foreign foreign it is a great privilege for me to be here we're going to begin in First Corinthians chapter 15. we're going to read verses one through four now sometimes versus scriptures In this passage we have something of an introduction to the gospel only in the wisdom of scripture can we find so much information in such a small place the genius of this text alone demonstrates that the Bible is the word of God that the greatest event in human history could be could be portrayed in these four verses I know you've read this text many
times but if you have ceased to Marvel in this text then your heart is in a dangerous place one old prophet once said the very dust of this book is gold oh how much more those words that speak about Jesus they are foods the salvation of God has come to us not merely in propositional truth no simple position now not in laws that we must obey no simple is see it but in a person a saving person a glorious person Jesus Christ Our Lord Jesus Christ The Cry of my heart for you it's not that
you just become smarter and when people say speaking amazing intelligentious but that your heart will be devoted and not to something as small as missions not even to something as small as truth I want you devote into something much more gigantic the person of Jesus Christ and what he has done for you you killing Facebook when I pray for my children and not pray for great intelligence I don't even pray that they be great in the ministry but I pray that their hearts would be devoted to Christ if you're a young person here today you're
thinking about the ministry understand something the ministry will never fill you um Moses had the greatest Ministry possibly in the history of the Old Testament is and yet it did not satisfy him there is no such a space and I can prove it he said Show Me Your Glory really Jesus it's the same way don't seek to be a missionary I seek to be a minister seek to know him and what he has done for you and what he is able to do for you it is all about Christ Jesus from the very beginning to
the very end it is about Jesus Jesus Christ Cristo it is a wonderful and a terrible thing to preach it is wonderful because it is such a privilege but it is terrible in that it is always failure although I do not have the mind or heart of Spurgeon I can understand him so many times in his sermons he begins this way even if I had the mind of a seraphim even if I had the tongue of a cherub Smith I could not begin to comprehend or explain to men the glories of Christ as glorious Christo
Christ I care not much for religion the only thing that keeps me behind a Pulpit s is I wish that he would so enlarge your heart is so fill the heart he has enlarged that you would become a prisoner and change the chains of the love of God revealed in Christ taste and see that the Lord is him Chase now in beginning this way I want to draw back now for a moment because I want to share some things with you and then we'll get to our text I promise you promised you have already heard
things in this conference that possibly you have never heard before that doesn't make them right you may have even heard things that caused your mind to Marvel in your heart to burn but that does not make them right since the Reformation dejaaffarma we have had a small phrase only scripture is most people who believe in the inspiration of scripture hold on to that phrase they preach it is but I want you to understand it especially some of you younger folk who are thinking about being preachers yourselves one of the great needs on the mission Fields
one of the great needs in Brazil and Peru and the United States of America are you ready the study of church history I bet you didn't expect that is I want to teach you something that has helped me I also want to teach you something that is one of the reasons for any of the Zeal that is in my heart and it is as a Christian you cannot separate yourself from 2 000 years of Christian history wisdom was not born with you and wisdom will not die with you there are 2 000 years of Christian
history there are countless saints that have gone before you I numerous and many of them God has used to change the world and what I want to teach you is this you must study scripture and you must hold scripture above all other things but I want you to learn to study the scriptures in the context of Christianity in the context of 2 000 years of men and women who have studied the scriptures let's say that I look at First Corinthians chapter 15. and I come to an interpretation after many many hours of prayer I've looked
at each word maybe I know the Greek and I can compare I can look at the grammar and I come to a conclusion about what this means but am I an island was wisdom born with me will it die with me how can I know that I've truly understood this text I'll make you sick this is one of the truths that has helped me most throughout my Ministries once I have interpreted the text I go back through Christian history and I ask myself this question has anyone else interpreted this text this way or is my
interpretation new with me if no one's ever heard of my interpretation for two thousand years then I'm probably wrong if all the saints down through the ages are in agreement and they all disagree with me I'm probably wrong one of the greatest injustices that occurs on the mission field is that Christianity Sprouts up as though it were an island as though it were occurring for the first time with no connection to anything else with nothing to compare itself to sing and it moves farther and farther away from scripture yeah foreign as I began as a
young man to look at the superficiality around me and the superficiality of the Gospel that was preached yes taking the Glorious Gospel of our blessed God and reducing it down to four spiritual laws are five things God wants you to know taking repentance and faith and reducing it down to nothing more than the repetition of a prayer I began to study the scriptures and I saw that the scriptures taught none of this but everyone else seemed to be teaching it so but the help came when I started picking up old books and you know what
