Preapartion for a Lesson or Sermon Each Week

I wrote here how I prepare a message.

The Dr is spot on:

I would not hesitate to put in the first position [for the decline]: the loss of belief in the authority of the Scriptures, and a diminution in the belief of the Truth. I put this first because I am sure it is the main factor. If you have not got authority, you cannot speak well, you cannot preach. Great preaching always depends upon great themes. Great themes always produce great speaking in any realm, and this is particularly true, of course, in the realm of the Church. While men believed in the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of God and spoke on the basis of that authority you had great preaching. But once that went, and men began to speculate, and to theorize, and to put up hypotheses and so on, the eloquence and the greatness of the spoken word inevitably declined and began to wane. You cannot really deal with speculations and conjectures in the same way as preaching had formerly dealt with the great themes of the Scriptures. But as belief in the great doctrines of the Bible began to go out, and sermons were replaced by ethical addresses and homilies, and moral uplift and sociopolitical talk, it is not surprising that preaching declined. I suggest that this is the first and the greatest cause of this decline.

(Preaching and Preachers, DMLJ, 13)

Pastor/Teacher's Library

 Left side of the study/library room four book cases of three ring binders

The right side of the room: four book cases: Books

 The back wall of the room: three ring binders: with desk in the  center of the room

This is the back wall leading into the office

So How Should We Present The Gospel Part three

SO THEN HOW SHALL WE PRESENT THE WORD OF GOD UNTO SALVATION

 

Stephen J. LaWSon says in his book “Made in His Image.”  What Shall We do With a User-Friendly God?

• “Step into the average church theses days and you will likely see that the services are designed more to remove the fear of God than to promote it.”

R.C. Sprol says.

• ·       The heart of the 16^th century Luther warned his contemporys . He said “Any time the Gospel is preached clearly and boldly it will produce conflict. And people don’t like conflict. And as a result of that they will change the gospel ,water down the gospel, or try to take away its offense., When the evangelist meeting is all design to get people down the aisles to produce the effect of large people coming down the aisles you tend to do things very differently then when you are pressing Gospel upon the hearts of men and urging   them to respond in prayer to God.

Arthur W. Pink

 

• “The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist.  He announces a Savior from hell rather than a Savior from sin.”

·        

·       “And that is why so many are fatally deceived, for there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of Fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldiness.”

Saving Faith Part 1  Signs of the Time 1930

Instead of preaching law of God to convict men of sin and expose their guilt before a holy and just God. Many churches opt for a non confirmative preaching and evangelism.

Ray Comfort

• ·       “The modern gospel says: Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives you love, joy, peace, fulfillment, and lasting happiness.”

·       “The sinners responds, and in an experimental fashion puts on the Savior to see if the claims are true. And what does he get? The promised temptation, tribulation, and persecution.”

Peace and Joy are fruit of the gospel, they are not the tree or the roots. If we really love people we really need to tell them the truth. And what is the truth? If they are outside of Christ if they have not submitted themselves to the Lord and Savior they are sinners in the hand of an angry God.

 to continue:

So How Should We Present to Gospel Part Two

Part Two: How Should We Present the Gospel

Along with this approach has come a result kind of ministry of soul winning.

People seem to be more concern with how many walk down the aisle rather than the content of the message. If the number is not high enough the message is changed to make them more easily understand and accepted so as to get the max NUMBER of people to make a decision

Quote: Survey show that 82% of Americans say they are Christians.

• That they believe in God, And yet we see the church has less effect on our culture today than at any time in history. So the question has to come up, what kind of Christians to we have. What kind of Gospel are we preaching? What is wrong with what we are believing?

There have been studies that suggest that by numerically and percent that more people profess to believe in God and be born again more than at any time in history. And yet with all these numbers the church has fewer influences in our culture today than it has in years passed.

We need to ask ourselves: What is wrong with this picture?

