Church Membership and the Biblical Gospel

The Biblical Foundation for Regenerate Church Membership

0:03 This morning worship service was held on July 14, 1991, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you follow with me, please, as I read two relatively brief portions from Luke's inspired account of the work of God in the early Jerusalem church experience. Acts chapter 2, the second chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, beginning the reading at verse 37.

0:40 In the midst of Peter's preaching, we read, Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him.

1:21 And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Save yourselves from this crime. Look at generation.

1:32 They then that received his word were baptized, and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship in the breaking of bread and the prayers. Verse 46, And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread. Verse 46, Verse 46, They took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

2:09 And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved. Chapter 5, verses 12 through 14. Chapter 5, verse 12. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought, among the people.

2:32 And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. But of the rest dared no man join himself to them. How be it? The people magnified them, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes, both of men and women.

2:59 In these passages read in your hearing, it is evident that the Holy Spirit is making it abundantly clear through Luke, the inspired historian, that none but those who gave positive evidences of saving grace were admitted into the community of the first Christian church of Jerusalem. It was those pricked in their hearts with genuine Holy Spirit, conviction, who were subsequently led to repentance and faith and baptism

3:38 and into church fellowship and into patterns of full-orbed involvement in the life of that Jerusalem church, who alone were regarded as the people of God. Further, it's evident from these passages that the only ones who are said to be added to the church by the Lord were those who were saved. Those who were being saved by the grace and power of God through the gospel. And it's equally clear from the passage in Acts 5 that there was a holy fear of joining the Jerusalem church unless one had experienced the grace of God

Review of Trinity Baptist Church's Fifth Affirmation: Regenerate Membership

4:22 and then there was a rush of multitudes to be admitted into that church. Now why have I read these passages and made these briefings? Why have I made these brief comments upon them? Well, for the simple reason that in our present series of expositions entitled A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church we are now addressing the fifth affirmation of the manifesto which is this.

4:49 We are determined to strive for a membership role comprised only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men and women. In our two previous studies of this affirmation I sought first of all to explain the meaning of the key words in the affirmation. The affirmation is this. We are determined to strive for something.

5:20 And the words determination and strive underscore a conscious goal and one that is engaging commitment and effort. We are determined, that's the resolution of will, to strive, that is the course of action. And what are we determined to strive for? A membership role comprised only of those who are truly regenerate and genuinely converted.

5:53 That is, only such people as have experienced what Jesus talked about when he said in John 3, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. By truly converted we mean what Jesus referred to when he said in Matthew 18, except he be converted and become his little children, he shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. And we are determined to strive then for a membership role comprised only of those who have been converted.

6:33 Of those who have been supernaturally born of the Spirit and as a result of that mighty work of grace have truly turned from sin in repentance and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. That is, have been genuinely converted. And then secondly, I sought to demonstrate the biblical basis for this goal. Why in the world should this be something that we are determined to strive for?

7:06 And I demonstrated from Scripture that according to Old Testament prophecy, the new covenant community is to be comprised only of the regenerate and the converted. And according to the New Testament, every descriptive term and title and name of the members of that community assumes that they've experienced regeneration and conversion. All the instruction, all the exhortations, all the consolations, all the admonitions assume they are either self-deceived, be not deceived, the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven, or that they are truly

7:49 regenerate and converted. Then in the third place, we began in our last study to look at what I'm calling the practical manifestations of this determination in our life and practice, as a congregation. Surely, if we are determined to strive for a truly regenerate, genuinely converted church membership, I've explained the words, the biblical basis, then it ought to be evident in our church life that that's not a lot of hot air. And I set before you the first line of evidence, and it is what I call the manner in which we treat the children of the members of this assembly.

8:31 The manner in which we treat the children of the members of this assembly. We treat our children in reference to the issue of church membership demonstrates our determination to have a membership role comprised only of the truly regenerate and genuinely converted. That's why, one, we do not regard our children as having a covenantal birthright to membership in the church. Two, when they give apparent evidences of grace in childhood and adolescence, we do not receive them into church membership.

9:06 And thirdly, when children grow up in the church and continue among us, they are not assumed to be regenerated and converted, and therefore received into membership simply because they are morally decent and theologically orthodox.

9:23 And those three aspects of how we treat the children of our church members are patent, biblically framed, and in the church. We have to understand, in this place, that only those who are regenerate and converted shall be welcomed and remain in the membership. Now this morning, let me say, as we move to our second plain, evident manifestation of this determination, I've given you a brief review in some seven minutes of what it took me 70 minutes to expound. It's on tape.

