Saltless Salt And Dark Light - [Matthew 5:13-16]

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Why are you on earth? Why are you on earth?
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Why do you exist? Why did God make you? When God saved you, why didn't he just take you straight to heaven?
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That kind of would have been nice, wouldn't it? You repent and believe, and immediate rapture to meet
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God. I could put it a different way, when we have baptisms and we immerse people into the water signifying what had happened in their life, that they are dead to sin, and why don't we just hold them under?
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Their spirit goes straight to heaven. There are several reasons, but the one we'll look at today consists of this.
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You are on earth. You are still alive as a Christian because God wants you to proclaim the excellencies of Christ Jesus, the only
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Savior of sinners. You are on earth to evangelize. You exist to proclaim the truth to others.
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Jesus Christ is God, and at Calvary he died in the place of sinners, and God confirmed that by raising him from the dead.
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That's why you exist. When was the last time you preached the gospel to someone?
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Do you preach the gospel to people? One man said a hundred years ago or so,
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Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you're not saved yourself, and you can be sure of that.
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The same man said, every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.
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If you're a Christian, if you're a Christian because God has saved you, that God has granted you repentance under eternal life and belief that Jesus Christ is the
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Messiah, you want other people to be saved, don't you? And for us that need to be reminded, remember that day in the past where God saved you?
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What was one of the first things you wanted to do? Maybe a little too aggressively, maybe very boisterously, maybe a
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John the Baptistly. You told your friends and family, you wanted to get on the phone, you wanted to go to their house, and you probably said it something like, some way like this, if you don't repent and trust
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Jesus Christ, you're going to bust hell wide open. And with just that enthusiasm and that determination that you have been granted the greatest gift that anyone could ever grant, by grace alone, you wanted to tell that truth to other people.
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So today we're going to talk about your desire and your efforts, and how
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God uses people like us to proclaim the gospel, to proclaim that Jesus Christ forgives sins, and we call that evangelism.
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So let's turn our Bibles to the book of Matthew as we continue going through what has been called ever since Augustine said the
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Sermon on the Mount. This is maybe the most wonderful passage in the
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Bible, Jesus Christ the preacher, and we're going to look today about evangelism, but just to set it in context as you turn to Matthew chapter 5, a good summary of the book of Matthew is found in Matthew 21 .5,
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and I'll just read it, where it is prophesied in the Old Testament, Behold, your King is coming to you.
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Here is a book that proclaims to the Jewish audience, and anyone who will listen, there is a King, and His name is
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Jesus Christ, and we are proclaiming this King that you might behold Him.
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Matthew 2 .2, it says, Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? This book is about the kingship of Christ Jesus, the
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Messiah. Matthew 27 .37, when He's dying, above His head they put the charge which read,
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This is Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews. This is a book about the kingship of Christ Jesus, that He is
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Lord of lords, and now He proclaims the truth about how to get into the kingdom in the first set of Beatitudes, and if you look at Matthew chapter 5 verse 1, which is really the
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Sinai of the New Testament, some call it, Jesus probably deliberately goes up to this mountain,
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He saw the crowds, He goes up to the mountain, after He sat down, in rabbinical style, His disciples came to Him.
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He opened His mouth, of course He opened His mouth, but the language here is, it's something important, and began to teach them, saying, and then
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He gives the eight divine commendations, which we call the Beatitudes, and I love this section here, because you just cannot sit and listen to this and go, that was very interesting.
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Well, that was kind of nice. You will respond by saying, I am humbled.
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I can't believe that God's standards are so high. I can't believe these words out of this man's mouth.
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Boy, that is a hard saying. You will respond in one of those kind of manners, you will not sit there kind of idly by as a spectator going, good show, quite nice.
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It's almost x -ray like, it's kind of the MRI look, and you are having the words of God just penetrate you like a laser beam down to your core, as Jesus Christ proclaims, these are the kind of people that are blessed, and only these.
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Blessed, verse 3, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Spiritually bankrupt ones, and those that know it, only them, only they rather, get the kingdom of heaven.
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Verse 4, blessed are those who mourn over their sins, that's the context, for they shall be comforted.
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Blessed are the meek or the gentle, those that can't forward themselves to salvation, for they shall inherit the earth.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
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And then all one beatitude in verses 10, 11, and 12, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are you when people insult you, and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
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Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Jesus now begins to put some feet onto these words, that is to say, theoretical in one sense, now much more functional, and he uses two domestic metaphors, two things that you would just see in an everyday basis, whether it's your house, or seeing the light, to teach the truth that Jesus Christ's people influence.
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They're there for a reason, and he says, I'll read this very well -known passage, but I think we'll see some truths today from it, that if you just rush by it, you're not going to get anything out of it.
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Before I read it, just on a side note, one of the best things I could do to help you to learn the Bible for yourselves, is to read slowly.
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We kind of get it caught up in this, you know, I've got my Bible to read in a year, and I've got to read these five chapters, and this proverb, and these
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Psalms, and I've got my Bible read, but it doesn't do anything, it doesn't do you any good if you don't understand what you're reading.
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You could be reading Moby Dick, quickly, it doesn't matter.
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And so one of the best things you can do is read the Bible slowly, and ask a lot of questions. Why did he say this?
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Why didn't he say something else? What does it mean here? And I wonder if every word is important for us.
