Evangelizing Sinners Verbally, Part 2

Introduction and Review of Evangelistic Mandate

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, December 17, 2000, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 Now I would encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to one of the portions of God's Word that we shall be examining in the exposition of Scripture. Romans chapter 10, and I shall begin reading at verse 12 and read to the end of verse 17. In a section in which the Apostle is dealing with this whole problem of Jewish unbelief, a Gospel that comes with all of its taproots in the Old Testament Scriptures, the very Gospel preached to Abraham and to David and received by faith, is a Gospel rejected by and large by the very people through whom God brought that Gospel to us. And the Apostle in chapters 9, 10, and 11 of the Book of Romans is dealing with that problem of Jewish unbelief, and in the midst of that we read the following words, Romans 10 and verse 12. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, that is, Jew and non-Jew, for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

1:33 How then shall they call? How then shall they call? How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe Him whom they have not heard?

1:43 And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things! But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings.

2:00 For Isaiah said, Lord, who has believed our report? So belief comes of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Now let us again pause briefly to ask God's help in the opening up of the scriptures. Let us pray.

2:23 Our Father, we have been privileged to sing of so many wonderful truths of your word, the birth of your beloved Son and our Savior, the reality of His presence with us in all of the changes, the changes of life, the glorious prospect of the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwells nothing but righteousness. And now we pray as we turn to the scriptures, the source of all of our knowledge of the things of which we have sung. We pray that your Spirit will be present with us, opening our minds and hearts to understand and to receive your truth. Hear us and answer us, we plead, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Now looking out upon the congregation, I believe it's safe to say that the overwhelming majority of you gathered here tonight were with us as we gathered this morning to worship God and to hear His word. And if you were here this morning, you already know what I'll be seeking to do in the ministry of the word tonight.

3:33 The message tonight is in reality both a continuation and a completion of what I began to set before you. And I do want to take just a few minutes to bring you up to speed as to where we are in a series of messages that I generally preach Sunday mornings for five, six Lord's Day mornings on the theme of living together in the Father's house. In this series, I'm seeking to open up and apply some of the central issues, some passages as you it had all been done in the literary book But next time that I want to take thisug toc on a trying point that'sirtom einem to start with a little bit of a very important problem where we've had a long, long, long view of how we should functiond in church when we began to learn the future preparing our church through Scripture and prayer through our own heart and through faith through prayer and prayer glorified in his church. And in seeking to arrange those various activities in some way that is helpful to our memories, I've suggested that we think in terms of a circle and arrows

4:56 in relationship to that circle. If the circle is the church, the company of God's people in any given place, then the activity by which they glorify God is first of all the activity of worship. And I've represented that by the arrow going from the center of the circle upward. God centered, God focused worship. And then we're to think in terms of arrows coming in from all points of the circle, and that is to represent what the scriptures teach about the ministry of believers one to another, the activities by which they are to edify one another. And then we began last Lord's Day morning. To think of arrows that point outward, penetrating the outer line of the circle in every direction, east and west, north and south, not north, that would be upward worship, but south and everything in between. And that is the activities of evangelism, the planting and the strengthening of churches. Now last Lord's Day, as we began to consider those outward pointing arrows of

6:06 evangelizing sinners, the prayer of the Lord, the prayer of the Lord, the prayer of the Lord, the planting and the strengthening of churches, I suggested that we should think of the work and the task of evangelism in terms of two inseparable categories. The evangelism of life and of life. The evangelism of what we are and of what we say. The evangelism of our actions and the evangelism of our speech. And I tried to set those in place. And I tried to set those in place. And I tried to set those realities before you in terms of these two propositions that define the evangelistic mandate of the church. Number one, we must manifest before the world the truth and power of the gospel by a consistent and radically different pattern of life. And opening up our Lord's words in Matthew 5, 13 to 16, the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2, 12 to 16, and the words of the inspired Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3, 15, I trust you were persuaded from the

7:17 scriptures that any evangelism that is not couched in the radically different pattern of life of the people of God can only bring reproach upon the name of Christ and will not convince an onlooking world. But we must add to that witness of life this second dimension of evangelism. Evangelistic activity, that's what we began to unfold this morning. I've stated it this way. We must not only manifest to the world by a transformed life the truth and power of the gospel, but we must communicate to the world the truth of the gospel by every biblically sanctioned means of verbal communication. And in explaining the meaning of that assertion, I suggested I would do so under three heads. We covered two of them this morning. The third we cover tonight.

The Heart and Scope of the Evangelistic Mandate

8:14 Heading number one, we looked at the heart of the evangelistic mandate. It's couched in these words, we must proclaim the truth of the gospel. And we spent considerable time answering the question, what is the truth of the gospel? And I answered, seeking to collate a number of scriptures, we should think of the truth of the gospel, in this way. The gospel is a message comprised of divinely revealed, objective, inscripturated truth. I can't pause to explain those words. A tape is available if you care to pursue the matter further. And then secondly, that the gospel is a message containing magnificent indicatives and magisterial imperatives. Wonderful indicatives telling us what God has done

9:08 in Christ. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And that's what we're going to do.