10:08 If you doubt the validity of the biblical basis and the propriety of the manifestations, please don't write it off until you've given it a fair hearing. Obtain the tape of the message from three weeks ago and listen to it with a Berean spirit. Now today, we'll have time only to address the second. I'd hoped to address the second and third, but I have said before God, if there's one area I am not going to go over hastily for the sake of unbelief, it's this area.

Evangelism as a Manifestation of Regenerate Membership Commitment

10:41 And so I'll be content if I can cover this second plain manifestation of our determination to have a membership role comprised only of those truly regenerate and genuinely converted, and it is this. Not only is it seen in our practice with reference to the church membership of our children, but in our message and methods of evangelism. Our message and methods, our message and methods of evangelism are a plain manifestation of our determination to have only truly regenerate, genuinely converted members in this assembly.

11:24 Now let me begin to open up this evidence by defining what I mean by evangelism. Secondly, show the relationship between evangelism and church membership and then bring the whole thing into sharp focus in terms of the relationship between evangelism and church membership. In terms of our own situation. First of all then, what do I mean when I say evangelism?

11:44 I say in our message and methods of evangelism, we are proving our determination. Well, evangelism is that activity in which saved sinners seek to proclaim to unsaved sinners the message of God's method of saving sinners in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's evangelism. It is saved sinners proclaiming to unsaved sinners God's method of conferring mercy upon sinners in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

12:25 And it involves not only teaching, explanation, proclamation of that message, but it is to be coupled with a summons to every individual to whom it comes that he repent of his sins, and believe in the Savior who has been presented. Now we call that evangelism because evangelism is an alteration of a Greek word, euangelion, the good news of salvation into an English word in which we transliterate most of the words, letters from the Greek into the English. And so whoever proclaims,

13:09 the euangelion, the good news, is engaged in evangelism. So the term evangelism as such is not found in the scriptures, but the term evangel is the term good news and to proclaim good news. The verb form is found again and again. And therefore when we say in our message and methods of evangelism our determination to have a regenerate, converted membership is manifested, we're talking about that activity by which we proclaim the good news of salvation in Christ to men with a summons that they embrace

13:53 the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance and faith. Someone, I don't know who, has quaintly said evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where he can find food. That's evangelism. Whether it's one-to-one, Philip the eunuch out in the wilderness, Philip the evangelist, I'm sorry, with the Ethiopian eunuch, one-on-one, there in the chariot using Isaiah, he proclaims unto him Christ.

14:27 He's evangelizing the eunuch. Whether it's Paul with a group of ladies by a riverside in Philippi, he is evangelizing. He is proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ. Or whether, as we read in the context of Acts 2, it's Peter before many thousands proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ.

14:48 That is evangelism. Wherever, whenever, under whatever circumstances there is the proclamation of the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, there is the activity of evangelism. Now, having given that brief explanation of what I mean by evangelism, now let me seek to show the relationship of evangelism to church membership. In all churches that claim to be evangelical, that is, churches who believe and preach that salvation comes to sinners only when they personally embrace the Savior.

The Funnel Analogy: Evangelism and Church Membership

15:31 That's what makes a church evangelical. Sacramental churches believe you're saved when the individual comes in contact with the water or with the way of the wafer. You see? But evangelical churches are churches that say, no, salvation is bound up in the Savior, and the only way the sinner and the Savior come together is not by means of water, wafer, tradition, ritual, incantations.

16:01 No, they must come together in a personal spiritual embrace called faith. Now, in all churches that claim to be evangelical, the relationship between evangelism and church membership can be likened to that of a funnel. And I almost drew a big chart and brought it this morning, but I said, no, I'll use my hands instead. I'll paint with my hands.

16:26 Now, if you can picture in front of me a large plastic funnel. And here's the neck of the funnel dropping down and here's the end of it. And it comes up about a foot and a half and then it widens out to about my arm span. There's the wide end of the funnel, comes down, here's the narrow end and there's the spout.

