The Purpose of Preaching

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Well, while I open up our conference with the purpose of preaching and corporate worship, or on the Lord's Day, however you would like to say it, preaching has not always been important to the church.
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It's not always been the central focus of the church.
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It's not always taken center of the platform.
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The progression away from preaching historically happened around the second century.
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A man by the name of K.W.
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Noakes, he is a apostolic and church father's historian, and he makes some deductions from Justin Martyr's first apology.
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And that first apology is not apologizing about the Christian faith, but he is making his first apologetic to the Roman Empire.
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And in the second century, Justin Martyr wrote that apology.
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And it is a deduction on how church liturgy would go.
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And these deductions came to this.
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First, there would be the reading of the scripture in a homily.
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That's not a preaching.
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Anyway, it's actually just someone speaking, telling a story.
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Then, second, it would be prayer and intercession.
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And then third would be the procession of bringing in the bread and the cup.
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Then it would be the prayer and thanksgiving and consecration over those very elements.
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And then it would be the distribution of those elements by the deacons to the attendants.
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And this is kind of weird.
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It also says to those who were not present.
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I don't know how that would take place, but they did some weird stuff in the early church.
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And then there would be the collection of that which was dispersed.
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So that was already the progression away from the preaching of God's holy word.
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We know this, that the church was under great persecution in the first three centuries of its beginning of the New Testament church.
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It wasn't until Constantine comes along in the third century, I'm sorry, in the fourth century, and he makes a decree, an edict saying that Christianity is no longer illegal and that the persecution of Christians was no longer to happen.
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And that was a good thing.
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Some people believe that's when Constantine's conversion took place.
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But it wasn't until Theodosius, his successor, comes along right at the close of the fourth century, and he then deems all of the Roman Empire Christian.
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Interesting.
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The leader of the known world at the time deems something to be Christian.
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So it would be at that time what is called imperial Christianity begins.
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You have now the church and the state coming together as one, and that is called sacralism.
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It would be under this imperial Christianity that preaching now would then begin to take a back seat.
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It was no longer as important.
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And then now the communion table takes that place, and so does baptism.
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So it would be between 490 and 1517, the dark ages that the preaching of the word would take the byroad.
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It would no longer be as important, and it would be now the taking of the bread, the drinking of the cup, and the baptismal basin.
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With the start of the Reformation by Martin Luther in 1517, it was that he began to preach the word of God.
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He would return the church along with John Calvin and other magisterial reformers.
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He would return the church to the preaching of God's word.
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He would return it to the preaching of the word verse by verse, line on line, precept upon precept, and people's lives were changed.
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They began to preach faith alone, in Christ alone, by God's grace alone, and men and women were saved.
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To God alone be the glory.
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As you walked into this auditorium, which is where we worship on the Lord's Day, when you came through the door, you would notice furniture as we sit.
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You have where people sit out in the congregation.
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We have our instruments off to the side.
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We have our communion table down below.
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We have a baptistry behind.
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But the centerpiece of furniture within this room in which we gathered is this sacred desk.
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It is a place where the word of God is preached.
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It's a place where the word of God is preached with power.
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Everything in this room is set up in a way that this is a theological statement, that when you walked in the room, this would be center.
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What sits under the word of God? That table.
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How it's to be done.
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What sits in the background of the word of God? How this is to take place.
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What sits below the word of God? The hearers.
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We don't put ourselves beside the word of God.
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We put ourselves under the word of God as it is proclaimed.
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So before we get to the purpose of preaching today, we'll have to lay some groundwork.
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What is preaching? Well, the New Testament Greek word is charuso.
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And it has two other words that go with it.
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Charigma.
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Charuso meaning preach.
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Charigma meaning the message preach.
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And charuk, which is the actual heralder.
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It's interesting that that word that is used, the herald, in the first century of Rome, you know what a herald would do? The emperor would call someone in and he would say, all right, I want you to go out into the kingdom and I want you to make a message.
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And here's the message and you don't dilute it.
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So they would get on their horse and run off where they were going.
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It would be, hear ye, hear ye.
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Rome has won another great war and has annexed another kingdom into its empire.
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Or it would be, hear ye, hear ye.
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The emperor has a son and there is now an heir to the throne.
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Interesting.
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You see the connections between that and what God has done.
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There's going to be a kingdom and he's going to annex it all into his great kingdom.
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And there is an heir to the throne.
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And that heir to the throne is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Preaching has two aspects.
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It is a message proclaimed and it is an event proclaimed.
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Most people don't see it that way.
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They think preaching is just an act.
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It's not.
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Preaching is a message proclaimed to the inexhaustible truths of God's self-revelation.
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Preaching is the proclamation and testimony of the power of God.
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Here's what Paul says.
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Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1-5, he says this.
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When I came to you, brethren, I did not come to you with superiority of speech or with wisdom.
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I didn't proclaim.
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I proclaimed to you the testimony of God.
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For I determined to do nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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I was with you in weakness.
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I was with you in fear.
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I was even in much trembling.
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And the message of my preaching, it was not made with persuasive speech or in words of wisdom, but it was a demonstration of the spirit and its power so that when your faith came, it would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
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You see what Paul said.
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I didn't come to you like all the other people in Corinth.
