Paul's Passion In Ministry - [Acts 13:16-38]

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This message will be of help to the Church, the members here individually, in that we will better understand how it is that we ought to evangelize.
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We as a Church, how it is that we ought to spread and further the Gospel, the comfort that we have in that we have been given the
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Gospel, not something that we have to come up with, and the wonder of seeing
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God saved in the preaching of that Gospel, and our dependence of course always when the
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Gospel is preached that we look to the Lord, we look to the Holy Spirit to do a great work in the hearts of the hearers so that they are regenerated and they come to Christ.
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We have in this chapter, Acts chapter 13, the account of Paul's first missionary journey where the
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Apostle and his band, he's here with Barnabas, is fulfilling the great commission that was given to them by the
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Lord Jesus to preach that Gospel, to go and make disciples. And they are experiencing actually
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Acts chapter 1 where Jesus had promised that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and that the power of God would rest upon them so that they would be witnesses of the
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Lord, both in the rings of circles locally as it spread out in Jerusalem Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth of the uttermost parts of the earth.
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Here is where they're going, first missionary journey, to the ends of the earth so that the Gospel will be proclaimed in the ears of not only the
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Jews but the Gentiles, and that they would by the power of God be saved and that churches would be established.
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And here Paul, his MO as I said, is to go usually to the synagogues to the
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Jews first and preach there and whoever else is there to hear those words so that the
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Gospel will powerfully come and regenerate them. In this chapter in verse 14, you'll notice it says, but when they departed from Perga they came to Antioch and Pisidia and went into the synagogue on the
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Sabbath day and sat down. Here they are in Antioch, this is modern Turkey where they are.
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This is Paul and Barnabas again on the first missionary journey. It says in verse 15, and after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them saying, you men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.
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What a great invitation for any preacher. What a great invitation for any Christian. I mean, if you have anything to say about religion, anything to say about the
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Bible, anything to say about God, come and tell us. Wouldn't it be great if the state house, the governor calls
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BBC and says, would you please send your pastoral staff? If you have anything to say about the Bible, please come and tell us.
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And as Paul, and he takes this great opportunity, it's the Lord opening this door. Of course, it is the
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Lord opening the door of the gospel to be presented to the Gentiles. And Paul stands up in verse 16 and he beckons with his hand and he begins to preach.
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And this is Paul's first recorded sermon. And what I want to do this morning is
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I want to kind of look at this and I, I want to see the components of this sermon. I want to see what, when Paul goes to preach the gospel and here he is from the first recorded sermon preaching the gospel to the
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Jews and to those Gentiles that are hearing, what is it that he is going to say? Because we hear all kinds of things about what the gospel is and sad, sad to say it is not gospel.
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I'm going to kind of touch on that, but Paul wants and desires to preach the gospel. And I'd like to look at some things.
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They're all going to begin my outline. All of the words in my outline begin with the letter P and the first we're going to see is that what
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Paul does as he beckons the men with his hands, maybe there was a little tumult because some didn't want
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Paul to get up and speak. Maybe he had to quiet the crowd or whatever, but he's, he's animated and he wants them to hear what he's got to say.
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And he says to the men of Israel and you, that fear God, give audience and begins to preach.
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And as he begins to preach, the first thing we see here is that Paul, uh, the privileged history of Israel is rehearsed.
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The privileged history of Israel is rehearsed. He says, the God of the people of Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt and with a high arm, he brought them out of it.
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Now, as I'm reading this, and one time when I read through this, I was thinking, what is he doing?
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He's going back to the old Testament scripture. Notice it says when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, what book comes to your mind
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Genesis and with a high arm, he brought them out of it or out of the slavery, out of Egypt, Exodus, and about the time of the 40 years suffered their manners in the wilderness in the wilderness.
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What do you think of there? There's Leviticus, there's numbers and there's Deuteronomy. And when he had destroyed seven nations, verse 19 in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by law,
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Joshua, the book of Joshua. And after verse 20, he gave unto them judges about the space of 450 years, the book of judges and until Samuel, the prophet, the book of first and second
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Samuel verse 21. And after they desired a king and God gave unto them Saul, the son of Kiss, a man of the tribe of Benjamin by the space of 40 years, the book of first and second
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Kings. He is going through and what's neat here is as Paul is dealing with the
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Jews and rehearsing their past history, he lays a foundation in his message.
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It is not based upon contemporary thinking, but on their rich heritage of their cherished relationship that they had with God as the people of God.
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And on the mighty works of God on their behalf, it is God that had delivered them out of Egypt and God that brought them to the place where they were.
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There was an authority in Paul's message. The authority of the Old Testament scriptures was behind what
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Paul was saying. He is not making up his message as he goes along. There's no fabrication of this message.
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There's no fabrication of false doctrine. His hearers know what he's saying is true.
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And we are going to see Paul not only starting a Genesis and going through the books of the Bible, but what he does as he's going through, he had noticed in verse 22, it also says when he had removed him,
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Saul, he raised up David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony and said,
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I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will.