16:45 Now, evangelism is the wide end of the funnel in which the church, which is here at the end of the spout, is proclaiming to the world the marvelous good news worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world, sinners to save. Then that proclamation at the wide end of the funnel calls upon sinners to have a positive response of faith to that message. And those who having heard the message, no matter how wide the funnel is, it narrows down at the point of the

17:29 perceived saving response to the message and those who are perceived to have savingly responded to the message, they come through the narrow point and, drop down the spout and into the church. So that evangelism is the open end of the funnel, the perceived faith response is the point of the narrow end and only such then drop through into the visible church. Now, here's the problem. If the message is defective and the perceived response inaccurate and the methods to secure a response,

18:13 unbiblical, then from the evangelism into the life of the church, there is a tremendous breakdown. And rather than having churches comprised of truly regenerate and genuinely converted members,

18:36 churches become full of unconverted people because of a defective message and a defective method by which to see them drop through the narrow part of the funnel and into the visible church. Now, having sought to define evangelism and demonstrate the relationship of the message and method to church membership,

The Danger of Defective Evangelism and Carnal Methods

19:02 do you begin to see the picture? What has happened in our day? Well, in many, thank God, not all, but in many, and I believe it is accurate to say in the vast majority of mainline evangelical churches, this is what has happened. A pared-down, emasculated message of evangelism stripped of all of the withering, convicting preaching of the law, making no clear statement of the vicarious curse-bearing of the incarnate God, issuing no summons to repentance, no call to embrace the whole Christ by the whole man, this message, called the gospel,

19:47 with no plowing up of the heart by the law, with no showing the ugliness of sin in the trembling, agonizing, piercing cries of Golgotha, no summons to stands to turn from sin and embrace the whole Savior with the whole man, this truncated, pared-down message has been carried forward by slick sales techniques to secure, quote, decisions for Christ. And what it has done is it has greatly and gravely widened

20:30 the narrow part of the funnel so that the open, wide end of the funnel barely has any angles coming in to those who pass through into the church. Such a people grievously deceived, but also, utterly devoid of any soul-ravishing spirit-given sight of Christ, strangers to heart religion with its hatred of sin and its hunger for God, now in the church, must be trapped within the church by a Christ pitched and presented

21:14 in a way that is palatable and attractive to unregenerate hearts.

21:21 You see?

21:24 Since they got it and never saw their sin, in the light of the groans and the agonies of Golgotha, since they got in, having never turned from sin and self-will as the dominant of life, since they got in and never had a spirit-given, ravishing, spiritual sight of the glory of Christ, Christ must now be packaged in such a way as to be palatable to their unregenerate hearts. And so mainline evangelical churches with their defective evangelism and carnal methods

22:08 are marked by entertainment in place of breathless worship, by little biddies of relational essays instead of solid biblical expository spirit-anointed conscience-smiting preaching.

22:29 And they are run by methods that are imported directly from Madison, and the Holy Ghost could vacate this planet and go to the farthest galaxy and their budget would still be met, their membership would not be affected, it would be business as usual.

22:55 Now dear people, do you see why I say in this manifesto, which is a declaration of our fundamental principles in these 25 years of our life, that we are determined, to have as our goal a regenerate converted membership and one of the manifestations of that determination is that we shall God giving us light and grace adhere to the biblical message and methods of evangelism. For the moment we move from either, we have taken that part of the funnel

23:37 by which people enter into the church. We have widened it so that the unconverted and unregenerate can take up their place and when they do, then they must be fed what their carnal hearts alone can appreciate.

The Five Essential Components of the Biblical Gospel Message

23:57 Now having sought to demonstrate what I'm concerned about, you have every right then to ask me, well Pastor Martin, what then is the heart, what is the pith, what is the very nerve center, what is the jugular vein of the biblical message, the message of evangelism and the biblical methods of evangelism which have been the soul, the life of this assembly and so long as we adhere to the scriptures will be until Jesus Christ returns. That's a fair question and I've labored to try to distill it so that in the next less than half an hour I can lay it before you.

24:40 What is the essence of the message? You kids, you got five fingers, haven't you? I don't know of a kid in our church, that's lost a finger. I have a son-in-law that's lost a whole arm.

24:54 But I don't know a kid in our church who doesn't have five fingers. And this is not the five points of Calvinism that I want to lay before you either. Here are the five things that comprise the distilled essence. You get less than this and you got something less than the biblical gospel.

25:12 The biblical gospel is a message first of all about God. The biblical gospel doesn't start with man, his needs, his felt needs, his unfelt needs. It starts with God. Because the scripture says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for therein is revealed a righteousness of God.

