Trusting God in Evangelism

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Acts on the 13th chapter.
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Make your way to verse 42.
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Hold your spot there.
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This past week our evangelism ministry has spent every day seeking to engage hearers at the carnival there in Callahan and different ones have manned our fishing hole, that's what we call it.
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Handing out tracks, having gospel conversations.
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I'm thankful again for all who participated in that and the stories of interactions that I have heard because we have a command from Scripture to make disciples.
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And the fishing hole is one of the ways that we train people to do that.
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When you're there standing in front of those banners, when you're standing there with the tracks in your hand, you realize immediately that not everyone responds the same way.
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And so it becomes a teaching tool.
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And if you're not a person who's used to sharing the gospel in your life, it's an opportunity to sort of have that little nudge forward to kind of have to do it because you're standing there as sort of, you're on display as it were.
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And we notice that we go to share the gospel with different people.
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Some respond with indifference.
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Some respond with disgust.
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Some are inquisitive.
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Some are happy to see another person care for their soul and some could not care less.
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It's really an amazing thing to see various ways that people react to the same thing.
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I mentioned in my message last week about a lady, I tried to give her a gospel tract and she said, I know I'm going to hell.
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I don't need that.
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You guys remember the story.
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I know I'm going to hell.
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Well, it just so happens that the next day, actually it was that afternoon after preaching the message, we were there.
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I didn't realize she worked at the fair.
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So I was there and Brother Don walked over to her little ticket booth and he just handed her a gospel tract not knowing that this was the lady from the day before.
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And she was gracious, she took it and she said, you know, I have a question no one has ever been able to answer.
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She said, do gay people automatically go to hell? Come to find out she was a gay lady.
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And she said, I've never had anybody answer that question for me.
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And Brother Don was very gracious.
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He said, well, can I ask my pastor to talk to you? That's a very serious question.
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Can he come and talk to you? She said, sure.
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So here's the lady who the day before wouldn't take anything, made the announcement she's going to hell.
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And now she has a question.
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It's a legitimate question.
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It's a serious question.
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So I walked over to her and I said, I understand you have a question.
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And she said, yes, do gay people go to hell automatically? And I said, well, let me ask you this, is homosexuality a sin? She said, I don't know.
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I said, do you believe the Bible? She said, I think the Bible is true.
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I said, do you think if I were to show you in the Bible that it's a sin, that that would matter to you? And she said, well, yeah.
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So I opened the Bible.
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I showed her in the Bible where it's a sin there in Romans 1.
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I said, this tells us that it is something that's opposed to God.
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I said, so if you're living this lifestyle, you are living in rebellion to God.
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I said, but let me ask you this, and I really want you to, I want to ask you a very serious question.
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I said, have you ever told a lie? And she said, sure.
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I said, probably several.
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Right? And she said, yeah.
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I said, what do you call people who tell lies? She said, a liar.
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So I opened the Bible to Revelation 21.8, and I said, it says right here that all liars will have their place in the lake of fire.
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I said, honey, your problem isn't that you're a lesbian.
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The problem is that you are condemned anyway.
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We need to deal with your fact that you are a rebel against God from birth.
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Yes, lesbianism is a sin.
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Yes, homosexuality is a sin.
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I said, but before we even worry about that, how about the fact that you're a liar? Have you dealt with that? No.
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And I ended up having a very long conversation with her, and I was able to do that, or take her through the gospel and speak to her because of the grace of God.
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And I think that what happened, and I can't prove this, I think that what happened is she went home after that first night, and she thought about what she said.
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It takes a lot for a man to verbalize, I know I'm going to hell.
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And she verbalized that.
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I think that the next day, she was a little convicted by it.
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And I do pray that the Lord would save her out of her sin.
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But I tell that story only because it illustrates the variation in response.
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The first day, the response was, I don't want to hear it.
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I'm going to hell.
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But by 24 hours later, she was ready to hear it.
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She was ready to sit and listen for almost a half an hour.
