 And so what is cheap grace, number one. Cheap grace is originally coined by, of course, as you know this, Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1937, the cost of discipleship. And he said cheap grace was this, quote, the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. So you preach repentance? No, you preach forgiveness without requiring repentance. What is cheap? Cheap means small value, something that's of poor quality. It's inferior. It's contemptible. It's worth little. And that's exactly what cheap grace is. Fast forward to about 20 years ago, John MacArthur writes a book The Gospel According to Jesus because he's attacking cheap grace. People are saying, I have a loved one, and they say they believe, but their lifestyle shows that they're not really a believer. Can you imagine the God of the universe changes you, dwells in you, and there's no change? We used to have a slogan, if there's no change in your life, there's no change in your status before God. If there's no change, then there's no change. And so MacArthur was pushing that. And lots of times it can happen in ways that seem understandable. For instance, if you've got a daughter, if you've got a son, if you've got a father or a mother, and you know they're not really saved, you don't want them to go to hell. We don't want anyone to go to hell. And so if we're not careful, because of love, we lower down the requirements, the biblical requirements of what regeneration really is. And so John wanted to attack that, and he talked about it in the Lordship controversy. You can make a profession of faith and live a carnal life, then how can you say you're a Christian? You don't make Jesus Lord, Jesus is Lord. That's right. Why don't we turn our Bibles to Luke 14 to just set the tone. We're going to be doing some sequential exposition in the next day. Maybe tonight, not so much, because I'm trying to frame the argument here. If I ask you the question, is Lord used in the New Testament more than Savior? What would you say? Choreos is used of God 667 times in the New Testament, and Savior is used of the Lord 24 times. He is Savior, and he is Lord. And to set the tone, you can just read these verses from our Lord, and you will say, grace is anything but cheap. It might be unmerited. It might be demerited favor. It might be the most wonderful thing. It might be amazing, but it's not cheap. It's not of little value. Luke 14, 25, verses through 33. Now great crowds, Luke 14, 25 accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters? Yes, and even his own life. He cannot be my disciple. Now what cheap grace does is it takes that verse and says he can be my disciple. It's not just cheap grace. It's a deceptive grace. How satanic is cheap grace if it can take that verse and say he can be my disciple? Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. What kind of grace is it that can make that verse say he can be my disciple? For which of you, verse 28, desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him saying, this man began to build was not able to finish. What king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple and cheap grace wants to say he can be my disciple. Secondly, what is the downgrade controversy? Does anybody know anything about the downgrade controversy? I know you do. I was talking to the men last night and by the way, I was I was pumped up that the men that I was talking to knew so much about the word. And I thought it makes me love the church more because these men have been taught these men have been infected with gospel truth from their pastor. That's like to me saying, sick him to a mad dog. Somebody said to me tonight, you just preach as long as you want to preach. You've taken that as a word from the Lord. We'll talk about the cessationist deal next time. By the way, this really scares me. I'm not a scared guy, but these scare me because once this was in one of these was in the church that I'm pastoring and it was blowing my notes away. And so I wanted to keep eye contact to just move it. But they didn't have a lot of these safety things. My finger went right through and now my finger is bleeding. And so what do I do while you're preaching your fingers bleeding? Like suck your fingers. I mean, what do you do? I have no idea. So whoever did that, some big trouble. And these two, you know, you get these preacher stories. All of a sudden it's Easter and the Easter lilies are all here and I'm preaching away and a lot of visitors and Jesus is the only way of salvation. There's no other God. Here's this great Christ Jesus who lived a perfect life. He always honored his his mother, even on the cross. He's honoring his mother. And even though I didn't honor my mother growing up, I have Christ's perfect righteousness credited to me. And God sees me as if I've always honored my mother and every other command that he's ever uttered. I've done because of Christ or God sees me as I've done. And while I'm saying all that, I see this big old bug. I couldn't dodge it. I mean, it just went straight down the pike. And so I don't know what it is. This is this is this is getting scary. I'm glad I brought my EpiPen because these things are for each prayer die with a moment's notice. So what's cheap grace now? What's the downgrade controversy? And you're going to like this. You're going to when you hear a little bit in just five minutes about downgrade, you're going to type it in on Google tonight and study it more because what's happening today is almost a mere reflection of what was happening in the 1800s with Spurgeon and the downgrade controversy. And what I like about the downgrade controversy as a study is instead of just saying, well, when a high view of God goes out of the pulpit, vacuums must be filled and some kind of Arminianism or something else is going to come flying in liberalism, anti supernaturalism, it'll come flying in. And that's true. But when you see it in church history, it makes an impact. It rivets it, it rivets it to your mind. And so the downgrade controversy was dealing with a man named, as you know, Charles Spurgeon. He would write articles in a monthly journal called The Sword and the Trowel, The Sword and the Trowel. And Spurgeon didn't like liberalism. He didn't like those who would say, well, you know what? The Bible really wasn't written by God. There's all these mistakes here in the Old Testament. He didn't like it that Darwin's evolutionary theories were slipping into churches, both congregational churches and Baptist churches. He didn't like it that the principle of solo scriptura was on its way out. And a man that he trained in Gospel ministry, Robert Schindler, published an article in Spurgeon's magazine that said the church was on the downgrade. It was going downhill. It was going south. It was becoming liberal. It was becoming modern. It was being affected by the world. The next month, Spurgeon writes, our warfare is with men who are giving up the atonement sacrifice, denying the inspiration of Holy Scripture and casting slurs on justification by faith. So this new thought was coming in. Here's where the thought comes into prominence. If we're so tight on theology, our platform is going to shrink. Did you get that? If we if we're tight on theology, the five solace, monergism and and sovereignty of God in salvation, inerrancy, then you know what? We're not going to have a big platform. And if we had a bigger platform, maybe we could preach the gospel a little bit more and more people would come to salvation. So maybe it even starts with good motives. You know what? If it's just a small group, what could God do with such a small group? Numbers, attendance, buildings, cash. And at the beginning, here's the insidious nature of the whole thing. These doctrines weren't really attacked. They're just ignored. It's like with the gospel. Generation one teaches the gospel. Generation two assumes the gospel. And like D.A. Carson says, Generation three, what is the gospel? So what do pastors need to do? Well, you know what? Let's just cut off the rough edges. You know, you've got a Bible and some of these edges are really tough. And you've got unconditional election and you've got total depravity and you've got heaven for belief in Christ alone. You've got hell for anyone who will not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know what? Just it just doesn't go down very well. We need to to soothe people and Spurgeon didn't like that at all. And people started saying, you know what? This whole idea of Jesus bearing the wrath of God, come on. This was pre therapy, therapeutic days. We've got to have a nicer God, a kinder God, a therapeutic God. You mean God's angry with the wicked every day. And so people that taught that Christ's death propitiated God's wrath were opposed as immoral. And one guy who was writing about annihilationism said, I could get everybody to believe this, but Spurgeon stands in my way. I love Spurgeon, by the way. He said, the day I preach something new, you put me in a sane asylum because you'll know I've surely lost my mind. New and novel. The Baptist Union that Spurgeon was in that was on the downgrade started in 1813. And do you know what? It was a voluntary, particular Baptist organization. General Baptist means Jesus died for each and every person. Particular Baptist means that Jesus died for the bride, for the elect. And so it was a very tight knit group of people. They believed in imputed righteousness and regeneration by efficacious grace. But in 1832, only 19 years after they started, they said, you know what? Let's just we don't really need a statement of faith so much anymore. As long as we're loosely evangelical, that'll work. We're just broadly evangelical. And you know, we'd like to help pastors with social issues. We'd like to help pastors, plant churches. We'd like to do things in in cities and in rural areas. Basically, we'd like to be liberal and Spurgeon had a fit when evangelical was then dropped after that. So in March and April, two articles are written in the sort of in the trial and Spurgeon just went for it. We'll get to the Bible in a little bit. Hang in there. We'll do verse by verse next week, but we're trying to set the stage. Small print footnote, article one. Ernest attention, Spurgeon said, is requested for this paper. There is need of such warning as this history of Ford's. We are going downhill at breakneck speed. That's the downgrade. If you're not going to check heresy, it's going to grow. Where the men to stand in the pulpit to say thus say at the Lord, it's going to cost you when you do. Kim and I were just talking about it the other day. There's a couple in our church and they're both Christians and they want to get married and the church building that we are in is kind of, it looks like a pizza hut without the pizza slice up on top. And people drive by and like, that pizza hut has a lot of Bible verses out on their sign, I guess. So nobody really wants to get married at the building that we're at. I don't blame them. So there's a congregational church down the street and it's pretty stained glass, acoustics are marvelous. And so they asked me to officiate the wedding. I said, I'd be glad to. And I said, where's it going to be held? And they said, the congregational church. Oh, what do they charge 600 bucks or whatever? Fine. I get a callback pastor, we have to change to the Methodist church. Well, why is that? Because when they found out you are going to officiate, they said, my cave and draw is not allowed in this pulpit. You're part of me felt bad because I wanted to be nice to the couple, but part of me thought, you know, there is a difference. Not everybody's right. And the truth is going to offend. And of course I want to love people. But not at the expense of God's word. Is there anybody in church history that you respect? That caves in to unity at the expense of truth? Name me one person that you respect. And so Spurgeon and Schindler would go after guys like Dodridge, who would write hymns, pretty good hymns sometimes, but he was weak on other areas. Spurgeon writes another article. It says, we care far more for the central evangelical truths than we do for Calvinism as a system. But we believe that Calvinism has in it a conservative force which holds, helps men hold a vital truth. Spurgeon then writes another article. It probably would have died out, but he's not going to let go of this. Here comes the next scud. Spurgeon said at the very beginning, from the press of the Board School of Descent, what doctrine remains to be abandoned? We've abandoned everything. Is there anything else we could abandon? A new religion has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk to cheese. And this religion being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself off as the old faith. In other words, Christianity has its tenants. And so if you want to start a new religion, it's a free country, but the name Christianity is already taken. And this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching. The atonement is scouted. Inspiration of Scripture is derided. And the Holy Spirit is degraded into an influence. Germany has made unbelieving by her preachers. And England is following in her track. In conclusion, Spurgeon says, I'm going to die fighting is what I'm going to do. And that's exactly what he did. If for a while, evangelicals are doomed to go down, let them die fighting and in the full assurance that their gospel will have a resurrection when the inventions of the modern thought shall be burned up with fire unquenchable. So he wrote to the Baptist Union and said, I'd like to withdraw. And he said, love without truth is no basis for Christianity and no basis for unity. Well, in 1888, they met the Baptist Union and they said, we now believe in six key doctrines, divine inspiration of Scripture, fallen in sinful state of man, person and work of Jesus, justification by faith, work of the Holy Spirit and resurrection and judgment on the last day. Now he first say, well, that's pretty good until you realize it's too general. It doesn't say justification by faith alone. It has nothing to do with the substitutionary atonement. Nothing to do about the virgin birth. And so they censured him. They said, one, we take your resignation, Spurgeon. Two, we're going to censure you and we're going to try to spank you a little bit. And the spanking was 2,000 people spanking against seven defending Spurgeon, 2,000 to seven. Charles hadn't Spurgeon. That sounds like Jonathan Edwards. When he gets kicked out of his own church, the numbers are argued, but probably 230 to 20, you get kicked out of your own church. Co-operating with people who carve away the gospel because we want unity. I thought James chapter three said wisdom from above is first what? Pure then peaceable. I thought to myself, you know, this is a downgrade that we're in today as well. Oh, are there some neat things happening? Well, the answer is yes. But in the area of soteriology, it doesn't take a theologian very long to figure out that the new perspective on Paul, people denying active obedience. There's a problem in evangelicalism. I think it's going break neck speed. You think about sufficiency of scripture, soul of scripture, I think is being attacked. Now it's easy for us. I just was in Poland and I met with a lot of young people and in Poland, I said, you know what, when the Roman Catholic Church adds the Pope's ex-cathedra statements, when the Roman Catholic Church adds the magisterium and when the Roman Catholic Church adds tradition, you guys all freak out because you say the Bible alone and rightfully so, right? Sola Scriptura. But people in this building that we're at will say, it's the Bible plus what God told me, the Bible plus how God spoke to my heart, the Bible plus a still small voice, the Bible plus all these other internal impressions. I said, the bad news is this is going on in evangelicalism, an attack on scripture worse than Roman Catholics because any thinking person is going to realize the Catholic Church is outside of Christianity and the extreme cares movement is inside Christianity. You think about anthropology, we're in a downgrade controversy. What about men? How can they be helped? 