John 3:8
There exists a tragedy in our day…men are trying to do by natural means, that which only God can do by supernatural means! In today’s Christianity, numbers mean everything…Church buildings the size of large warehouses need to filled and thus the world’s methods of psychology and advertisement has come wholesale into the Church! Yet, Jesus said in speaking of the Holy Spirit, “…when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (Jn. 16:8).
This sermon is an exhortation and an encouragement to believers to hold fast to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the God ordained means by which the Holy Spirit convicts men of sin and brings them to salvation. In a day where it seems that those who hold fast to truth are the losers, we must not lose heart!! Indeed the Spirit of God is still at work in saving men in our day; the wind blows where it so chooses and in like manner the Spirit of God is moving here and there in the saving of souls. We must remain close to Jesus and He will lead us where to cast our nets!!
Proverbs 24:30-34
There is not a day that goes by that we are not required to take our place on the battlefield! The flesh, the world and the devil are our avowed enemies, bent on our destruction!! All around, I see the multitudes of casualties scattered across the mountains, strewn across the hills.
An urgent and pressing call sounds forth in this sermon, exhorting the Church of Jesus Christ to fight!! Oh! How so many are tiring, turning aside to take their ease, a little sleep, a little slumber; tiring in the fight. Dear soul, this is no time to be idle, no time to be passive; no longer is it acceptable to say everything will be okay!! We are in a war!! Fight we must; battle we shall…to your station soldier of Christ and take your place in the battle for victory!!
1 Samuel 17:1-54
Behold the specimen of a man...Goliath of Gath, the champion of the Philistines!! For 40 days, morning and evening, this ferocious giant challenged the armies of Israel to put forward a man to fight him. Fear gripped the armies of Israel as they looked upon Goliath's huge and menacing stature, concluding in the natural that there was no hope!! Dear Christian, what is the Goliath in your life? Will you not trust the Lord to give you the victory over this fearsome foe? See the shepherd boy David who by courageous faith in his God, brought the fight to this Philistine and took his head off!!
This message is an exhortation for Christians to overcome the Goliath in their life. Say not, I am weak and have no power; say not that the foe is too strong…who will set their eyes to the LORD of hosts and prove their God in the hour of conflict? I trust that we might be found such ones!!
John 1:43-47
Our Lord said of Nathaniel..."Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! He who searches the hearts of men and tries the inner most thoughts and intentions could say of this man that he was the genuine article and not a fake. I wonder...could Christ say such words of you and I; "Behold a Christian indeed, in whom is no deceit"? The missing ingredient and the root cause of so many living double lives today is that they are not REAL before the only one we CANNOT fool - God. Dear soul, when we try to hide our sin from God, it shows that there is no fear of God in our lives!
This message is a passionate plea for all God's people to come out of the dark and into the light. "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy" (Prov. 28:13).
Romans 1:13-16
In the day and age in which we live, an ascending cry is being heard, sounding forth from those dissatisfied with the old paths. It is a cry for the "new"; change has become the buzz word of our day, out with the old and in with the new!! Society fueled by the Western media now prides itself that it is at last emerging from the puritanical and bigoted age of Victorianism, to a new liberalism without moral absolutes, where man is now free to make up his own morality. No longer is it popular to talk about sin, no longer is it acceptable to hold and promote a moral worldview based upon the Word of God; there is simply no stomach for it! Sadly, in an effort to reach this post-modern generation the Church has changed and adapted its message; the gospel is out and clever methodologies are in. Dear brethren, we must resist such a temptation, Paul said that he was not ashamed of the gospel for he know that it was the power of God unto salvation. Paul determined to know only one thing among a people darkened in sin; he knew of only one message that would break the shackles that so bound them...Christ and Him crucified!!!
This message is a call for Gods people to take up again the gospel message and to proclaim this message unashamedly, with full conviction that THIS IS the means appointed by God for men to be saved.
Joshua 24:13-15
Brethren, we are living in unprecedented times; all around us, to our left and right, before and behind lies the world with all of its lures and attractions. To be a Christian in this generation, in this hour, in this location calls for a special effort on our part and a single-mindedness birthed out of a conviction that though living in the world, we are not going to be of this world! The missing ingredient in Western Christianity is sanctification!! We are called by God to be saints "holy ones". God is indeed seeking a last days people, even calling forth in our day such a people, who might have written across their lives like the High Priest of Israel had engraved across his forehead, "HOLINESS TO THE LORD".
Its high time that we rise up to be the people God has called us to be and to put away from our midst the strange gods and to incline our heart fully unto the Lord God of Israel!! May God give us the grace to so do!
Luke 1:80
"Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. And when I am dying, how happy I'll be, if the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee". The words of C.T Studd still live on and continue to speak to the depths of our hearts! Brethren, I believe with all my heart that God is doing a work in these last days in preparing a people for Christian service. It is not a work done in the open but one done in obscurity in the wilderness. "...the child...was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel" (Lk. 1:80). Is God doing such a preparation in your life and heart? A preparation for service? Oh! that the cry of our hearts might be that He might get the glory of our lives this side of eternity!!! A prophet is not born in a day! Those who God uses, He first prepares and trains for service. Who will lay aside their own business to seek's the Father's? Who is willing to be brought into that place of obscurity and there to lay hold on God in the secret place where no man see's, with no recognition and no affirmation, until such a time as God sees fit to send you forth into the harvest? Dear Christian, God seeks a holy and faithful vessel; will you be such a vessel?
1 Peter 1:13
The great commentator Albert Barnes in commenting upon the Christian's war against the prince of this world, wrote:
"Satan does not carry on an open warfare. He does not meet the Christian soldier face to face. He advances covertly; makes his approaches in darkness; employs cunning rather than power, and seeks rather to delude and betray than to vanquish by mere force. Hence, the necessity of being constantly armed to meet him whenever the attack is made. A man who has to contend with a visible enemy, may feel safe if he only prepares to meet him in the open field. But far different is the case if the enemy is invisible; if he steals upon us slyly and stealthily; if he practices war only by ambushes and by surprises. Such is the foe that we have to contend with - and almost all the Christian struggle is a warfare against stratagems and wiles."
On of Satan's master stratagems as a deceiver and a lier, is to trick us into thinking that the thoughts he plants into our minds are really our own thoughts so that the lie becomes the truth!! If ever there was a need to gird up the loins of our minds and to be sober in our thinking so as to discern the thoughts of the wicked one it is now!! This sermon brings out three chief areas where this great battle for the mind is fought; in discouragement; by distraction and by division!! May God give us the grace to war so as to win, through the strength and grace of Jesus Christ!
Exodus 12:15-20
Spiritually, what sort of year has 2014 been for you? Have you grown in spiritual maturity? Have you deepened and maintained spiritual disciplines? Have you been the spiritual shepherds of you home? If the answer is an honest no, then it is more than likely that leaven has made its way into your home and has begun its corrupting influence in your life, the lives of your family and the life of the Church!! In the New Testament, leaven is a symbol of sin. Due to the powerful property changing properties of leaven the Scripture warns believers of the dangers of allowing sin to go unchecked in their lives and the need to purge it out from their midst.
As we close out this year, an exhortation is given in earnest, calling every Christian to make a diligent search for any traces of leaven, beginning first in their own life, with the end purpose in view of purging their house of leaven!! May God give us the grace to heed and to act upon what we hear in this message!!
John 12:24
Set before us in the verse at hand is the key to the Christian walk! How many books have been written, how many sermons preached, giving the five-step formula to Christian success, when the essence and heart of the matter is contained in this single verse before us. Why is it that men for the most part don’t like the key that Jesus extends, but instead prefer in vain to cut their own key? It has to do with the cost of that key!! We all want the finished product, but we don’t all want to pay the asking price!! God has a blueprint for the Christian life and it has to do with an instrument of death, upon which we are to die daily. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
This message explores three areas in the Christian life in which the Christian is called to deny himself, pick up his cross daily and follow Jesus; firstly in the battle against sin; secondly in sufferings and persecutions and lastly in waving our rights as believers. May God help us not only to be hearers, but doers also!!