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And what Paul does is he goes from the beginning of God's dealing with Israel and their history of the
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Jewish nation. And he goes through that history and he goes to King David and he's going to go from David straight to Jesus Christ, being of the line of David.
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Paul knew exactly what he was doing. It wasn't something that he was making up. He didn't find any golden tablets.
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He didn't go into some room and read, open up some scroll that was written by the
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Pope. And it was something made up thousands or hundreds, hundreds of years after Jesus left the earth.
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It wasn't some new thing. It wasn't. I mean, people were hearing. I thought it was some new thing, but it was the age old story that God had promised.
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And we're going to, we're going to get into that. But as you, as we, as we were looking through that, you saw how he was just going through the history and going through the books.
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And then he comes to David and then that points him straight to Jesus Christ. What does that say to us today?
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As a church, as the people of God, as Christians who are desiring to preach the gospel, well, first of all, the
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Christian faith is based upon scripture. It is recorded.
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It is preserved by God and it is handed down from generation to generation. We don't have to, nor should we ever make up our own message.
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I remember in elementary school, one of the things that we used to do was at the beginning of the class, somebody would come up with some phrase or sentence and they would pass it on from one student to the next student.
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And by the time it got to the end and that person would stand up and say what it was that they felt was passed down all the way through.
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It was pretty comical because sometimes it had nothing to do with what the first statement was. And that's not what we're doing and that's not what we're about as a church.
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We're not taking and opening the Bible and making it say what we want it to say. We're not reading into it.
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We're not pulling things out of context. Just talking to a brother before preaching this morning and it was along the same lines.
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It is something that we don't mess with. It's something that we leave alone. It's something that we don't toy with. We don't take the tools of man, the hammer and the chisel and start chiseling away as some preachers would do and as some churches will do because they want it to fit the lifestyle that they want.
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They want to be able to justify sin. They want to be able to make it sound so good and so pleasing to them so that it will be easy to do.
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But that is taking the doctrine and the commandments of God and switching it all around and turning it all around just so that it's pleasing to us and we aren't to do that.
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We don't have nor should we ever have to make up a message. We've been given the scriptures as the very word of God recorded and saved for us as the basis for everything that we will proclaim.
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And in that, I think for us it's great. It's almost like someone who is doing expository preaching.
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I mean they're preaching through a book. They know where they're going to be next week. It's going to be the next few verses and when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to that which we're going to preach, there's a comfort to know that we don't have to improvise.
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We don't have to fabricate anything. We don't have to come up with something new or improved. Remember I touched on that a couple, three weeks ago out of Hebrews chapter 10 about the perfect once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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You can't improve upon that. And when it comes to the gospel, you can't improve upon that. When it comes to the word of God, you don't add or take away from the word of God.
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It is the word of God. It's there and it's settled forever. And all we do is pick it up and read it, live it and proclaim it.
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Misguided preachers think that they must come up with some new message, a new approach to man's problem.
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And you know why? They say because we're living in modern times. I mean this is the 21st century.
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I mean we got cell phones and the internet and we got instant this and drive through that and people are elevated.
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I mean preaching will not do. It's antiquated. I mean man isn't in that bad of a shape.
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We're not all sinners. I mean that's old fashioned. I mean that's demeaning. I mean talk about just popping my bubble.
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People need to feel good. They need to have their self -confidence bolstered. So we give them what they want.
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Let's give them what they want. Let's survey and ask the people what they want. Not let's just open the book and deliver what
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God has given to us but survey and send out the questionnaires and find out what they want and we'll give them that.
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And what they find out that they need to give people today because they don't want to bow the knee to God. They don't want to hear the word of God.
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They want candy. They want fluff. They want something to pump them up. They want a message that is of no substance and it's
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Christless and it's graceless. And I made up this word. It is repentanceless. It is hopeless.
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I can't even pronounce it, repentanceless. It is hopeless and it's powerless.
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And it will only last them long enough to get out the door, get in the car, go home, live like they did before and they're on the
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Broadway that leads to hell and to destruction. It does not change the life. No matter how modern man gets, folks, no matter how sophisticated man gets, no matter how smart he gets, no matter how technologically advanced he gets, man still has the same age old problem meaning every man, woman, boy and girl is a sinner who has fallen short of the glory of God.
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When I was a kid and we were playing baseball and somebody couldn't, you know, you get the batter up there and you want to start the chattering and you try to throw them off their game or whatever.
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One of the things we used to say and if it was quite evident they couldn't play, we used to say that person could not hit a beach ball.
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You know what a beach ball is? Some people, you know, the big thing you blow up is huge. They couldn't hit a beach ball with a snow shovel, big old shovel.
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And when it comes to hitting the mark of God's perfection, and that's what's required to get to heaven, you must be absolutely 100 % perfect without sin.