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Well, today we're going to see in this story and Acts a variation in responses to the gospel when Paul is preaching in the synagogue at Antioch.
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Some are going to receive it, and they're going to beg to hear more.
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Others are going to seek to contradict it, and even seek to incite violence against the apostles.
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And we're also going to see that there are some who believe with joy.
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So let's open the text together and stand, and we'll read verses 42 down to the end of the chapter.
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As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath.
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And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.
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The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.
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But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.
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And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.
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Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.
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For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
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And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.
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And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
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And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.
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But the Jews incited devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirring up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.
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But they shook the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium.
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And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth of the word.
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I ask now that you would keep me from error, as your word is so precious.
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It has been so twisted by so many men.
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May it never be that I would follow them, but rather that I would follow.
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And the tradition of faithful men who seek to exposit the scripture properly.
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I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak, that He would confront and convict hearts.
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That believers would be edified and unbelievers would be convicted of their sins and drawn to Christ.
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We pray all this in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.
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And our last message.
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We saw Paul preaching to the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia.
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And he showed them how Jewish history pointed to the coming of their Messiah.
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He also showed that Jesus is the Messiah.
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And he warned them of the danger of hearing the message and not believing.
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And at this point, it seems as if the proclamation has been received positively.
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Because verse 42 tells us, as they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath.
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It's not often you hear people begging to hear the word of God.
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I tell you what, I've been in a lot of situations where people tell me I've gone five minutes too long.
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Sometimes in jest, sometimes not.
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But this is a situation where the people had been stirred by Paul's words and they wanted to hear more.
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And it says in verse 43, After the meeting broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas.
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And as they spoke with them, they urged them to continue in the grace of God.
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I think this is important and it's easy to read past.
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Because what Paul and Barnabas are urging them to do is something that we need to consider.
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If we are leading people to Christ, if we're seeking to bring a person from death to life, if we're seeking to bring a person by preaching the gospel to them, out of their condition of sin and into a condition of salvation, the thing that they did with them is they were very clear with them, you need to continue this.
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The term followed, it says they followed Paul and Barnabas.
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That means to be in the same way with or to be a disciple of.
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And that indicates to us that some of these Jewish people actually were believing what Paul and Barnabas had to say.
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They had actually converted to what Paul and Barnabas were saying about Jesus Christ.
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So in the response to that conversion, what Paul did was he took out a bunch of church membership cards.
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He said, I want you to sign these and then I'll declare to you that you're saved.
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Oh wait, that's not there.
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But isn't that often what the church does today? They have a big evangelism conference.
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They have somebody who comes in in a nice suit and with a nice voice, tells the people that if you will simply repeat after me these words, and if you will simply sign this card, I will bring you up to the front of the church, I will present you as a saved person before other saved people, and I will tell you that from now on you never ever have to have any question because God has saved your soul today and there should never be a question in your heart about your salvation.
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Isn't that what we do with people? And yet that's not what Paul did.
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Paul urged them to continue in the grace of God.
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There is a sense in which that has been lost in American evangelicalism.
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How many times you talk to somebody and they say, I'm already saved.
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And yet their life speaks contradiction after contradiction about that statement.
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I had a young man come up to me this week.
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I asked him if he'd sell me his eyes for a million dollars.
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You might think that's an odd question to ask someone, but it's a pretty good gospel question because most people will say, no, I wouldn't sell my eyes for a million dollars.
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I say, what about your soul? No.
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Why would I ask such a question? Because I'm trying to get them to understand how important their soul is.
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Your soul is so much more valuable than your eye.
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Jesus said if your eye caused you to sin, pluck it out, because it's better to enter heaven blind than it is to enter hell with your sight.
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Just trying to remind them.
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Most people think their eyes are important.
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They don't think much about their soul.
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But I said to this young man, I said, does your soul matter to you? He said, yes, I'm saved.
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I said, saved from what? Hell? How? Jesus? Why? I don't know.
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Who told you you were saved? A preacher? When? I prayed a prayer.
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Has it changed your life? No.