9:09 As we沸騰 má' Yeshua Brímer ch'because we want to to resolve the dilemma of human sin, and then commanding to repent to believe the gospel. And then we had time to just touch briefly, with our most importantто of this terms of all the ok new we looked at such pivotal passages as Matthew 28, 18 to 20, Matthew 24 in verse 14, and several other portions from the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. Now that's a condensation of several hours of exposition into seven minutes. We now come to heading number three under this matter of communicating to the world the truth of the Gospel. Having addressed the heart of the evangelistic mandate, secondly the extent or scope of the evangelistic mandate, we come tonight to consider the means or method of fulfilling the evangelistic mandate. And I've sought to express that in the latter part of my proposition. We must communicate to the world the truth of the

The Means of Fulfilling the Evangelistic Mandate: Verbal Communication

10:31 Gospel by every biblically sanctioned means. of verbal communication. We must communicate, we must proclaim to the world this divinely revealed, objective, inscripturated truth with its indicatives and its imperatives by every biblically sanctioned means of verbal communication. Now let me just explain what I mean by the verbal communication, and then we'll turn to the scriptures to demonstrate the reality of these things.

11:13 What do I mean by verbal communication? I mean by means of words, spoken words primarily but written words. In the case of our brother Pastor Bun, signed words, in which the one signing uses his fingers and his arms in order to substitute them for ink on a page or vibrations in the text. But the words never read in the text.

11:36 The Bible states one word or two in the text that is not true. One or two words, two letters, two words or three words. on a page, or vibrations in the ear. But what our brother does when he is signing is not miming the gospel, he is verbally communicating the gospel using fingers and hands in order to capture verbal signals that impinge upon the eye of the hearing impaired and register concepts verbally expressed.

12:05 So by verbal communication, I mean concepts and ideas. The concepts and ideas contained in the gospel communicated by means of words. Spoken words primarily, written words, signed words, or in the case of the blind, felt words. It's a fascinating thing to watch a blind person rub his fingers over a braille text and the little bumps of the braille.

12:34 What are they doing? They are framing words in the minds of the hearer. When our brother signs, words are framed in the minds of the hearer. When I speak with words, when we read the scriptures, words are the vehicle of conveying the concepts, the realities of the gospel.

12:57 Hence Paul said, as we saw this morning, who knows the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knows no man but the spirit of God. Then he goes on to say, but the spirit has revealed them. How?

13:13 In words! In words! In words! Not in mime, not in drama, not in music, but in words, vocables, concepts embodied in these symbols that we call the gospel.

13:33 And so, the things of God knows no man but the spirit of God. See how all of this is so clear in the Word of God, you know that? All is clear. did it that way, or means of communication that are warranted by inescapable deduction from the broad principles of the Scripture.

14:13 In other words, when you see someone who in the middle of the night snuck out of his car and painted Jesus saves on a pile of rocks on Route 80, thinking he was doing God a service, that illegal act is not a biblically sanctioned means of conveying the gospel. It's maybe a sanctified wingnut, but certainly it does the gospel no service. Or when people write John 3.16, J.N. period 3.16, and wait till the camera turns in the end zone, and then hold it up, that's not a biblically sanctioned means of verbally communicating the gospel. Or if I were to bust into a Roman Catholic mass next Sunday morning and run up to the altar and say, Stop this abominable! Blasphemous, I don't know. That would not be biblically sanctioned.

Romans 10: The Logical Necessity of Preaching

15:07 All right? So biblically sanctioned is a means of verbal communication for which we have express command, or we have clear precedent, or inescapable deduction from the principles of the Word of God. Now then, when we turn to the Scriptures, it becomes very clear that God has assigned, not tradition, not preachers trying to protect their turf, but Almighty God, who has revealed the gospel, has also revealed that verbal proclamation of that gospel is His method of making that gospel the power of God unto salvation. Now we're going to turn to a key passage, and then we're going to do a flyover of several passages, in the book of Acts, and then seek to come down on a very pivotal passage in conclusion in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Turn, please, to the Romans 10 passage. I've made some very sweeping, dogmatic, right-angled statements.

16:24 Are they warranted? Are they supported by the Scriptures? Well, we come to the passage read in your hearing. I've already alluded to the context.

16:34 It's in a setting where the Apostle is dealing with the problem of Jewish unbelief. And in the midst of that, he makes the statement in verse 12, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. The same Lord is Lord of all and is rich unto all that call upon him. For, that he quotes from the prophecy of Joel chapter 2 and verse 32, a passage Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost as well, , Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, Jew or non-Jew, one Lord, one Savior, one way of salvation.

17:13 Whoever calls upon Him, whoever is sitting here, whatever your background is, in the sense of your sin and your need, if you call upon the Lord revealed in the gospel, you have God's word of promise, you shall be saved. But now that raises some very practical concerns. And beginning in verse 14, the apostle raises questions that are tied together in a very tightly knit logical sequence. Follow him, and then see if you can get a dance troupe to come up on the platform and convey the close, precise, biblical logic of this passage.

17:52 Look at the passage. How then shall they call on Him in whom they've not believed? To call upon the Lord is a reflection. That you believe there is a Lord to call upon.

18:06 And that that Lord is rich to all who call upon Him, or else you wouldn't bother to call. So he says, whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But now question number one is, how are you going to call upon one in whom you've not believed? Obviously the answer is, you can't.

18:22 Right. Next question. How shall they believe in Him whom, not of whom, but whom they have not heard? They won't call unless they...

18:34 They can't believe unless they've heard about the one whom they are to believe. How shall they call on Him whom they have not believed? The answer is, they can't. Next question.

18:47 And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? Can't do it. And how shall they hear without the latest musical group who's on the wavelength of 20th century society, and can communicate the gospel by means of drums and guitars and every other instrument? No.

19:13 How shall they hear without a clever actor who will play the role of Jesus and act out the gospel? No. How shall they believe without a well-trained, well-disciplined dance troupe who will dance the gospel? No.

19:33 How shall they hear? Without a preacher. Now, you see the connection between saved and preacher?

19:44 I didn't make the connection. Almighty God did. How shall they be saved? How shall they call on one in whom they've not believed?

19:54 They can't. How shall they believe in one whom they've not heard? They can't. And how shall they hear?

20:00 Hear what? The message by which alone they are saved. How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach?

20:11 Except they be sent.

20:14 How can one come in the name of the Sovereign of Heaven and announce in His name and authority the terms of the gospel unless he is sent by the Sovereign? How shall they preach except they be sent? Now he stops questioning, and he quotes this beautiful text from Isaiah, even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that do what? That bring glad tidings of good things.

20:42 The feet of gospel preachers are beautiful because they're attached to the mouth that speaks glad tidings of good things. Verse 16, But they did not all hearken to the glad tidings, for Isaiah said, Lord, who has believed our report so? Belief comes of seeing? No.

21:03 Belief comes of, literally, out of. It comes out of the context of hearing. And hearing, by means of the word of Christ. Now some of you wonder why in the world I'm so excited about this.

21:22 Well, I hope someday you'll understand. Some of you will become preachers.

21:27 You see, God has made it abundantly clear that the task of evangelism, which is a conveyance of a message revealed by God, focusing upon the grand indicatives and the sobering imperatives, it is a message that God has ordained should be spoken. It must impinge upon the ear. Faith comes out of the context of hearing and hearing by means of the word of Christ. The word spoken into the ear as I'm speaking it.

22:06 The word impinging through the eyes when our brother Bon translates what I am saying into hands and arms into arms, that communicate the words of the gospel. Or that word being read at the centrality of hearing by means of the word of Christ. And God is not going to come and rewrite his word as you'll see in a quote I'm going to give you later on in the message, to accommodate himself to a generation that doesn't like to think. It wants to have images brought into its eyeballs.

22:45 It doesn't like lingoism. It doesn't like linear thought. It doesn't like logical connections. It doesn't want to think through the richness and the significance of words.

22:54 So we must conform to that wretched turning away from what we are as image bearers of God. No, my dear friends, this generation gets so proud and arrogant that it won't think enough to fasten its mind upon God's words. God will let it sink into hell in its arrogance. But God will never rewrite this passage.

Acts of the Apostles: The Spirit Empowers Verbal Witness

23:17 Faith comes of hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Now, if our understanding of this passage is proper, then surely we should expect when we turn to the book of the Acts of the Apostles, which are really the Acts of the risen Christ, and Luke tells us that in the opening verses. I want you to turn to Acts chapter 1. The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, that's a reference to the Gospel of Luke, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day he was received up after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen.

24:00 The Gospel of Luke tells us what Jesus began to do and teach. The book of Acts and the epistles contain the remainder of what Jesus did and taught through his apostles. And when we come to that epochal event, an unrepeatable event, Pentecost is as unrepeatable in its uniqueness as Bethlehem, as the original creation, as the flood in the days of Noah. There are principles of the working of God's spirit that God has again and again manifested in the history of the church.

24:39 But Pentecost, the day the spirit of the risen Christ came to fill the living temple of his people was utterly unique. And when he did, and everything connected with that day, God is thumping home the message as the spirit has come to empower my people to be my witnesses, they're going to do it with words. Let's look at several elements here on Pentecost. Chapter 2, verse 1.

25:07 And when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven the sound as of the rushing wind, the sound of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues, glosa, the standard word for tongues, parting asunder like as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to dance and shout and to mime the gospel. No.

25:43 Filled with the Spirit and began to speak in other languages. And what was that speaking? Gibberish that made them feel good? No.