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You can't do that. Nobody can do that. Not a man upon the face of the earth, not a woman, a child upon the face of the earth can hit the mark of God's glory because the
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Bible has told us for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It's that, you heard it a little while ago,
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I think one of the missionaries who came, he said, you're shooting the arrow at the target. And it's not that the bull is a big old target like this and there's a bullseye right in the middle.
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And it's not that they're just a little bit off. The problem is, is that they hit the wall way over there, totally, completely missed the requirement that God has set that we be absolutely sinless.
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Brother Lewis covered Ecclesiastes chapter seven. And in there, there's a verse 20, which says, for there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and does not sin.
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Not one. We've broken God's law. I just had a different thinking of this. What if the requirement to his way
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I could kind of put it, maybe even the children can understand this. If I can get this, maybe they can. If, if you had to get into heaven and you were like a glass vase to get into heaven, you would have to be perfect.
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No cracks, no flaws, no chips at all. No imperfections.
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If you were, you would have to be perfect in order to get into heaven. The problem is, is that for all of us, you take the glass phase and you shatter it upon the ground.
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That is the condition that we're in. We've missed the mark. We cannot be perfect. We cannot, there's no way we can take the glass phase off the ground either and put it back together and have it be totally perfect.
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There's no good works that we can do. There's no effort that we can do to make ourselves righteous before God because all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
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Anyways, that's what God thinks of those. Here's the condition of the sinner in the scriptures.
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When Paul is preaching, he's written on some of these things and he knows these things from the word of God, the scriptures and Ephesians chapter two.
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Here's a description of those that are hearing the gospel message and that need a savior. Ephesians chapter two says that we are dead in trespasses and sins.
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That means spiritually dead. No spiritual life. It's not as if we've fallen overboard and we're floating in the water and we need someone to throw us the gospel salvation life jacket or the life ring or a lifesaver.
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The true condition of man is, is that he is not floating on top of the water.
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He's absolutely dead at the bottom of the ocean and needs a spiritual resurrection by the power of God.
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That's the condition of man. It's not as if we've, you know, we've,
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I look around and I see eyeglasses. It's not as if we're, our spiritual eyesight is a little bit dimmed, we're nearsighted or farsighted a little bit when it comes, we don't quite get everything when it comes to the things of God and being a
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Christian, a person who's outside of Jesus Christ is absolutely blind, can't see at all and needs to have a miracle, a gift given to them.
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Spiritual eyesight. God must do this. It's not that, it's not that you do what
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I do sometimes when it comes to when, as far as an illustration, when I'm driving around with my wife, sometimes
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I have this general idea that my internal GPS is on and I kind of know where I am.
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And you know, have any of you husbands ever heard from your wife, why don't you just stop and get directions, right?
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But we got this thing in us, you know, we know we're going to get there. We're just a little bit lost.
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We're heading in the right direction. And some people think they're heading in the right direction. I go to church and I'm not a bad person.
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I'm not as bad as that person over there who's, you know, I see in the news. I mean, they're the hideous things that are, I'm not so bad.
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I'm going in the right direction. I'm heading towards God. I want to go to heaven. The problem isn't that we're just a little bit off course.
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We just need a little map or something just to go a little or a GPS type system to get us where we need to get.
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The thing is, is that we're hopelessly and absolutely lost. And we're not only not going in the right direction, we're going in the wrong direction.
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We're going that way. As far and as fast away from God as a person can possibly go. That's the condition of a lost person.
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Let me give you, let me give you a Pastor Mike machine gun rally on some of these other things because I've got a whole list of them here.
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I mean, in that last point, absolutely lost, going in the other direction, Paul put it this way in Romans 3 .12.
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He says they are gone out of the way. And by that he means they are out of step with God.
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Totally out of step. I remember being in the military, US Army. They teaching us the cadence and how to how to march and they would get after you if you're not doing the left when you're supposed to in the right when you're when you're supposed to, because they wanted a unit.
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They wanted us all together. People are out of step with God because God demands that all men everywhere repent.
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God commands for all men everywhere to believe on his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And people say, no,
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I'm out of step and I'm not going to do that because I want to go my way. We'll get into the more of that later, but what else is true of the description of a person who is not saved, not a
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Christian, not in fellowship with God through his son, Jesus Christ. Listen to these verses. And I'm just going to quote pieces of them.
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Their mind is carnal or there's hostility toward God. Romans 8 .7. Their reason is gone.
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Ecclesiastes 9 .3. Their heart is desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17 .9. Their way is corrupt.
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Genesis 6 .12. Their tongues are poisonous. Romans 3 .13. Their eyes are blinded.
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Matthew 15 .13 and 14. Their understanding is darkened. Ephesians 4 .18.
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Their ears are deaf. Second Timothy 4 .4. They are completely undone. Isaiah 64 .6.
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Their whole nature is diseased. Isaiah 1 .5 and 6. They drink sin like water. Job 15 .16.
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They are taken captive by Satan at his will. Second Timothy 2 .25 and 26. Servants of sin.
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Romans 6 .16. Sinners by birth. Psalm 51 .5. Sinners by practice.
