Episode Transcript
Good morning, it's 10 o'clock. [laughter] As Nilda sauntered across the way here, she told me she's been studying Hezekiah, and I'm so proud of her.
I love hearing that.
2 Kings chapter 19 verse 18 was our stopping point last week.
2 Kings 19 verse 18.
In Hezekiah's prayer to the Lord, which we've been studying for a couple of Sundays, he said the Assyrians had cast the gods of the nations into the fire because they were no gods.
They didn't pass the fire test.
And we applied that same principle to the works of man, whether those works are used by a lost sinner to try to earn salvation or whether those works are used by a Christian just passing his time here on earth, they must pass the fire test.
And if you were with us the last two Sundays, or you tuned in, you'll understand about that.
And I left you with a question last week.
A couple of questions, really.
Will your works be like the false gods of the nations cast into the fire?
Now, this is just for Christians.
Or will they be as gold, silver, and precious stone abiding the fire and abounding to your reward?
And just in case you're swallowed up with guilt because you have enjoyed the earthly things God's given you and maybe you feel like, well, I've enjoyed them too much.
What a timely message that was earlier in the week.
Brother Fulton reminded us that God has given us richly all things to enjoy.
And if he gave it to you to enjoy, then enjoy it, but don't trust in it.
That's the difference.
Now, why did the idols of those nations get tossed into the fire?
Because they were no gods.
That's what Hezekiah said, and that's why they were tossed into the fire.
They were fake.
They had no power.
And why do men's works get tossed into the fire?
Because they're carnal.
They're temporary.
Even those things that God has given us to enjoy, He's given us food, hasn't He?
That's going to go away one day.
He's given us health in one measure or another.
That's also going to go away.
The beautiful trees and the birds and the skies and the sun and moon, the fish and the sea, everything that we've enjoyed will one day be burned up in the fire.
And so we see that those things have no eternal value.
So when a person says, "I've given up everything for my career," well, when they get to the end of their career, what do they have?
They have a wasted life because all they thought about was their career.
Their works will not pass the fire test.
Their career should have been a way to glorify God.
Their career should have been so they could make money to engage in kingdom work.
Their career should have been spent so that they could be around people and be a Christian witness.
But they decided to trust in things that have no eternal value.
And one more thing before I leave this thought.
Think of your daily lives this way if you're a Christian.
Here's how I think about it.
When I go to sleep, I'm resting this body so it will be alert and ready for work the next day or yard work or whatever I'm doing, but more importantly for kingdom work.
If I came in here and there was a time when I worked a deep night shift and I may end up working another one where I came in here with very little if any sleep at all and taught Sunday school and sang and tried to pay attention.
Every once in a while my pen would drift off as I fell asleep and I'd pop my head back up.
Those were some tough times.
Imagine if I didn't sleep for about four or five days and I came in here.
I don't think I was drunk because I wouldn't function right.
So I have to sleep not just to go to work, not just to drive safely, but so I can do kingdom work as well.
I go to work not only to make money for my bills and food and all of those things, but so that I can have money for kingdom work.
Now this plate is down here.
I get to put the money toward kingdom work in that plate or some people use the Venmo or some other app to be able to do that.
And when I save for retirement, that allows me to look forward to a day when I can lay my secular job aside and have more time to do kingdom work.
That's what I intend to do.
Yes, I'm going to spend God willing more time with my grandkids and my family, but that's also kingdom work.
When I raised my children, I tried to instill in them godly values and raise them in a Christian home so that one day they could believe the gospel and be members of God's kingdom and then do works pleasing to him.
I just raised my kids so I could say, "Well, I raised three kids."
Well, that was wonderful.
I wanted to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord because I know one day I will die and they will be here without me to carry on their business.
When I spend time with my grandchildren, I don't have to raise them.
Praise the Lord, my children are doing a great job raising them.
I still get to model Christian behavior in their presence and teach them what a Christian grandfather ought to act like.
Now, if I didn't do that, all of that time I spent with my grandchildren would not pass the fire test, would it?
If I didn't model a Christian grandfather to them, everything we say as Christians, everything we do, every phase of life that we go through, and every person with whom we come into contact, all of it consists of opportunities for us to do works that will pass the fire test.
The more we take advantage of that, the more our rewards abound because if there is precious stones, silver, gold, rather than wood, hay, and stubble that burn up, then those will abound to our account, and those are all things done for the Lord as He empowers us to do them.
But we waste so much time, and I'm holding my hand up too, we waste so much time doing things that are meaningless, that don't pass the fire test.