25:55 We read in our Bibles what that speaking was. Verse 5. There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound was heard, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speaking in his own language.

26:13 And they were all amazed and marveled, saying, Behold, are not all these that speak Galileans? How is it we hear every man in our own language, our own dialect? Parthians, Medes, etc. And what were they speaking about?

26:25 Look at verse 11. Cretans and Arabians, we hear them speaking in our tongues the mighty works of God. They weren't just kulama shanda, shandi shandi shanda, halkala uki paparitu, and getting spingles up their spine, and this other nonsense. No.

26:46 The Spirit of God came upon them, and in this miracle, they were articulating vocables in the perfect dialect of all of these different people groups. And those who knew those languages and dialects, they are intelligibly communicating the mighty works of God. Do you see that in your own Bibles? And then because God caused the disturbance, apparently that wind was heard.

27:16 And then they see and hear these people talking, and what in the world is this? It was God's attention getter to get a preacher in the midst. So we read in verse 14, But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke forth. Do you see it?

27:34 Lifted his voice. Spoke forth, saying, Men of Judea and you that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you. Give ear to my words. I've got to contain myself.

27:49 The words just leap out at you. Don't you see them? Lifted up his voice. Spake forth.

27:57 Give ear to my words. These are not drunken as you suppose. It's too early in the day. We're going to bend our elbow, imbibe too much.

28:05 It wouldn't be by nine o'clock in the morning. Take a little longer. People don't get drunk at bars at nine in the morning unless they've been there all night. So Peter said, No, no, we're not drunk.

28:15 Too early in the morning for that. But what you're seeing is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel. Now look at it. Verse 16, This is that which has been spoken to the prophet Joel.

28:25 It shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I'll pour forth my spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and daughters will get tingles up and down their spine. And your sons and daughters will dance a holy dance. And your sons and daughters shall prophesy.

28:41 That is, they shall speak forth the words of God. Sons and daughters will speak forth the words of God. Verse 22, You men of Israel, hear these words. More words, more words.

28:54 Verse 29, Brethren, I may say unto you freely of the patriarch David. Verse 37, Now when they heard this, they were pricked in the heart. Verse 40, And with many other words he testified and exhorted them. Verse 41, They that received his word were baptized.

29:13 You see, God's taken his own highlighter. And so you get the message? Whatever the Holy Spirit does in this epoch, in this epoch of redemptive history, when Christ who died and rose is gone back to heaven, and the Spirit is come as the executor of the will of Christ, Christ vice-regent upon earth, whatever he does, it's bound up in talking. I know people say, Words, words, words.

29:41 I'm tired of words. When you get tired of words, you get tired of the salvation of your soul. And God's going to save you. He'll save you by means of words.

29:52 Words that explain who Jesus is. Words that tell you what Jesus has done for sinners. Words that tell you what you must do to be right with God through Jesus. That's God's way.

30:05 And he makes it abundantly clear on the day of Pentecost. And I urge you sometime, read through, speed read the book of Acts and just circle. Every time you see that emphasis, it's found everywhere. You go into chapter 4, After Peter and John have been used to heal this lame man, it calls the stir among the religious leaders.

30:24 And so they try to shut them up. But what do they do? Verse 19, Peter and John answered and said to them, Whether it's right in the sight of God to hearken to you rather than God, you judge for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and we heard. And then they go back to their company and they have a prayer meeting.

30:45 They don't organize a political movement and say, Let's go march on the place where the Sanhedrin meets and demand our rights to speak. No, they go back to their company and they say, Look guys, this is what they're trying to do. Let's try to God. So they have a prayer meeting and they start crying to God that God would do what?

31:03 Look at their request. After they begin by worshiping God as the enthroned God. Verse 29, Now, Lord, look on their threatenings. Lord, you look on what they're doing and grant unto your servants to do what?

31:16 To speak your word with all boldness. That's what they asked for. Oh, Lord, they told us. Shut up.

31:25 You've told us. Lord, by the Holy Ghost, give us boldness to speak. And God so delighted in that prayer. You know what he did?

31:35 He shook the room. He said, I like that. And I want you to know it, not by some subjective impression upon your spirit. I'm going to shake the building in which you are.

31:43 That's what it says. Verse 31, And when they had prayed, the place wherein they were gathered was shaken. Now notice, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they all danced about and had a holy jig. And they all ran out into the streets under the power of the Spirit and mined the gospel.

32:03 No, they were filled with the Spirit and spake the word of God with boldness. It's all the way through, folks. So much so that Luke can summarize how this happened in city after city under the apostolic ministry in Acts chapter 18. It's the last specimen passage that I want you to see in the book of Acts.

32:25 And I hope it's whet your appetite to go back and speed read through the entire account. Paul is at the city of Corinth. Things have gotten kind of hot, opposition from unbelieving Jews. And we read in verse 8 of Acts 18, In Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house, and many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed.