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Well, then you ain't saved, brother.
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See, we've made salvation a commodity.
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We've made salvation something that's just given to people.
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We've made salvation that has no response value.
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Nothing is required of us.
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Nothing is required.
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No lordship salvation.
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It's become antinomianism.
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There is no law that goes along with the gospel.
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There's no command to be obedient to Christ.
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It simply is, you sign this card.
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You get wet.
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You come down forward.
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You know what? We even stopped doing that.
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Now that you stay in your seat, you raise your hand.
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We make it as easy as we can.
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Without calling any man to repentance.
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Without calling any man to discipleship.
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Without calling any man to service of Christ.
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All we say is, we need the numbers.
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Because the convention wants those numbers.
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Modern preachers go around getting people to pray prayers, declaring them saved.
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And then those people go around believing that they're saved.
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And all the while, they have no true understanding of the gospel.
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Paul didn't do that.
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He gave people the gospel.
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And when they appeared to receive it, he urged them to continue in it.
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Paul didn't know if they were truly saved or not.
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And neither do you.
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Assurance of salvation is not something that I give to you.
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Assurance of salvation is something the Holy Spirit gives to you.
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The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God.
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It doesn't say the pastor bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God.
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Or your baptism certificate bears witness with your spirit that you're a child of God.
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The Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you're a child of God.
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And if you want assurance, ask God, not me.
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And ask yourself the question, has my life changed? Because if your life hasn't changed since you come under the teaching of the gospel, then you're not saved.
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If you're still the same person you were, then you're not saved.
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The excitement of the preaching of Paul stirred the city, it filled the synagogue on the next Sabbath.
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And we see this in verse 44.
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It says, The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.
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Which means, and I'm just interjecting a thought here, which means that the synagogue now has some Gentiles in it.
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Because the whole city is made up of not just Jews.
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This has now become a conglomeration of Jews and Gentiles who've come to hear Paul and Barnabas.
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And that's why in verse 45 it says, But when the Jews saw this, they were filled with jealousy, and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.
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Now a week earlier, these people liked what they heard.
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But now they see that this is creating a mixed multitude.
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They don't like that.
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It creates jealousy.
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They've never drawn a crowd like this.
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And so they begin to revile what Paul has to say.
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And as a result, they respond trying to contradict him.
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And as I mentioned a few weeks ago, any time we share the Gospel, any time we're trying to seek that someone would understand the Gospel, Satan is going to bring in distractions that try to create a problem for us.
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I tell you what, Brother Tonomiato is a pastor out in California.
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He does a lot of evangelism, and he talks about time suckers.
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He says, You'll be out sharing the Gospel, and these people will come up, they have no interest in hearing what you have to say, but they want to suck your time up by talking to you.
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I had a guy last night who wanted to argue with me that Jesus wasn't a Jew.
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He just wanted to argue that Jesus wasn't a Jew.
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And he came up to me and said, What's the Greek word for Gospel? Evangelion.
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Oh, you know that.
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Yeah, that's not a hard one.
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What are you asking me that for? He said, Did you know Jesus wasn't a Jew? I said, Say what? He said, Do you know Jesus wasn't a Jew? I said, He's the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
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Right? He's of the tribe of Judah.
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I think he's a Jew.
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What are you trying to get at? And he went on to this whole Zionist thing, this whole argument about Zionism, and a bunch of crazy stuff.
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And finally, I just had to shut it down.
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I said, Man, there's people here who want to hear the Gospel, and need to hear the Gospel.
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I've got to move on.
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And those guys, those time suckers, they are distractions to the Gospel.
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And that's what's happening here.
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You see, these Jewish people, they don't want other people to hear what Paul has to say, so they're going to come in, and they're going to try to suck his time, and they're going to try to come in and disrupt his speech.
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They're going to try to stop him from talking, because that's what the devil does, is he creates every distraction he can to keep people from hearing the Gospel.
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So in verse 46 we see, And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, It was necessary that the Word of God be spoken to you first.