I discovered my contemporary Christianity was wrong not just because me a young little Prophet from the farm said so now I knew it was wrong because it contradicted 2 000 years of Christian history so before I start my sermon you need to understand this so thinking 10 days I get up in the morning and I read God's word I read seven chapters in English I read two or three chapters in Spanish I read systematically from Genesis to Revelations and then I start all over again and the scripture is my rule yes but oh how I
have benefited from the men who walked in the Old Paths how they have helped me corrected me how they have fanned my little fire into a flame um you see when you hear these things being preached by different men even if they are sincere men they're just Men music but go look throughout Christian history and you'll see that these are the foundational truths sometimes when I come to a place like Brazil before I even start I feel like I should apologize because much of the Christianity exported from the United States into Brazil has been nothing
more than heresy it should have been quarantined instead of exported and now your country is filled with much of the same so-called prophets whose God is their belly immorality is abounding in the church looking like the world acting like the world and boasting and freedoms that God never gave us doing what is right in your own eyes but you interpret the scriptures and then you ask one of your contemporary fellows if they believe the same I will say and when they agree with you you find peace but if you would go back a little further
if you would go back to the early Presbyterian the early methodists [Music] the reformers you would realize that with one United voice they would rise up and with the scriptures open they would condemn the greater part of all the Evangelical activity in Brazil Evangelical Brazil and in my country that is why we need the scriptures and that is rest of christianityism some of you have come here because you are so sincere I wish people say piano you've truly come to know the Lord possibly well but your other generation that does what is right in its
own eyes it's like you've cut the rope and you've just wandering in a sea um if you do anything in this conference a commitment to guide your life by the scriptures and compare yourself with the rest of Christianity old Christianity you are right now let's get on with our sermon first one very soon Paul says now I make known to you Brethren the gospel which I preached to you it is Paul had preached the gospel to these people many of them were converted look what he's doing he's repeating it now if we just had this
text we would say well he's repeating it because of some theological error the uh well he was repeating it because there was theological error but if that's the only reason you think then you are wrong look throughout the entire Ministry of Paul he constantly repeated the gospel everything was the Gospel when people needed to know how to get saved he would tell them the gospels when Christians need to walk needed to walk in Greater Holiness he would remind them of the Gospel [Music] what I hate about contemporary Christianity is that it has taken the Gospel
of Jesus Christ and made it this tiny little message for new Believers or this tiny little message for lost people that you can learn in five minutes and then go on to greater things like all your false prophets talk about great faith great healing great prosperity do you know eternity is a very long time I'm sorry I I've studied human nature you can only swing on Gates of pearl for so long and it becomes boring um you can only walk a few days down streets of gold and it really isn't exciting anymore what will keep
us throughout an entire eternity what will cause our joy to increase day after day after day throughout the long years of Eternity it won't be some materialistic Prosperity material it won't be ease of life you will spend all of eternity chasing down the glories of God each day will reveal in Greater measure what he has done for you in Christ Jesus what does Brazil needs a a people who understand the gospel Evangelion to such a degree that they need nothing else they want nothing else just to know Christ and what he has done for them
on Calvary you clearly Facebook and how God's glory is revealed through it the gospel is the power of God unto salvation but see therein lies another problem our idea salvation is extremely Limited basically it comes down to this some reduced form of justification foreign [Music] salvation Salvation is so much more than a month the gospel is the power of God through which a man may be justified declared righteous before a holy God but Salvation is not just justification it's also sanctification the gospel is the power of God to sanctify USA if you are an unconverted
religious person then the more you hear about the grace of God the more it will lead you to be apathetic and nonchalant about Sin Maize Valley you'll trade you'll treat the grace of God as a loophole a way of escaping responsibilities you'll live in the world and you won't treat sin seriously in a superficial way you'll say it's all been paid for foreign [Music] the more you hear about the grace of God and the price of that Grace on Calvary the more you hear that some more holy you will strive to be the more pleasing
you will want to be to him for you will hate and the more you will hate this world you might as well I want you to be devoted to God I want you to be Godly I want you to preach the gospel tonight is the gospel the gospel Paul said in his letter to the church in Corinth apologies he said he was constrained by the love of Christ what does that mean so many people look at that just completely reverse they think yes Paul he loved Jesus so much that he obeyed him no that's not
what that means it means that Paul was so loved by Christ that that love controlled him later on we're going to talk about Sin my suggestions and you may ask yourself the question why is he laboring the point of our sin yeah why is he talking about Sin so much a reporter asked me that one time he was Furious he said why are you talking about Sin Sin Sin we're gonna follow you I said because I want you to love God he said what do you mean you see my dear friend if I walk up