32:37 And we're baptized. And the Lord said unto Paul, Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you.

32:45 Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you.

32:53 Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you.

33:01 Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you.

33:09 Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you.

33:17 Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, the Lord is with you. Behold, in saving power to myself. And he dwelt there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them.

Paul's Ministry and Prayers: Prioritizing Verbal Proclamation

33:33 And brethren, that's God's method. That's God's method. The evangelistic mandate is a mandate to proclaim to the world the truth of the gospel by every biblically sanctioned means of verbal communication. And this was so central to the Apostle Paul's ministry that he can write as he does in 1 Corinthians 2.

34:03 And I want you to look there for a moment.

34:07 He's looking back now on the very situation we read about in Acts 18. He's talking about what he thought and what he did when he came to Corinth. And this is what he says. I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellency of speech or of wisdom.

34:23 Proclaiming to you the testimony of God. Now, did Paul mean he stood up and he kind of mumbled, you know, like you know, while man, when he said, I didn't come with excellency of speech, did he mean he mumbled? He didn't have a rich vocabulary? No.

34:42 What he's saying is, when I came to Corinth, where you had the seat of many of your classic orators who were skilled in the art of rhetoric, they, they had their canons, their laws of what was acceptable speech. Paul said, I could not have cared less about your carnally devised canons of rhetoric. I didn't come with what you would call excellency of speech. Nor did I come with what your philosophers would call wisdom.

35:10 I came not as a philosopher, not as an orator, but a proclaimer. Proclaiming to you. And what did I proclaim? The testimony of which God is the author.

35:22 That's the gospel. For, I determined not to know anything among you, say Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling. Now notice, and my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

35:51 How was God's power mediated to the Corinthians by a man who inwardly was trembling, knowing that when he spoke of Christ crucified, that message was a stumbling block to Jews. It was regarded as ho-hum foolishness to the Greeks. But he said, I spoke it anyway, conscious that unless the power of God attended it, nothing good would come from it. And I deliberately shut myself up to preaching the naked truth, of Christ and him crucified, knowing that if you ever received it and believed it, it would be not because of my clever words, but because God in his saving power made those words his instrument of grace unto salvation. And it has always been the same. I am doing tonight the most stupid thing in all the world. I'm speaking words.

36:51 I've spoken words about Christ and about what God has done in Christ and that God on the basis of that commands you to stack arms, get out of the God business and entrust your soul for time and eternity to a Christ you've never seen.

37:09 And I know that that will be regarded as nothing but religious fanaticism unless God is pleased to attend that word with power. And if he does, it will be the very open door to your eternal salvation. And you'll thank God that he put a preacher in your path. On your way to hell.

37:30 That was Paul's testimony. That being so, we should not be surprised when we read our Bibles to find that often this principle is so heightened that it gets crass. You find Paul asking people to pray that God will do something for his mouth, not his heart, his mouth.

37:52 Peter says in Acts 15, 7, these words, Brethren, you know that a good while ago God made choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. There you have it in a nutshell. God made a selection. He chose me, Peter, to go up to the household of Cornelius, a Gentile, that by my mouth, not by my hands and body miming, not by my vocal cords singing, but by my mouth proclaiming the gospel.

38:30 God made a choice that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear and believe. Look at Ephesians 6 when Paul is writing to a church to pray for him as well as for all the saints. What does he ask them to pray for? Verse 18, With all prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in the Spirit and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

38:59 But when you pray for all of God's people, don't forget me, Paul says. Well, Paul, what do you want us to pray for? On my behalf, that utterance may be given unto me in opening my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. He says, when you think of me, Paul, don't think so much of me in chains here at Rome.

39:29 Don't think of my privations. Think of my mouth and pray that God will open my mouth that I may speak as I ought to speak. Similar request from the church at Colossae. Colossians chapter 4, verse 2, continues steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving with all praying for us also that God may open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds that I may speak.

40:02 That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak, to speak, to speak, to speak.

Critique of Modern Evangelical Trends: Entertainment vs. Preaching

40:10 And then, when the Lord Jesus reveals himself in what we call apocalyptic vision to John, the beginning of the book of the Revelation, when you read the seven messages to the seven churches, those who are real churches in real geographical places there in the same area to which Peter wrote, Asia Minor, on the edge of it, you have these seven places to which, these messages were sent and every one of them concludes with this entreaty from the risen Christ. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. The risen Christ says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Not he who has eyes to see, let him see. He who has feelings to be stirred, let them be stirred. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

41:06 And I say, Pastor, you seem to be worked up about this. Yes, I am.

41:12 You know why? Among many things. Because I do read what's going on in broad evangelical circles and what is happening in the professing church of Christ in our day. And there is a magazine called Current Thoughts and Trends where the editors do nothing but read no fewer, I think it's 75 periodicals and review books produced in the religious scene, most of them by so-called evangelicals.

