly? Now is he upright? Was he upright first? Does every other animal talk?
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I think Satan is a tool. Satan uses the serpent as a tool. And, of course, this serpent, this
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Satan -energized serpent talks. Chapter 3, verse 1, now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the
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Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden.
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Now, before I go into that a little bit more, can demons talk? Can animals talk is a good question.
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But if I was asking questions, can demons talk? Can demons talk? Have demons talked?
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I can make it more personal. Have demons talked to you? Pastor Steve, we'll see you afterward if a demon has talked to you.
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In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, let us alone.
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What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?
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I know who you are, the Holy One of God. A demon speaking through a person, using that person's voice.
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So I know that happens. I know Balaam, God had spoken through that donkey.
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But what about this serpent? Let's think about it maybe from this perspective. Is there any difference between men and women and animals in creation?
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How does God create animals? How does God create humans?
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Is there something different? What's the element that's different? Yeah, Brian? Okay.
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And he breathed life into Adam. And so we would say that he has a spirit, or a soul, depending on what we want to call a spirit soul.
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I don't think he has a spirit and a soul. I think those are used interchangeably. He makes him from the dust of the ground in his own image.
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And let me ask you this next question, congregation. Can animals communicate in any way, shape, or form?
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Yeah, like what can they do? Like what's the best thing you've ever taught your dog to do in terms of communicating? Bite? Now, you're supposed to teach him not to bite, but Becky teaches her dog how to bite.
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Okay. Is that why Peter is... Bark for red...
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Okay, well, when I was a kid, we had a dog, and I would say, if you don't like Marcy, my sister, growl, and I would pinch the dog.
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But that was before I was saved, so it's under the blood, which is good. Do dogs have the ability to say to themselves,
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I'm a dog, and I'm going to reason and think like humans? There's got to be a difference, right? We love our dogs, and we begin to attribute to them things that seem human, right?
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Anthropomorphic kind of descriptions. I think when Eve's in the garden, and of course, Adam's standing right by her like a numbskull and doesn't do anything, he's to be keeping and preserving and watching and protecting.
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The first thing that happened when Satan came up and began to talk to Eve, he should have done what?
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What should have Adam done? He should have taken that sickle, taken something, and should have cut that thing's head off, questioning who
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God is. Adam is to protect like priests protect. Adam was to protect. That's that word in Genesis 1, to keep, shamar.
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It's a present active imperative second person. No, I'm just kidding. I couldn't resist.
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Talking, reasoning, I think that's what makes men different and women different than animals.
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Animals created just from the dust of the ground. I think animals can communicate, but they don't have the reason, nor the language, nor the expression that we do.
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One man said, language is unique to people. You can train your dog to go get the paper, but you cannot sit down and discuss its contents with him.
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I thought, that's exactly true. And so did the other animals in the garden talk?
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I don't know, but I don't think so. I think it was this demonically, satanically rather, energized serpent that goes up and begins spewing false doctrine to Eve.
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And she sadly did not have a head, Adam, who took matters into his own hands.
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Somebody said, well, I don't even need to read it. Other questions for next time?
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Does God have passions? What does it mean that God descended, the Son descended into hell and other things?
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So, I hope you were encouraged. That time went by fast, didn't it? 50 minutes? I wish we had three more baptisms tonight.
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Would that be good? By the way, if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you have not been baptized, you need to be baptized, right?
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Now, I did not say, well, I used to be Arminian and I was baptized, and now I understand the sovereignty of God better.
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Therefore, I think I'll get baptized because I know better doctrine. Is that how it works? Otherwise, we can constantly be baptized, baptized, baptized, baptized.
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I think the Bible somewhere says, one baptism. Does it not? I think that's Ephesians chapter 4.
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All right. Why don't we stand up and sing the doxology together? Does that sound good to you, Tim? You want to lead it?