The Gospel and Preaching (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

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Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

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Mike Abendroth, and today we're looking at another message, or actually the second part of a message

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I delivered at the Nebraska Gospel Network, and this message is part two.

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It's entitled, The Gospel and Preaching, and really, since the gospel is a proclamation of news, that should influence the way you actually preach.

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And so, with Tom and Gordon's leadership, and other men in the Nebraska Gospel Network, in step with the gospel 2011, it was back in November 11th and 12th of 2011 in Kearney at Trinity Presbyterian Church, PCA church there, and so this is part two of a message entitled,

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The Gospel and Preaching. And you can get everything online if you go to the

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Nebraska Gospel Network. So stay tuned for a message about how the gospel itself determines the way it should be preached.

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How will unbelievers respond if we? How will consumers respond if we?

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What will the goats think if we? And when I think about this, what about sermon series that we do?

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I found a sermon series, here's a bunch of sermons, real sermons that I found online. How can I have a happier marriage?

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How can I handle money? How can I like my job? Am I caught in an adult children of alcoholics pattern?

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How can I be a better parent? How can I have more time for myself? How can I feel better about myself?

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I drove by a church in Omaha today. How to love yourself. I thought it was like the sacred sandwich, the blog that says comedy blog online, evangelical comedy.

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Can you imagine hiring Paul to come in and do a conference and he'd say, you know what? I've got one message,

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Christ crucified. Open it to Isaiah chapter 53. My favorite preacher these days is

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S. Lewis Johnson and S. Lewis Johnson said, if you have a sex and marriage conference, you'll pack it out.

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But if you have a theology conference on penal substitution, who will come? But the grand theme in heaven will be what?

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Jesus Christ, the lamb, slaughtered the Greek is in Revelation five, but standing.

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So you know what? That's monotonous. It's the same old thing. This is the same thing every single time,

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Jesus Christ and him crucified. I think you know who Adoniram Judson is.

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He was the first missionary sent from America, Salem, Massachusetts of all places. And he was asked to come back after 30 years and speak to a group just like this.

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And I know when I have missionaries come back from the jungle, I want some good jungle stories. Because I got kids, kids like jungle stories, eating beetles, eating leeches, no

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Band -Aids, so I have to put the leech on. You know, those kids love those stories. 30 year absence and he preached for 15 minutes about Jesus Christ, his sufferings, his substitutionary death, and how much he owed him in light of what

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Christ has done for him. Mr. Judson, the people were very disappointed and wondered why you didn't speak about something else.

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What did they want? I presented to the best of my ability the most interesting subject in the whole world.

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But they wanted something different, a story. Well, I'm sure I gave them a story, the most thrilling one that can be conceived of.

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Well, they've heard that one before. They wanted something new of a man who'd just come out of the

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Antipodes. Then I'm glad they have to say that a man coming from the

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Antipodes has nothing better to tell them than the wonder story of the dying love of Jesus Christ. My business is to preach the gospel of Christ, and when

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I can speak it all, I dare not trifle with my commission. When I looked upon those people today and remembering where I should next meet them, how could

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I stand up and furnish food for vain curiosity, tickle their fancy with amusing stories, however decently strung together on a thread of religion?

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This is not what Christ meant by preaching the gospel. How do we keep the gospel the good news and not the courier the good news?

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One, disregard. Two, determine. Number three, defer. Number three, defer.

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Let's take a look at verse three. Verse three. I think it kind of a misunderstood verse, but not really that difficult once we grab it.

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And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

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So Paul said, when I was with you for those 18 months, I knew it was my own power.

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And then I came in fear and in much trembling. Now, if you study 1

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Corinthians 15 about the baptism for the dead, I think there are about 42 different views. My personal view is on that is pagans are actually baptizing their dead people.

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They think there's a resurrection and they baptize. How much more is it really true that there is a resurrection?

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But here there are about six views. I'm just gonna give you the quick views. Number six,

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I think is the right view. But these are some options that people use for fear and trembling. The first one is fear of failure.

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Some people think he flopped at Athens. I don't think he flopped, but he's afraid. That's one.

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Number two, he gets stage fright when he has large crowds or new hears that he is kind of nervous and shaky.