41:40 And in one of the recent editions of this, under the subject of church, there is a title Doing Church in a Plugged-in Culture. And here's a summary of the thesis of an article in a religious periodical. I don't alter the words. I don't embellish them for overkill.

42:02 I read them. And when I'm not quoting, I'll say, I'm now talking and now I'm beginning to quote. It's frustrating and discouraging for a pastor to spend countless hours preparing a message then exert tremendous energy preaching it only to have church members quickly forget it. After all, research says that these same parishioners sit in front of the TV for an average of four hours per day then surf the internet for an additional hour.

42:28 They readily absorb useless information from these sources. Why can't their pastor's messages stick in their minds? To good news, is that the message isn't necessarily bad. Rather, it's the audience that has changed.

42:44 Although communication technologies have evolved, the church is still trying to reach a 21st century audience with 20th century methods.

42:58 Now I'm talking. Stop quoting. You hear what they're saying? The problem is we're using a 20th century method.

43:05 And you'll see what that method is. It's what I'm doing tonight. And that's 20th century.

43:12 That's news to me. I thought I'd been quoting from documents from the first century. Now I quote.

43:20 The attraction of new teaching methods such as multimedia is that they impress the message upon the listener at deeper levels than the spoken message could. Multimedia presentations hold audience attention better than do conventionally preached messages because multimedia uses visual images.

43:41 Research, which demonstrates that students retain information better when images are used in the teaching process. In addition, and I'm quoting now, in addition to adopting multimedia format, the church's communication must become entertainment-based. Entertainment-based communication has the power to hold the listener's attention longer so that the message has more time to be implanted. Advertisers, for instance, have found they can sell more products just by making commercials more entertaining.

44:21 Our culture is continuing to be shaped by the visual media and the church must be ready for the ramifications of this pop progression. Have I quoted enough? This will be received as a wonderful insight by hundreds and thousands of church leaders. What do you say to it?

44:46 What does it say to us if it can be demonstrated that entertainment-based communication has the power to hold the listener's attention longer? You know the fastest-growing business on the internet is the pornographic element? You see the reasoning? Pornography attracts more attention!

45:13 I love Christian porno stars. This type of reasoning is absolutely without foundation. Not a translation of the Word of God. When I stand to preach and when anyone stands to preach in this pulpit, we're not using antiquated 20th century methods.

45:33 We're using the timeless methods warranted by the Word of God. And if this generation is so haughty in its arrogance and so obsessed with pleasure that it won't listen to preaching, it will sink into hell in its arrogance and in its pride. But I bless God, and God has still put in the hearts of some people the wisdom to know God's way is right, and God's way is best.

46:08 I'm not overreacting. I've read some other articles in which they describe one of the most impressive mega-churches that was written up in Christianity today, very favorably, in this past month.

46:21 And they have their dancing troupe in the worship service, dancing the gospel. Now I tell you, how many contortions can a dancer make to convey this truth? He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. How does the dancer point her toes or sweep her arm to convey the concept that we sinners need a right standing with Almighty God?

46:56 And it can only... It can only be procured when the God-man, Christ, takes our sin upon him and is judged in our room instead.

47:07 I defy Baryshnikov and anyone else to convey that in the dance.

47:15 In mine, I've got mine troops going to mission fields to communicate the gospel. In the Latin American evangelist, I read the stuff, folks. This isn't second-hand stuff. It's primary source concerns.

47:33 And the pressure will be on you, the younger generation, in ways some of us have never known it. And may God the Holy Ghost put some holy fire in some of you men and women to say never in this place.

47:51 There's a large evangelical church in our area that recently advertised with pride that they've renovated their building. And the focus was on their new...

48:02 And the focus was on their new... new multi-media platform with its room for praise bands and its screens for multimedia communication all in the name of reaching this generation.

48:22 This generation doesn't need the church to accommodate to its obsession with pleasure. It needs living and preaching in the power of the Holy Ghost that will wrench people loose. That will push people loose from the idolatry of pleasure and cause them to become enamored with an unseen Christ who comes and ravishes their hearts on the wings of his word preached with accuracy and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, am I negating the necessity of evangelizing with accompanying deeds of mercy?

Distinguishing Preaching from Other Art Forms and Deeds of Mercy

49:05 No. As someone who said, you can't preach about Christ, the bread of life, to people who are so angry, as someone who has said, you can't preach about Christ, the bread of life, to people who are so angry, so hungry that they can't stay awake or stand or sit while you preach. Christ was moved with compassion. It says he went about healing the sick and proclaiming. My contention is deeds of mercy done in the name of Christ are necessary, but they are not preaching Christ. Preaching is a matter of proclaiming the truth of the gospel by every biblically sanctioned means of verbal communication. I'm not saying that Christians should not seek to capture every art form for Christ. Now, frankly, I don't know how ballet can become captured for Christ.

49:53 Women immodestly dressed and men more immodestly dressed and men using feminine gestures. I puke when I see male dancers. I don't literally, but inwardly. It is a feminizing and it's no surprise that many of them are not.