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Genesis 5 .6 .5. They are fallen, lost, prisoners of sin, children of disobedience, vessels of wrath fitted for destruction.
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Message is over. Now what if that was the message? We'd all be undone.
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There would be no hope for any of us. But we know, based upon what the scriptures say, that is not, as that guy on the radio would say, the rest of the story.
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There's more to it. There is good news. There is hope for sinners. There is hope for anyone here who might be saying, man, like the
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Puritan said, I just got pierced through with a needle of the law. I've broken the law.
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I just got pierced. But what the Puritan also said, you've got to pierce first with the needle of the law so that you can pull through the silk thread of grace.
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And here comes the silk thread of grace. The Apostle Paul here, not only as he paints this picture,
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I mean, how foolish it would be. What if the remedy for man was, well, just have a little bit of religion.
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Do your best and God will accept you. Pay a little, pray a little, attend church a little, let go and let
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God. Well, God helps them, that helps themselves, right? We're all God's children, aren't we?
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We're all going to be saved. I mean, we all have a spark of divinity in us. I mean, it just needs to be flamed a little bit and we can do the rest.
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And maybe I can bring it a little bit closer to home as far as sometimes when the church isn't very clear.
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How about some of this? Come forward to the altar as if that is what saves the person.
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Sign the card, raise your hand. I might step on a couple of toes here.
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I know that we saying, since Jesus came into my heart, that happens in a certain way. But when we're preaching to Jesus, sometimes it's not preaching
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Christ, it is not very clear if we say to a person, invite Jesus into your heart. What does that mean?
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Or how about this? Salvation is like a gift that's up on the shelf. All you gotta do is just go take it.
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Say yes to Jesus. Jesus died to make it possible and all you gotta do is your best and do the rest.
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No, no, no, no, no. That is not the gospel.
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That is not good news that cannot save. We have the responsibility, brethren, don't we to make it clear, to blow the trumpet very soundly clear so that people will understand exactly what it means to be saved and what the requirement is to be saved.
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There's only one hope for sinners, people like you and me who are in the position that I just described, that whole list.
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I mean, if a doctor, isn't it true, and you've heard this, if a doctor even has a wrong diagnosis, isn't he going to possibly prescribe the wrong medicine?
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And sometimes there are preachers, there are those who are on the radio, there are those that write books and circulate all this information on the internet who have the wrong view of man's condition.
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They say man is spiritually capable, I mean, of doing something for God. They'll say man is not as bad as you think he is, or everybody's going to make it, won't they?
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Or God will accept me if I do good things, right? If you do that, and if you believe that, the person who believes the wrong view of man's condition will preach a weak, social, do -it -yourself, felt -needs, man -centered, insufficient message that will never save.
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It would be just like giving a sugar pill to a cancer patient. It will not do.
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It will not help, it will not change them. J .C. Ryle wrote, if you have not yet found out that Christ crucified is the foundation of the whole volume of the
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Bible, you have hitherto read your Bible to very little profit. Your religion is a sky without sun, an arch without a keystone, a compass without a needle, a clock without a spring or weights, a lamp without oil.
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It will never comfort you. It will not deliver your soul from hell. So a person who reads the scriptures and thinks that we're good, that we're going to make it, that everything's okay if I could just do it myself, no, it must come from outside of ourselves.
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But if we take up the scriptures, we take up the Bible and understand that the complete and utter hopelessness in man's ability to save himself, our only recourse is to rely upon God's unchanging, everlasting, powerful gospel.
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And that's what the apostle Paul does here. He makes the beeline to Christ, as I think
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Spurgeon would say. Every time he preaches, he wants to make that beeline to Christ or beeline to the cross. And Paul does that when he says there that, in verse 22, when he had removed him,
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Saul, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found
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David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, which shall fulfill all my will of this man's seed.
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Hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a savior, Jesus Christ. I love it. He just goes straight from Genesis all the way through and to David to that line and right to Christ.
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And when it comes to our preaching, when it comes to our sharing of the gospel, there's not a whole lot of weight when we say,
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I believe, or in my opinion, or BBC thinks, but if you open the sword of the spirit, the word of God, and you say,
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God says, this is what the word of God says, it is powerful. It is able to do its work.
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It is able to accomplish that which God has set forth. Not fabricating something new.
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I remember in the 80s, I remember I was telling you, we used to sing some songs. One of them was this one, and a friend of mine took it and changed it just a little bit.
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So if you've heard this before, don't flip out because he changed a few words around. The song is, someday we all will understand that man's gospel will not do.
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His preaching is bad, his methods are sad. Lord, what will we do? Ask for the old paths, thus saith the
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Lord, and stand ye in the way. Exalting God's son, the spirit will come with revival the old time way.
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I love that old time religion, for it will never change. I love the precious
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Holy Bible, for it's always the same. The road's still narrow, the way's still straight, you must be born again.