43 percent of Americans on some kind of analyzed having a mental illness. I have a question for you. Can illness be forgiven? Can syndromes be forgiven? Can diseases be forgiven? Let's just say if you've got an anxiety problem, it's pretty simple to say, you know what? Anxiety can be forgiven. But if I've got an anxiety disease, well, what kind of forgiveness is there? We've got a problem in evangelicalism. Same thing with homosexuality. We're on the downgrade there. We fall all over ourselves to say the first thing out of our mouth. It's a forgivable sin like everything else. That that's true. It's a sin just like heterosexual sin. It is. First of all, can every sin be forgiven? Aren't you glad that Christ's death is great enough to forgive every sin? Every sin. But in our culture war, we are so afraid to say, listen, friend, you don't want to go to hell. Do you? This is not only a sin against the other person like heterosexual sin. This is not only a sin against the thrice holy God like heterosexual sin, but this is also a sin against nature. Romans chapter one, we've got issues with feminism in the church. Egalitarianism. And I'll be interested to see what happens with the Gospel Coalition because the Gospel Coalition says we all believe the Gospel, but then a lot of the other things on the outside, they don't believe. So once leadership is removed, what will happen? I don't know. So what could we learn the rest of the time? I'd like to get into the Bible and I'd like to give you some lessons drawn from the downgrade controversy that should encourage you, comfort you, exhort you so we can navigate the minefields of the downgrade today. So I'm going to be in the text and probably give you, oh, the congregation, the life pastor, they always want to know the number. How many do you have, pastor? I don't know, three, because I got about eight, but I don't know how far I'll get. So we'll just say about three or four. How's that? You know, by the way, I've seen some folks here with pencils and pens and Bibles open. You know how encouraging that is? Think about it for a second. I wanted to encourage you when you got saved, God gave you new affections because he gave you a new heart. He gave you a new will. He gave you a new creation in Christ Jesus. And what you used to love, now you hate. And what you used to hate, now you love. And now you're out here on a Friday night with Bibles in hand wanting to hear Bible preaching. I used to hate that. There's lots of reasons why I know I'm a Christian, but one is I love Bible preaching. I actually will pay for somebody to preach the Bible to me. So for those of you that didn't donate at the door, come on. But seriously, God gives us an appetite for His Word. And we want that like newborn babes, we long for the pure milk of the word that by it we may what? Grow in respect to salvation. First lesson drawn from the downgrade controversy that will help us today. While you shouldn't love controversy, there is a time to defend Jesus Christ glory. You shouldn't love controversy, but there's a time to fight. Controversy is never pleasant in and of itself. But the church is called to fight. Let's go to Jude, verse three, please. Unity before truth, hardly. I think the older I get, the less I like to fight. I think when I was younger as a younger Christian, I just like to argue and like to fight some. Now the fights come my way and all you have to do is teach the Bible verse by verse and you'll get enough fights. We have to look very far. Jude, verse three, I could go to a lot of passages, but I'm particularly going to Jude because Jude doesn't write to pastors. Jude doesn't write to elders. First Timothy, second Timothy and Titus, you'd expect to hear this kind of language. And Paul even gives some of that language. I've fought the good fight and we want pastors who stand up and proclaim the word of God and elders who barred the flock. Against hirelings, wolves, but this isn't written to pastors. This is for everyone. You are called if you're a Christian. If God has given you faith to believe in the risen savior, Christ Jesus, who has died on the cross for sinners like you. This is one of your responses. And Jude writes, verse three, while I was making every effort, beloved, this personal love that Jude had for them about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith, which was once delivered for the saints. I'm compelled. I sat down to write you another doctrinal book like Romans. But it's like when I set my elbow down to write, I hit my funny bone. You know that feeling when you get your funny bone hit? He's his theological elbow has been hit and he's just numb because there's an issue in the church and he's got to stand up. My father died 30 years ago. And sometimes I think, where's my dad when I need him? You know, I just think, dad, can you step up and can you be the one who can handle the situation for me? But once I was in a five foot in under league playing basketball