And when we're done, we might say, "Oh, that was a waste of time.
I don't even know why I just did all that."
I'm right there with you, okay?
We live in a flesh, it's difficult.
And just as they were no gods, many of our works are no works from a kingdom perspective.
And looking further into why these false gods, these idols were thrown into the fire, let's notice next in our text, we are in 2 Kings 19-18 if you've just joined us.
It says, "But the work of men's hands," let's read the verse again, "and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the works of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them."
Now let's look at that, "But the works of men's hands, wood and stone," that's what the idols were made of.
And that's why the reference is there to wood and stone.
Now some of those idols were made of gold, some of the images were made of other metals.
But this is what the text says here, and this touches even more deeply into our own works.
God has never been pleased with the work of men's hands unless those hands were doing God's work.
He's never thought, "Boy, Andy had a better idea than I did about how to handle that situation."
And when we do works for the Lord, when we do the Lord's works with our hands, then they are His works that are being done through us.
And He'll always be pleased when He does work.
When He works through a Christian, and that Christian works out what God worked in him or her, God is pleased with that.
Let's look at the case of the church at Sardis.
The church at Sardis is one of the seven churches the Lord Jesus Christ addressed in the book of the Revelation.
And in Revelation chapter 3 verses 1 through 3, here we're talking about the works of men's hands, because that's what our text is talking about.
Revelation chapter 3 verses 1 through 3, Jesus said, "And unto the angel of the church in Sardis, right, these things say at He that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know thy works."
So right off the bat, Jesus said, "The church at Sardis is doing works, and I know them."
I'm familiar with them.
"I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou liveth, and art dead."
"Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God."
What's Jesus saying?
Your works didn't pass the fire test.
"Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent.
If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee."
If you continue studying this church at Sardis, you'll see that there were some lost church members, so called, and a few that were saved.
They had a mixture.
And this is a church that according to Jesus' testimony, this is a church that once preached the gospel and guarded the truth of God's Word.
But they let their guard down.
And when the church lets its guard down, then it begins to exalt the works of men.
If your church is fully engaged in guarding God's Word, keeping it, preaching it, making sure that the works that are done are pleasing to God, not asking God to bless something we came up with, but asking Him to help us do what He said to do here in His Word.
When you let your guard down, then you exalt the works of men.
And what happens is sin begins to creep in, and eventually it infects the church.
How do you think the church of Sardis went from a bunch of blood-bought believers to eventually having a few believers and a lot of unsaved people?
It gets the guard down.
And that kind of church after sin infects the church, it begins to tolerate bad doctrine instead of rebuking it and correcting the errors.
Listen, there shouldn't be...
Let's say I got up here one Sunday and I'd absolutely lost my mind and I said something that was just bad doctrine.
I can promise you, now this isn't why Brother Fulton listens to me.
He listens to hear God's Word taught.
When he listens, if he's over there on his exercise bike or doing whatever he's doing, and he hears me say something that's bad doctrine, that's flat out wrong, I can promise you I'm going to get a phone call.
And he's going to say something like, "Hey, Brother, I was listening to your Sunday school lesson and I really appreciate what you said about so-and-so.
I did want to visit with you about one thing in there that you said and make sure I haven't misunderstood."
That's what he talks to me.
He doesn't say, "What do you think you're saying?"
And so what that does is let me know he's heard something in there that sounds like it may be bad doctrine.
And so that would be my opportunity to explain, "Here's what I said, here's what I meant."
And it could have been a misunderstanding or I may have said it wrong or I may have just been wrong.
But in either case, if he just says, "You know what?
He's usually right on the money."
We'll let that one go.
I mean, after all, nobody bats a thousand.
What has he just done?
He's allowed bad doctrine to creep in.
Well, then the next time it happens, because it will if it's allowed to continue happening, now you have another piece of bad doctrine.
And at some point, he's got to do one of two things, either go, "You know what?
I don't want to rebuke him all the time.
I don't want to correct this.
I mean, I don't want to hurt his feelings and maybe he'll leave the church.
I'll just let it go and hopefully he won't do that again."
Well, what's going to happen?
It's going to infect the church.
Because you're going to have somebody who says, "Well, now Brother Andy says this, but then Brother Fulton says that.
I wonder which one's right."
And that's what happened.
And I don't know if that's exactly how it happened, but that's generally what happened in the Church of Sardis.
Is they tolerated bad doctrine instead of correcting the errors just like that.