25:37 The gospel starts with God. And it starts with God particularly as creator, as lawgiver, and as judge. There can be no meaningful communication of the gospel without beginning as Paul did in Romans 1, 18 all the way through to Romans 3, 20 the way he did in Acts chapter 17 in his sermon on Mars Hill establishing the fact that almighty God is our creator almighty God is our lawgiver who has expressed his will for us in his holy law summarized in the Ten Commandments and he is our judge before whom we will stand in the last moment. We will stand in the last day

26:22 to give an account of our lives in the light of his law as we perceive him to be the creator who has sovereign rights over us. And to a generation fed upon the lie of evolutionism, a generation fed upon subjectivism without any objective propositional truth, the gospel must begin as Paul began in Romans, as Paul began on Mars Hill with the pagans of his day by declaring the reality of the living true God who in the beginning created who in the beginning made man and in the beginning made it evident

27:06 he had claims and rights over man and would hold man accountable to him as his subject. Dear people, the day we assume that this generation knows those realities and they are not constantly brought forward in our prayers, in our hymns, in our preaching, we have begun to erode the biblical gospel. It stands down upon the granite foundation block of the assertions of God's rights as creator, as lawgiver, and as judge. But then secondly, it's a message about sin.

27:50 The forgotten word, in today's gospel preachings, and use the word sin, that has negative psychological reactions. That will cause knee-jerk reactions. Well, as I heard a preacher recently say, here's a physician, a patient who's been his patient for years, has come for his annual check-up. He's in his mid-forties.

28:17 And the doctor perceives that the man has all the signs of a deadly malignancy. And he says, how can I shock and hurt my dear friend? He's been coming to me for 20 years and tell him, sir, you have a malignancy that may well kill you. You need radical surgery.

28:34 You'll need chemotherapy. You may need radiation. How can I do that and offend my dear friend? I'll tell you what I'll do.

28:42 I'll go out and hire me a singer. And I'll say, sir, can you make up some lyrics that are mostly positive, but somewhere along the line slip in a little suggestion that my friend may be ill in the first stanza. Then in the second stanza, some lyrics that say you may be seriously ill. And then about stanza number six, you slip in there some euphemism for cancer.

29:06 Would you mind doing that? And while you're composing the song, I'm going to go out and find a rock band. Because you see, I want him to feel relaxed with a musical motif that will not make him feel in any way intimidated. And he went on.

29:21 You see where he was going? See where he was going? That's the nonsense that says, well, you see, this generation has turned off by words like sin and turned off by direct, blunt preaching. We need to have quote leaders who just sneak it in a little bit and people who are banging their drums and flopping their hair and bouncing around the stage in the name of Christ.

29:43 My friends, that is blasphemous nonsense. Think sort of it. It isn't pleasant to tell my fellow mortals you with me died in Adam. You with me were condemned in the Garden of Eden.

29:59 You with me were conceived in sin. You with me have a heart that is a bottomless sinkhole of iniquity. But that's reality. My Bible says as through one man sin entered into the world, Romans 5, 12.

30:17 My Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And I don't need to have that brought home to me by secondary or tertiary innuendo sneaked in. While I'm banging my foot and having my blades blown out with a hundred decibels of sound, I need someone with an open Bible and a broken heart to tell me I am a guilty, vile, wretched, helpless, hopeless, damned sinner.

30:55 And God have mercy when in this pulpit becomes unfashionable in the language of its preachers.

31:08 We need to tell its origin in our lives. It's measure by the law of God and its consequences before God and in our own lives. That's what the gospel does. Tells men about God and then tells them how bad they are before God.

31:27 And we can never state the case beyond the reality. But then thank God it's a message about Christ. The gospel is a message about Christ and it has two pivots. His glory, his person and his unique and perfect work.

31:46 The gospel is a message about a person the likes of which never existed on this earth and never will again. A person in whom there is every facet of true humanity as much as though he were nothing but a man.

32:02 When his nose tickled, he sneezed, he had to take out his handkerchief like the rest of us. Who went as a little boy and dribbled his Gerber cereal down his chin. Had to have his mama wipe it off.

32:18 Yes, true man. There is one God and one mediator between God and man. Himself a man. The Lord Jesus.

32:29 But he is as much God as though he were never man. For in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that hath been made.

32:43 In him was life and the life was the light of man and the Word. The Word became flesh. He was God. He became flesh.

32:54 He never ceased to be all that he ever had been. He was God. And when he became flesh he remained God.

33:03 Never ceased to be. And we need to proclaim to this generation that which human reason cannot encompass. That before which the human mind staggers. That you and I and our sin were of such a horrible nature and in such a horrible state that nothing less than the enfleshment of God.

33:26 That's a bad state, folks.