and we went to one of the games and I was the center and I was going to jump as center as the five foot person. And the guy came up to me before the game, the other center and he shook my hand. He said, if you don't let me win the tip, I'm going to kill you after the game. I guess I shouldn't have lied about my height because now it's coming back to bite me. You know, you try to stand underneath the thing so you could play. And I looked over and I saw my dad and I thought, yes, my dad's there. A guy might kill me, but then he'll be killed too. And so there's my dad. Sometimes when we have issues in the church, I'm thinking my pastor, John MacArthur, where's John? I got all this church mess going on and sin and everything and what's happening. And where's John? If only John could be there. And then I think, while I'm not John MacArthur in terms of his gifts, I'm here. I'm now John MacArthur. I'm now the patriarch. I'm the pastor. You're the Christian. Somebody has to do it. You can't do this anymore. Well, I hope somebody else will do it. Somebody else, stand up. This contending is no fun. I'm a lover, not a fighter. Well, then you're a disobedient Christian if you're only a lover and not a fighter. There are some things worth fighting for. Men, if you have a wife and she's being attacked or assaulted, what would you do? You're no man if you just let it happen. So for the bride of Christ, for honor, it's built in. He said, I felt a necessity to write to you. I want you to contend earnestly for the faith. By the way, this is stated positively. This is a defense of the faith. This isn't a refutation of the opponent. Oh, that'll come within a verse. The reason will be there in verse four. But this is the kind of thing where a speech of a leader spurs people on and Eisenhower knows. If I write this letter to everybody before they go over the channel to D-day, they need to hear the speech. It's like someone's running and you're at mile 25 of the marathon and there are a bunch of people standing there with cups of Gatorade and they're all saying, go! That's this kind of word. Contend earnestly. The root word is agony. Struggle. Swim from Alcatraz. Struggle. Struggle. Once and for all. Not once upon a time, but once and for all. Coming down by God's hand. Why? Verse four. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who are long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. And by the way, they're not like God. They're the exact opposite of God. They're ungodly. And what do they do? They turn real grace into cheap grace. The grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. It sneaks in in a sinister way. And they turn grace into licentiousness. Free grace, you know. It's kind of like one of the old philosophers. This works out so well in the universe. I like to sin and God likes to forgive. What a marriage. Unbridled living. Denying practically who God is. And so all of us need to stand up for the truth. I don't mean we have to harangue people, but whatever you have for a group of people that you can influence, we need to contend earnestly for the faith. And by the way, that assumes that you're familiar with the faith, that you know the faith, that you can defend the faith, that you understand the Bible. And that's why when I'm here, I just talked to some of the folks last night and I thought, I'm preaching to the crowd but I'm still going to tell you what your pastor probably tells you all the time. Good job studying the Bible. Excel still more. Because when you know the truth then you can defend the truth and contend for the truth. If someone says something to you about the Bible that's wrong, you know what I want to do? I don't want to say anything because I go, here I go again just getting in another fight with somebody. I want to be liked. Who doesn't want to be liked? I want everybody to like me. I want a lot of Facebook likes. No, I don't. Second lesson number two. We can learn from the downgrade controversy of Spurgeon's Day and that's happening in our day. Remember that rightness, R-I-G-H-T, rightness is not determined by numbers. Only a few sided with Spurgeon. Rightness is not determined by numbers. Truth or popularity. Being nice or being holy. The truth must be vindicated. How do we determine if somebody's right or not? You know, I hate to say this but I'll make the point. We've gone so far from the audience of one quorum deo doing things for God and God alone. We turn into numbers people even in evangelicalism. I don't know why it is and I know your pastor has things like this happen to him as well. You meet a group of people. They say, oh, what do you do? I'm a pastor. You meet other pastors and the first thing out of their mouth after you say, I'm a pastor in Massachusetts and what's the question that they ask you? How big's your church? And so, my wife's heard this probably 200 times because you have to hear it, 201. I just always look at them and say, about 3,000, 5,000, I don't really count. And you know what they're thinking? I should probably listen to this guy. He's got something going on. He's probably writing some books or something. He's got a voice. There must be something good. And I say, oh, I'm just kind of lying. Probably about 300, 350 or something. I'm just bad in math. 90% of evangelical churches in