A spirit-filled preacher or teacher, when he says something that is not scripturally correct and he is corrected by another Christian, by his pastor or by his associate or by his teacher or by his mother, whatever it takes, he will receive that in the right spirit and say, "Thank you.
I was wrong.
Now I understand.
And that won't happen again."
You correct that one error, then you don't have errors.
Then you don't have bad doctrine.
Then you don't have the church letting its guard down to the extent that there are just a few saved people and a bunch of lost people in the church.
In Revelation 3, after Jesus rebuked the unsatisfactory works at Sardis, he said this, "Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent."
Now this is the same thing the Apostle Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verses 13 through 14.
2 Timothy, chapter 1, verses 13 through 14.
Remember, we're talking about the works of men's hands here.
He said, "Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus, that good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us."
So both Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ, and of course Paul was writing under the inspiration of the Spirit of Christ, Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ both emphasized the need for the church to hold fast what they had received.
You know the Greek word there is echo.
That's the Greek word for hold fast.
So how does a church hold fast to what we've received?
Do we take our Bibles and walk around like this and go, "I'm not going to let this go."
No.
If we hold fast according to what the Greek word says here, echo, and that's exactly what you think it is, then we are to echo what we have been taught by the Lord.
That is what Paul told Timothy to do.
He said, "You need to echo what you've been taught."
And the Lord commanded the church at Sardis to echo.
He said, "You need to be sure to hold fast those things that they were supposed to echo."
Isn't that something?
The churches are simply to echo what we've been taught by the Lord.
When we read the Bible aloud like I've done a couple of times today, we are truly physically echoing what the Bible says.
So if somebody does nothing other than get up here and read the Scriptures to you, they're not going to be wrong in doing so.
However, you will probably walk away with as little understanding as you had before they started reading.
So we don't just read the Scriptures, we have to explain them.
But in doing so, we have to explain them by making sure our doctrine, our exegesis and all of those fancy theological words, echoes what the Bible says as a whole about any particular matter.
Here's an example.
Imagine if you and I were to go into a cave and I were to holler the words, "Hello!"
Because that's what people do when they go in a cave, isn't it?
They want to say, "Hello!"
And what if after a second or two, after hearing my strong baritone voice say, "Hello!"
We heard a female voice bouncing off the wall saying, "Eucalyptus!"
Well, we know that is not an echo of my words, is it?
Not the same voice, but even if it were maybe the sound of the echo turned it into a female voice, it wasn't the same word.
I said, "Hello!"
and the voice said, "Eucalyptus!"
When God's Word is not taught by a church, then that church is not echoing what God said.
It's saying, "Eucalyptus!"
when it should be saying, "Hello!"
And Sardis and other churches like it did just that.
They fail to hold fast or to echo God's Word.
And as the works of wicked men's hands are idols, the words of wicked men's mouths are idle.
I'll say it again.
As the works of wicked men's hands are idols, the words of wicked men's mouths are idle, ideally.
Then we'll pass the fire test.
And the charge that should be given to any Bible teacher or pastor is found in 2 Timothy 4, verses 1-4.
2 Timothy 4, verses 1-4.
"I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing in His Kingdom, preach the Word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longs suffering in doctrine.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine."
Okay, so stopping right there.
There will come a time when--and it's here already-- when people in a congregation such as this will not tolerate a man standing up here echoing God's words.
There will come a time where that's not going to work for them.
And it's already here, and it has been for many years.
It was so in the Pharisees' days when Jesus told them that He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament.
He was simply echoing.
He said--in fact, He said, "Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have life.
These are they that testify of Me."
He's told that to the Pharisees.
They didn't like Him echoing God's Word.
It says, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
The word "ears" is in there twice.
What does that have to do with anything?
What is an echo?
It's something you hear with your ears, isn't it?
And when people get tired, or people have gotten tired, of hearing God's Word echoed, they want to hear something else.
And so they go somewhere where they can find that something else.
Preaching the Word is echoing what the Bible says, and doing it all the time.
You know, an echo is a pretty faithful sound, isn't it?
If you stand--if you're silly enough and you have enough time on your hands to stand in a cave for an hour and say hello once every minute, that's 60 times that you've foolishly said hello.
Every time the echo will come back, it'll be hello at your voice.
That's a faithful echo, and that's what a Bible teacher ought to be.
It is so important to teach God's Word that preachers are not to be limited by when it is convenient.
If you notice in the 2 Timothy passage, the word "ears," you see it twice, Christians should always want to hear preachers echo God's Word.
You should always want that.