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Of course, or else it would not be in the Bible. So let me read this, and then we'll take a look at the passage.
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You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again?
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It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world.
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A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
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Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your
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Father who is in heaven. Two real piercing domestic metaphors to teach these disciples, and then all further and future disciples, about the influence of the
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Word of God through the people of God to a dying condemned world.
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Pliny said, there is nothing more useful than salt and sunshine. Jesus is going to illustrate his point using salt and light, two metaphors that the disciples will understand immediately, and I think you will throughout this message.
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Let's take a look at the first metaphor. Verse 13, salt. We have salt and light.
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This is pretty easy. The metaphor is, number one, is salt. I don't think much about salt, do you?
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Matter of fact, about 12 years ago, we don't even put it on the table. We don't even set salt on the table anymore.
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It's over by the stove. You can get some sea salt from Trader Joe's over there by the stove, and we put it on there, but just kind of regular salt.
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We don't use it that much. Everything's so salty anyway, and I'm just a long way removed from 1978 as a senior in high school, three -a -day practices, eating what kind of tablets?
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Salt tablets. But salt was very, very valuable back in that day. The Romans said, except for the sun, nothing was more valuable.
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Matter of fact, some Roman soldiers got paid with salt, and hence we get that term, that man is not worth his salt.
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You pay him something, and he doesn't do the job. Salt in the
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Bible was used as a seasoning in Job 6. Salt was used for sacrificial offerings in Leviticus chapter 2.
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Elisha purified the water of Jericho with salt. Some even today will put a pinch of salt in the baby's mouth for baptism.
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Some use it to seal an agreement. God used it to seal an agreement with Israel. Salt's used for many different purposes.
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I wonder what purpose is here. Oh, one thing
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I didn't tell you. The salt back in the Bible days was not like our salt today. Does that shock you?
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Shouldn't shock you. Salt back then was not like salt today. What do I mean by that?
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They would get salt two places back in the New Testament days in this area, either from salt marshes or from the seaside shore of the what sea?
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The Dead Sea. How many people have been to the Dead Sea? How many people want to go to the
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Dead Sea this February with BBC? Come on, Lillian, raise your hand. We're getting all the information all set up.
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She's not paying for you to go, but she's coordinating it. We would love to have you go to the Dead Sea with us and you will just float on top of that water and that water is not just salt water.
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There's all kinds of bromides in there and other things. It just kind of makes your skin oily and back today, back in those days and today, it's just not pure salt.
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You just can't evaporate Dead Sea water and say, hmm, I'll go ahead and put that on my popcorn. Actual salt could not lose its flavor, but this kind of contaminated impure salt actually could lose its flavor.
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Sodium chloride, by the way, is a stable compound, but there was all these impurities. If you got some water on it, it would be the salt that would come out and so you would have less than salt.
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We'll see that's important either this week or next. Now, some people will teach this passage.
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They'll say salt is used in the Bible for creating thirst, for making flavor, for preserving, for sealing covenants, for putting in a baby's mouth, and so Jesus wanted all those things to be done.
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But you'll see from context, He was only after one use of salt and that salt is preservation.
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You preserve things with salt. We don't think about that much anymore because how do you preserve your food?
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Well, you go to the refrigerator. How do they preserve food back in those days? They would take salt and they would rub it in, if they were going to eat meat, rub it into the meat.
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Matter of fact, David Livingston, the African missionary, they wanted to take his body back to the
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United Kingdom. And how did they preserve his body? In transit, getting him from Africa to England after he was already dead and decomposing.
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Don't want to think about too much, but it was through salt. It preserves from corruption.
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G. Campbell Morgan said this, Jesus, looking out over the multitudes of his day, saw the corruption, the disintegration of life at every point.
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It's a breakup. It's spoilation. And because of his love of the multitudes, he knew the thing they needed most was salt in order that the corruption should be arrested.
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He saw them also wrapped in gloom, sitting in darkness, groping amid mists and fogs.
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He knew that what they needed above everything else, salt and light.
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News flash to the Earth Day people, this world is corrupted. This world is corrupting quickly.
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This world is rotten. This world is decaying.
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It was made perfectly in Genesis. Adam's fall affected creation.
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Even Romans 8 says creation groans. And spiritually, there's all kinds of corruption in the world, and we know that.
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This world is dying. By the way, it will die. It will be dead. I was thinking about corruption.
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I thought, how can I just kind of bring this illustration to bear? And of course, sometimes I may go overboard.
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I don't know, but you'll remember. I hope you remember the passage more than you remember this illustration. Back in North Hollywood, there was a lady that lived a couple houses down the street from us, and she was a single mom.
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And so I tried to hang out with the boy a little bit, and he could come over and play with Haley and other things.
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And, you know, if they needed something done in their yard or whatever, we would try to offer. So one day, really, really early,
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I got a knock on the door at six something in the morning. She was going to work, and she said, the cat, our cat died.
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And the cat was named Jumpsalot. Well, Jumpsalot was over in the yard.
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And I've got to get to the operating room, and I've got to get to work. And so I don't have time to go bury Jumpsalot in the backyard.
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I'll do it when I get home. But what do you do with dead Jumpsalot in the meantime? So I forgot to tell you, they asked me if I would do a funeral for Jumpsalot later.