In part the answer may be rather then seek to win the elect-by presenting or giving food to the elect sheep, the priest hood of God, which the Holy Spirit uses to convict the elect . Many are seeking the bottom line numbers. And since numbers have become the standard whereby to judge a ministry success and no0t wanting to offend and drive people always . Much of the modern church no longer are preaching the sinfulness of men or the bloody offense of the cross.

-So as a result the churches are offering the wrong kind of food. Instead food for sheep, much of today’s preaching and evangelism is food for goats. And now goats are everywhere.

Jesus told us the Gospel was an offense,

George Grant Director of King’s Meadow Study Center.

• · The cross is an offense, it will offend or sensibility. How do you market that, how do you made offence marketable so as to make it less offense.

· You have to take away the offense. You take away the offense you take away the Gospel.

Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. What he term the superficiality of the Gospel and evangelism, proved the solution .

• · “Evangelism must start with the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the demands of the law, and the eternal consequences of evil.”

Of course the fear today is if you are not positive and entertaining you are not going to get people to come.

WHY EVANGLIZE IF YOU BELIEVE IN THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE 1

TAKING A LOOK AT THE VIEW THAT CALVINIST POINT OF VIEW ARE LIKELY TO BE MORE EVANGLISIST

Dr. Roger Schultz, Professor of History, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA

·       The great awakening lead by Jonathan Edwards and  George Whitefiled, were men who held to the Doctrines of Grace.

Dr. Stephen Mansfied, Author of Forgotten Founders Father:: The Hemic Legacy of George Whitefield

·       The knock on Calvinsist is that it underminds evangelism. God has already chosen them, why evangelize. The fact is the greatest evangelist history of the church have been under men who were Calvinist. George Whitefiled, one of the greatest evengeslit of the church who lead a hugh number to Jesus

So the reality is that’s when a man knows that’s God has sovereignty chosen those to Himself,  will make his effort  successful rather than it is based on human will. 

Not only does Calvinism with its high view of God but demands that we obey the Lord and take the gospel to the whole world.  But it also guarantees our success in the enterprise. 

Because we know He has ordained his  elect, those who will believe through the foolishness   of preaching. We can have every confidence as we obey the Lord in prayer and proclamation as Isaiah 55:11 says,

God’s word shall not return void, But it shall accomplish what He pleases, And it shall prosper in the things for which He sent it.

A SECOND QUESTION:

In light of these true’s how and to whom shall we present the Gospel?

The answer to the second part of the  question is quite easy, we are to present the gospel as 2 Timothy 4:2 says,

Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season.

Present the gospel to everyone we meet. Or as Jesus put it. In Mark 16:15

• Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

At the point the Armenian will  often ask:

Why to every creature?  If God is going to save only His elect why waste your time sharing we people who are not the elect.? Who have not been appoint unto salvation..

Well QUITE simply,  God does not tell us who the elect are.

People will say why preach the gospel  to those who are not going to be saved. 

One: It is an indictment against the lost, They hear the gospel and will not respond.

Second preaching the gospel is a leveling effect on the culture as a whole. Even unsaved men are effect by the gospel gets into their life.

Once a man came to Charles Spuregon and said.  “If I believe like you Mr Spuregon that God saves some and pass over others I would give up preaching.

To this Spurgeon repled.”

• God has called me to preach His word and if I knew that all the elect had a yellow strip painted down their backs, I would give up preaching the gospel and g o lift up shirts tails.”

We do not know who the elect are so we strive to be to all men as 1 Corinthians  9:22 says, “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save SOME>

SO AS WE LOOK AT THE CONTENT OF OUR MESSAGE> 

We would be well to consider what to avoid

.

As we have already seen much of what we see pass for ministry today  much of the gospel has been comprised by the means of humanism. 

That often treats its audience as atomists creatures as to  have the right to set in judgment on  God and His word. Picking out what they like  and throwing away the rest.

 This lesson is on video: