Evangelize with Christ (Part 2)

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The Need for Preaching (Part 3)

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No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,
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Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the
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Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.
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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.
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Paul says, I preached a simple message to you pagans and you got saved. You got saved, pagans.
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He doesn't have to manipulate. I have a book in my office and it's an evangelistic book. And it says that when you meet someone and you want to try to influence them, you try to get them to say yes a lot, because if they say yes five times in a row, you kind of say yes the sixth time.
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You know, it's a nice day out, yes. You know, you're going to live forever, yes. And before you know it, you put the
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Bible in their hand and it says, put your other hand on the nape of his neck, back of his neck, and then say, let us pray.
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And then you kind of push him down a little bit to pray. Well, when another guy comes along who's a better neck nape pusher, he's in big trouble because he's going to push him back up this way to believe something else.
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I remember the time my mother went to a healing service and wanted my dad to be healed from cancer.
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And she said, she stood up there, anybody who needs healing for their loved ones, come up. She came up and they started pushing on her forehead and she started pushing back.
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It was kind of this back and forth kind of thing. And you know, when you're the slain and the spirit guy and you keep pushing, they don't fall over.
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You just go over to the next one. This is not some kind of manipulation where I'm going to get you to say what
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I want you to say. Some bait and switch evangelism. High pressure. Here's how we do it.
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We're a little more sophisticated. We somehow, we just kind of cut off the rough corners of the gospel when we evangelize.
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Some of us do that. Who wants to talk about the exclusivity of Christ in this secular relative world?
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Who wants to talk about it's all or nothing? Who wants to talk about there's no other way? Who wants to talk about pick up your cross, deny yourself and follow me?
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Who wants to talk about hate mother, brother, sister? Who wants to say when you're sick of your life, then you come and follow me.
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We'll just cut those off. We can't do that. One man said the power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher.
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Otherwise men would be the converter of souls. I'm so thankful that I don't have to study philosophy, psychology, history, archeology or anything else.
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I need to study the cross and I can preach to anyone. And so can you. Who's the smartest person you can think of that's not a
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Christian? Are you able to preach the gospel to them if they came to you and said, I'm dying of cancer and I'm worried that I'm going to go to hell.
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What must I do to be saved? Well, let's see, I better go back to school and study intelligent design and irreducible minimums and memorize
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Darwin's black box. Can you tell them the truth? If you stutter and stammer and make grammatical mistakes, but you point them to the cross,
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I love that. So freeing. Study all you want, but you don't need to study to art and craft the deal.
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You need to study about the gospel. So you focus on the gospel. No gimmicks. Word number two, first word was disregard.
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The second word determination. First Corinthians chapter two, one to five, four words that describe your philosophy, your methodology, your theology.
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When it comes to preaching, preaching that you listen to when I preach to you or preaching that you do in evangelism, it could be applied in many different ways.
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Determination. This is now Paul's reason for his method. Verse two. This is like saying sick him to a mad dog.
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Pastors love this. If you wake me up from a nap, I might just say this verse out.
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For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, even him crucified.
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Paul says, I'm on my way from Acts 17 to Acts 18, and I'm on my way in this missionary journey, and I know ahead of time that I better not rely on my own speaking abilities,
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I'm going to rely on the gospel. Whatever comes out of my mouth, it's going to be cross -centered.
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This word here, to be determined, ESV translates it decided. It means to consider, to have a deliberate act of the will.
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The opposite words would be haphazard, accidental, slapdash, random.
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Paul says, you might want law and traditions, Jews, sorry, you get the gospel.
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Greeks, you might want philosophy and speculations and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
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I give you the gospel, and he knows ahead of time, before I go there, that's what I'm going to do.
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By the way, this is great for us when it comes to evangelism. This is the way we approach evangelism.
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You say, well, I'm kind of doing friendship evangelism and we'll be friends and all that. Fine, I'm not saying go up to your neighbors and just create enemies.
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But there's no evangelism without the cross, the crucified Messiah. Paul says,
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I'm going to limit my knowledge to preach the Christ. That means his deity.
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Here's how it used to translate this, and this is how the NAS does it, NASV. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
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Jesus Christ, his person, and him crucified, his work, which would include the resurrection.
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But is that what Paul is really saying? I've got two strings on my guitar. The first one is the person of Christ.
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The second one is the work of Christ. Those are two good things to preach, by the way. But is that what Paul is after here?