There's something wrong if a person says, "Well, I'm a Christian, but I don't really like all that preaching."
Well, that's all we've got for you, and in fact, that is what the Apostle Paul told Timothy to do to all of those people who go to church in Ephesus, "Preach the Word in season and out of season."
In other words, when it's convenient, when it's not convenient, whether it's for you or others.
And Christians' ears should never be turned away from the wonderful sound, the wonderful echoes of God's Word.
However, the same ears with which the wicked could receive life-giving truth are instead turned away from the echo of the Bible.
And so their ears hear other sounds, don't they?
And what are those echoes of?
The world.
Those echoes are fables.
And the word fable comes from the Greek word mythos, which is where we get the word myth.
A fable is a myth.
Now let me ask you, does the preaching of God's Word pass the fire test?
Absolutely does.
Does the preaching of fables pass the fire test?
No, it doesn't.
And in fact, it's worthy to be burned up.
All of the preaching of fables is worthy to be burned up just like the idols of the nations whom the Assyrians conquered.
Revelation 19 and verse 20.
"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet, that wrought miracles before him with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image."
Listen to this.
"These both were cast alive into a lake of fire, burning with brimstone."
What does a false prophet preach?
He preaches fables.
And where will the beast and the false prophet be cast?
They'll be cast into the lake of fire with the devil who deceived the nations, as the passage will continue telling you there in Revelation 20.
So who is the author of all the myths?
It's the devil.
And if you studied mythology in school, you learned about the names of all these Roman and Greek gods.
Listen, they never existed.
That was just a bunch of wasted time is what that was.
Fifth grade is where we learned about Greek and Roman mythology.
And I couldn't remember which one was Greek or Roman, Zeus or Jupiter, and I don't really care.
Because they're all false gods.
I had to care for my test, but that was about it.
They never existed.
And that's why the study of them is called mythology.
Think about that.
Mythos and ology.
Ology the study of, and mythos is myth.
So it's the study of things that never happened.
That's what mythology is.
The study of gods who never existed, who were worth nothing more than stubble to be cast into the fire.
So as you consider the gods of the nations being thrown into the fire, remember that fire is the destination of everything and everyone that is against God.
If it's against God, it's going to the fire.
And back in your text now, in verse 18, because they were the work of men's hands, wooden stone, it says, "Therefore they have destroyed them."
That is, they were destroyed not because the Assyrians disliked idolatry.
They were destroyed because they were made by men's hands.
And so they were easy to destroy.
If a man can make it, a man can destroy it.
They were the work of men's hands.
And so what this shows us is the total impotence, the total powerlessness of the gods of this world.
We're talking about these idols.
And we learned first that those gods did not deliver the nations, their nations, their lands from the hand of the Assyrians.
And secondly, these gods were thrown into the fire.
And thirdly, now they were destroyed.
So what are their worshipers going to do?
Do you think they'll want to rebuild those gods with new material?
Maybe they could make them flame retardant like boys' pajamas.
How silly is that?
You have to love Hezekiah's proper understanding of theology, which is the knowledge of God, theosinology.
That's the knowledge of God.
Because Hezekiah knows who God is.
And he knows what God's attributes are.
He knows the false gods of the nations were powerless to save anybody.
They couldn't even rescue themselves from a fire.
They couldn't keep themselves from being destroyed.
If you want a short course in theology 101, it's in Hezekiah's prayer.
Now let's go to verse 19.
As Hezekiah begins to wrap up this prayer, he said, "Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee save us out of his hand," that is the king of Assyria, "that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only."
He said, "Now therefore," that means based upon everything that I've prayed for thus far, "O Lord our God, I beseech thee."
And just like he did in the beginning of his prayer, Hezekiah prayed an intercessory prayer.
An intercessory prayer.
Not just an individual prayer.
See, if I ask the Lord for something for me, Lord, help me to walk today in a way that's pleasing to you.
Help me get over this, whatever infirmity I may have, or help me to be a better witness at my job.
Help me to be more patient.
That is not an intercessory prayer.
That's an individual prayer, and you need to pray that.
We need God to help us with all that.
But intercessory prayer is something that we do.
We do it on Wednesday nights.
I hope you do it more often than that.
But on Wednesday nights, we make it public, don't we?
Somebody will say, "Brother Gabriel is out on the road today.
He's in such and such state, and would like to pray for his safety."
Well, that has nothing to do with me.
It has everything to do with Gabriel, so I intercede on his behalf asking Lord to protect him and to give him a safe route, a safe trip, and all that that entails.