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Why? Because the Gospel goes to the Jew first, and then to the Greek.
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It was necessary for you to hear this first.
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Since you thrust it aside, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, since you don't want anything to do with this, since all you want to do is contradict this, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.
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We're going to focus on the people who will actually listen to what we have to say.
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It's important, because later the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2 will actually identify himself as the Apostle to the Gentiles.
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He says, Peter was the Apostle to the circumcised, and I am the Apostle to the uncircumcised.
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That doesn't mean, and be very clear, that doesn't mean that Peter was exclusively talking to Jews, and Paul was exclusively talking to Gentiles, but what Paul saw in his ministry was God's prompting to move past the limitations of Israel and move out into the world.
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Paul saw himself as a true international missionary.
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And this isn't the last time he's going to speak in a synagogue.
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This isn't the last time he's going to speak to Jews.
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So don't think that he's shutting the door to them, but what he's saying is, God has given me a new focus here.
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God has given me a truly international vision for this gospel that He's given to me.
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It's no longer going to be limited to you guys.
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I'm going to move past you guys, and I'm going to see the church as being one body made up of Jew and Gentile.
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There's no anti-Semitism in Paul, as some have claimed.
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He's not turning away from the Jewish people because he hates Jews.
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That's not the case at all.
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In fact, Romans 9.3 tells us quite the opposite.
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He says in Romans 9.3, For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
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Who is that? That's Israel.
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He says, I wish God would send me to hell if that meant the salvation of my fellow Jews.
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Paul loved the Jews.
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Paul loved these people.
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But they were an obstinate people.
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He saw what God was doing in the midst of the Gentiles.
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And so he turned his attention there.
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And he quotes Scripture as a reason why.
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Verse 47, it says, For the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light to the Gentiles.
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That's Isaiah 49.6, by the way.
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That you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
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You see, the reason for the Gospel is not so that Jews will be saved.
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The reason for the Gospel is that there will be men from every tribe, tongue, and nation who are saved.
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And Paul understood that.
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And he understood that that's not just a New Testament promise.
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He understood that that was something prophesied in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament.
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And he was part of the plan.
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Because he was one of the ones whose job it was to take that Gospel beyond the borders of Israel.
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And then in verse 48, and when the Gentiles heard this, because they are not oblivious.
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Paul's not whispering to the Jews saying, hey, I'm going to turn from you guys.
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I'm going to turn to the Gentiles over there.
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No, it says he proclaimed it.
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He says I'm turning for you and I'm going to turn from them.
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And guess what happened with the Gentiles? They were happy! They rejoiced and glorified the Word of the Lord.
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And then here's this great Reformed section.
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I call it a Reformed section when we're talking about things like God's sovereignty.
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This is a great little point here.
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He says, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
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Notice it doesn't say as many as believed were appointed to eternal life.
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It says as many as were appointed.
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The word there in the Greek, tektogmenoi, means appointed or ordained.
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King James says ordained.
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As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
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So God is still active in this.
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God is the main actor in this.
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We believe in something called monergism.
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Monergism is a one worker.
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There is but one worker in salvation and it's God, not you.
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You see, most people believe in something called synergism.
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Syn being the prefix meaning to work together.
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Ergos being the word for work.
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And the idea is that a together working is what causes salvation.
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God does something, you do something and thus you get saved.
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That's not how it works, folks.
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The Bible says monergism, mono being one, ergos being worker.
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There's one worker in salvation and it ain't you.
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God is the one who opens the heart.
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That's why we believe.
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You did not believe the gospel because you were smarter, more spiritually sensitive, or better than the person that didn't believe the gospel.
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You believed the gospel because God opened your heart to believe it.
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That's simple.
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That's what the Bible teaches.
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As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
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It's God doing the work.
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So we can't forget that, beloved.
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You have to keep that in mind.
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In fact, there are guys who argue against it, but their arguments are superfluous and silly.
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Dr.
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James White was debating Dr.
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Dave Hunt and James White have a book that they debate the issues of Reformed theology together.