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So I put Jumpsalot in a garbage bag, and then I put Jumpsalot in a box.
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And then I put Jumpsalot that was in a garbage bag in a box. I put him underneath the bushes by our house.
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It was a summer day. It needed some shade. So I came home after being in the operating room, and I'm already thinking about all this stuff.
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Because in the operating room, you know, they're just opening people up, and it's just blood and guts and flesh and everything else.
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And I thought, now I have to go home and deal with Jumpsalot. And I've got to tell my neighbor, the one neighbor that I want to help and encourage, that I don't do funerals for dead cats who have no souls.
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And Jumpsalot is just from dust to dust. You could say God, you know,
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Proverbs, a righteous man regards the life of his beast. Thank you for that beast, but the beast is no more. Oh well, off on a tangent.
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We didn't have special music today, so I've got three extra minutes. Long story short,
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I get home, and Jumpsalot now, he had a warm body at the beginning of the day, and now his body has conformed to the box.
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I've taken the box lid and kind of put it down like that, and there he is. I can't get Jumpsalot out because he is now starting to decay and starting to get stiff.
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And I'm trying to pull Jumpsalot out, and the garbage bag broke. And as I smelled the smell of death,
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I thought, that's exactly the world today. It is dead and dying.
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Genesis 6 -5, even back then, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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In the pastoral epistles, evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
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David, in the Psalms, the Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who will understand, who will seek after God.
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They have all turned aside, together they have been corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one.
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And here Jesus, as he transitions from the beatitudes to what some call the similitudes, he now says, what
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I want you disciples to be is salt and light. You're to be a preservative. He's not trying to say you need to flavor the world, or you need to make a covenant with the world, or some other use of salt.
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He's saying you alone are going to be salt for the corruption of this world, and soon light for the darkness.
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Hamlet described a man like this. What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason.
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How infinite in faculty. In form and moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel.
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In apprehension, how like a god. The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals.
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And Hamlet was right until Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. They broke
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God's law and plunged the nations, the world, and all humanity into corruption.
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Well, there's another preserving element, except this is more enlightening, if you will. The second metaphor is used in verse 14.
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We'll get back to some of the details of verse 13 maybe next week. You, not only are the salt of the earth, but you are the light of the world.
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If you study the original, he's going to say this. You and you alone are the salt of the earth. Now, he's not talking to the church here.
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He's not talking about things before the resurrection or crucifixion. But he's talking to his disciples, and by implication we can see how we're involved.
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But this particular passage, he's saying you disciples and you alone are not only salt, but also light.
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And as salt works maybe secretly or behind the scenes or in a negative way, here we have the positive opening in open light.
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Now, when I think of light, one of the first things I think about is... Good God.
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Turn to John chapter 8 and let me show you Christ Jesus. If you don't know what to say, just say
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God and most of the time you're right. By the way, as you're turning to John chapter 8, parents when you are downloading information with your family after Sunday services and you're sitting around the table enjoying food and fellowship, do more than say, what did you learn about in Sunday school?
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Because they'll probably just say God and then say, what did you learn about God? And by the way, in our bulletin it says on the top left what particular verse they learned.
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In every age group it's the same. And so, we want to talk to them about God is true and then specifically what did
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God teach you in His word. John chapter 8, the second great
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I am. What I'm going to drive home now is as God calls
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His disciples and us by implication to be lights of the world, we do not have our own light within us, we are light reflectors.
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We don't have the real light, Jesus is the light. And as Jesus was the light to the earth and the world, so too will we be.
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But I think it's good if we remember who Jesus Christ is today and how He really was the light of the earth.
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He succeeded where Israel could not and did not. Then Jesus spoke to them again saying,
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I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
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What was the background here? You see in chapter 7 verse 2, we have the feast of the Jews. Called the feast, the feast of ingathering, the feast of the booths.
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If you look at 7 .10 of John, but when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he himself also went up not publicly but as if in secret, in secret.
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Five days after the atonement, feast begins on the 15th day of the seventh month, last for seven days, big celebration feast of the
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Jews. Later, in later times, Josephus says what they began to do is they began to have huge menorahs.
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Some say three, some say four, huge candelabras lit at night at the court of the women signifying the pillar of light that God moved as a pillar of light through the wilderness.
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The people would celebrate, people would dance, they would have torches, they would sing, they would have praises.
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And here Jesus, maybe with the menorahs in the background, stands here and says, I am the light of the world.
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The celebration is going to be over and those will be out, but I am the light of the world. John 1 .4
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says, and in him was life and the life was the light of men.
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Psalm 27 says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. And it's very messianic to have
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Christ be the light. Isaiah 9 .2, the people will walk in darkness and they will see a great light.
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Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. And there are end times and implications as well.
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The sun will no longer set, moon will not wane, for you will have the Lord as an everlasting light. Now let's go back to Matthew 5 and as Jesus is the sun, one commentator says his disciples are like the moon reflecting the great light.
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And as the world is corrupt, we are like salt to that world. And as the world is dark, we are like light to that world.
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He says, you are the light of the world. Now there's so much more to say about verse 13 and verse 14 and 15 and 16.
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What I want to do with the rest of the time today is I want to encourage you to be evangelistic in your disposition.
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And so let me give you several motivations for you to be evangelistic. So if you're looking for an outline today, motives for evangelism.