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The Phillips translation, I was feeling far from strong. I was nervous and rather shaky. Third one, panic from an overwhelming task.

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Now there's truth to this one in the sense that theologically we are insufficient. Who is adequate for these things to stand up and preach?

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I don't think he's after that here. Closely related, number four, apprehension about personal inadequacy.

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Paul was in jail a lot, traveled a lot, physically weak, stoned often.

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Number five, anxiety over personal safety. Remember in Acts chapter 18, God said to Paul, no man will attack you in order to harm you,

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Acts 18 .10. But what if we look at fear and trembling together?

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Fear and trembling as a phrase. Can you think of where that's used in the New Testament? Fear and trembling.

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Can you think how it's used in the Old Testament Greek, the Septuagint? And in the Septuagint, in the

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Old Testament Greek, fear and trembling as a phrase depicts a person's humble response to the majestic God.

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It's a deference. You say, I have a lower rank. Someone is above me and they're a general, a four -star general, and I'm a private.

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It's deference. I'm a sent one. Pogolov said,

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Paul's fear and trembling refers to an effect that was exactly the opposite of the strength and boldness of a cultured orator.

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Doesn't that make good sense? Here's Corinth, great speakers, great orators, great rhetoricians, and they tried to turn everything on how they said it.

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Paul was charged with just being a faithful deliverer. He was charged in just delivering the goods.

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Do they have Carl Jr.'s here? Does anybody know what a Carl Jr. is? It's just kind of a hamburger shop kind of thing.

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And you actually order, I'd like three cheeseburgers, this, that, and the other, and then they give you a little number. And then you go back,

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I think they even have a Dairy Queen at our place in Massachusetts, and you put the little number there, and then the waitress or the waiter gets all the stuff and then delivers it.

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And so you can imagine the orators back at Corinth, they would probably rearrange it better.

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They'd get it from the chef and make it all look nice and come and display it. When Paul is saying, I got the message from God, and I'm not going to touch it.

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I'm not gonna do anything with it. My job is just to deliver it. My job is to just deliver it as given.

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And so fear and trembling means deference. See if you can pick this up in Ephesians 6.

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Just listen, don't turn there. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling.

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So you've got a master and you say, you know what? I'm gonna defer because he's one ranked over me. So God has ranked over us, and we've been given the commission to preach the gospel, so we defer and we just preach the gospel.

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One is over us with a higher authority. How about this? So then my beloved, just as you have already obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

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He's not talking about shaking and stage fright. Corinthians, what's your major problem?

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Well, underneath all the wisdom issues and the leadership issues and the sexual sin issues, the leadership at Corinth and the people at Corinth have a pride issue.

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So now Paul is saying, when I came to preach, I'll tell you what, I didn't say I'm over the message,

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I am the message, I'm above the message. No, I deliver the message. By the way,

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I know you pastors here probably do what I do on Sundays. Sometimes I think, you know, when I drive home,

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I go, not my best sermon, maybe better than normal sermon.

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I kind of critique it in my mind, but then I say, when I go home, I think, by the grace of God, duty discharged.

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God bless your word. And then I go take a nap. I eat first and then take a nap.

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You prideful Corinthians, that's not how you preach the victory news. Humbly, with deference, we deliver the message of the

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King. It sounds just like 2 Timothy, doesn't it? I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, even

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Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom, what?

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Preach the word. Raise your right hand and swear on the Bible, I'll preach the word. I'm under the word of God.

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And then the final word that, if we understand, might help us realize that our preaching should remain and rest in the power of God is the word demonstrate.

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So we're demonstrating. I just pulled that from chapter two, verse four. So number one, disregard, number two, determine, number three, defer, and number four, demonstrate.

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Let me read verse four to start. And my message in my preaching, we're not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of spirit and of power.

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Now get this. Paul is saying this, my preaching did produce results.

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My preaching produced results, but not what orators results were, different results, spirit impelled results.

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By the way, on a side note, I want church growth. Our elders pray for church growth.

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Is church growth bad? I want the church to grow and mature.

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And I want the mature church to evangelize and then new converts are added to the church. That's good church growth.

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Paul's preaching did produce results, but it was a demonstration of the spirit and of power.