to Bill Gates Bill Gates and I hand him a bologna sandwich he's probably not going to be that enthused about it he could buy a restaurant every minute he'd probably look at me with disdain to this day but if I walked up to a poor third world child that was starving to death and I handed him a baloney sandwich he would kiss my hands he would follow me around the city he would tell his grandchildren about me you see that's the way I want you to be yeah I want you to have such a reality
of your sins price love becomes so real that it constrains you it makes you a prisoner I remember years ago on a campus [Music] there was this guy who was kind of the big shot on campus and one day someone told him about Jesus and he just went wild at going out preaching in the streets who was standing on in the middle of the campus the people would laugh at him his friends came and grabbed him one day and took him away they said what are you doing everyone thinks you've lost your mind and the
young man did he die foreign his love I no longer have a choice that is sanctification that is Holiness when the love of God through Christ and his gospels so constrains you said that you are his he will say a daily and you love it that way that's why Paul says he wanted to make known to them the gospels you see the church in Corinth had all kinds of problems they did not just need 10 steps to fix your church they needed a heavenly vision of God in Christ and that's what you need and that's
what I need greater and greater Revelations of God in Christo and that will be enough he says now I make known to you Brethren if the gospel which I preached to you it is preaching regard that's something I really do not feel qualified to talk about qualification I got my worst grade in seminary in preaching I mean there is such a need to all over the world for expository preachers but let me share with you something there is also an idolatry of expository preaching is and many times it is not christ-centered expository preaching centrica you
see you can teach through the whole Old Testament giving people all kinds of proper principles but you've missed the point but you do not see Christ in the gospel on every page there are people who can dissect First Corinthians 15. with the Precision of a surgeon but there's no anointing there's no passion for Christ there's no life being communicated we need preachers but we need preachers who stand in the presence of God who live on their knees we need Scholars but we need Scholars on fire we need men on fire but we need them to
be Scholars and I'm just going to say it because it's true you leave out the element of prayer foreign young man listen to me men of God are born on their knees not just interceding no simplest means but waiting at his door my spirit I love the word of God the very dust of this book is gold but I must have more than propositional truth is we must have his presence there must be reality there must be power preach preg the preaching is not one here in this Pulpit standing on this platform espeign I've tried
to look throughout church history and find a common strain between the men and the women that were used of God who were successful preachers of the Gospel um and I don't mean Successful according to Modern evangelicals I find men and women that are very different I find differences in their theology I find differences even in their ethics the one thing I find in common is this a life of prayer if you desire to preach the gospel if you desire to live the gospels prayer must become an indispensable reality in your life is Danger your weakness
is not the obstacle to your spiritual life your problem is not your weakness your problem is your failure to recognize your weakness I could go to every one of you right now and ask you are you weak and you would say of course but what would happen if I said prove it prove to me that you believe you're weak how much time did you feed on God's word how much time did you spend in prayer don't talk to me about your weakness it's weakness is the catalyst spiritual life magnificent Providence of God works weakness into
the life of the believer and continues doing that all the days of his life that is the reason for the trials it's the reason for the circumstances all of it is to create a new weakness that you might cling to Christ and draw your strength from him putting no Hope In the Flesh taking the kingdom by force holding on to Christ with violence yeah you know so many people think that a tenacious Clinging On to Christ is only for men who are strong-willed um we look at men who in women who would cling to Christ
with such tenacity and we say they're so spiritually strong no no you got it all wrong your thoughts are carnals this is the way it worksion I'm 51 years old and I'm sure that several of you young guys could take me in a fight you might never forget it but you'd probably win [Music] but there's a way in which is I could take the three strongest men here and kill them with my bare hands Como put me in the ocean send me down twice I'm drowning I'm coming up for the last time and three of
you pass by me swimming it is not in strength of will force but in absolute desperation amazing this is knowing that if I do not cling to you I am going to die and in the strength of desperation in the strength of weakness I become stronger than a multitude of men that's what scripture is talking about when you come to see your weaknesses greater and greater Revelations that you cannotes and then one day a truth that's been in your head yeah it becomes a reality I really can't you know I must have him yes we
need men who will preach the gospel singers who will expound the scriptures but we'll do so recognizing their total inability and clinging to Christ in prayer a lot of church biographers are going to be in a lot of trouble when they go to heaven foreign because they talk about he was a great preacher they talk about his photographic memory Photography they talk about his devotions is intelligence is eloquence my dear friend no one can do what he did Spurgeon was a man of prayer Hudson Taylor Hudson Taylor man of prayer George Mueller a man of