America have less than 200 people. And because Benny Hinn has hordes and millions of people, then he's right. So when you see, these are related. When you stand up for truth and contend, it just could be that God in his sovereign hand blows up the church with all kinds of numbers. Could he do that? The answer is yes, not everybody that has a big church is a heretic. I'm just trying to mind my manners here as much as I can. But our view needs to be theocentric with God in the center versus anthropocentric with ourselves in the center. And I go to a store now, Home Depot, Long's, Drugstore, CVS, whatever they're called here. In the old days, the customer was always right. A couple of days ago, I got my cable TV. The guy fixed something outside and didn't fix it on the inside. And he said, he gave me a little note. Call somebody to fix it on the inside. I said, sir, well, you're right here. Would you come in and fix it on the inside? No, I can't. That's a different department. I call the people up and I'm over and over and over talking with them. I thought, whatever happened to the customer is always right. People now, I don't care what you do, go to some other store. The customer used to always be right. No longer in retail is the customer right. But in the church, they are. How can I get a church service so the people will like it? I didn't really like those hymns today. Well, I'm going to fly away tomorrow so I could say this. I didn't ask you to like the hymns because the leaders and the elders and the pastors picked these Christ honoring hymns for Jesus, not you. People, you preach too long for me. Well, that's the problem. I didn't preach for you. I'm preaching to the Lord Jesus Christ and I'm quite sure after one hour, he's not bored with his Bible preaching. Boy, I like it here. I was in Zambia once preaching and they were so fired up. Give me the truth. Amen. Then I went to another place where their culture was more, I prefer Zambia. The church is not ours. The church is the bride of Christ and true worship focuses on God, our Trinitarian God. Turn your Bible to Titus, please for a moment. Titus chapter one and again, we will do some verse by verse exposition tomorrow. I've just been given this topic and want to make sure that we just set the stage. Titus chapter one, God requires faithfulness of his under shepherds, never building empires. Retail isn't the key metaphor for the New Testament church. You know what it is? Farming, not retail and farming, you got to plant the seed and then walk away and pray for rain. Hope that there's no bugs that kill it. There's only so much you could do and when I look at Titus, this pastoral epistle, what are pastors supposed to do? Well, if the goal is to get a big church and we don't want to say anything negative, then maybe we just teach all the positive stuff. You know, our church is known for what they're for not what they're against. That is a horrible slogan, by the way. It sure sounds good. Okay, so you're not against sin. You're not against Satan. You're not against worldliness. You're not against licentiousness. You're not against adultery. You're not against homosexuality. You're not against any of that stuff, right? The only thing you're against is people who preach what the Bible says. That's the only thing you're against. Oh yeah, okay, let's not confuse the facts. Where to be known for what we're for? Christ, Jesus and Him crucified. The Lamb of God who stands in heaven. Looks like He's slain, but He's standing and anything that tries to contaminate Jesus and His Word. Titus 1, 9. I know you're thankful for your pastor, but these are the kind of men we need. Holding fast the faithful Word which is in accordance with the teaching. Nothing new, nothing added, nothing subtracted. To do what? That He may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. That's what pastors have to do. But we've run into pragmatism in our churches now and if it works then we want to do it. Forget Christ's efficiency. Forget trusting in the Spirit of God's work. Will it work for us to do this? What about numbers? That's never the issue because something works makes it right. You can do things pragmatically and it affects both the saved and the lost. That chills me right there that it can't be biblical. Numbers and crowds, when Rick Warren says never criticize any method that God is blessing, I ask myself the question, well you're talking about numbers. Why? Obedience are numbers. Anybody could get numbers. By the way, tomorrow if you bring your guest we're going to have a little raffle and then the person's going to get a $1,000 gift certificate for the person that brings the most visitors. People do that. If you check under your seat there might be an oil change certificate there. People do that. I have only one question with all those shenanigans. What do you do next week? Because you've got to keep them with what you win them with. True or false? Jesus Christ was a communication specialist. It's hard to say because you don't know the context but George Barna, when he says that he's talking about determining the need of a people, determining a message to meet their needs, he promoted his product in the most efficient way possible by communicating with the hot prospects. George Barna, marketing the church. Marketing