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Chattering about the wisdom of the Greeks, chattering about all of the polytheism of that of the Roman empire.
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He came in and he said, I proclaim to you the unvarnished truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
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He didn't come in with a manipulative story.
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He didn't come in with a manipulative tale to try to lure someone or entice someone to come to faith in Christ.
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He preached the unvarnished word of God, which actually would have been the Old Testament word.
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Preaching is a Trinitarian redemptive event where the proclamation of the self-disclosure of God in which we as the people of God are graciously informed that God the Father has decreed everything whatsoever come to pass.
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Then he sends forth his son born of a virgin to execute that decree.
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And then as that decree is secured in Jesus Christ, then Jesus sent forth the Holy Spirit to go out and to regenerate or illuminate that which Jesus had secured.
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It says in Ephesians 3 of this, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for the sake of you Gentiles, if you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace, which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before you in brief.
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By referring to this, when you read, you will understand my insights into the mystery of Christ.
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He says, which in other generations had not been made known to the sons of men, but had only been refilled to his apostles and prophets in the spirit.
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To be specific, the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel of which I was made a minister according to God's gift of grace that was given to me according to the working of his power.
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And to me, the very least of his saints, it was given to me to preach the Gentiles, the unfathomable riches of God's glory that are in Christ Jesus.
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And then to bring to light, to illuminate what the administration of the mystery for the ages, which for in the ages had passed, had been hidden by God, by all things are created.
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So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church and its rulers and authorities and heavenly patients.
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This was in accordance to the eternal purposes which God carried out in Christ Jesus.
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That is a Trinitarian act.
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God illuminated Paul by the power of the spirit, awakening him to what God had decreed.
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Now Paul is going out and preaching that Trinitarian redemptive message to the Gentiles.
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Also as very demonstration of the Trinitarian act of preaching, it says, because when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem those under the law, that we might receive the adoption because you are sons.
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God sent forth His Spirit to you and you are now into our hearts and you now cry out to Him, Abba, Father.
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The theology of preaching is robustly Trinitarian.
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It is God's word fulfilled in Jesus Christ, then illuminated to the heart of the unbeliever by the Spirit.
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The preaching of God's revelation even begins back into the Old Testament.
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If you wanna take your Bible, you can.
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I'm gonna use a number of texts.
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I didn't ask you to open your Bible like a Bible drill.
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But listen to what, in the book of Nehemiah, and I know Andy was going through that in the men's breakfast, but when you get to the book of Nehemiah, look how the preaching of God's word was on display and how it was done in Nehemiah chapter eight.
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And we'll just look at verses one through, no, we'll go through eight.
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We might skip seven.
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There's a bunch of funny names there.
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And all the people gathered as one man in the square, which was in front of the water gate.
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And they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the law the Lord had given them to Israel.
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Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of the men and the women and all who could listen and all who could understand on the first day of the seventh month.
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He read it before them in the square, which was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday.
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And in the presence of men and women and all who could understand and all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
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Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform with a podium, which they had made for this very purpose.
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Do you see this? This has Old Testament purpose.
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The pulpit was created for one purpose, to proclaim God's revelation.
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And beside him stood Mathaniah, Shema, Ananiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, Maasaiah, and on his right hand, Paddaiah, Mishael, Mechajai, Meshu, Hashbodai, Zachariah, Mushalah, and on his left, Ezra.
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And he opened the book in the sight of the people, for he was standing above the people.
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And when he stood, he opened and all the people stood.
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That is why when we read corporately, we stand.
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Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great Lord, and all the people answered, amen.
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And while lifting up their hands, when they bowed low, they worshiped the Lord with their faces down to the ground and all some more funny names.
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And then they read the book of the law, translating it to giving them sense to what they were reading.
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It says right here that the Levites in chapter seven, what were they doing? They were explaining the word of God to them.
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So as the word is proclaimed, it has to be explained.
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So what is to be preached? If this message that we're preaching, and it is to be explained to the people, what is that message and what is it? Well, one, it's not a time for a comedy act.
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It's not a time for a motivational speech.
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It's not a time for sports talk.
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It's not a time for political rally to talk about who you voted for and why you didn't.
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It's not a time to talk about the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.
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It's not a time to acknowledge the latest greatest world event.
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It's not time to look at how we can see what's going on in the world stage and how it fits into your flavor of eschatology.
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Nor it is a time to take the wisdom of the world and try to apply it to our life.
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Nor is it a time to rant about our own personal opinions.
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Here's what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, verse five.
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He said, we don't preach ourself.
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We preach Christ.
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And Him is Lord.
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And we as the preachers are His slaves.
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We are to preach the written revelation of God that is contained in these 66 books.
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1189 chapters, 31,000 verses, 783,000 words.
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Written in three different languages, on three different continents with over 40 different authors.
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All of them primarily didn't even know each other.
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And it has one message.
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Some of them were shepherds.
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Some of them were priests.
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Some of them were kings.
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Some of them were slaves.
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Some of them were military leaders.
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And all of them had one message.
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And it was there is one God and He will reveal Himself in one man.
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And that is Jesus Christ.
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It says in 2 Timothy chapter three, you however continue in these things.
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He's speaking to Timothy, Paul, right before he is to be executed.