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It wasn't manipulation. He wasn't trying to win converts to himself. He was stripped, he was stripped of self -reliance.

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Now it's interesting, see that word demonstration there? It's the word for evidence in a court of law.

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Judge, I'd like to offer you exhibit one for the prosecutor's evidence.

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That's exactly the word here, legally for proofs produced in a court of law, rigorous proof.

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Paul said, my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of spirit and power.

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Now you could translate spirit and power a variety of ways. You could translate it, a demonstration of the spirit and of power.

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You could translate it, a demonstration consisting in spirit and power. Or you could translate it, demonstration of spiritual power.

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Paul was saying, I'm not going to use rhetorical methods to get output. And what was his demonstration?

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I'll tell you two things. Miracles, apostolic miracles and conversions. That's exactly what

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God did through the preaching of Paul. Miracles and conversions. I like 1

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Thessalonians 1 .5, for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the

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Holy Spirit. Changed lives. Paul said, you know what? Preaching the gospel about the news of Christ Jesus does affect people's lives.

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Saves people, matures people. Corinthians kept saying, you know what?

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Prove to us that you have some kind of results. We can talk and get money. We can talk and get applause.

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We can talk and get a following. You talk and you get thrown in jail. You get beaten up. Paul said, you know what?

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There is, matter of fact in Corinth, there were a lot of people affected by Paul for 18 months.

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God used Paul's preaching. Many people got saved and many people's lives were changed. It was one year ago today,

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I was standing in Corinth of all places. And up on the hill, you can just imagine where the temple is of Aphrodite.

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And daily here comes the 1 ,000 temple prostitutes down for worship in the city.

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And some of these Corinthians, they used to be fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, but Paul said,

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God what? Such were some of you, washed, cleansed, justified.

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Paul said, when you preach the gospel, people are affected. Now, William Barclay's got a lot of crazy things going on, but once in a while, he has a really interesting comment.

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And he talked about a man named John Hutton. And this hits close to home because my father was a drunk.

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My grandfather was a drunk. My other grandfather was a drunk. My one grandfather who's from around here, it has nothing to do with being from here, but this just happens to be the case.

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Grandma would have to go to work on Friday when it was payday to get the money because he would drink it all if she didn't get the money.

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A man who had been a reprobate and a drunkard was captured by Christ. His workmates used to shake him and say, surely a sensible man like you cannot believe in the miracles that the

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Bible tells about. You cannot, for instance, believe that this Jesus of yours turned water into wine.

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And then John Hutton said this, whether he turned water into wine or not,

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I do not know. But in my own house, I have seen him turn beer into furniture.

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Transformation of a man through preaching, simple preaching, demonstration of rhetorical gifts.

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Paul said, look, I can perform miracles and the people are changed from the inside out. Paul is talking about divine enablement here.

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Not trying to say be unpersuasive. There's human means involved, but it's through divine enablement.

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For what purpose? Verse five, here's where we're going. This is why I asked the question at the very beginning. This is what we should desire.

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And I know we do desire it here in our churches, that the faith of yours, the faith, this is not subjective,

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I have faith. This is the object of faith. This is the canon of faith. This is the doctrine of faith.

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This is like the faith once delivered in Jude three, that the faith of yours, that the people that I preach to, that their faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

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Paul says, I don't care if I come across as weak, I have a message and it's Christ, even him crucified.

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And as I preach it, the spirit of God is happy at his own goodwill, of his own free will to apply that to people.

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Think about it. The gospel is the power of salvation, is it not? But it is the gospel applied by the spirit of God.

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Because you can tell the gospel, you can read the gospel, you can preach the gospel to people and they don't get saved.

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Because salvation is not the gospel only, it's salvation that is applied by the spirit of God, applying the gospel to people.

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So Paul says it's all about divine enablement. I say to myself,

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I can preach the gospel to two different people and there's two different results. Why? Both are sinful, both are unbelieving, both are hard hearted, but one believes.

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Why? I have a best friend growing up and I don't really know much about him anymore. Last time

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I saw him was my mother's funeral six years ago and he has a huge beard like this and he has a nickname and his nickname is the

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Anvil. And he looks like the Anvil, he looks scary. And there's some things happened that he tried to do some horrible things and thankfully he's not in jail and nobody got hurt but they easily could have.