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What you don't know is the Greek word chi, or the word and in verse two, can be translated and also are even.
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And so it's fair to translate this. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ. And by the way, you want this
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Messiah? Remember chapter one, the crucified Messiah. Even the crucified
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Messiah. You go back to verse 18 of the last chapter, for the word of the cross is foolishness, but that's what
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I preach. I've determined when I went to you pagans in Corinth, I've got one string on my guitar, crucified
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Messiah, the shameful thing. You don't even want your kids to look at that naked person up on a cross.
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You don't even talk about that kind of thing in public. Justin Martyr in the second century said, the offense of the cross was caused to the sophisticated citizens of Alexandria and elsewhere by the madness of the
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Christian proclamation of a crucified Christ. This cross is shameful to people, embarrassing, frankly.
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And how can there be efficacy or effectualness in death? Cicero said the very word cross should be far removed, not only from the person of a
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Roman citizen, but from his thoughts, his eyes, his ears. But if that's what saves,
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Paul says, I'm coming to you with disregard for what Cicero says, Socrates, Plato, or anyone else.
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I've been sent on a mission, and that mission is, here's the cross, because that's the effective part of salvation, substitution and atonement.
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All right, now let's drive this home. How about this? I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus in your hearts.
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I made it up in my mind, deliberately, that when I go preach to people, I've got one message, except Jesus in your heart.
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Kind of a big difference, isn't it? How about this? As I'm thinking about slogans or watchwords or mottos.
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The cross is so shameful, we just want to put in a little different kind of jingle. I determined to know nothing among you except God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
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I determined to know nothing among you except God loves you just the way you are. To which
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I would say, if I was a pagan sinner, great, I'm happy, I get to sin, God likes to forgive, we're set.
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I determined to know nothing among you except you can have your best life now.
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I determined to know nothing among you except let's leave the Christ in Christmas. I determined to know nothing among you except no
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God, no peace, no God, no peace. K -N -O -W, K -N -O -W, N -O -N -O.
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I determined to know nothing among you except what would Jesus do? W -W -J -D. I determined to know nothing among you except free trip to heaven, details inside.
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I can't, by the way, just, if we could just talk for a minute. These kind of corny church signs that are designed to bring in some kind of seeker, cuz they're gonna think you're cool cuz you got a neat sign.
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If we draw people in with neat signs, and then they come and then they hear about the cross, what are we doing?
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Everything we believe should flesh itself out in everything we do. Beliefs determine behavior.
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You show me someone today here how you live your life and I'll show you what you believe. Show me your checkbook and I'll show you what you think about eternal investments.
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Show me your life, I know what you think. Show me a corny, stupid sign and I'll show you, frankly, an ashamed pastor and an elder board, or deacons.
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If you're gonna win people with catchy, you've gotta keep people with catchy. And every week you want more catchy or else you're gone.
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But if you're won by God because God opened your eyes to say, what I thought was repulsive, a savior dying for my sins.
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Being raised from the dead and he's the only savior. The great atoning work of Christ Jesus, his blood, his resurrection.
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That now used to be dumb to me. It used to be old hat. It used to be old business.
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But now it's the center of my life. Then you'll stay when you hear preaching about that very topic.
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Paul says that when I came to you, I didn't set up some kind of motto or jingle to try to win you in.
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I did the opposite. You wanna follow Christ Jesus? It'll cost you everything. I determined to know nothing among you except try our
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Sundays. They're better than Baskin's and Robbins. How could
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I make it up? I couldn't make it up. I determined to know nothing among you except got
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Jesus. I determined to know nothing among you except, believe me, we want anything put in there except a naked savior being tortured on a cross for hours by men and then for three hours, the wrath of God descending on Christ Jesus.
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Because God hates sin so much he even punishes his son for it.
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Doesn't pack out a church if you're looking for seekers. I determined to know nothing among you except searching for a new look, have your faith lifted here.
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I determined to know nothing among you except real men love Jesus. I'll tell you this, if you're a real godly man, you won't love those kind of slogans.
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If you don't believe me, come next Saturday when Uncle Pat is here. Preaching Christ, even him crucified, means preaching sin, judgment, wrath, holiness, grace alone, faith alone, the love of God alone, certainly.
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Paul didn't come up with a message, he was given the message to preach. Say, well, I evangelize a lot.
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Friends, you have the message, the crucified Messiah. Well, yeah, but I know my friends, they go to Harvard, though, and they go to Princeton, and they go to Yale, and they go to WPI.