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And Dave Hunt had such difficulty with this verse, he had to say, well, there was an Aramaic original of Acts.
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And he had to appeal to an Aramaic original of the book of Acts that we don't know ever existed, I don't believe ever did.
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I don't believe Luke would have wrote in Aramaic.
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It doesn't make sense.
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It wasn't the universal language.
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It wasn't the language that most people spoke.
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For him to have wrote in Aramaic would have been superfluous and silly.
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But that's what the appeal had to be because this verse is so clear.
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I've got to do something, so I've got to just say, well, this is just a bad translation of the original.
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Don't people often do that to try to find their way out of something that is so clear? God is sovereign in salvation.
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And He demonstrates it by appointing these Gentiles to eternal life and as a result, they believe.
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Verse 49, "...and the word of the Lord was spreading through the whole region, but the Jews incited..." It says here, "...devout women of high standing and leading men of the city." So basically, they got the important folks in town to come against the apostles.
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They took a political route.
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Isn't that the way to do it? The Word of God is spreading.
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The Jews are continuing to make problems.
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And how are they making problems? They get the important people to go against the preacher.
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Boy, doesn't that sound like a modern church problem.
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I bet you've never heard anything like that.
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Someone who doesn't like what's being said, so he tries to gather a crowd of important people to try to get the pastor in trouble.
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Never heard anything like that, have we? No.
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That's crazy talk.
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Sometimes it's best to stay and fight.
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Sometimes it's best to move on.
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In this situation, the apostles moved on.
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They could have stayed and fought.
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They could have stayed and fought, but they didn't.
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They preached the Gospel.
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There were those who believed.
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There is a church going to be planted here, but they didn't stay and fight.
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They moved on.
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They left them.
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They left them to continue in the grace of God that had been given to them.
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They're on a missionary journey.
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They're not here to be another year worth of pastoring as they did in Antioch of Syria.
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They're not here to fight all the battles that are going to be waged.
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They move on.
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It says they shake the dust off their feet.
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That's something Jesus told His apostles to do.
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He said if you go into a house and the people listen to you, that's good.
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If they don't listen to you, what do you do? You shake the dust off your feet and you move on to the next house.
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You have to do that because you can't get bogged down with these time suckers.
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That's a new phrase.
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That probably shouldn't be introduced in the vernacular.
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It sounds kind of weird.
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But that's what happens.
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So it's powerful that in the midst of this attempted persecution, the disciples aren't filled with despair.
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They're filled with joy, it says in verse 52.
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And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
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Why? Because God did a mighty work even in the midst of the persecution.
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God did a mighty work even in the midst of the trouble.
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God did a mighty work even in the midst of those who sought to contradict God was still working.
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They saw God working.
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They saw men saved.
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They saw lives changed.
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They saw the Gospel going forth and so they were filled with joy.
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They understood God is still working in the midst of all that nonsense.
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So understanding that, I want to make application now.
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I have three points of application and I'd like for you to, if you have your worship folder, you'll see there on the back three things that I want to draw from this text and have us consider this morning.
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When we looked last week at Paul's message, we made points of application regarding evangelism.
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Well, I want to sort of just build on that.
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I want to continue today with three more thoughts regarding evangelism that we learned from this passage.
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Number one, there are always going to be people who respond positively but are still lost.
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That's a weird thing to say.
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But we need to consider it.
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When Paul preached that first week, it says the synagogue was happy with what he had to say.
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He was encouraged and they was begged to come back.
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But that doesn't mean they were all saved.
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They could just be intrigued by what he had to say.
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They could be interested in what he had to say.
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They could want to hear him say more just so they could catch him in some type of something.
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But at this moment, we know it doesn't mean they were all saved.
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So too, when we talk to people, how often will they contend that they're not in spiritual peril, but they really are.
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We talk to somebody who's not saved.
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We talk to somebody and we say, we want to talk to you about salvation.
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We want to talk to you about the Gospel.
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And they'll say, I'm okay.
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Talk to somebody else.