50:11 Shameless homosexuals. You don't believe it, go to the Juilliard school. But there may be some way the dance can be captured for Christ. I believe in David's dancing. I've done it in my ownatter. David wasn't in the Tabernacle leading the worship with his dance. He was moving with the arc of God, going to its rightful place and his joy overflowed and it came through his feet and he danced before the Lord. There's a place for holy dancing It's not in the house of God, in the ritual worship of God's people.

50:49 Save your dancing for somewhere else. And there may be a place for gospel mime to reinforce some moralizing truths. I'm not saying that there is no legitimate art form that cannot be captured for Christ. I'm not saying that.

51:06 That would be a rash, foolish overstatement. But what I'm saying is this. Don't ever say that they are a biblically mandated means of communicating the gospel. You see the distinction?

51:20 They may be a means of legitimate entertainment. This is why true believers can go to presentations of the Messiah. I think about 21 of you were involved in the Messiah production this year. And you were thrilled with the biblical text.

51:37 And you see your Savior coming through those texts. But why is it? That raw New York pagans can fill Carnegie Hall to hear a production of the Messiah that would be emptied in seven minutes if I stood up to preach to that crowd. In 20th century idiom, in a way that was animated and alive and relevant.

51:58 If I told them he was wounded for our transgressions. It's your sin that caused the immolation of the incarnate God.

52:09 But somehow when it's behold. The Lamb of God. They're thrilled. Why?

52:17 Because the musical form does not have the biting edge of the preached word. Now am I condemning? No. Don't anyone go out and say, Pastor, condense me in the Messiah.

52:26 I did not condemn it. I medified when I listened to it. On my day off two weeks ago, I listened to the whole of Mendelssohn's Elijah. I love it.

52:35 No, no. Don't go out and say I said what I didn't. But I'm saying this. And you have to confirm it.

52:42 If you're awake to your own. Consciousness. Why is it? Mendelssohn's Elijah can be sung and have the applause of the rawest pagans.

52:51 And the Elijah. Because they do not have the biting edge of the preached word.

53:00 It's the word unexpounded. It's the word unapplied. The man in the chariot is reading the very words we sing in the Messiah. He was wounded for our transgressions.

53:13 Of whom is the prophet speaking? Of himself or some other? How can I know unless someone teach me? And it says Philip began at that point to do what?

53:24 To preach unto him Jesus.

1 Corinthians 1: God's Pleasure Through the Foolishness of Preaching

53:30 I hope you're persuaded, folks. That your own consciousness tells you. That's right. And that in that consciousness, your heart is freshly committed before God.

53:42 That you desire to be used as an instrument in the verbal communication. Of the truth of the gospel. I said I would close with a passage from 1st Corinthians, and I now keep my word. 1st Corinthians chapter 1.

53:58 Paul is beginning to address pastoral problems in the church at Corinth. And in the midst of it, as he so often does, he starts touching themes that are so close to his heart that he launches into a holy digression. And how we thank God for those holy digressions in scripture. He's saying, now look you folks, you're all at one another's throats in party spirit.

54:25 You say you belong to Paul and you belong to Peter. And some of you hyper spiritual ones, you say, well, yeah, yeah, we don't belong to Paul or Peter. We belong to Jesus. We're the spiritual ones.

54:35 So Paul's trying to cut the nerve of that spirit. And he said, now, wait a minute. Verse 14. I thank God I didn't baptize any of you, says Crispus and Gaius, lest any man should say you were baptized into my name.

54:46 And I baptized also the house of Stephanus or Stephanus. Besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. Why? For Christ did not send me to baptize.

54:55 But to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void. Now, notice the significance of what he says. God has given two divine mind institutions. They are gospel institutions that are deeds baptism in the Lord's Supper.

55:20 They proclaim something and you could never understand it unless the word explained it. You see someone going down into the water coming up again. So what in the world? What are they doing?

55:29 Well, we have the scripture to explain it. Same thing with the Lord's Supper. It says, as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you preach the Lord's death till he come. Well, we know we're preaching the Lord's death because the word interprets what the bread stands for.

55:41 This is or represents my body. This represents my blood as you eat. So you're demonstrating your feeding upon me by faith. But Paul says even the divinely instituted object lesson of the gospel was not the focus of this ministry.

55:59 I was not sent to baptize, but to preach. Verse 18, for the word, the message of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved, it is the power of God. What is the word, the message of the cross? For it is written, then he quotes from Isaiah.

56:17 I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise, the discernment of the discerning. I'll bring to naught. Where is the wise? Where's the scribe?

56:23 Where's the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom knew not God. Now notice, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the thing preached to save them that believe.

56:46 God's good pleasure is to save a people by the instrumentality of the kerygma. There is a family of Greek words. The kerygs was the herald. He had a commission from the king to go into all of the domain of the king and to say in the name of the king, I declare.