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If you're a Christian, these will be good motives for you. And the first motive for evangelism is
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God commands you to evangelize. That's a pretty good motive, isn't it? God commands you to evangelize.
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And here he said to the disciples, and we could go to the Great Commission if we'd like later, but here in Matthew 5 .16,
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Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
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Certainly not saved by evangelism. Certainly you can't do evangelism perfectly. That's why we look to Christ who's the perfect evangelist.
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But God in his wisdom calls every one of you to evangelize. And how I teach my children is this.
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If God asks you to do anything, God commands you to do anything, and you don't do it, what might you call that? I mean, we have orders from the king.
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Behold your king, and he says to these men up at the mountain, he says,
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I want your lights to shine. Matter of fact, in verse 13, 14, 15, and 16, there's only one imperative, and it is right here.
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Let your light shine. Your light must shine, he says to them. We could go to many
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New Testament epistles to find the same thing for us. Let your light shine. I thank
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God for our church. I think the Lord of the universe has been very good to our church. I sat today in Sunday school and listened to Pradeep teach.
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It has nothing to do with Pradeep being a good teacher or what he has brought to the table or anything else. It's all of God.
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But I thought, just to see men and women learn and grow and can handle the scriptures.
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We are growing as a body. We are maturing. And I think, I praise God for that.
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I praise God for you. But there are things that we don't do as well as we should.
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And I think this passage today will address some of that. And that is, we need to be more conscientious when it comes to proclaiming the gospel.
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We don't have many who come to the baptismal waters who say, I wasn't a
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Christian, and somebody here in the church preached the gospel. Matter of fact, we don't get many people who come to the church, who get added as members, who said, you know,
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I was an unbeliever. Somebody in the church preached the gospel to me. I became one. And we get someone who is, and rightfully so, disgruntled that their church doesn't teach the
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Bible. And so they come here. Jesus calls his people to do what he does.
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And that is, proclaim the truth. Dick Lucas of England used to say, Jesus had only one son, and he made him an evangelist.
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Some would say, well, I know it's a command, but God didn't lead me to evangelize that person. How does that work?
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I didn't feel led. It's very spiritual, isn't it? The Holy Spirit is what, here's what they're saying.
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The Holy Spirit inside of them is leading them to contradict what God's revealed word has already said.
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God commands evangelism. You could look at Matthew 28, or 1 Peter 2, or other things.
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But the Holy Spirit's leading me against Jesus. I get so mad at myself when
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I kind of do that. Well, it just wasn't a good opportunity. And, you know, I wasn't quite sure.
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Here's the Lord of the universe. Proclaim the gospel.
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W .E. Sanger said about evangelism, it is the sheer work of the herald who goes in the name of the king to people who either openly or by their indifference deny their allegiance to their rightful king.
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He blows the trumpet and demands to be heard. He tells the people in plain words of the melting clemency of their offended king and of the things that belong to their peace.
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The melting clemency of God shown at Calvary. There is a Redeemer. There's a forgiver of sins.
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You must believe. You must repent. We'll learn about monasticism next week, but we're not going to go up to Montana.
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We don't need to go down to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We are here because God has sovereignly placed us in this church because of your neighbor, because of your friend, because of the mailman, because of the lifeguard, because these people are putrefying and they're in darkness, and you are
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God's ordained means to tell them the gospel. I hope you do what
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I try to do, and that's to see everybody who comes in my life with a big target on them. And I just think, you know, why did
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I buy this house and not that house? Why did I take this job and not that job?
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Why am I still stuck here at this job? Why did this happen or that happen? And I get so myopic, I don't see it all.
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I think, God, you saved me and you bought me with a price. I'm willing to go anywhere for you. Huh, why don't you go right over here to Beach Point Road?
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The neighbor on this side is not a Christian. The neighbor on this side is not a
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Christian. The neighbor on that side is not a Christian. The neighbor on that side, those people living there on that side, they're just all not
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Christians. What are we to do? Got to hunker down. Preach to them.
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Okay, glad we've established this. Anytime we want to yell out, you just can't. Good job. That's what we do on Sunday nights.
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Good job, Peter. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. Motive number one, we're commanded.
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Motive number two, and you can see an inkling of it here in verse 16, it gives glory to God. It gives glory to God.
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When people see the good works, it ends up ultimately when God is pleased to save them and God gets the glory.
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You couldn't save them. I couldn't save them. They can't save themselves. Here the attention and the praise goes to God the
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Father for saving. Because men can't save themselves. They need to be rescued. People are led to worship
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God because someone gets saved. If Anne Garcia's father repents today, people aren't going to be saying, oh, that was a great preacher or Anne's a great sister.
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They will adore Christ Jesus. One old historian said of Henry V after the
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Battle of Agincourt, neither would he suffer any ditties to be made and sung by the minstrels of his glorious victory, for that he would have wholly the praise and thanks altogether be given to God.
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And that's what happens when you preach and God grants them belief. Because only God can grant them belief.
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They can't come up with their own belief. I kind of like the sixth sola of the Reformation. You know, there's sola fide by grace alone, sola gratia by grace alone, sola scriptura by the word alone, sola
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Christus, sola dea gloria, and sola bootstrapsa, as one man said, Brian Chappell.