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Friends, I got one message for you. You have to preach the cross, and they're not going to like it, unless God does a great work in their hearts.
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And the text there, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 2, it's a perfect passive, meaning he's crucified, and he stays as crucified as it were.
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That means I only, he's off the cross, of course. But theologically, Paul says, that's the issue. That he's the crucified one, and I'm always preaching the crucified one.
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He's raised from the dead, but my message is the crucified Christ. One of the taunts of early
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Christianity at least understood the Christian message. I won't read it to you in Latin, but here it is in English.
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A criminal man and his cross. That's the message of Christianity.
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May I say this? If you don't preach the cross, something else will come in and fill that gap.
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Vacuums are filled. And so if you take the cross away and say, all right, something's got to fill that.
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I'll tell you what will fill that. All kinds of things will fill that. Psychology will fill it.
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Felt needs will fill it. Signs and wonders will fill it. Focus on speaking in tongues and other things will fill it.
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I want to know why my, especially non -conservative charismatic friends are, why is it always tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, tongues, when their message should be what?
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Every time I talk to them, it's about signs and wonders. We've got one message. You're preaching through 1
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Corinthians. I'll preach several weeks on what the Bible says about speaking in tongues. We can talk about other subjects, but when you meet a
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Christian and you kind of give him a little figurative rib shot, he should start talking about the
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Savior Christ Jesus. He would die for me. Show me a church that's focused on the
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God of the cross, Christ Jesus, and I'll show you a spirit -filled church.
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You don't need to know about Cain's wife. Where'd he get her? You don't need to know about Adam's belly button.
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Somebody asked you, where'd Adam get his belly button? This is all duck and jive and cut and paste. I want to get you off the cross.
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If someone says, how can you be a Christian and believe that Noah's Ark existed? I will say, because it's easy to fit all the animals in there.
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The dinosaurs were smaller, but there's another issue. There's another flood coming, but it's not of water.
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It's of fire, and it's going to consume you. And if you think you can hide behind the I don't believe in Noah's Ark story on Judgment Day, you've got another thing coming.
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I've got a question for you. How are you going to get rid of your sins? And I have been saved.
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I'm a worse sinner than you are, but I have been saved by the gospel of Christ Jesus, where sins were so bad that the
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Father poured out his wrath on the Son. And Jesus said, it is finished. And then God raised him from the dead, and that is the one you must trust in.
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You don't need to know all this other stuff if you want to study it fine, but you're not going to be a better evangelist if you try to be an evidentialist.
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And I've got to go memorize Josh McDowell's book, or I can't evangelize. No, you memorize the gospel, and you can evangelize to anyone, because if it's the power of God that works through the gospel, the power of God can crush any man's intellect, any woman's will, and save them, can't they?
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When I cease, Spurgeon said, to preach salvation by faith in Jesus, put me into a lunatic asylum, for you may be sure that my mind is gone.
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If you don't preach this, something else has got to go in there. Paul says, don't make it philosophy, and for you, brethren, don't make it anything else.
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Please don't make it a celebrity pastor. There are churches all across the country now. One pastor can't get into one building, so they have six different locales.
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And the good news is you get your real pastor live once out of every six weeks. You're not allowed to go to the other campuses, so you just make sure you go to your campus every week, and then once every six weeks, you'll get your pastor.
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I don't like that. You say, well, you don't like it because you don't have six campuses. I don't know, maybe that's true, but even if it was true, you need the preacher, preaching the foolish gospel, the foolish pastor, the foolish message, saving foolish people, so all the power is not because of me, because of you, but the message.
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Celebrities? David Jackman said, that is absurd. Following a Jesus who was reviled and rejected, spat upon and beaten, and eventually nailed up to that most agonizing and humiliating death on the cross.
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And people that preach that are now celebrities? It's foolish.
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I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Friends, if you are weak like I'm weak, then wouldn't it be a good thing to say,
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Lord, I want to do that, I'm convinced, I know it's true. I tend to run around and rationalize in my evangelism, or maybe
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I don't even evangelize at all. Would the Spirit of God now please forgive me, and then give me the words so that I never do that again, and I have a one -themed message, and that is the cross of Christ Jesus.
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Wouldn't it be good, and if God's called the Father, do you think he just goes, you've never done it right, and you're never going to do it right?
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Or do you think the Father would say that you're convicted by the word, through the Spirit of God, and you want to have that same determination that Paul did?