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I don't need to be talked to.
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How many of you guys at the fishing hole, how many people go by, I'm okay.
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I don't need that.
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I don't need the Gospel.
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I'm good.
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Last night, somebody said that.
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And I'll ask you, Collins goes, there's none good, no, not one.
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And I say, well, I'm good.
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No, you're not.
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There are always going to be people who respond positively in the sense that they have this positive thing.
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They're saying, I'm fine.
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And if we look at this text, when the apostle is preaching, there will be people who respond positively, but not only a week later will be opposed to the Gospel.
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I've had people come and hear the Gospel preached who've come to me and said, I want to believe in Jesus Christ, and I'll go through counseling with them, I'll baptize them, and then never see them again.
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Just because someone responds positively initially does not mean that God has worked a miracle of regeneration in their heart.
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In fact, go back to the parable of the soils.
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What does it say? It says the seed fell among the pathway and the birds came and ate it up, but also that the seed fell among what? Rocky soil, and it sprung up for a time.
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But when the sun beat down, it withered because why? Because it got saved and lost its salvation? No, because it had no root.
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There was no real conversion.
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There was excitement, and there are a lot of people that get excited, and I tell you what, I can stir emotions as good as anyone.
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I can pull up stories, and I can draw you in, and I can cause my voice to get all emotional, and I can tell you things that would make your heart burn.
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And you might for a moment have that emotional turn.
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But if it's not rooted in real regeneration, it will last as long as the emotion lasts.
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That's the problem with American evangelicalism.
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It's based on emotions, and salvation lasts only as long as the emotion.
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That's why people say, I get saved, I get lost, I get saved, I get lost, because when I'm saved, I feel good, and when I get lost, I feel good.
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I remember talking to a man one time who was trying to argue with me, he believed people could lose their salvation.
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I don't believe that.
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I don't believe that if a person loses their salvation, they ever had it.
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So we're having this conversation back and forth.
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He says, I believe you can lose your salvation.
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I said, how do you lose it? He said, sin.
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I said, have you sinned today? He said, yes.
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I said, did you lose it today? No, right now I'm good.
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I said, could you go to bed tonight lost? He said, yes.
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I said, where is your peace? Romans 5.1, it says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
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That word peace is a derivative of shalom.
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It's true peace.
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And let me tell you something, if your salvation is a yo-yo, which comes and goes with your emotion, it is not peace.
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It's not shalom.
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Is there peace in Israel right now? No.
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Would anybody look at Israel and say, shalom, in the sense that you're in a state of peace? No.
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We might wish for their peace, but we certainly don't look at them and say, you're in a state of peace.
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Why? Because at any moment, a bomb could go off.
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At any moment, a gun could go off.
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At any moment, things could change.
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And if that's the situation we're in with God, where it's up and down and up and down, and it's all emotional, guess what? It's not real salvation.
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It's an emotional change, which comes and goes and comes and goes.
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Salvation is a change in a state of being, not in a change of emotion.
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You go from a child of wrath to a child of God.
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So just because someone has an emotional experience does not mean that they're saved.
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That is also, I want to just add, that doesn't mean that your salvation will be devoid of emotion.
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I don't think that a man comes to Christ unbroken.
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I think we come to Christ broken over our sins, and that can often come with an emotional attachment, but the emotion isn't what's driving the horse.
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It's not what's driving the cart, horse, whatever.
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The emotion's not what's pulling the wagon.
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There, that was better.
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Emotion's the byproduct of the change, not the cause of the change.
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So just because someone responds positively doesn't automatically mean they're saved.
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Christ calls us to a life of faith, not a moment of belief.
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If you want to write something down, that's the quote of the day.
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Christ does not call us to a moment of belief.
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He calls us to a life of faith.
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And we don't hear that in evangelical churches anymore.
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We talk about the moment of faith.
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Somebody will say, I'm having trouble thinking about my salvation.
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Well, they say, go back to that moment.
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Go back to that moment when you had that emotion.
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Go back to that moment when you had that experience.