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We try to do it and cloak ourselves with good works and merit, and we're not as bad as the next person, but it takes
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God to save and therefore he gets the glory. 2 Corinthians 4 .15, Paul echoes that.
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For all things are for your sakes, that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.
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It's all about God. By the way, when you preach and nobody repents and believes, we've heard it many times at this church and I want to encourage us again,
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God is still glorified. Well, we went out and we sang
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Christmas carols and we gave out tracts and some cookies. How many people repented and came to our church and were added to the rolls?
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Last year, the year before, the year before, nine years I've been here and I think we've done it almost every year. Not one person from either
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West Boylston, Steve Nelson's Old Street, or the housing, can't say housing project, so whatever that thing is over there, low -income housing in Clinton, you put them all together, not one have come to this church.
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Not one have been baptized. Not one have served others. But the great thing about it is we can't save people and we have not been told to save people.
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And I don't know about you, but I don't have one single tick mark at the beginning of my Bible, here's the person
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I saved. So when you preach the gospel and nobody responds, and God has already told you, you go preach the gospel.
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You preach that God saves sinners. You preach there's this great God of grace who can overcome the guilt of man with the cross and then men respond in gratitude.
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Does God like that? It's talked about the aroma of life to life, who those who are being saved, and it's the aroma of death to death to those who are perishing.
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You just preach for God's glory. I so loved that when I didn't have to go save someone. I was in seminary and you had to go visit people who had visited the church.
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And I remember you're driving there and I'm with this other seminary student and I'm scared to death. I've got to go to somebody's house and knock on the door and talk about salvation.
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I mean, how am I going to do it? I was so scared. By the way, it was interesting because the big huge biker guys, big huge Harley guys who lift weights and stuff, they do bicep curls while they're watching
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TV and they're just huge. There are always a super nice ones. Oh, come in guys.
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It's always the single maybe elderly lady whose maybe husband has already died confirmed in their false faith who will look at you and say, you get out of my house.
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Think, Lord, I've been sent. I want to tell this person how she can have all her sins forgiven in Christ Jesus.
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How she can receive this melting clemency from you. And she slammed the door. Does God get glory when you go to try to obey
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Him? Absolutely. If God gets glory when we evangelize, I think we should put more strength into that.
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Certainly, sanctification is not all of us, but as God works in us, I think of Wesley.
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I might disagree with some of his theology, but his work, I cannot. Though I am always in haste,
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I am never in a hurry. I never undertake any more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit.
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250 ,000 miles later and 40 ,000 sermons later. Whitfield preached more than 18 ,000 formal sermons, 30 ,000 if you include informal studies.
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And he used to say, I would sooner wear out than to rust out. Because as I preach the gospel, God gets glory.
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Duncan Matheson said, after friends told him, you better slow down, you're hurting yourself. Knowing that God gets glory and souls perish, he said, souls are perishing.
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We'll rest in heaven. The zeal of idolaters provokes me,
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Jeremiah 7 .18, the children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, the women knead the dough to make cakes for the queen.
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One -legged school teacher from Scotland came to J. Hudson Taylor and said, I want to go to China and serve. You've only got one leg, you think you're going as a missionary?
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I don't see those going with two legs, replied George Scott. He was accepted.
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We should be after not necessarily the salvation of souls, although that's good when a family member repents, hallelujah, but it's the glory and honor of God that one who has gone
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AWOL and said, God, I hate you, and I've ran off because of the fall and my own sin, and then that person is changed, turns, repents, and says,
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God, now I acknowledge your son, I give him my allegiance, the kingdom rejoices.
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You should evangelize, number one, because God commands it, and number two, because God gets glory.
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Number three, let me give you the third reason why you should evangelize, and certainly as I give these imperatives, these exhortations,
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I know that only God could give us the grace to do it. I know that when we fail, we have an advocate, but preaching is still imperatives, it's still exhortation.
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The third reason is you get to. You should evangelize because you get to.
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You get to evangelize. You get to be the ambassador for the king. That is amazing to me.
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It should turn this not into a downer, not kind of a sour, dour duty, I have to go evangelize.
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Is there a greater honor than to be an ambassador for the king? My wife,
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Kim, has a relative who's a minister in the English parliament. I have a higher calling than he does.
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And so do you, you get to preach the gospel. He didn't have to use us.
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He could have put a big banner up there, he could have used telepathy, he could have used anything he wanted. Matter of fact,
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I love it in Luke 19. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
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Some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. And Jesus answered and said to them,
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I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out. God could have preaching donkeys or preaching stones to proclaim the truth, and he lets you do it.
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I didn't earn this right to do it. You didn't earn the right. It is a privilege. We are called in 2
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Corinthians 5 .20 ambassadors for Christ. As though God were entreating through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
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There is not a greater honor or a higher calling. We've been entrusted with the gospel. We get to.
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Number four, God commands us to evangelize. God gets the glory when we do.
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It is a privilege to evangelize. And number four, there is no salvation alternative. That is to say, no one gets saved without hearing about Christ Jesus.
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No one. As you know the verse in Acts 4 .12, there is salvation in a handful of others.
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In no one else. For there is, in case we didn't get it the first time, no other name under heaven which has been given among men by which we must be saved.
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Is there another sin bearer that is out there to die for sinners? Is there another who has assuaged the wrath of Almighty God?