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He says, you however continue in these things that you have heard and have become convinced of knowing from whom you have heard them that from your childhood you have known these sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.
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Hey, did you see what he just said in verse 15? He says, you had these sacred writings from your childhood.
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What were those sacred writings from his childhood? With the Old Testament.
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And Paul says, these were able to lead you to wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
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The Old Testament pointed to one man and it pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And then he goes on to that classical text which is all scripture is inspired by God.
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It is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate and fully equipped for every good work.
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And then he goes on to say this, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ who is able to judge the living and the dead and at His appearing and His kingdom.
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And he says, Timothy, you preach that word and you be ready in season and out of season.
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You reprove, rebuke, exhort, and you do it.
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How do you do it? With great patience and instruction.
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He said, because there's going to come a time when they will not endure sound doctrine and they're going to want to heat for themselves up those who tickle their ears and they will accumulate for themselves teachers and accordings that are own desires and they will turn away from their ears the truth and will turn to myths.
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And then he says this, but you be sober and you endure evil times, hardships.
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And he says, you do the work of the evangelist and you fulfill your ministry.
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The written revelation is without contradiction in doctrine and theology.
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I don't care what some eggheaded liberal says.
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Well, it says this here and it says that.
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Look, there is no contradiction in God's words.
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Look, if there's something that we don't understand, it ain't because God ain't revealed it.
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It's because our minds can't comprehend it.
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Look, we can kind of explain the Trinity, but there ain't nothing in your brain that that actually fits in.
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It's a very difficult doctrine.
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We can explain it.
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Comprehension is hard because there's nothing that is one being, three essence, three person.
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That is difficult.
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You say, well, what is that doctrine? Well, doctrine is something that is to be held and instruction.
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So when we preach, we preach doctrine.
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It is something that we believe and is to be held to as right living.
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What is theology? Well, theology has two.
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There is biblical theology, which is the revelation of redemption from beginning to end, beginning in Genesis to the end of Revelation.
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And we also have systematic theology, which is taking the biblical data and synthesizing into categories.
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That is how we preach.
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And there is no inconsistencies.
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There's no inconsistency between the study of God, the Father, the study of God, the Son, and study of God, the Holy Spirit.
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They're consistently complementing one another and they have one central purpose, to save sinners.
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It is inerrant in everything that it affirms.
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Well, what does it mean to be inerrant? It is without error in what it affirms to be true.
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Doesn't mean that there can't be some typo error.
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Okay, we're not talking about how it exists from the publisher.
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And they came out with the 1599 Geneva Bible.
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I don't know if you all remember they came out with that study Bible around probably I think it was 2009.
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I was so excited I ordered it.
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Came to the house, I opened it.
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Some of you might remember this.
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I'm flipping through it.
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I always get a certain passage I want to go to.
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And as I'm flipping through there to get to Isaiah 53, Isaiah chapter 41 leaf is gone.
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I'm going, wow, here it is.
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The publishers have made a mistake.
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That is not what we're talking about when the Bible is inerrant.
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We're saying it's inerrant in all that it affirms to be true about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, your wretched condition, my wretched condition, and the salvation of sinners.
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That's what it's talking about.
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It is authoritative in all that it says.
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Meaning that Jesus Christ revealed in Scripture and God the Creator has the final say.
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When the Word is preached, God is the Creator of us the creature, that is it.
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There's no debate.
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What He says is true, what He says we are to do.
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And if not, we are held accountable.
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The Creator has commanded and the creatures are to obey.
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The Scripture is sufficient.
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Well, what does that mean? Well, it means it's sufficient to give us everything that we need to know about God, man, Jesus Christ, the life of faith, holiness, and how to live.
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When we were at a former church, there was a young lady in there who was a psychologist.
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And we often butted heads on how we see man and how we see counseling.
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And that's when I was helping them over there to be certified as a New Theta counselor.
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And we were sitting in Sunday school and something had come up about, you know, people were doing what they were doing because of their environment and all that.
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And I said, well, no, the Bible says it's because of their heart.
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And she says, you don't think there are other tools other than the Bible? I was like, no, there are no other tools.
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The Bible is sufficient for healing sinners of whatever their wretched problem is.
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It doesn't matter to me if the kid wasn't breastfed until he was three years old.
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It makes no difference to me.
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What he is doing is an offense against the holy God.
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And God says he will either repent or he will suffer in condemnation.
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She said, well, you don't think that you need other tools? If you were going to work on your car, you would go get another tool to fix it? I was like, ma'am, here's one that will kick me in the shin under the table.
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I said, ma'am, do you understand that not being able to fix your car does not damn you? Does it not compute? If you don't know how to fix your car, you won't go to hell.
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But if you don't repent of your sins, you will die in your sin.
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We don't need anything other than the Word of God when it comes to life and holiness.
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The God-made Scriptures, both contained in the Old and the New Testament, have one purpose, and it's to look to Christ.
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When a man stands behind this pulpit, or in any other pulpit, I don't want to see his ripped up jeans.
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I don't want to see his tight pants.
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I don't want to see his flowing robe.
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I don't want to see his hair.
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I don't want you to see my beard.
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When a man stands behind the pulpit, do you see Christ? Not in the individual, but in the words that are coming off of his mouth.
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Paul went and preached, and he said he placarded.