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Christ still lives, he still reigns, and he's coming again. And like Jeremiah, I believe we as the people of God today must ask for the old paths, must stand in the true paths of God's word, and exalt
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Jesus Christ. And as Paul did in this message, as he heads right for Jesus Christ, and I'm gonna, it's kind of heading into my next point.
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It was Paul's focus always when he preached, as he said in 1 Corinthians 2 .2, for I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified, the person and work of Christ.
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That's the answer, Jesus Christ, the only hope for sinners. Jesus, not our goodness.
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Jesus, not our false religion. And it must be the Jesus of the Bible. Not another
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Jesus, the Jesus of the scriptures. So the first thing that Paul did was he, the privileged history was rehearsed.
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But as we come now down to verse 23, we're going to see Paul speak on the promise of God declared.
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The promise of God declared, verse 23, of this man's seed, of David's seed, back in verse 22, have
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God according to his promise, raised unto Israel, a savior, Jesus. As Paul rehearsed their history, from Moses to David and made a, as I said, a beeline to Christ.
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Why did he do this? Because there is no way for anyone to receive forgiveness.
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There's no way for anyone to become a Christian. There's no way for anyone to go to heaven outside of the promised
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Messiah, the savior, Jesus Christ. According to the promise here, he says in verse 23, that's
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God's promise. God is true. God cannot lie. God said that. And from the beginning of scriptures, we understand that, that God would raise up a
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Messiah. God would bring an anointed one. God would bring forth someone who would save and deliver us from sin.
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And of course it's the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. It reminds me of first Corinthians chapter 15.
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You don't have to turn there. I will quickly, but in first Corinthians 15, as Paul's preaching there, he reminds them of where it is that he got his message.
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Paul said, first Corinthians 15, three and four, for I delivered unto you, first of all, that which
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I also manufactured. Paul didn't say that. Paul said,
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I delivered unto you that which I first fabricated. No, he said, I delivered unto you, first of all, that which
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I have also received. He received it from God. The message that he got was not his own.
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It was God's gospel concerning God's son, Jesus Christ. He said, I received it. And he said, and then
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I delivered it to you. And what is the message? How that Christ died for our sins. And importantly, he says, according to the scriptures.
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In verse four, and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures.
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It's all based upon the promises of God. The myriads of the many, many, many promises made concerning Jesus Christ, the coming
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Messiah, and Jesus fulfilled them. Nothing new, no gimmicks, just gospel, nothing fabricated, just the word that he had received from the
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Lord. In Acts 13, Paul continues as he's declaring this truth from the Old Testament to the
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New Testament record and coming to Jesus Christ and his desire is to make it very clear that only the gospel regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ will save.
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And today, brethren, in order for us to be profitable fishers of men, Jesus said that right, follow me and I will make you fishers of men in order to be profitable servants of the
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Lord. We need to throw out the gospel net, not a man made net, but the gospel net as God's given it to us.
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So privileged history rehearsed. The promise of God declared. And now
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I want to get into the meat of this message where Paul presents the message to all and we're going to see what that message is.
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But first I wanted to deal with this point that he presented the message to all. Notice this in verse 26.
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In verse 24, we have some dealings with John the Baptist, but for the sake of time, I always run over,
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I'm gonna try to cut that short and go right to verse 26. He says, men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham and whosoever among you that fears
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God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. And I love that because the apostle is preaching to all of them that are there.
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He didn't just say, okay, you religious leaders, I'm gonna take you over here. I'm gonna tell you this message. I'm gonna tell you what
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God has given to me. It's not just for the elite. It's not just for the who's who.
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It's not just for the rich and famous, the intellectual, the scholars, those worth saving, those who might be profitable for the
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Lord, the righteous, the good. No, there's none good. No, not one.
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In 26A, we see that it is Jews and Gentiles alike. The message goes to all.
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And Paul and we are to proclaim, herald, tell the gospel to all. And I, this morning, just like the apostle
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Paul did in 26B, where he said, to you is the word of this salvation sent.
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I do the same thing this morning by saying to you here that can hear my voice, the message of the salvation of God in Jesus Christ comes to you and you will respond in one of two ways as they did here.
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You will either reject this message. You will reject everything there has to do and run and flee away from God and have nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
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Or you will gladly receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, believing he died for you so that you would be forgiven and become a child of God.
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The message comes to all. Isn't that wonderful? Nobody excluded. I mean, sometimes we think, you know,
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I know I've shared this story before, but for those of you that didn't hear it, one time I used to work at St.
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Gobain, which is a former Norton company. Just not too far down the road here. One of the places
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I used to frequent to eat at was Steve's Pizza right on the line of, I think it's West Boilston in Worcester.
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And one Friday I went in there. One of the things I used to like to get was fish and chips. And one
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Friday I went in there late because I was working late and I asked, do you have any fish and chips? And they said, no, sorry, we're all out.
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So I ordered a grinder, sat down, waited for it. In comes a Massachusetts state trooper.
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Goes up to the counter and he says, do you have any fish and chips? And they said, sure, officer, so -and -so will be right back.