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Is there another who has reconciled the just righteousness of God to human sinful men and women?
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We have people all the time now pushing this open theism and other kinds of false theology that basically says,
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I have a couple of relatives and they weren't born again, but they were good and they are my family members. Maybe there are people that lived in Sri Lanka someplace and the gospel didn't go there.
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What about all those people in India after Thomas, if Thomas did in fact go, but before the missionaries who would go to India, William Carey and others?
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What are we going to do? God will just let them in. Here is what people do today.
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People that don't really believe in Jesus still can go to heaven because Jesus somehow applies his death at Calvary to them even though they don't believe.
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Do you believe that? I don't believe that. Muhammad doesn't save.
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Joseph Smith doesn't save. Buddha doesn't save. Farrakhan doesn't save. Moses doesn't save. Elijah doesn't save.
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Abendroth doesn't save. Some say
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Jesus saves them, but they don't know it's Jesus. We have a term for it. It's called transdispensationalism.
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It's not a slam on dispensationalism. It's a slam on the people that promote it. You've got relatives.
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God's kind of more loving than he is just, and everything is just all backwards. If you want someone to go to heaven, apart from children or those who are mentally handicapped and other issues that we might get into, you need to believe in Christ Jesus.
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And so if you need to believe in Christ Jesus, what ought we to do? We preach Jesus Christ.
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What did he do, Paul, when he went to Mars Hill? We learned last week.
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It didn't work. He's too full of philosophy. A guy got saved, a lady got saved, and maybe a few others.
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So he goes to Corinth, and then he says, well, I'll change my view. He didn't do that at all. He preached to the people at Athens with the gospel, and then he gets to the church at Corinth, and he says, here's the gospel,
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Christ Jesus. It's belief in the gospel, not, I took baptism,
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I took communion, I did all these other things. There's no other alternative. If you have a family member who wants to get saved, do you have to preach the gospel to them?
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Somebody has to. Number five, very similarly, God ordains not just who goes to heaven, but how they go to heaven.
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If you'll turn to Romans 10, what do I mean to say by that? God doesn't just say, all the elect people go to heaven, and you don't have to do anything.
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God says, all the elect people go to heaven, and they go to heaven through the ordained method of preaching. God sends people to heaven by preaching.
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So we preach, Paul says, so they believe. And here, in the context of Israel's disobedience, there needs to be preachers.
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It's still a necessity, in other words. Romans 10, 14, how shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed?
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How shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? Some amorphous blob of God that they believe in?
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Some kind of amoeba God? Faith in faith? I'm spiritual, I'm religious? No, faith has an object, and the object has to be disclosed.
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And how shall they preach unless they're sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things.
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I don't think I'm some great guy or anything like that. But I know when
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God has given the opportunity before to preach the gospel, and somebody has heard that gospel preached, and they have responded in saving faith, they think
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I'm great. They know I'm not great. You know
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I'm not great. But this was the person that preached the gospel to me. Don't you want to love them?
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You'll do anything for them? You think their feet are beautiful? Everything about them is just radiant, and it's not them, it's the
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God of the universe who has used them. And that's exactly what's happening here. The feet, beautiful feet.
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It doesn't say God's feet are beautiful. God uses these means, sinful means, so He gets all the glory, by the way, so no one boasts.
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How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things. However, they did not all heed glad tidings, for Isaiah said, this part's ordained to the
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Lord who has believed our report. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
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You've got to preach the gospel. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life is not enough.
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It's the whole gospel of who is God and His nature and His attributes,
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His law, who is man, how He falls short, what God has done in a remedy,
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Christ Jesus and His perfect death at Calvary and resurrection, and then the commands of the gospel, repent, believe, trust, follow, obey.
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Let me give you one last one, one last motivation. Why should you evangelize?
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Because hell is real. Because hell is real. Hebrews 10 .31
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says, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of a living God.
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Let me show you just in the book of Matthew, the number one preacher in all the Bible on the doctrine of hell.
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Who do you think that might be? Jesus Christ. Look at Matthew 5 .22. Matthew 5 .22,
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I'm just going to walk you through Christ Jesus' testimony of hell and I don't want you to want anybody to go there.
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Hell is real. And I think that's a good motivation for not only personal salvation but also for evangelists.
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5 .22, But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court and whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court and whoever says you fool shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery, what?
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Hell. Verse 29. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you.
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But it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than the whole body to be thrown into hell.
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End of verse 30. For your whole body to be thrown into hell.
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Go to 8 .12. Matthew 8 .12. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast into the outer darkness.
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In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I'm going quickly.
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10 .28. Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
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11 .24. Nevertheless, I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.
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He didn't use the word hell there but that's the reference. Chapter 12.
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Verse 31 and 32. Not be forgiven in this age or in the age to come.
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For those, he didn't say the word hell there but there's a place for the unforgiven ones. And the list goes on.
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Chapter 13. Chapter 18. Chapter 22. Chapter 23. Chapter 25. Beloved John spoke of hell.
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Peter spoke of hell. Paul spoke of hell. I will speak of hell. Will you speak of hell? How do you describe hell?
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Calvin said in the Bible, trying to talk about the words about hell.
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For there can be no doubt but that by such modes of expression the Holy Spirit intended to confound all our faculties with horror.