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I would love to give you the power to preach the gospel like that. If you're a
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Sunday school teacher, I want to say to you, don't preach moralism in our
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Sunday schools. You say, well, I like good manners. I do, too.
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Elba's on the table, it's like, okay, sit up, push your chair in. I like morals, but I don't like them at the expense of the gospel.
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We'll, at this church, from the Pope in the Sunday school, teach the gospel. How about you parents teach your kids morals at home?
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But tell them, you can have good manners and still go to hell. It's helpful for me to have good manners out of you, because it just makes my life nicer.
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But we don't want to tell our kids the typical, be nice, do good, be like Daniel.
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No, we need to say, Daniel was so heinous in his sin that Jesus had to die for Daniel.
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And if Daniel needs a savior, son, you do, too. Every time you're in Sunday school, every time at Awana, if you do
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Awana council time, and you know what I do is I try to make all this stuff, and pour the water in, and the red food dye, and all this stuff.
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And you teach a little lesson, you go, that's cool, oil, water doesn't mix, everything else, it's a good spiritual truth.
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Would you please preach the gospel at the end, and tie it to Christ? Jesus in John chapter 5 said, the
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Old Testament testifies of good manners. Be good, be nice.
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It's nice to be nice, and it's good to be good. No. I determine there are nothing among you except it's nice to be nice, and it's good to be good.
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No. Christ crucified. He said in Luke chapter 24, in Emmaus Road, you look back at the
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Old Testament, and what does it do? It preaches me, Christ Jesus, the Messiah who would come.
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Luther said, Scripture is the manger in which Christ is laid. Isn't that good?
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So you preach the word. No wonder Paul said to Timothy before he was going to die, the last chapter he ever wrote, preach the what?
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Preach yourself. Timothy, you're a good old boy, Gentile, Jew parents, and kind of know what to do.
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You even got circumcised. You're good with people, really good people person. If I die with the elders at some kind of elders retreat, would you please pick a pastor for my sake, for my wife's sake, that preaches the word of God?
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Ask him, say, how many strings are on your guitar? Because if it's more than one Christ crucified, there's probably a different church down the street that has a nice banner maybe, and you can do your banner,
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Christianity, but we want the gospel. Why am I yelling? You're looking at me like we're convinced already.
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When I look at preachers in the Bible, they were determined to preach
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Christ Jesus, the greatest man that ever lived, John the Baptist. What was his message? Honey and grasshoppers are healthy.
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Follow me. That's what the Seventh -day Adventists down the street teach. Come to our religion because we're really healthy.
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Determined. John Bunyan. Mr. Bunyan, you can come out of prison whenever you will promise to cease preaching the gospel.
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They wouldn't say that if he just was going to say, it's good to be good and it's nice to be nice. Let him out.
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He said, if you let me out of prison today, I will preach again tomorrow by the grace of God. Well, then go back to prison.
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He's got his wife, that blind daughter. Bunyan said, I will go back and stay there if need be till the moss grows on my eyelids, but I will never deny my master.
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That's right from Paul. I determined to know nothing among you except the gospel. Acts 20.
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Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I did not shrink from declaring you the whole purpose of God.
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If you want to critique me, I hope you critique me by saying, does he preach Jesus Christ? Does he preach the exclusivity of Christ?
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How do you know if Satan takes over a town? I love what Barnhouse said. This would happen if Satan took over West Boylston.
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The bars would close. No alcohol would be sold. There would be happy marriages, well -behaved children, no crime, and everyone would be in churches on Sunday, comma, where Christ is not preached.
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It's insane to preach another gospel because there's only one.
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It's insane because there's only one gospel that saves. Maybe we can all agree on this.
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600 years ago, there was an insane asylum called St. Bethlehem's outside of London.
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Through the bars and the gates, people would look through, and they would see crazy things going on, insane things going on, lunatic things going on.
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And so the people outside gave a name to St. Bethlehem's because that name described the behavior of what was going on outside.
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And like good Englanders, like good New Englanders, we contract words, don't we? And so they contracted the word
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St. Bethlehem to come up with the word what we call Bedlam.
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Bedlam goes on inside St. Bedlam's. On my down days,
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I say I have the privilege of preaching at Bedlam Bible Church. And on my good days,
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I think God has instilled in us a desire where we say, crazy or not, according to the world,
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I'm going to preach the one gospel that saves that I've been told to preach. Nobody comes, nobody comes, because we want to be faithful, not popular.
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