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He put Christ on display as Him being crucified.
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They were in one of the furthest parts of the region.
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Did they see Jesus Christ crucified? No, but as Paul preached, he put it on in such a way that they could see with the eyes of faith that Jesus Christ had been crucified, and that He had been raised from the dead, and God quickened them and saved them.
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That's what it means to put Christ on display.
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That's what it means to look to Christ.
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Christ is the purpose and goal of all of Scripture.
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He is the center of all redemptive history.
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He is the One.
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We know this because Jesus Christ said it Himself.
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He said in John 5, He said this.
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There was an exchange between Him and, like always, the Pharisees.
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In John 5, He gave the testimony of John.
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He gave the testimony of His works.
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He gave the testimony of who God was.
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He gave the testimony of His own doing.
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And then He says this.
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He says, the Scriptures testify of Me.
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He says, if you search the Scriptures, and you think in them you have life, He says, but the Scriptures testified of Me.
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And if you would have believed Moses, you would have believed Me, because they testified of Me.
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All of the Scriptures point and testify of Jesus Christ.
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And then He goes on to say, in Luke, you remember Jesus resurrected from the dead? These men are leaving about seven miles outside Jerusalem on the road to Emmaus, and they're just having a discussion among themselves as of what's going to happen.
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This man was supposed to be approved by God.
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He was supposed to be the man of God.
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And Jesus, however it happened, He shows up on the scene, and He walks with them.
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And He's like, why are you so sad? Why are you so sad? Why the long face? Are you not the only one? It's almost like you can reread that passage.
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You're waiting for them to go, are you the only knucklehead in Jerusalem that doesn't know what has happened? Jesus begins to listen to what they have to say.
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And then it says that Jesus opened their eyes, and they saw who He was.
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And then Jesus took them through the law and the prophets and the writings and showed how all of that was concerning Him.
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So if somebody tells you the Old Testament is a book about Israel, Jesus said it ain't.
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Jesus said it was about Him.
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And if we can't see how that was about Him, it ain't because it ain't there, it's because our mind is bent in another direction.
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I'm not saying that sometimes preaching the Scriptures is not difficult to put Christ.
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I'm not saying that.
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But they are a Christocentric.
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Jesus is the purpose and the goal of all the Bible.
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Hear what the Scriptures have to say of this when Paul said that message.
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As you go and you preach that message, here's what he says.
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He said, For I delivered unto you, first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
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He was buried, He was raised on the third day according to those Scriptures, He appeared to Peter, then the twelve, and then He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of them who now are still alive, but some have fallen asleep, and then He appeared to James, then to all the other apostles.
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Last of all, Paul says, Then He appeared to me.
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And then he goes on to say this, For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power of God.
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For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever, and I will set aside.
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Where's the wise? Where's the wise man? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made the foolishness of the wisdom of the world? Look, the message of the cross is one thing.
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It's Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and there's a lot that comes out of that.
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And to the lost and dying world, that is utter foolishness.
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Foolishness.
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Think about talking to in the first century.
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We don't think about it this time because we're fat in the Bible belt here.
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Everybody here is a Christian.
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And you won't find many people when you walk around who don't believe in Jesus.
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But in that particular time, you're talking about a crucified Jew that was supposed to be the one that was going to usher in the kingdom.
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That was absurd.
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That was a stumbling block.
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That was a scandalon.
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That was scandalous to the Jew and to the Greeks' utter ridiculousness.
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It was stupid.
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So Paul says, hey, that message we're going to preach is a message of foolishness because it ain't wise.
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It ain't filled with good stories and good words.
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It's going to be unvarnished, and it's going to be an offense to both parties that you're speaking to.
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But when the Spirit comes, it will reveal it to them, and they will be transformed.
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Because he says what? Where's the wise man then? Where's the wisdom of the world then? Wisdom of the world can't save.
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This supposedly crucified Jew is the only one who has the power to save.
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Why? Because God attested to him and raised him up from the dead, and he is appointed a day when he will judge the world by that man.
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That's the message to be preached.
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What does it mean to preach the Scriptures in a Christocentric way? Well, it means to explain the text by what it means by what it says.
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Don't make it say something that it doesn't say.
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Jesus Christ is the central focus of all Scripture.
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We want to see Christ.
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We shouldn't make the text say something it's not.
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Y'all, anybody here heard of Charles Spurgeon? Okay.
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I love Charles Spurgeon.
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I think he did some very good sermons.
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But Charles Spurgeon did it a lot in his beeline to the cross method, where he would shoehorn stuff into the text that wasn't there.
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He would allegorize the text.
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That's not what we're supposed to do.
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That's not preaching the Bible in a Christocentric way.
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You know, the scarlet cord hung outside Rahab's window was not a picture of the atoning of the cross.
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Neither was the pitch that was laid on top as a covering for the ark.
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Just because it was the word kefar, which we use for the Hebrew word for covering and atonement, that does not mean that was a picture of the atoning work of Christ.
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But we preach Christ in such a way that He is the main purpose of the text.
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And when we preach that word, it needs to be preached with earnestness.
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It needs to be preached with zeal.
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It needs to be preached with passion.
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And it needs to be preached with an appeal.
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And I'll even go so far as to even say it needs to be provocative.