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And I say to myself, his mom and my mom, best friends. His dad and my dad, best friends.

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Our first job we had together, we went to junior high together, high school together. We ran around together, we went up to Gavin's Point Dam in South of Yankton together for every summer for 15 years.

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And I am saved and he is not. What's the difference? Is the difference in me?

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Is the difference in the preacher who preached to me? It's not about clever arguments.

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God uses the gospel through frail people who aren't very eloquent. And by the way, sometimes

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God uses the gospel to harden people. Why is it in Isaiah chapter six we hardly ever look at verses nine through 13?

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Short term mission trips, we always stop at verse eight. Send out a missionary, always stop at verse eight.

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Isaiah was a man who saw the holiness of God. He saw his own sin. He experienced the divinely initiated grace of God.

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He said, I'll go do anything. And God said, okay, now that you've got a good glimpse of my holiness, a good glimpse of your sin, you've experienced the divine grace initiated by God.

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I'm gonna send you out and here's your message. You're gonna preach and they'll never ever listen to you. And so then we turn on the

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TV, we turn on the websites. And it's, if you do these things, your church is going to grow. I said to Sinclair Ferguson, he said, what's your new book about?

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I said, Jesus as King. To understand Jesus as an Oriental King will change your world.

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And he said, evangelicals don't buy books about Jesus anymore. It'll never sell.

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Thanks. And he's right. It'll never sell. But you know what book would sell less than Jesus Christ?

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The Sovereign Gracious Despot is a book about ministry that said, you know what? Here's your ministry.

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Go preach the gospel and no one's ever gonna believe. You're gonna be like Jeremiah. You're gonna be like Isaiah. So far you haven't done it.

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I'm very, very happy. Please don't go to Together for the Gospel. Don't go to the

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Gospel Coalition, Shepherd's Conference, Westminster Seminaries Conference, any other conference and meet a pastor and say, oh, what kind of church do you pastor?

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They say, oh, it's Presbyterian, it's OPC. And then don't say the next question. What's the next question?

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How many people are there? So you know what I do now when people ask me the question? Lord has opened some doors and I get to speak and so they always wanna know how many people are at the church that I pastor.

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So you know what I say now? I just bald -faced lie. I just say 3 ,000. They go like, wow, you must be somebody.

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Wow. And it gives me credential. And then I say, I was just lying.

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I try not to count because I know my flesh and I'd say, yeah, since I've been there, we've quadrupled in growth, blah, blah, blah.

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I mean, this kind of preaching that Paul does with his disregard of any kind of method, because he knows he's gonna have to answer to God on that day, that sure day, that judgment day, that beam of seat day.

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He doesn't care about that. He's got one message because he's been commissioned by the king and he's just out to be faithful and he doesn't care how many show up.

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What a relief that is. That should help us as teachers, even out in the middle of Nebraska, out in the middle of Massachusetts.

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I live in the same kind of place that you do, out in the middle of kind of nowhere. I think I have a responsibility and that is,

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God, help me to be faithful. I just wanna be faithful to the gospel. I didn't do the gospel.

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I didn't win the gospel. You've accomplished that great gospel. By the way, men, what's the great commission?

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I'll tell you what the great commission is. It's not Matthew chapter 28. The great commission is this. The father says in eternity, pastor, the son.

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Son, I'd like you to go redeem this group that I've called to myself, this elect group, and I want you to go live for them, die for them.

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I'm gonna raise you from the dead and you're gonna win them and then over time, I'm gonna transform them more into your image.

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Go rescue them. That's the great commission. Takes all the weight off my shoulders because yes,

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I have a responsibility in Matthew 28 to tell the truth about God, but I am not the truth.

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This is the way Paul preached, confidently proclaiming the crucified

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Messiah, praying that the spirit of God would apply the truth to the hearts of the people and they would be changed so that their faith wouldn't rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

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If the spirit of God were to leave this church or any of the other five represented churches or how many we have, I hope that the place shuts the doors down forever because it's only the spirit of God who causes the growth.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.