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And they go in the back room and they bring one out and put it right before him. And I'm thinking, what about me?
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See, I wasn't on the ins. You don't have to be on the ins to be saved. We're all on the outs.
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We're all falling short of the glory of God. There is none that do with good, no, not one.
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As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands. There's none that do with good, no, not one.
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All gone out of the way. All together become unprofitable, useless. We're all useless before God.
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We don't want to hear this, do we? We don't like to hear it, but it's the truth. But God takes a useless sinner who is running away from him and God apprehends that person, those whom he would set his love upon, he apprehends them.
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He arrests us and he regenerates us through the working of the
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Holy Spirit. And our eyes are open to see that the life that we were living doesn't work. And it's in such opposition for God.
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And we understand as God reveals this to us that Jesus Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, while we were useless, while we were on the outs.
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And all we need to do is as the Apostle Paul would preach here, and I'll get to that verse, is to believe upon the
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Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of our souls. And joy upon joy and blessing upon blessing,
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God accepts us in Jesus Christ. We become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
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Galatians 3 .26. And there's nobody who is in the elite group that will hear the message goes to all.
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Well, I said I would get to the core of it and here we go. We've not only heard about the privilege history being rehearsed and the promise of God declared, the
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Messiah coming through David's line. Thirdly, he presented the message to all, but fourthly, he preached
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Jesus Christ. That was Paul's focus in all of his life.
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Not only for me to live as Christ and to die as Gain, his whole life was Jesus, but when it came to his message, he preached
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Christ. And you notice the thread that goes through these verses. If you would with me,
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I'm just gonna do this. He speaks of Christ in verse 23, the Savior, the promise. Down in verse 27, he says, for they that dwell in Jerusalem and the rulers because they knew him not, speaking of Christ, him not, in verse 27 at the end, him, 28, him, he, 29, him, him, him, 30, him, 31, he, him, and so on.
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You will see that down through there. Paul's not talking about himself. He's not talking about the church. He's not talking about the great church back in Antioch that sent him out.
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He's focusing on the only hope that these hearers have and it's the wonderful, powerful message of Jesus Christ.
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This Jesus, who it says in verse 27, they condemned. They condemned him at the end of that verse.
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In verse 28, it says that they found no cause of death in him. Sounds like the Gospels, doesn't it? Reading, we're thinking about the
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Gospels. Jesus is not guilty. He's sinless. There's no crime worthy of death, but they desire that Pilate should crucify him.
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Remember all that as we were reading through the New Testament. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, that means they killed him.
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They crucified him. They took him down from the tree. They first had to put him up on the cross and they did.
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And Jesus on that cross became sin for us, our substitute, but it says they put him up there.
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What was written of him? The Old Testament. You read Psalm 22. You read,
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I think I have a note in my, where did
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I put it? Oh, Psalm 22 and Deuteronomy 21. This form of execution, which when prophesied back then, wasn't even a form of execution.
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What was written of him, what was prophesied of Christ came true and he was nailed to the tree. Then after that, they laid him in the sepulcher.
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So he was mocked and he was rejected and he was hated and he was condemned and he was crucified and he was buried.
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And then he rose again from the dead. We see that here. God raised him up, verse 30, from the dead.
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And he was seen of many days of them, which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.
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And we declare unto you good news. I'll get to that point next. But here, through these verses, we're seeing that Paul is preaching
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Christ. Brethren, isn't this the gospel that saved us? Isn't this all our hope?
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Isn't Christ our Lord so lovely? He is the one who hung and bled and died there for us.
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And why would we think that anything less than this will set other people free? Nothing will.
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We've been entrusted with this gospel. 1 Thessalonians 2, in verse four, says we've been entrusted with the gospel of Christ.
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Even so we speak not as pleasing men. Not as pleasing men. That is the problem with a false gospel.
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They want to preach something that will be acceptable to the hearers, that will tickle your ears and it'll be palatable for them.
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The gospel was never meant to be palatable. It's never meant to fit into society.
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Jesus never bent his message so that people would look at the message and say,
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I like that. Jesus always required that the people bend themselves to the message, that they repent, that they turn.
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And people preach a message today, and you know, they preach sometimes, they preach this message, you know, here is the way to heaven, rules.
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One, two, three. You know why they do that? Because that's easy. They like that. It's outward.
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I'll just do that, and then I'll just go home. I'll have the show of it, if anything. But the whole message of the gospel is you cannot save yourself.
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You cannot do it. It's not by works of righteousness, which we have done.
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It is according to God's mercy that he saves. It is as the psalmist said, that God reaches down and plucked me out of the horrible pit, out of the quicksand of sin, out of the miry clay, and God picked me up and set my feet upon a solid rock.
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Every single person in this room this morning that says, I am saved, I am a Christian, knows that God did it to you.