57:09 And when a man was doing that and was duly appointed, you say, aha, there's the kerygs. There's the herald of the king's message. Then what he was doing, the verbal form is kerygso. The herald, the kerygs is now kerygsoing.

57:27 He is now heralding the message of the king. He is now heralding the message of the king. And then when you wanted to describe his message, it was the kerygma, the thing preached. And it ties together both the message and the method inseparably.

57:46 Now look at our text. In the good pleasure of God, this is not 20th century methods that need to be jumped. Move into the 20th century. Oh, this is God's immutable, changeless good pleasure through what the world regards as foolishness in content and method, through the thing preached, the kerygma, to save them that believe.

Call to Action: Embracing the Evangelistic Mandate

58:18 And I dare to assert that as long as God has saving purposes, and that will be until we hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God and see the return, Lord, God is in the business of saving. And therefore, God is going to be doing it by means of the thing. Now what do we say to all of this? Well, God's people, I ask you, will you pray that God would give to you a fresh sense of your place in this glorious evangelistic mandate, realistically assessing your gifts, your place, your station in life?

59:01 Will you not pray, oh, God, give me a clear sense? Oh, God, give me a clear sense. Oh, God, give me a clear sense. Oh, God, give me a clear sense of how I fit into this mandate to proclaim the gospel to the world in every biblically warranted means of verbal communication.

59:19 And for some of you, that will mean wisely selecting some tracks to keep close at hand that while you're caring for your kids and the parcel postman comes to deliver a package and you wish him a blessed holiday, you say, and by the way, may I ask you to pray that man, by the way, sir, here's a little Christmas message. Would you take that from me and read it at your leisure? For some of us who travel on planes and try to engage in conversation and get turned off, I've never had anyone refuse when it was time to leave to say, I'm sorry we weren't able to talk more at depth, but here's a little booklet I've written. Would you take this from me and read it at your leisure?

60:01 What is a biblical Christian? In your place. In your station. there is that sense, God has made me a part of this worldwide enterprise. Don't wait to do something grandiose. In your place, in your station, according to your gifts, prayerfully anticipating your normal interaction with people and using those anticipated interactions as fuel to pray, Lord, help me in that situation to manifest by my life the truth and the power of the gospel. And Lord, give me wisdom to know how I may proclaim that message by means of the track, the booklet, the question, the entreaty, the various means. I just ask you that you would seek to have the spirit of those lepers. Thankfully, some of the kids bailed me out on the way out

60:57 this morning. They said you were two chapters too far along in 2 Kings. That chapter, 2 Kings chapter 6. 7, where the Lord makes that abundant provision for his people by dispossessing the Assyrians and those lepers who had been outside the camp. They discover the bounty and the booty and they say in the words of verse 9, they said one to another, we do not well. This is a day of good tidings. And in the Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew scripture, you know what the word is there? This is a day of evangelism. This is a day of good news. And we hold our peace. If we tarry to the

61:45 morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now, therefore, come, let us go and tell. Dear people, may that be our prayer. Let us go and tell. And for those of us in leadership, this is one of our great responsibilities. Let us go and tell. And for those of us in leadership, this is one of our great responsibilities. Let us go and tell. And for those of us in leadership, this is one of our great responsibilities.

62:05 That's why we're committed to systematic instruction, consecutive expository preaching, that you might know your Bibles and be furnished with an ever-enriched understanding of the message that you may give to everyone who asks a reason of the hope that is in you. This is why I personally am convinced and I trust that God will percolate that conviction among my fellow elders. It may already be present. We have our elders' retreat in January, that the time has come when we need to do something in a more structured way without turning everyone into little cookie-cutter peepers with four different things, keeping your little robot, little gospel robots. That's not found in the Bible. But enterprising ways to see us more mobilized as a church. Pray that God will guide us, that God will give us direction, that in our corporate endeavors, many are already being made. I mentioned some this

63:03 morning. The VBS. The exposure to the community in the various fairs. But brethren, there's much more to be done. Let us cry to God that our hearts will be stirred, that we may enter in new zeal and grace to this noble enterprise of evangelizing sinners. That's why this church exists. To worship the God of the scriptures, to edify one another, and to evangelize sinners. Let's pray.

63:35 Our Father, we're again so thankful that we have your word amidst the cacophony of all the voices raised, telling us what to do. We're so thankful we have a sure word, a changeless word. And we pray that we may have the moral courage and the spiritual conviction never to budge from that word. Lord, we ask that you will do a new thing for us as a people, that we may be able to led into new avenues of aggressive, sanctified, spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavor. We do desire to share the bounty of your grace with those who starve and think they are full. Lord, we pray for any who sit here tonight who have no knowledge of your Son in a saving way. May the things they've heard in the singing and the prayers of your people and the preaching of the word make them restless and thirsty until they come to know you as you have revealed yourself in the gospel. Seal then your word to our hearts and dismiss us with your blessing. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.