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I found these in the Bible. Punishment. Torment. Fire. That's the most frequent.
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Eternal fire. Unquenchable fire. Lake of fire. Destruction.
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Second death. Outer darkness. Weeping and gnashing of teeth. The pit and the worm.
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There's no middle ground. People either die and go to heaven or they die and go to hell. Every one of your friends, every one of your relatives, everyone who's gone before you and everyone that's gone ahead of you, there's a place heaven and there's a place hell.
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I can't get back into my grandmother's soul and make her a Christian because she's already dead.
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I will trust that the God of the universe does right. But I do have people in the future that I know
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I can proclaim the truth that if they don't repent there's hell for them.
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Spurgeon said, it is labor in the fire but no ease, no peace, no sleep, no calm, no quiet, everlasting storm, everlasting hurricane, unceasing tempest.
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In the worst diseases there are some respites. There is no peace in hell's torment. You cannot compare the pains of this life with the agonies to be endured after.
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Could all the misery that ever startled the keepers of our hospitals be conceived? It could not convey the least idea of the pains of the spirits that are doomed to dwell in eternal fire and everlasting burning.
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Memory aghast, hope and fear, thoughts and imaginations, conscience and judgment, all will be racked.
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Every one be stretched on a bed of fire. Every nerve strained to the utmost. Every vein made a road for the hot feet of pain to travel on.
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I think it's our duty as a church to follow the advice of a wise sage.
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If sinners will be damned at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. Greenwood said, you want to think about the eternal duration of hell that you should think of a million to the 10th power number of years.
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And then he went on to say that period would be one second of time in hell. And God in his righteousness and judgment as there was a bush in Exodus 3 that did not burn,
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God will grant sinners the recompense of their deeds and will give them a body for hell that won't burn.
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Unless they throw down their allegiance to self and to religion and to systems and the sacraments and say,
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God, I can't trust in that. I'm putting all my hope completely that Christ Jesus is the
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Lord of heaven and earth and he saves filth like me. I deserve hell. I'm going to heaven.
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And God has given us the gospel to proclaim. Lots of reasons. One, duty.
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Another, the glory of God because it's a privilege. Because it's a necessity. Because only
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Jesus saves. But it is a good motivation to remember that there is a hell for your children, for your parents, for your friends, and if you're not a
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Christian, for you. Unless the God of the universe arrests you and he often arrests through preaching from the pulpit and preaching by saints like you that love people enough to say, you know,
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I've got to tell the gospel. I'll never forget my grandfather. I thought was dying. He lived several more years and he was a
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Lutheran. And my grandmother never wanted me to talk to my grandfather. Henry Abendroth was his name.
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Hank. And I loved this grandpa. He was a great grandfather.
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He's laying there dying and I'm thinking, his Lutheran sacraments are not going to keep him from heaven. He does not have saving faith to me.
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I mean, by the way, this whole thing about judge not lest you be judged. If you look at someone righteously and you say, how can that person call themselves a
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Christian? It's not judgment to then say, it's not bad judgment to go say, I've got to go preach the gospel. It's good judgment.
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You are to judge. I discern they don't act like a Christian. How can you call yourself a Christian and preach the gospel? So we're all around the family and I had to have my wife and my mother take grandma down to the cafeteria so I could stand there and preach the gospel to grandpa because she would not allow it.
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And so I just grabbed grandpa's hand and I said, and I'm thinking, moments from hell forever, someone that I love.
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And I said, grandpa, if somebody had a blindfold on and was running off a cliff and I tackled them really hard with a linebacker kind of tackle and I hit them with my shoulder and knocked the wind out of them, would that be something that would be good or wrong?
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And I said, grandpa, I know you're not going to want to hear this, but with my words, I'm going to knock the wind out of you to say your righteousness isn't adequate enough and when you die, you're going to go to hell unless you believe.
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There's a savior for people on deathbeds, Jesus Spurgeon used to say, there's only one deathbed conversion in the
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Bible, only one so that you could have hope and only one so that you're not presumptuous.
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And I said, you've got to believe that Jesus Christ is the savior, that he died on the cross for sinners. It's not your communion plus what
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God does. I didn't say this, but here's what I'm trying to say. As the Reformation taught the
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Bible, alone Christ saves, not what the opponents taught but and.
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It's sola, not et. It's alone, not and. It's not you and God. It's not your sacraments and God.
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It's not your goodness and God. And I said, grandpa, you've got to believe. Well, just then, grandma walked by and she knew what
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I was doing because things changed dramatically when my father died and then I got saved. I would do these things during Christmas time and so instead of all take turns opening
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Christmas presents, I would have to have a little lesson and everybody had to sit and listen. So grandma came in and she started screaming out,
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Mike, Mike, Mike. And I thought, I told grandpa the gospel.
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She did not want me to somehow let her know and let grandpa know that the grandson thought that they weren't going to heaven.
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They were all fine. Did he go to heaven?
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I have no idea. I love my grandpa. Love believes all things. I hope he's there.
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But if sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. Of course, we don't really want to think about it.
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Although if you think that you deserve to go and you're not, you'll do anything for your master. I explained last night to Luke redemption.
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Luke, imagine you were a slave and you were a slave and you had your spouse there and your children and you were on the slave block.