33:29 When nothing but the enfleshment of God could rescue us. But that's the glorious message of the Gospel. God is enfleshed. Emmanuel!

33:41 God with us! With us! For what purpose? To accomplish a unique work for us.

33:48 The work of perfect obedience to his Father's law. Then the work of rendering perfect obedience satisfaction to all the demands of justice for the law that we broke. He keeps all the precepts of the law and is ready to credit to our account the merit of his perfect obedience. Then he takes all the penal sanctions of the law and becomes a curse for us and is ready to so absorb every thunderbolt of divine wrath against sin that not one is left in heaven for us.

34:24 That's the Gospel. The Gospel is not you're down in the dumps Jesus will chuck you under the chin. Oh, by the way, he showed his love when he went and died on the cross and he's the great symbol of love. That's not the Gospel, my friend!

34:38 The Gospel is he died for us for the unjust that he might bring us to God. He became a curse for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. God in him.

34:58 That's the Gospel. The Gospel is that he was delivered up for our offenses. He was raised for our justification. It's a message about Christ.

35:08 His unique person. His glorious work. That work of perfect obedience. Vicarious death.

35:15 Glorious resurrection. His session at the right hand of the Father. His sending forth of the Spirit. He said, Pastor Martin, that sounds like a Bible course where people go to...

35:25 No, my friends, that's the Gospel. The Gospel. That's not the graduate school. That's the...

35:31 The declaration of those glorious mind-blowing but life-transforming about the uniqueness of the Savior's person and the glory and the sufficiency of the Savior's work. Then the Gospel is not only a message about God and about sin and about Christ but it's a message four-finger kids message about God message about sin message about Christ it's a message about repentance and faith repentance and faith and we're sticklers for Bible language because the Holy Ghost embodies realities in language and Paul said in Acts 20-21 he preached publicly from house to house

36:16 to Jews and to Greeks and what was the heart of his message? Here was the heart of his message. At this point he said testifying to Jews and Greeks repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus he said I preached repentance towards God I told men they needed a deep thorough change of mind and heart and will with reference to God as their creator God as their lawgiver God as their judge he made them they've disdained their maker he has imposed his law righteously holily upon them they have broken it wickedly and stand culpable

37:00 he is their judge before whom they'll stand repentance is a change of mind about this God the God whom I regarded as junk and unworthy of my consideration the God whom I regarded as unworthy of the homage and love and devotion of my heart whose law I hated and whose future judgment I tried to put out of mind I now look open faced into that God through Jesus Christ and say I like God being just like God is I'm glad he's bigger than my mind can encompass I'm glad he's greater and more glorious than my spirit can imagine I'm glad that he's the lawgiver and I'm glad he's the judge because if he judged my sins in Christ

37:45 and said the payment was full he'll never go back on his word I can go to judgment with confidence because the judge has already acquitted me in the person and work of Christ repentance toward God you have a change of mind to God you say but you haven't talked about my problems and my hang ups no I haven't because the Bible doesn't start with your problems and your hang ups it starts with God and having proclaimed the way to God through the enfleshed God it says now repent toward God it's a God's and change the center and you've changed the gospel repentance toward God and then faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ not faith in Jesus not something

38:27 have a twitch to the man upstairs to the man of Galilee no faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and his name embody the glory of his person and the sufficiency of his work and faith involves not only knowledge of who he is and what he's done and a willingness to embrace that as fact as sent but it involves fiduciary trust the recumbency I love some of the old words the resting the throwing of the soul in all of its guilt and helplessness upon Christ venture on him venture wholly at his feet at his feet at his feet at his feet at his feet at his feet at his feet at his feet that's what faith is faith is the throwing of the weight of the soul

39:11 upon Christ it is one person embracing another person and all that that person is and all he's prepared to do for me faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ nothing about decisions for Christ he's not out to get a following he's not on the ballot we're not out to get decisions for Christ we're out to save Christ we're out to save Christ to see His face and to believe His name we must repent to God we must repent to God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and then finger number five is the gospel is not only a message about God and sin and Christ and repentance and faith but it's a message about holiness and obedience

39:54 because Paul said in Acts 26 20 an integral part of this gospel was this he said I preached first to Judea and then he said to all the Gentiles that they should repent turn to God and do works meet for me For repentance, that is, I made as part of my gospel this insistence. If you profess to have repented and believed, prove it by your life. And that life must be a life of universal holiness, not perfect holiness, but a life in which it's evident you want to please God as your lawgiver and Christ as your Savior in every single area of your life. You haven't marked out one area and said,

40:36 God, don't touch this area, Christ, don't intrude in this area. Oh, no. Never.