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They won't say, well, evaluate your life based on Scripture.
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Look at your life and compare it to what the Bible says a Christian is.
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You're never going to be perfect, but are you seeking Christ? A man says, no.
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I say, well, you really don't have any reason to have assurance, do you? Why would a man who's not seeking Christ have any reason to be assured of his salvation? I mean, legitimately, ask that question.
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There are always going to be people who respond positively but are still lost.
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So what do we do? What do we do? We address the issue of false conversion.
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When a man tells me he's saved, I say, saved from what? Do you know what the Gospel is? Do you understand the Gospel? If I was lost, share the Gospel with me.
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Go.
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I don't say it to be sarcastic.
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I say, if I was lost and you're a saved man, tell me how to be saved.
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If you don't know that, how are you saved? If you don't know what it means to be saved, how are you saved? I think that's a legitimate question.
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Sometimes, I guess, I can come off kind of harsh.
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I don't mean to be.
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I want people to know what they know.
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Number two, there are always going to be people who seek to contend and contradict.
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There's always going to be people who seek to argue.
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The devil will do his mightiest to keep someone from hearing the Word.
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We saw this a couple of weeks ago when Sergius Paulus was trying to hear the Word from the Apostle Paul.
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And who was there? Bar Jesus.
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And he was complaining.
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He was saying, no, this is not true, this is not true.
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He was the mouth of distraction.
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Paul shut his mouth, shut his eyes.
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We have to understand that the natural inclination of man is to not want to hear the Word of God.
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And it's to not want others to hear it either.
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I've seen this.
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Again, I hate to keep going back to this week.
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I just see people grabbing other people and pulling them away.
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Ladies listening to the Gospel.
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Her husband, come on.
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Kids want to go ride rides.
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I'm like, man, this is the most important moment of her life.
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She's hearing the Gospel.
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This is the first time.
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She doesn't understand this.
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Why? What? Because you don't care.
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No, you do care.
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You want her away from me.
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Because people are enslaved to sin, they're naturally hostile to the Word of God.
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If we preach a message which doesn't align with God's Word, filled with platitudes and promises, it'll be received.
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People would love it.
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But because we preach a message that includes a call to repentance, people will hate it because the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
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It does not submit to God's law.
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Neither, indeed, can it.
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So we know when we go out to evangelize, there's going to be a battle.
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We are called to engage the battle.
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We're called to be soldiers, not spectators.
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Finally, when you evangelize, there must be no doubt that God is sovereign in enabling people to come to Christ.
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If you think that you have the power to cause a man to go from death to life, that you have a power to give a man spiritual resurrection, you will go out with a different attitude than I do when I evangelize.
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Because this is what people do.
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Somebody asked me last night, what's the biggest difference between Reformed theology and Arminianism? I said, it's how we share the Gospel.
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I said, because the Arminian will do everything he can to try to get a man to come to a decision, even if it means changing the message and contorting it to make a man want to make a decision.
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I said, but I will simply tell you the truth and let God be the one who convinces you.
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And that's the difference.
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That's the big difference.
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I've stood next to Arminians sharing the Gospel.
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We sound like we're sharing a different Gospel.
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Because they're pleading with men's emotions and I'm speaking to their conscience.
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You know this is true.
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God has given you this knowledge.
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You know that you're a rebel to Him and He has commanded all men everywhere to repent.
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And I plead with you by the mercy of Christ, repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ.
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I don't have to turn the lights down to make that happen.
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I don't have to have Brother Jen come up here and play the organ really soft and low, not that you would, but have him come up here and play the organ very soft and low to cause people to have an emotional experience.
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No, I call you to repentance and faith.
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I trust that God is the one who's going to cause you to do that, not me.
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And you know what that gives me in evangelism? Confidence.
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It gives me confidence.
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The most dangerous false teachers in the world are those who believe they have the power to convert people.
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Charles Finney believed that through emotional tactics you could convert men.
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And he was one of the most dangerous false teachers in the last 200 years and he has led to the modern evangelism movement which is now more concerned with making decisions than it is with making disciples.