And what Ezekiah is doing is intercessory prayer.
Looking back in verse 15, we see his words, "O Lord God of Israel."
And then at the end of the prayer, he says, "O Lord our God."
He said, "O Lord God of Israel."
And Israel is the unified assembly of all of God's chosen people, even though they're divided now, or at times when they've been scattered like they are around the world.
And in our present verse, Ezekiah says, "O Lord our God."
And that shows that he is continuing his prayer as an intercessor.
He's praying on behalf of the entire nation, even the nation that is now Samaria or the Northern Kingdom, they were all Israel.
Just because they divided didn't make them not Israel.
He was praying for others.
And that's what an intercessor does.
He goes to another on behalf of a third party.
And in this case, Ezekiah is going to the Lord God on behalf of the nation of Israel, which includes himself, by the way.
Listen to Hebrews 7 verse 25, Hebrews 7 verse 25, where the writer of Hebrews is describing the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, "Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."
Now, most of Ezekiah's days were not spent making intercession for the people of Israel.
He certainly could not have done that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
He did it here and perhaps in other places.
But the Lord ever liveth, that passage in Hebrews tells us, means he always lives to make intercession for those who come unto God by him.
What if the Lord Jesus Christ's intercessory prayer was as frequent as Ezekiah's?
We'd be in trouble, wouldn't we?
Because he's making that intercession for those who come to God by him.
And if he's unavailable at the time, if he has office hours or something, and somebody wants to put their trust in the Lord, and he says, "Well, I'm out of the intercessory prayer business right now.
I'm on the golf course."
Thankfully, our Lord ever liveth.
He always lives to make intercession for those who come to God by him.
Now, don't let this get away from you.
Because Jesus always lives to make intercession for us, then he can save us to the uttermost, meaning completely, when we come to God by him.
And that takes anything else out of the picture, the map to the street, the falsely so-called altar here, which is just a bunch of steps.
The sinner's prayer, the good works, and all these other things people do.
He says that he saves to the uttermost, or completely, when we come to God by him.
That means anyone and everyone who puts their faith in Jesus has come to God in the way that he told them to.
They've trusted the record God gave of his dear son who died for them.
Now, Hezekiah could not always be found making intercession for the nation of Israel.
But Jesus can always be found making intercession for the Israel of God.
And that's all the believers of every kindred, tribe, tongue, and nation.
And he will continue to do so until he comes to gather his people from the earth at the day of the Lord.
And I love that Hezekiah didn't just say, "Lord, deliver me.
I'm the only one who's serving you."
No, he interceded on behalf of the whole nation.
And then he said in the prayer, "I beseech thee."
Let's look at that for a moment.
"I beseech thee."
We don't say "beseech" much unless we're reading it from the Bible.
It means, "I pray thee."
And that Hebrew word for "I beseech thee," that's one word, one Hebrew word.
It's a word that's used to entreat or to incite the one to whom you are speaking.
In other words, you're trying to get their attention about this particular matter.
The first time the Hebrew word for "I beseech thee" is used in the Bible is in Genesis 12, where Abram and Sarai, or Sarai, that was her name before she was Sarah, and Abram was his name before he was Abraham.
Abram and Sarai were going to Egypt.
They were about to enter into Egypt.
And because Sarai was so beautiful, Abram was afraid he might get killed and she might get kidnapped to be someone else's wife.
And here's what Abram said in verse 11.
It's Genesis 12, verse 11.
"And it came to pass when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife," now here's the word, "behold now."
That's the same as "I beseech thee."
"Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon."
Behold now, that's the same Hebrew word.
And the Hebrew word is "na," and we say "na," we say that for the word "no" around East Texas, don't we?
"Nah, that means no if you're not from here."
Well, in the Hebrew it means "I beseech thee."
And it was important that Abram makes Sarai pay special attention to his request.
So he said, "Behold now, thou art a fair woman."
In other words, your beauty is about to cause a problem here, at least in his frame of mind.
It was not a problem, and it was not about to cause a problem, except in Abram's mind.
And it was important to Hezekiah in our text that God hear his prayer.
So he said, "I beseech thee," or "I pray thee."
An example of how urgent that is, how we use this today, I usually do the grocery shopping, and I'm a sale person.
I find the sales, and I'm a hunter.
So if you have a store and you have Diet Coke on sale and ribeyes, and nothing else, I can go in there and get those two things and leave your store without getting another thing that was not on sale.
I can do that.