40:44 That's why the Scripture says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, Matthew 7, 21. This is why John says, If we say we know him and keep not his commandments, we lie and do not the truth, 1 John 2, 4. Jesus said in John 10, 29, My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. The gospel says if you've embraced Christ, the proof will be you will become like Christ in the power of Christ and you'll do the will of Christ in the strength of Christ.

41:19 That's what the gospel says. And if you aren't becoming like Christ, holiness, doing the will of Christ, obedience, you're not saved. It's not that you're a carnal Christian. It's not that you've been saved but need to be baptized by the Spirit.

41:34 It's because you're lost. You're dead. As long as you're an unholy rebel against God. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.

41:48 Now that's the biblical gospel. You got it? It's a message about God, sin, Christ, repentance and faith, holiness and obedience.

Preserving the Integrity of the Gospel Message

41:57 Now we're determined to have a regenerate, converted membership because that gospel, by the grace of God, is the only gospel preached in this place. And hear me now, some of you men in your thirties, some of you in your twenties, hear me, some of you children,

42:15 you think the devil would be stupid enough to come along one day, ten years from now, twenty years from now, and have someone stand up and say, hey, lift up your five fingers. Understand, Pastor Martin preached a sermon, 25th anniversary, about we're determined to have a regenerate church membership and therefore we're determined to maintain the biblical message and method of evangelism. Yes, I remember hearing that. What were the points?

42:41 Boom, boom, boom. Well, I'll tell you what I want to do. Hold up your fingers. I'm going to chop them all off at once.

42:46 Oh, no. You know what the devil will do? Come along and say, you know, I just want to pair the nails on one of those fingers. I just want to trim the nails back a little bit.

42:56 Just have a little more cozy view of God. I mean, this emphasis on God's might and power as creator and lawgiver and judge, that's a bit intimidating. I mean, little kids, you know, they won't be attracted to a God like that. So let's take that.

43:13 The doctrine of God. And let's just clip the fingernail a little bit. Well, you know, really, that thumb is just a little bit out of proportion. Let's just have the plastic surgeon cut off a little bit of the thumb.

43:27 That's how the devil works. He's not going to come in stupid enough and say, let me whack off all five fingers. You think the devil's been around thousands of years damning people's souls with that kind of stupidity? No, it's going to come from some well-meaning person in this place governed more by sentiment than the Bible.

43:45 Or because they're entertaining some darling sin that they want to have covered by a lower view of God. Mark my words. And when it comes, rise up.

43:58 Open your Bible. Demand to be shown from this book.

44:05 Demand to be shown from this book.

44:09 For the doctrine of God can be lowered. The doctrine of sin can be altered. The doctrine of Christ can be pared down and made more palatable to the flesh.

44:21 May some of you be prepared. Be prepared in your generation to do what some of us have, by God's grace, done in our generation. Say with Martin Luther, my conscience is held captive to the word of God. Here I stand, so help me God.

44:41 No other. Though we've been accused, and some of you, I don't say this for self-pity, I've protected you. If you knew the names I have been called for insisting that this is the gospel. The places where as a young man.

44:55 I had preachers say, if that man preaches at this conference, I will cancel my attendance and the attendance of my children and the young people in my church. And when asked why, the answer was, because he gets half of them doubting their salvation. And when asked why does he get them doubting their salvation, because he preaches that people need to repent. And if they aren't holy, and they aren't obedient, they're lost.

45:26 He doesn't believe. And the carnal Christian, he gives no room for people being saved, but not disciples. No, I don't give room, because this book, when this book gives room, I'll give room. That was back when I hadn't seen my 25th birthday.

45:53 Doors slammed in my face.

45:57 And I'm still as vile today, preaching that same message. Because the Holy Ghost hasn't changed his word. And my prayer is, God, if I so much as trim the fingernail, kill me. And I say, oh, there you go, overly dramatic.

46:12 Who are you to tell me what I pray in my closet?

46:18 God is witness that I have prayed for my own death. Before I tamper with this gospel that will result in the death of you.

The Divinely Approved Methods of Evangelism

46:33 I have enough to answer for, without answering for that. Very quickly, what are the divinely approved methods? Very simple. You know, it's amazing.

46:45 And I'm sure our brother Steve could speak for hours as a missionary. It's amazing. The conferences, people hauled in from all over the world at thousands of dollars of expenses, grandiose structures of their seminars on methods of evangelism. And we turn to the New Testament and we find the methods are relatively simple.