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Well, what do those words mean? Well, one, earnestness means to speak with sincerity.
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You want anybody to stand up here and proclaim the oracles of God and you know that that man's insincere? How many want that? It needs to be spoke with sincerity.
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It needs to be spoke with conviction.
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It needs to be spoke with seriousness.
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We're not to be cavalier about the Bible.
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Preachers today are cavalier.
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Everything's a joke.
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There's a preacher recently was preaching about how his daughter, he saw her, you know, told him a lie and how cute it was.
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That ain't cute.
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That's an offense against the Holy God.
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Do we understand the gravity when we're preaching of God's Word of the offense sinners have made against Him? That's why we have to preach with earnestness.
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What about zeal? It means to be preached with fervor.
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And it means to be preached with energy and that we should make those who hear us pursue that which we have proclaimed.
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That's what zeal is.
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Well, what does passion mean? It needs to be done with intensity and with emotion.
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That doesn't mean you get up here and you be loud and frothy and sweat, although it is hot in here, frothy and sweaty and swinging.
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That's not what it means.
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Passion means the person preaching, does he mean what he says and does he believe what he says? And that could come out in a number of different ways.
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Andy walks from one end to the other here.
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I don't do that.
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I hide behind the bullpit in case y'all throw something.
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It doesn't mean any person's more passionate than the other.
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What does it mean to appeal? It demands a response.
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When the Word of God is preached, it demands a response.
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And the provocative language means that we should excite or stimulate that response.
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And sometimes we need to stimulate an action.
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And sometimes that means we might have to do some sanctified name-calling.
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John the Baptist did it.
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What did he say? You brood of vipers, who warned you to the wrath of God? And what did Jesus say? You hypocrites, you brood of vipers, you serpents.
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You double sons of hell.
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You're like, eee.
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Or we could be like James and call the whole congregation adulteresses and adulterers.
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I'm not saying that needs to be the consistent pattern of how you preach, but sometimes provocative language is necessary.
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In Colossians, it says this.
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This is why it should be preached with zeal, with passion, with an appeal, and with a provocative language.
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For He rescued us from the dominion of darkness.
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He transferred us from the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins.
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If that doesn't excite you, just that statement right there, somebody has poured water on your firewood.
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Because you have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved Son.
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You should never get over that.
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He says, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
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For by Him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.
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Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him.
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He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
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He is also the head of the body, the church.
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He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
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For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
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Through Him I say, whether things on earth, things in heaven.
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And although you were formerly alienated, and you had a hostile mind, and you were engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through His death, in order to present you before Him, to present you and me because of Christ, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
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If indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast, and do not move away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all the creation under heaven, which I, Paul, have been made a minister." Why do you continue to preach it with zeal? He says, because now I rejoice in His own sufferings, and for His sake in my flesh I do share in the behalf of the body of Christ, which is the church, to fill up that which was lacking in His affliction.
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That is the mystery which has been hidden from the ages past and to those generations.
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What had been hidden up until the time of Paul preaching the word and the apostles? What had been hidden? Christ had been hidden.
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You know I had to turn over to it.
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Just go to Hebrews real quick.
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Look at chapter 1.
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Keith briefly hit on this on Sunday.
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It says, Okay, so how did God speak? He spoke to the fathers through the prophets in many portions in many ways.
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How did He do that? Well, sometimes He spoke through a sacrificial system.
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Sometimes He spoke through a fire, a cloud, like a burning bush.
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He spoke in all kinds of different ways.
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But it was fragmented and in pieces.
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Therefore, His revelation of what was coming was incomplete.
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So if the New Testament, the 39 books of the New Testament would not have come, we'd have had an incomplete book.
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And the revelation of God would be incomplete.
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But now that Christ has come, what does He say? In verse 2, In these last days He has spoken to us in His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom He has made the world.
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And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.
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Whose nature? God's nature.
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And upholds all things by the power of His Word.
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That is what it means to proclaim the Word of God and to see Christ now as what had been hidden from generations past in the Old Testament.
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We are to proclaim Christ in this pulpit.
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We proclaim Him for this purpose.
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We admonish every man, teaching every man with all wisdom that we may present the man of God complete before God on that day.
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That's why we preach the Word of God.
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All that was introduction to get you to the purpose of preaching.
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The purpose of preaching in corporate worship is so multifaceted.
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To say it's one thing here and not this, or to say it's only this and not that, would not do justice to what corporate preaching is.
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It's too multifaceted.
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But first and foremost, according to Hebrews chapter 1, it is to glorify Jesus Christ as the final revelation of redemptive history, and to glorify Him as God's Son and as the One who will send forth the Spirit to the believer.
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That's why we preach the Word of God in corporate worship.
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That is the first main purpose.
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And it has to be preached in such a way that this is a Trinitarian event.
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This is an event.
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This just happens one time.
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That's why I don't understand how someone can preach the same sermon five times or four times a week.
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Just, it's an event.
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The proclaimed word's primary means to the believer is to be transformed.
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You understand that this right here, what we do on the Lord's Day, the proclamation of the Word, preaching of the Word, is the primary means by which you are transformed.
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I'm not saying that's the only means.