prayer George Miller John Calvin Luther I could just keep going okay says I make known to you Brethren the gospel which I preached to you your Moses which also you received which also you stand in the perseverance now I'm going to talk directly possibly to people here it would be wrong for me to presume that everyone in this audience is a Christian do you realize that the great majority of evangelicals in the world are without Christ they have prayed a prayer they made their decision and the preacher kind of declared their salvation I want you
to look at this he says the gospel which you received did you receive a ticket to Heaven that has done nothing to change your life you're the same Godless carnal individual as before did you just agree to something that a preacher told you or did you receive the Gospel Evangelion did you open your life to the person of Christ and did he come in not into some recess of your heart but into your life and Lord and since that day has that relationship grown in which his salvation has become more prominent in your life yes
and his lordship over you has become a greater reality today in evangelicalism salvation is seen in heiress tents almost as though you were getting a vaccination for influenza influenza you said the right words you asked Jesus you've received him you've been saved and if a preacher comes to you and preaches the gospel to you later oh don't worry about me I already did that what okay you already did what oh I repented of my sins I believed in Jesus I got that out of the way no no the evidence that one time you repented of
your sins is that you're still repenting today and you're growing in Repentance the evidence that you one time believed unto salvation is that you continue believing and growing Independence and the evidence that you have received Christ the evidence that you have opened your mouth and tasted to see that the Lord is good is that you're still feeding upon him today he is becoming your life the Evangelical preaching in America here in Brazil that kind of preaching sickens me is Jesus Christ is not the cherry on the top of your case Jesus Christ he's not that
one missing piece that makes everything else perfect Jesus Christ is Everything Jesus Christ or he is nothing he eclipses all other things there is a sense in which sanctification is much like an eclipse obviously you think we look at the Sun and little by little something is blocking it out [Music] taking more and more space until it totally disappears Christ comes into our life we're immature we're babes we have a devotion and a Zeals much of it is superficial there's so many areas in our life that are Untouched by him but if we have truly
been born again he will gradually begin to Eclipse all the other passions in our lives and what is Holiness you could look what Paul says here he says the gospel which you received in which also you stand up it has become the very Foundation of your life it is everything to you and you lament when your heart Strays from that truth now look at verse two one verse he says by which also you are saved now this is what I want you to look at this is why I hate Prosperity preaching is let me make
sure that you understood me I hate it and the men who preach it their God is their belly tell me this preacher follow me is Christ not enough foreign that you've got to draw me in with all kinds of lesser things you've got to bring me to Christ with other crumbs because the bread of life is not enough I would rather be in hell with Christ then prospering in heaven without him when someone truly comes to know Christ all these other things are like refuse to them is that not what Paul says he was prosperous
he was respected Jesus Christ ruined his life and he said I count it all as done when you now listen to me as the years go by I mean and you spend time in the word and you take up the night watch in prayer you will say um examining your heart years of reviewing all that Christ is there comes time when to put Jesus Christ in a conjunctive relationship with anything else blasphemy it blasphemia unless it is God you're putting him in a conjunctive relationships I am a sinner I have done things so horrible prior
to coming to Christ I should be in hell you don't have to promise me anything else salvation is enough Christ is Enough and all these preachers that use carnal means to draw carnal men into their church he was um they will have to keep using those carnal means to keep those carnal men in their church and that is why much of evangelicalism is nothing more than a circus Circo I don't know if you have ever read Pilgrim's Progress it's one of the most important books you could ever read it talks about Vanity Fair the pilgrims
have to walk through it they have to walk through Philadelphia and it's filled with all the lusts of the flesh all that is delightful to the eyes all that appeals are baser instincts it is a horrible place there's only one problem Vanity Fair is no longer outside of evangelicalism [Music] is foreign here's what I want you to see this you need you need what I need and you know what I mean a higher cleaner more powerful vision of God is Clara a clearer and more frightening revelation of me apart from Christ um and I need
a greater and greater revelation of the glories of God in the person and work of Christ that's what the church in Brazil needs a high view of God um and a glorious glorious gospel glorious glorious ha are you Christian are you saved say so I mean there are so many lost is this thing Within evangelicalism are you one of them if you are then come come up here after the meeting talk to me and please really don't come up just to talk but don't leave here lost as well say they keep here don't leave here
without Christ I played with you implodable says have I described you in this sermon are you truly Christian are you just a part of the circus called modern day evangelicalism episodes