Most people can't, but I can do that, and I make it a point to do that.
And so let's say every once in a while this will happen.
My wife will call me frantically and saying she needs something from the store.
And let's say it's tomato paste, because that's been one of the requested items there.
If you don't have that little bit of tomato paste, there are certain things you can't make, or at least they won't taste as good.
So it's a very important ingredient.
And once she tells me that she needs a tomato paste, she'll often say, "Please, please, don't forget to get it.
Am I right?
Please, please, don't forget to get it."
What's she doing?
She's saying, "I beseech thee."
Behold now, don't forget the tomato paste.
And the primary reason for her call, although she'll tell me she loves me, that wasn't the primary reason for the call.
That's the salutation and the benediction.
The primary reason was the lack of tomato paste at 507 Kerele Drive.
That was the number one reason.
And the primary reason for Hezekiah's prayer was the deliverance of Israel from the hand of the Assyrians.
And of course, it's Judah where he is the king, but he said Israel in his prayer.
Now God wouldn't need to be reminded of it.
It's not that Hezekiah had to say, "Behold now," or, "I beseech thee," for God to go, "Oh, is that you, Hezekiah?"
That was not the case at all.
But it was so important to Hezekiah that God hear his prayer that he used the Hebrew word "na," "I beseech thee."
And then he prayed, looked back in your text, "Save thou us out of his hand."
Save thou us out of his hand.
The primary reason for the prayer, deliverance from the enemy.
You know salvation is deliverance.
That's what it is.
When you are saved, you are delivered from an enemy.
And that enemy could be a fierce army like the Assyrians, or it could be a terrible disease.
But I want you to see that those earthly salvations like that, earthly deliverances from this or that, those are just pictures of the salvation of a sinner.
Sometimes people don't understand what it means when you ask them if they are saved.
That's real.
I know that from witnessing to lots of people over the years.
They look at you if you ask them, "Are you saved?"
And sometimes they say, "From what?
What do you mean?
I feel safe.
I'm good."
It's confusing.
You'll see their brow wrinkle up.
That's why front porch evangelism is not the way to go.
I tried that for years and so did our pastor.
We learned a lot of valuable lessons about that and why we don't do it.
You may knock on someone's door and hand them a gospel track and invite them to church, but you can't really get them to understand salvation in a three-minute speech.
I can promise you that.
I used to go door knocking, witnessing and passing out gospel tracks, and at the church where we did that weekly, we usually did it about an hour before the Wednesday night prayer meetings.
Do you know what's happening in most houses at that time?
People are cooking or eating dinner or cleaning up after it.
That is a bad time to drop by.
So already you don't have somebody's full attention.
You're on their porch on their time and they're trying to get things done in the house.
Maybe they're tending to rowdy kids or they're just tired from their day at work.
And how was I supposed to be able to explain the gospel to them in such a short time?
Well, you just can't.
We have Genesis to Jesus classes that last about a year.
Now, it may not take a year for someone to understand the gospel.
People learn at different rates, but it surely takes more than three to five minutes to learn it.
And if somebody learns the gospel, that's if we have their attention.
And even if somebody were enraptured by what we were saying at their porch, they just shut the door and said, "Oh, I just want to listen to you for five minutes."
If they didn't understand the gospel in five minutes, I'm probably not going to get that done.
That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself, by the way.
When we teach people about salvation, we start at the beginning of the Bible.
That's where the foundation is.
That's where they learn who God is and His creation and what we did to mess it up.
We learn about sin and how sin separates us from God.
We learn about the wages of sin and the damnation for those who are never delivered from its penalty.
And until a person understands that he has to be delivered from the consequences of sin, he will not understand what it means when you say, "Are you saved?"
You can ask him if he is saved, but he's not going to get it in most cases.
And I was going to - we'll stop right here and pick up next week.
I wanted to just tell you a little bit about Romans chapter 10 and verse 13, because it has everything to do with what He has a cry of praise, "Save thou us out of His hand."
And we'll get to that next week, Lord willing.
Father, thank you for those who came, those who tuned in, for those who will watch this broadcast at a later time.
And Father, I pray you would have found us faithful in echoing Your Word today, and that that would be something we'd look forward to when we hear God's Word preached.
And Lord, that we would never be satisfied when anything but the Bible is echoed by a teacher, by a pastor, by an evangelist, whatever they may call themselves.
And I pray you'd teach us to be satisfied with Your Word and to not seek anything from this world to try to help us or aid us or substitute for the truth that we've learned.
In Jesus' name, amen.