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Certainly, is it used down the hallway when Andy and I are teaching on Sunday mornings before corporate worship? Yes, but the primary means by which God has ordained the transformation of the hearts of sinners and the transformation of the believer, his sanctification, is on corporate worship to hearing the Word proclaimed.
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I didn't say it.
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The Scripture says it.
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Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God.
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Well, how will they hear? If no one preaches.
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And how will they preach if no one is sent? And that's why we're to preach the Word.
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As we come to these, I've got a few, I've got 10 points.
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Make it quick.
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I want you to listen to this last verse I read earlier.
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It says, We proclaim Him.
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That means we proclaim Christ, admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man mature, or in some translations says complete, in Christ.
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That may not weigh on you as people that sit in the chairs or in a pew.
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But for the preacher of the Word, that's weighty.
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We stand behind this pulpit.
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When I say we, I mean as a collective, as preachers of the gospel, whomever it may be.
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And we preach God's Word.
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We give instruction.
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We give application.
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And then you as believers leave here and you make changes in your life based on the words that have proceeded out of my mouth, or whoever's mouth standing here.
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I don't know about anybody else.
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That's weighty for me.
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What if I wrongly interpret the Word of God and you change your life? That's why you beware when a man says, God told me to tell you this.
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God ain't told you nothing if it ain't already right here.
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God hasn't told you anything that's not already revealed in His Word.
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As preachers, we will give an account on how we admonished every man.
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How we taught every man.
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And then it says, and with all wisdom, and teaching with all wisdom.
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That's application.
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We're going to give an account on how we taught you.
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How we shepherded God's people.
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How we explained the Scriptures.
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The Word of God being preached on a Sunday morning or in any other time, but specifically we're talking about on Sunday morning, is nothing more than the proclamation, the explanation, and the application of God's revealed Word.
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That is it.
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Now there's a bunch of stuff that goes in the middle and all there.
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But that is it.
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The purpose of preaching the divine revelation of God.
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To God's people is to demonstrate the whole purposes and counsel of God.
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And the best way to do that is consecutive exposition of God's Word.
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And I would imagine that everybody here is a member of this church.
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That's why you're here on Sunday morning.
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That's what we do.
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I'm not saying that's the only means by which it needs to be done.
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But primarily, if you want to know the whole counsel of God, what do you got to do? You got to preach word by word, line by line, verse by verse.
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When God sent His Word to us, even the prophets of the Old Testament and even through the apostles to the new, it didn't come down as a systematic theology.
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It came down as a biblical revelation of God's redemption.
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And that's how we should preach it.
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Andy and Keith and I are all uniquely different.
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I bet y'all can see that.
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Our interests are different.
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We come from different backgrounds.
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Our personalities are different.
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Keith's big, I'm little.
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Andy's retired and I don't even get tired.
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They're both smart, I'm dumb.
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They've both been preaching the Word of God longer than I've been saved.
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And I'm thankful for that because I can look to them.
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But you see the differences in how we are.
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But we all have the same purpose when we preach.
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And one, these are the 10, we'll finish here.
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Start landing a plane.
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The purposes for which we preach on the Lord's day is first and foremost, admonition.
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We're here to warn the believers when the Word is preached, warn believers of the schemes of Satan and the wiles of this world that try to pull you away from the true and living God.
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We're to warn you of false teaching.
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We're to warn you of indwelling sin and the dangers of unbelief.
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And then we're to warn the unbeliever who's here the danger of the rejection of who Christ is and His finished work.
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Then we have affirmation when we preach.
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The purpose of the Word of God proclaimed is to affirm that God's Spirit uses the Word to affirm to you and me that we are His children.
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If the Word of God's preached and you go, man, that's not my life.
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Well, man, there's a big question mark.
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Now we have a call to an appeal.
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What are you going to do? We preach with conviction for the purpose of conviction.
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Well, what's conviction? It's the act of convincing a believer that his thinking or living is sinful or wrong.
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That's what conviction does.
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We preach it in such a way that the Spirit of God would come and awaken your eyes to see the sin in your life.
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Hey, man, it'll do it to us too.
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Understand that every time we preach a text, we stand up here, we have already had to preach it to ourself.
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And many times it brings repentance in our own life.
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It's confrontational.
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The purpose for preaching on the Lord's Day is to confront, to cause self-examination.
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The Scripture is very clear of this.
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You make sure your calling and election is sure.
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Make sure that you are in the faith.
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Well, how do you do that? You have to examine oneself.
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It also calls to confront yourself.
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And we have already preached many a time, if your right eye offends you, what do you do? You pluck it out.
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That's pretty self-confrontational.
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And then sometimes that confrontation comes, as in the book of Hebrews, in chapter 5 where it says, You should be teachers by now.
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How long you been saved? The writer said.
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You should all be teachers.
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But no, you're still nursing on the milk of the Word.
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And you should be eating on meat.
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The purpose of preaching on the Lord's Day is to bring correction.
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It's to take what we are thinking and how we are living, and if it needs changes, to make that correction.
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It doesn't always mean condemnation.
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It means correction.
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The Word proclaimed constantly brings correction.
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Then it calls us to consideration.
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The Word proclaimed consistently has us considered who we are in light of who Christ is.
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It says, You should consider your great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who in all ways was tempted just like you.
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We should consider who we are in light of who Christ is.