47:09 Fervent prayer, authoritative, loving, enterprising proclamation, and the summons to baptism and entrance into the total life of the church. That's it. I say, come on. Pastor, isn't that a bit simplistic?

47:25 Yeah, it may sound so. But until God rewrites his word or somebody shows me something I've missed, that's what's there. What methods did the apostles use? Fervent prayer.

47:36 Fervent prayer. It's in the midst of prayer that the spirit comes as promised on the day of Pentecost. And what does it lead to? It leads to a congregation that's described this way.

47:48 These continued steadfastly in the prayers. And when that grew, as two of its leaders opposed, what do they do? They call a prayer meeting. They say, now, Lord God, you made heaven and earth.

48:00 You're God. They started with God as creator. They had it straight. And they said, you're the God who spoke through your servant David.

48:07 Why do the nations rage in the heathen? Imagine a vain thing. The kings and the rulers set themselves against the Lord and His anointed. Look, Lord, on their threatenings.

48:16 Don't let them shut the door of gospel witness. God says, I like what they're doing. I'm going to shake things up around. Here, so God shakes the building.

48:26 And it says, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and spake the word of God with boldness. They prayed. They prayed. And when the apostle writes letters to people, what does he tell them to do?

48:37 He says, brethren, pray that utterance may be given, that a door may be opened. He said, pray fervent prayer. That was method number one. Secondly, authoritative, loving, enterprising proclamation.

48:53 I've chosen my words carefully. Authoritative proclamation. God is ordained by the foolishness of the thing preached. First Corinthians 121.

49:03 And the kerugma is the thing. It is the thing preached. And you can't separate message and method. God's ordained by what the world calls foolishness.

49:16 Namely, this gospel preached. And what is preaching? But authoritative, loving proclamation. Love.

49:26 Love. Love. Love. Love that tells men the truth.

49:28 Love that seeks to get inside their consciences with the law of God. Love that seeks to lay bare their sores and wounds to which they are blinded. Love that seeks to get them to feel the depth of their malady until they cry out, Sirs, what must be done to be saved? And love that tells them the truth.

49:49 There's nothing you can do for yourself. You've got to go to Christ. And the remedy's radical, but the Savior's mighty. Go to Him.

49:58 Go to Him. Authoritative, loving, enterprising proclamation. The apostles preached to the multitudes who were gathered for the feast at Jerusalem. Ah, but they also preached from house to house, Paul says.

50:13 Paul preached by a riverside. Paul preached in the synagogue. Paul dialogued on Mars Hill. Philip preaches to a man out in the wilderness.

50:22 They were enterprising. They used every means that they're...

50:26 Their disposal, Roman roads, Greek language, unified culture, Jewish opportunities with the dispersion. They were enterprising.

50:38 Authoritative, loving, enterprising proclamation. Never entertainment. Never sales pitch evangelism. Never mine acting, dancing troupes.

50:52 Never anything but authoritative, loving, enterprising proclamation. That's what we've been doing for 25 years. We live in a mechanized age. The age of ferrous oxide scattered on some mylar.

51:10 The age of the cassette tape. So we seize that opportunity to get the word out. By that means, the printed page and all the other means before us. But what lies at the heart of all of them?

51:23 Authoritative, loving, enterprising proclamation. That's it. And then you join to that, the summons to baptism and entrance into the membership, life and ministry of the church. Isn't that what Peter did on the day of Pentecost?

51:38 What shall we do? He said, repent, be baptized unto the remission of your sins. He shall receive the gift of the spirit. And then it says with many other words, he testified and exhorted them saying, save yourself from this untoward generation.

51:54 In other words, you got a break with your present culture. You got a break with your friends who hate you. The Christ whom you've all crucified, he laid out the cost of discipleship, what it would mean to be part of that community. And it says, they that gladly received his word were baptized and there were added unto them in that day, 3000 souls.

52:13 They didn't try to wrench decisions out of people and get them signed a decision card and have follow up committee and send them to the local Roman Catholic Church and the liberal Methodist Church and all the other nonsense that the Graham Organization will do. No siree. They said, there's one new covenant community. He established here in Jerusalem.

52:31 You want to be a part of it. Here's the terms. And you say you're responding to the message. Prove it by going under the waters and into the church.

52:39 That's it. And I challenge you to go through the book of Acts and find any other major dimension of their method. Fervent prayer, authoritative proclamation and the summons to baptism and entrance into the church. Sometimes you baffle me.