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You know that God came and saved you. You know you believed, you repented, but God gave you those gifts of repentance and faith, and you gladly received the
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Lord Jesus because you knew you needed a savior, and he was the only one, as God reveals it. I mean, this message is the message of Christ, and it's the only one that saves, and that leads me to the next point, whereas he proclaimed good news.
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Remember I said all that, that whole list of all the things that our condition be without Jesus Christ, and if I left it there, that wouldn't be good news.
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I mean, it's difficult to receive bad news, isn't it? Lewis touched on this in the Sunday school class.
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Someone we knew has died, bad car accident, health issues, very serious, you lose your job.
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Sometimes it takes the wind out of our sails. It discourages, it doesn't spur us on sometimes, and stops us in our tracks, and we can become undone, and shackled and confused, but the gospel is good news.
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It always brings glad tidings to the person who is powerfully saved by this message.
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Albert Barnes, in his commentary, to a Jew, nothing could be more grateful news than to hear the
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Messiah had come, and to a sinner, convinced of his sins, nothing can be more cheering than to hear of the savior,
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Jesus Christ. Nothing glads, I mean, the song, does a song go like this?
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You know, I always tweak with these hymn notes, just to get the point, these hymns, just to get the point across. We have heard the joyful sound.
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I can save myself, how about you? Right? It's in your hymn book.
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We have heard the joyful sound. Brother Steve Cooley, solo bootstrappers, pull yourself up and you can save yourself.
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No, absolutely not. We have heard the joyful sound. Jesus saves, Jesus saves.
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Spread the tidings, what kind of tidings? The good news, that's what gospel is. Gospel is good news for people who are sitting in a bad situation, for people who need a savior.
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And once they hear that good news, they are glad to know that they can be completely forgiven and unshackled.
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They are overjoyed when they understand that God loved them enough to send His Son to die in their place so that they could be redeemed, so that they could be changed, so they could become the children of God.
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With God's good news, we are overwhelmed with gladness when we see the wonderful change
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God works in our hearts. And now, anyone who has experienced this unspeakable gift is full of praise and adoration for the
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Savior. And by the good news of God's gospel, they are thrilled that they know
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God through His Son, or better yet, that God knows them. And they have learned that they were created to glorify
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God. And their life now takes on meaning and purpose because they are to love and to serve the
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God who they've been running away from. And the God that they had been dishonoring, now they can honor
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Him. Liberty and freedom in Christ. Wherever Christ is preached, the hearts of men are made glad.
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That is a fact of the scriptures. Read through this book. Go back to Acts 2, and you will see the exuberance and the gladness in the early church.
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Listen to the psalm I read this morning. I mean, talk about being set free. Our soul is escaped,
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Psalm 124, verse seven and eight. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers.
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I mean, sometimes maybe I just talk too much about the things I did when I was little, but I remember as a little kid catching animals.
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I didn't know what I was gonna do with them when I caught them. And I didn't catch very many, but do you ever try to catch the bird, the box on the angle with the stick and the string attached to the stick and put a piece of bread under there?
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And you said, the bird's gonna go in, I'm gonna pull the string and catch him. Never did, but I often wondered what would I have done if I had caught one?
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Well, in this text here, there are birds that are actually captured in the snare, in the trap.
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And just like our soul is ensnared to sin, we're in the prison house of sin and we cannot get out.
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And like that bird that has been released from the snare, it says the snare is broken and we are escaped.
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Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth glad. The Gentiles were so glad up around verse 48 to hear that the gospel was gonna come to them because they thought that possibly the gospel was only for the
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Jews and they were excluded, but they heard that it could come to them and they were glad. Philip goes into Samaria in Acts chapter eight and preaches the gospel and there's great rejoicing in that area of the country where Christ has preached hearts are made glad.
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Just the opposite of that, religion with all its ritual and ceremony and roles and rules is just but a trap that enslaves the person and locks them in prison.
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And it's a prison where they think they need to perform, do something to make themselves pleasing to God and they never know when they have done enough.
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Like the apostle John did and I'll turn there, you don't have to turn there in first John chapter five, when he's preaching, when he's writing about the record of Jesus Christ, he says this, he that believes on the son of God has the witness in himself.
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He that believes not God has made him a liar because he believes not the record that God gave of his son. Okay, John, what is the record that God gave of his son?
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This is the record that God has given to us eternal life and this life is in his son, praise the
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Lord. There is life, eternal life, everlasting life in Jesus Christ. And not only that, it's not something that you can think about or wonder about or I hope about or maybe
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I'll receive, I mean, how good do you have to be in a religion to be able to be accepted to God? You can't do it,
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I've already said that. But when John speaks here about Christ and what he has done and you having Christ, you have life, he says this so that we can have absolute confidence these things have
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I written unto you that believe on the name of the son of God. To those that are believing upon Christ that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the son of God.
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That is good news. Not works -based, not man -centered, not a gospel that cannot save but one where you can be 100 % assured because it's resting where?
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Upon the word of God, the promise of God and on Jesus Christ's work for you on your behalf and not your attempting to work for God to please him.