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And He also goes on to say in the book of Romans, Consider yourselves dead to sin, alive to Christ.
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So as the Word is preached, the purpose is for us to consider who we are.
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Then there's exhortation.
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The Word is preached.
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It is preached in a word of exhortation.
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It is to encourage us to look to Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith.
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It is to encourage.
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Exhort means to encourage.
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The whole book of Hebrews is an exhortation.
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And how do we know that? Because at the end He says, This is a word of exhortation to you.
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It is a sermon of encouraging people to continue in the faith.
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Then you have expectation.
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The purpose for preaching is that you are expecting to hear what God is saying to you.
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Do you? When you come in here on Sunday morning, do you walk through those double doors, sit in that cushioned chair, and is there an expectation to hear the purposes of God preached to you? If not, there should be.
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Because when the Word of God is preached, God is speaking.
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God is speaking.
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Notice that the Scripture says this.
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It doesn't say, Hey, if God speaks, are you listening? It doesn't say that.
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It says, If you hear His voice, harden not your heart.
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If you hear His voice.
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So, what's the implication? He's speaking.
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You just ain't listening.
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And then evangelization.
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You go, What? That's something you do to people outside the church.
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Wait a minute.
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The church continually needs to hear the good news of the gospel.
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We need to continually hear, it's by grace alone, through Christ alone.
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Because we leave here, and we constantly think we can do something to try to keep in a right standing with God.
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My standing is secured in what Jesus Christ did.
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Now, that doesn't mean my fellowship with the Lord is not broken through my acts of disobedience.
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But my standing before the Lord is secured in what Christ has done.
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And we need to hear that week in and week out.
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Listen to what Paul told Timothy.
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Sometimes we pass over this.
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We read a second ago.
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He says this.
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Preach that word.
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Be ready in season and out of season.
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And he gives the reasons why.
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He says, For their time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but will want to have their ears tickled, and will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.
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Well, who's the they? The church.
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The church.
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So why do we preach the word? So that we don't begin to want to heap up teachers for tickling ears.
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And he goes on to say this.
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You continue, endure those hardships, and you do the work of an evangelist.
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Well, who is he evangelizing? If he's the pastor of the church.
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He's evangelizing the people.
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I don't know if they had pews then or chairs.
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Whatever he was doing, Timothy was evangelizing the people of his church.
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So that they would not fall away from the faith.
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That's why we need to continually evangelize the church.
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Then the purpose of preaching on the Lord's day is to declare all that is true that God has said.
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And then to declare a condemnation on all that is false and untrue.
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That needs to be done week in and week out.
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You understand that preaching is polemic? It has to point out error.
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Because when we preach the truth of God, men by nature reject that which God has revealed.
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And just by nature, it's polemic.
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Now it doesn't mean we stand up here week in and week out and point out error and everybody's, that's not like us.
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No, no, no.
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Just in the preaching of God's word, it should go, oh wow, that's me.
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That should not be me.
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And then when the word of God is preached, the public proclamation by nature is a call to repentance to Christ.
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Has to be.
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The preaching of the word publicly demands repentance in some form or fashion.
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And here's why.
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Paul said this in Acts 20.
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He said, I did not shrink back from preaching or teaching publicly to you all that was profitable.
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And I earnestly testified to all men repentance towards God and faith in Christ.
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There's our pattern.
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We have to do as the greatest preacher other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Paul.
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We follow his model.
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The preacher has a responsibility to do this.
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To preach clearly on the Lord's day.
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The purpose is for us to preach the word clearly.
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To preach it with boldness.
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To rightly divide the word of truth.
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So that we can present you mature in Christ.
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And the best part about preaching is that the power reign in the preacher.
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The power is in the word proclaimed.
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It says this, that the word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword.
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It's living and active.
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It'll pierce as far as even the soul and the spirit of both joints and marrow.
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And it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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That is the word that we preach.
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That is why we preach.
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No other reason.
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So that men and women's hearts would be cut.
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And they would see Christ.
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Think about when Peter, when they were filled with the Holy Ghost.
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Or speaking in tongues.
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The people says, hey, they're all drunk.
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He goes down there, he begins to preach in the street.
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And he begins to make an appeal to them to turn.
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Because they had crucified the Messiah.
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They had crucified the man of God.
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And as he is preaching, this has never happened to me.
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I don't know, maybe Andy or Keith.
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But the crowd cries out, what do we do? It's never happened.
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And what does he tell them? Repent.
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Turn to Christ and be baptized.
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It says, as he preached, their heart was cut.
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My uncle, Steve.
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He died a number of years ago.
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And I had, was kind of close growing up.
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We would go fishing.
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And he liked to bass fish.
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And he didn't have a son, so he would take me.
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As he got, he knew he was sick.
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He was coming to the end of his life.
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And he would have me come over and do stuff before he died.
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Prepare the house for, so his, my aunt would not have a bunch of stuff to take care of when he died.
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And I had tried to talk to him on many occasions about Christ.
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And he didn't want to hear it.
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And it was getting short for him.
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So I was over there this last time.
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He always cut me off and didn't want to talk.
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And I said, Steve, we're here today.
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Me and my dad were there fixing all this stuff.
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Man, you're making all these preparations for your wife.