53:00 Why? Because I dare to say that that's what the Bible sets forth as the message. And the method. When you find some other major dimension of the apostolic method, I don't mean this in a cheeky way.

53:14 I'm dead serious. I try to read through my Bible, New Testament once a year, Old Testament once every two years, book of Psalms twice a year, a proverb a day. I've been doing that for decades. And every time I read the book of Acts, I'm amazed that I can't find a new wrinkle.

53:38 Fervent prayer. Authoritative. Enterprising. Loving.

53:42 Proclamation. Summons to baptism and entrance into the life of the church. And then from there, oh, holy action, building up the saints, caring for the saints, benevolence, missionary endeavors, a hundred activities that flow out of those communities called churches. But as far as our methods of evangelism, it seems to me that they are relatively simple.

Pastoral Exhortation and Call to the Unsaved

54:14 Now in my closing word, what do I want to say to you, the lord's people? It's this. God help you to say with me and with those who stand with me in this present generation, we are determined to strive for a truly regenerate, genuinely converted church membership, roll up Trinity Baptist Church. What will that mean?

54:40 It means you don't go sentimental on how you treat your kids. And we already have some evidence. We already have some evidence that some of you are going in that direction. They're my darlings.

54:51 There's something more important in your darlings, and that's Christ's church.

54:57 Oh, yes, but I just know that that's real faith in my eight-year-old. You've got to back, my friend. Are you God? Even if you were, and you knew that what seems to be the fruit of grace really was grace, that doesn't warrant baptizing an eight-year-old.

55:14 Don't you let your sentiments rule in how you treat your kids in church membership. Don't let anything but the word of God rule in terms of the message and methods of evangelism in this place. Determined, determined, determined by the grace of God. No pairing of the fingernails.

55:35 No cosmetic reconstruction of the five fingers.

55:40 No expansion into man-made methods.

55:45 And I say to you who are unsaved, if telling you about God and sin in Christ and your need to repent and believe, pleading with you, exhorting you, reasoning with you, praying for you, if that won't result in your being saved, then you'll just have to go to hell.

56:05 And there's nothing else we can do to stop you.

56:10 God's given us no other means. And some of you have sat under God's means for a long time. And it frightens me that you continue to go on unsaved.

56:27 You know you're pleaded with. You know that those of us who preach aren't playing games here. You know that we're not here for any other reason than the good of your soul. And we tell you plainly and simply and lovingly and earnestly about Christ and your sin.

56:44 And we plead with you to go to Christ. And all the while we plead, we're praying, God, may this be the day that you make the word effectual. That we have no other means.

56:56 May God grant that those means will be effectual to your salvation. And that we'll see you come from being at the end of the large part of the funnel, where we've been evangelizing you for months and years. And see you come down into that narrow end and say, I'm now prepared to confess that I've seen the deep depths of my own sin. The glory of Christ crucified.

57:22 And I'm ready to leave my sins and leave my independent self-willed life. And I'm ready to own God as my God and Christ as my Savior and His people as my people. I want to be baptized. And come into the church and declare myself a part of the people of God.

57:42 That's it. That's what Trinity Church has been built on. No gimmicks. No gadgets.

57:48 No psychological manipulation. Times when the presence of God has been so thick in this place, you could almost feel you could cut it with a knife. We haven't asked you to raise a hand or walk an aisle. We've told you Christ is nearer than the end of the aisle to the end of your fingers.

58:04 He's as near as the word that's come to your heart. You're preaching. Go to Christ. Go to Him now.

58:13 Let us pray. Our Father, we're so thankful for the straightforward simplicity of the word of God in these matters of the message and the methods of evangelism. Though there are many things in your word that puzzle us and over which many of us have prayed many times asking for more light, we thank you that in these things even a wayfarer can know his way. Oh, may the Spirit write them upon our hearts, write them upon the heart of the younger generation of this congregation.

58:53 Oh, God, that there will be a group of men and women determined by your grace to stand by these biblical principles no matter what the cost, that there may be maintained in this place until the coming of Christ, a membership comprised of those who truly know you and only of the most clever hypocrites. Oh, Lord, have mercy and preserve the church for your glory, for the good of souls, for the honor of Christ. Dismiss us with your blessing, and may the word fasten itself upon heart and conscience and understanding and will

59:35 that we may be molded by it and then by the grace of the power of the Spirit and out of love to Christ may we be obedient to it. Hear us. For his name's sake. Amen.