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Well, lastly, I must believe it or not, there are 12 points, 12
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Ps that I found in this text. Who knows when the next ones will be preached but I'm just gonna stop here at this next one.
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Paul, the privileged history was rehearsed. The promise was declared of the
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Messiah through David's lineage. He presented the message to all. He preached Jesus Christ.
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And in preaching Christ, he not only preached the death of Christ and the burial of Christ but you will see in verse 30, verse 33, verse 34, and verse 37, he preached the resurrection.
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There are two arches that hold up, or two pillars that hold up the arch of God's gospel.
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Somebody once said this, I didn't pen this, I couldn't do this one. It's the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ.
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And they preached the resurrection. It's core, it's central, it's the climax of the gospel. And they did that. They preached
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Christ and then sixthly, they preached forgiveness.
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Paul preached forgiveness. Paul was gonna move from the historical, the doctrinal and the theological and he's gonna move it into the realm where he's speaking right to these people and he's saying these ones who he said at the beginning, this word of the salvation is coming to you and he's gonna make it very practical and experiential for them so that it comes home to them.
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What he's gonna do is in this practical invitation that comes to them, he wants them to know that this message can do them good.
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Now you might think that's a light statement but that's true, the gospel does the soul of man good. The gospel is that which changes us from a people who are in a kingdom of darkness running away from God to being translated into the kingdom of God's dear son, his children of light.
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The dear and precious children of God, the apple of God's eyes forgiven. And that's what
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Paul declares here in verses 38 and 39 as I close. He says, be it known unto you. There's ignorance.
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They didn't know he's gonna declare something to them. Be it known to you. And all of you that are hearing my voice, be it known to you that through this man, therefore men and brethren, he says, be it known to you therefore men and brethren that through this man, who this
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Jesus who has been preaching, the one who the Old Testament scriptures prophesied of, the one who was nailed to the tree, the one who died, the one who was buried, the one who
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God raised from the dead. Through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins.
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And through this man and through this man only. Nothing else. And we as the people of God have the great privilege, not that we're anything.
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God has made us what he's made us from useless to worthwhile creatures of his to serve him.
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God has done something in our lives to where before our time was fritted away and all that was about our lives was not focused on the glory of God.
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Now it is on the glory of God. And we have the great privilege as John MacArthur said, I remember when he preached here in 1999.
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Remember that account when he was sitting on the airplane and he was talking to the Middle Eastern man beside him who was gonna go do some sins.
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You remember that, that message? And he says, I have the great privilege to tell you and I have the great honor from the
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Lord to be able to tell you how your sins can be forgiven. And that is what we are as ambassadors of Jesus Christ.
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We didn't come up with it. We can't do it. We can't save the soul. We can't forgive sins. They're only remitted through the blood of Jesus Christ, his death, burial and resurrection.
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We get to share that with other people. What a great privilege and Paul does it here. He says, through this man, through Christ is preached to you the forgiveness of sins and by him, by means of him, by means of his suffering, by means of his death, by means of his resurrection.
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He says, you are justified. You are justified. And in the justification that he's talked about, you know that we've covered this before, but that means when we're justified, not only is it that we're, it's a two -sided coin.
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It's not that we're just as just as if I had never sinned, that's the first part, but just as if I had the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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The two -sided coin comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And he says, from which you could never be justified or from which you could never be freed from by keeping the law of Moses.
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The law was never made to save us. It was to show us that we needed to be saved.
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That was the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law was like the mirror when you went into the bathroom this morning which showed you your flaws and my flaws, showed you you needed a little bit of help and attention, but you don't take the mirror off the wall and start scrubbing your face to get the dirt off your face.
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It points you to the soap and the law of God in breaking it shows us that we need a savior and it points us to Jesus Christ.
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It's a school master, it's a teacher to bring us right to Jesus. And I encourage you if you're here this morning,
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I beg you if you are here this morning and outside of Jesus Christ, never gave any thought to what it means to be a
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Christian or to be forgiven. You say, I had no idea, Dave, that that was my condition.
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Would you look to Jesus Christ and believe upon him to the saving of your soul and God who is a savior by nature will uphold his promise in the scriptures that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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And brethren, you that are here this morning that are been saved by God, you are children of God.
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You know what it means to be a Christian. You're walking with the Lord and the Lord is tenderly taking care of you and you are one who desires to glorify the
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Lord. Consider this example as Paul preached this message through this text. It wasn't him, it was
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Jesus. It wasn't anything that he could do or work out in their life. It wasn't anything he fabricated or manufactured.
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It was something he received from God. Take the message that we have received. And I'm just doing this also just to help us as we're teaching on evangelism to be encouraged just to give it out, to let it be, not manipulate and watch
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God powerfully save sinners by using what he said he would use, the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God unto salvation to the
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Jew first and also to the Greek. God will save and he does save. And those he saves, there's a gladness that comes in because it's great and good news.
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It is the gospel and it brings glory to God and it brings a wonderful change in our lives that will never be taken away, eternally secure in Christ.