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But have you not done anything to prepare yourself to walk into the next life? He said, Mike, I've told you time and time again, I don't want to talk about it.
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I said, I don't want you to talk about it.
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I just want you to shut your mouth and listen.
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Because this time, you've got to hear what I've got to say.
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He says, I've got answers.
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I've got questions to God.
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He's going to answer to me on that day.
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I said, hold on, Steve.
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You will melt like a piece of wax in front of a blast furnace when you stand before God.
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And I presented the gospel and told him his morality.
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And he was a good moral man, wasn't he? Hey, if that guy carried a Bible, you'd never know the difference.
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Loved his wife, loved his family.
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Great guy, kind-hearted, helped anybody he wanted.
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So I gave him the gospel.
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He didn't say a word.
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Didn't talk to him for a couple of weeks.
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I was reading my Bible on a Wednesday night, sitting up in my bed reading.
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The phone rang, looked at it, 104-786-4032.
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I went, oh, wow, this is late.
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He's probably died.
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I picked up the phone.
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He said, Mike.
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I was like, hey, what's up, man, what's up? He said, I want you to know what you said to me that day cut me to the heart.
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He said, I repented.
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So if I could ever say, hey, anything happen like Peter? That was it.
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I was like, oh, wow, he said what those people said on that day.
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You proclaimed the word to me, and my heart was cut to the quick.
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And I repented.
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Now, man, I tell you what, that guy from that point forward, I could not get enough books in his hand.
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Hey, Mike, give me a book.
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First book I gave him was The God Who's There.
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He called me two days later.
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Hey, I read that.
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You give me another one? Okay, I gave him another one.
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I gave him another one.
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Finally, he kept reading all the books.
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I was like, I'll fix him real good.
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So I gave him The Doctrine of Predestination from Lorraine Bettner.
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I was like, yeah, he won't read this book like this.
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And every time he would come over, we'd have get-togethers, he would say, Mike, come sit in here with me and teach me the word of God.
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That's what happens when people's hearts are transformed.
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That's what happens when people hear the word proclaimed clearly.
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Not with, hey, Jesus can make your life better.
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Jesus can heal you.
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No, can Jesus do all of that? Yeah, but that's not why He came into the world.
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The Bible is very clear that Jesus came into the world for one purpose, to save sinners.
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If you get anything other than the salvation of your soul, it ain't nothing but a bonus.
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That's all it is.
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That's why we stand in this pulpit as leaders and other godly men, week after week, stand in the pulpit and proclaim the purposes of preaching on the Lord's Day.
01:00:07
It's so that hearts would be transformed.
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Make better husbands, better fathers, better kids.
01:00:15
And we need better kids.
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Better grandparents.
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Better deacons.
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Better preachers.
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Better music leaders.
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I appreciate your confession this morning about how you don't always sing that way.
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I was convicted in the mail.
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I don't always sing that way either.
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That's why we preach.
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Let's pray.
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Father God, thank you for your word.
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Thank you that it is alive, that it is sharp, and it can cut us to the quick.
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Father, thank you, though, that you have given us the gracious measure of hearing your word preached, that you have given us a Bible to hold in our hand to study, to look at, to give us an understanding to apply it to our life.
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Father, we know that apart from you we are nothing.
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And Father, it's in you and by you all things exist, and that you uphold all things to the power of your word.
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And Father, we thank you so much for what you have done and what you have provided for us in the preaching of the word.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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Any questions or outbursts of anger to what I said? Disagreements? This will be the question mic.
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You're the mic mic.
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Does anybody have a question you'd like to ask? Oh, goodness.
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Okay, we'll talk about that later, honey.
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That's a sweet question.
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She wants to know about the dinosaurs, but we'll talk about that later.
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They died in the flood.
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They died in the flood.
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Brother Mike, he said they died in the flood.
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Yes, sir.
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Okay, well, we'll talk about that later.
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Okay, here you go.
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What makes you feel like that you were called to preach? Oh, that's a great question.
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What made me feel that I was called to preach? I wouldn't say it was a feeling other than just a desire for people to know the true and living God.
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Now, did I know that from the time I was converted, I wanted to know what took place inside of me because I went from walking the track as an enemy and hating God to coming around the dip bars going, oh, wow, I'm going to stand before God and I'm going to give an account and I'm guilty.
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And I just at that point said, God, whatever you want to do in my life, I'm fine with whatever it is, just save me.
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And that's what he did.
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Now, I didn't know, I couldn't tell you everything that took place on that day, but I knew when I went back to where I was at and I sat down, I went, how did I go from hating Jesus and hating God to now? He's the most appealing thing to me.
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I just began to read my Bible.
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Well, then I wanted people to know that, hey man, God went from making me a God hater and a people hater to now I love God and love people.
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How did that happen? Well, I knew the only reason I could, only way was for me to find out through here.
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And the more that I read, the more I wanted people to know what transpired in my life is because God saved sinners.
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And then, you know, I'll be like, oh, wow, I really would like to teach God's word.
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So I wouldn't say it was, some guys say, yep, I knew from the time I was six years old that I was going to preach.
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Well, no, I wouldn't that way.
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And the more that I did it, the more I desired to do it.
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I hope that answers your question.
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Anyone else have a question for Brother Mike? Okay, good.
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I can go drink some water.