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When you evangelize, you must remember that you are only a mouthpiece for the truth.
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You proclaim God converts and leave the results to Him.
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So finally, I want to end with a question.
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Did you know that it has been estimated that about 95% of all church members have never led anyone to Christ? About 95% of church members have never led anyone to Christ.
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Why do you think that that is? Now we just talked about the sovereignty of God and all this, but I do think that we need to consider one other thing.
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Could it be that most of us are not even trying? In a recent study it was shown that every single evangelical who was surveyed, every single one, 100%, rarely do you get surveys like that, but 100% of evangelicals who were surveyed believed it was their responsibility to share their faith.
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They believed that.
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That is part of what it means to be an evangelical is we believe that we are supposed to be evangelical.
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So it kind of stands to reason.
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But out of those 100% of people, 30%, one third of them, said they had not shared their faith at all in any way, shape, or form in the past year.
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Yeah, I believe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
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When combined with other Christian groups that don't identify themselves as evangelical, the number of those who haven't shared their faith at all jumped past 50%.
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What is it that keeps us from witnessing? What is it that keeps us from sharing the gospel? What is that thing? I think it can be boiled down to three things.
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I think it's fear of rejection, fear of ignorance, and fear of failure.
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Fear of rejection.
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Well, they're going to think I'm a religious wingnut, some type of Bible-thumping religious nut.
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Okay, I'm fear of that rejection.
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Or fear of ignorance.
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They're going to ask me a question I don't know the answer to.
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I don't know how to deal with objections.
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Or fear of failure.
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I'm afraid that if I tell somebody that they should believe in Jesus, that they won't.
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Allow me to answer all those as encouragingly as possible.
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Number one, you will be rejected.
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You are weird.
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Get over it.
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The Bible calls us a peculiar people.
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We are supposed to be different from the world.
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Get over it.
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What is it when Jesus said, When all men speak well of you, it's not a good thing? That's why I know Joel Osteen doesn't preach the gospel.
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Because everybody loves it.
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Lost men love what you're saying.
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You're not preaching the gospel.
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Just so you know.
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Number two, you won't have all the answers.
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You never will.
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But you don't have to be a genius to share the gospel.
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You just have to share the gospel.
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Well, he has a thousand questions I don't know the answers to.
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Did you give him the gospel? That's all you're responsible for.
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You're not responsible to be, you know, Ken Ham or any of these other guys who study biblical science or any of this stuff.
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You might do that and you might want to know some of the answers.
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And I appreciate people who do.
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I think it's very good to know.
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But you're responsible to proclaim the gospel.
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If you're not a scientist, don't pretend to be one.
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I've seen a lot of guys fall flat on their face for trying.
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Being an evangelist is more important.
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Finally, you cannot fail.
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You cannot fail.
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Because success does not come in winning a man to Christ.
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Success comes in telling a man about Christ.
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If you are faithful to proclaim whether a man receives it or not, you have been successful.
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Always keep this one phrase in mind.
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Those who ordain to eternal life believed.
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Those who ordain to eternal life believed.
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You cannot ordain a man to life.
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All you can do is give him a gospel to believe.
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That's your job.
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We do all we can in preaching and then we have to finally trust that God is the one who does the work in evangelism.
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For he is the one who truly changes the heart.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for the word.
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I thank you for the truth.
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I pray this has been encouraging to your people.
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That it would drive us to the highways and the hedges.
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Seeking to share the gospel with people and knowing that if we have shared the gospel, we have not failed.
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We know that some we will be preaching life to life and some we will be preaching death unto death.
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But we know that we won't fail.
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Provided that we preach the truth to them in love.
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Father, I thank you for the word.
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I pray, Lord, that if there are those here today who themselves have not heard the gospel, that they have understood it today.
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That they have understood that we are sinners.
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That they would understand that because of our sin, we need to be saved.
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And that there is salvation in no other.
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For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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And that is the name of Jesus Christ.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.