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People were coming to buy you and your wife separate and your children separate. You'd never see them again for as long as you live.
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And here comes a man that no one had ever seen and he comes up and he buys all of you, your spouse, your children.
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And then he comes and he takes all the shackles off and he says, you don't have to come serve me. You're free.
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You're a free man. I said, that's redemption. We were in the slave pit of sin and God buys us out with the price, a ransom
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Christ death. And then he lets us free. And then many of those slaves would then say,
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I'll serve you forever. You've let me free. I'm free indeed. How could I somehow repay you?
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I can't repay you, but you have my life and now I will be your indentured servant. As the
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Heidelberg Catechism would talk about, there is guilt, grace and gratitude. And when we know our great guilt that we should be the ones busting hell wide open, yet the grace of God was greater than all our sins, shown forth at Calvary with the risen
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Savior, then our only response should be gratitude. Gratitude that says,
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I'm going to proclaim the gospel. God doesn't need you, but you get to.
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We pray often at this church on Wednesday morning prayer time, please come if you'd like at 6 .15, that every week we would use this baptismal.
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And we wouldn't use it because people from other churches come here. Like I said before, I used to say, well, stay at your church and don't come to our church.
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I have a different motto now, and that is, if your church won't preach the gospel, it's no church. So go to a church that preaches.
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But we want people that are saved. I'm at a disadvantage.
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I deal with Christians all day long. It's like Howie Hendrix at the Christian conference, Christian conference,
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Christian conference, campground. He said, how many people here live at Mount Hermon? Oh, so many people raise their hands.
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He said, I have so much pity for you. You just all live in this cloistered Christian campground.
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I just deal with Christians most of the time. You are the ones who deal with all the unbelievers.
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I personally go pay more money to go to Quinsigamond to swim at the pool than I go to Bally's because I could go to Bally's for half the price, but I go to Quinsigamond because there's this
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Jewish lifeguard that every time I'm there, probably 90 % of the time, I preach about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and he listens.
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And I get to give him the gospel according to Jesus. And I get to give him tapes. And he makes me tapes back. He actually made me one the other day, and it was all the
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Grateful Dead songs that talk about spirituality. I thought, okay, I'll take it. I'm riding down the road.
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He said, do you listen to it? And I thought, I'm listening to it. I gave him a gift, the gospel according to Jesus. I gave him that Piper book we handed all you visitors.
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And I thought, he gives me a gift, I'm listening to it. Sanctuary band, going back and forth.
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I listened. All things to all men. No, just kidding. But you are the ones who get the evangelistic opportunities.
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I walk into a room and I say, Pastor, it's over. Now, I get the pleasure of having neighbors and others.
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But you are at your job. You were at your house. You were at that, should have closed on that other house, but now you're stuck with this house.
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Because God has sovereignly ordained you live next to those people. Send them tracts.
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Invite them over. Love them. This whole friendship evangelism thing didn't work too good and didn't work too well for Peter and Paul and James and Jesus and John the
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Baptist. You don't have to be somebody's friend to proclaim the gospel. It's nice to be nice to people and have friends, but we are to proclaim the gospel.
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Whitefield said, I gave myself up to be a martyr for him who hung upon the cross for me. Known unto him are all future events and contingencies.
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I have thrown myself blindfolded and I trust without reserve into his almighty hands.
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Remember when Jesus said, Go preach the gospel. Make disciples. For lo, I am with you always.
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Maybe that's the last motivation to preach the gospel is we have the God of the universe with us as we preach.
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No one less than God with us when we're preaching. Emmanuel. Here's my challenge as you go.
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Preach the gospel to someone this week. What I did with that grandmother of mine is
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I wrote about a 14 -page letter that explained the gospel. I own it now because she's died and I've inherited some of her things and I've just kept that.
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She said to me, by the way, on the side she said, I knew it was about religion when it was 14 pages. When your typical letter's about a page.
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Write a letter. Make a phone call. And if you get persecuted, then you just back up three verses and you read them.
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Let's pray. Father, it's good to be in the house of the Lord and it's good to worship. It's good to sing songs and it's good to hear challenging messages.
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Lord, we don't want sinners to go to hell. And Lord, we think you've placed that desire in our hearts that we with the image and likeness of God have love for humans, love for sinners, and how much more we have that love because you have redeemed us and we are children purchased.
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Father, give us not some kind of debtor's ethic that we have to do it no matter what, but give us the side of duty, the side of gratitude, the side of love for you.
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And Father, love for the people. They are going to perish. I met a lady the other day and she said,
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I like this doctrine of annihilationism because I just don't like hell. Father, whether we like it or not,
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I hate the doctrine of hell in one sense. The people go there, but Lord, we submit to you. It's not our universe.
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It's not our word. It's not anything that we do. We are here by your good account.
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And Lord, may you give us a horror of hell so we have a love for the people to proclaim to them the truth because Lord, you're not a respecter of persons.
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And our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and even own children, we know according to your word, are going to hell unless you arrest them by the gospel.
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Would you let us have the privilege to preach to them day in and day out.
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And would you please save them, Lord, like you would save Joe today, Anne Garcia's husband, father.
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Father, would you save our friends? Every one of us has friends and relatives that we want saved.
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We will give you all the praise and honor and glory as we see your work in their lives. And may it be unto salvation.