the church? I thought the church was a her, not an it. You market it, you don't market hers. The bride of Christ, if it promotes church growth it's okay to do. I have a question, can you tinker with the methods and keep the message pure? Consumers want what? Entertainment. And by the way isn't it sad because Broadway does plays better than Christians. When I see a Christian play I usually just go oh, they're like 10 years behind. Music, a lot of things, the world does a lot better but there's one thing the world doesn't do better because they don't know how to do it and they don't know what it is is stand behind the pulpit and say I've determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Open your Bibles. The world can't do that. Once Havner said the Ichabod Memorial Church decides to pack them in with folk music and over at Ephesus they say we'll try a TV personality. At Pergamus they said well we're going to have a fiddle, a fellow who plays a fiddle and beat tap drums and blow a harmonica all at the same time. Then over at Sardis they say we're going to put on old Diana's quilting party. Come dress like they were 100 years ago and we'll all see Nelly home. Then over at Latticea Havner said they have a talking horse. I've heard one of those horses some time ago they ask him how many commandments? He stomped 10 times. How many apostles? He stomped 12 times. Some nitwit in the crowd ask how many hypocrites there are in the church and the horse went on a dance on all fours. Surveys, business attitudes, questionnaires. I like the Cambridge Declaration. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured. Including is the church faithful versus successful. Number three, number three. You cannot partner with those who deny the gospel even if you agree with them on everything else. You cannot partner with those who deny the gospel even if you agree with them on everything else. That's what Spurgeon said, for Christians to be linked in association with ministers who do not preach the gospel is to incur guilt. Yes, but if we just throw the gospel away for a while there's a lot of babies being killed. Friends, I hate abortion. Well, there's a lot of culture-war stuff to do with homosexual marriage. I think that is degrading. We've got to be careful that we don't work on greater good principles. Number four, number five. We have to be careful of not harming our views. We're a pro-family. Why don't you turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 6 for a moment, please? And we will work through this passage a little bit. 2 Corinthians 6, and to just give you a little no-co-shock, these verses have nothing to do with dating unbelievers. These verses have nothing to do with marrying unbelievers. This has nothing to do with should you start an Arby's with an unbeliever, business adventure or something. We had a chicken sandwich today is what we had, but it wasn't on Sunday, so I was happy for that. Now there can be some principles derived from 2 Corinthians 6 about marriage and business. I get that. But what's the focus? What's the authorial intent? What's the real issue? And so Paul is going to say, you can't negotiate with God when it comes to spiritual purity. There's no negotiation. And it's interesting because in chapter 6 verse 13 he says, open wide to us also. Chapter 7 of 2 Corinthians verse 2, make room for us in your hearts. Do you know when it comes to Christian embracing and acceptance and love, we open up our arms, but Paul wants to make sure that they're not going to be misunderstanding him, that you accept everybody and everyone. When it comes to spiritual association. Verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 6, do not be bound together with unbelievers. The imagery is the yoke. Don't have spiritual fellowship with them. And it's a present tense, just you can't. If you're doing it, stop. If you're thinking about it, don't. You can't hook yourself up with paganism, with liberalism, with modernism. He says another thing, not only that, he says number 2, you have to admit that this is logical, that spiritual purity is logical. And so Paul is going to use five uncommon unions to contrast things. It's going to be super logical. So let's say you're going to try to teach your kids, listen, don't mess around with theological purity. Now let me give you five illustrations of these contrasts to make it just come alive. These are unbiblical spiritual unions. So it says here in verse 14b, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? To ask the question is to answer it. Righteousness and lawlessness? He asked another one. Are what fellowship has light with darkness? I mean, a kid can figure that out. They're diametrically opposed. He asked another one. Are what harmony has Christ the Messiah with Belial, the wicked one, the worthless one? Jesus and Satan, they have some kind of kumbaya moments going on? The answer is no. There's no harmony. There's no accord. It's where we get the word symphony. There's no harmony between Jesus and Satan. Are the highest demon. And then he asked another question. Are what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Are what agreement has the temple of God with idols? Probably going to be yelling now, especially these people that were reading and had some Judaism in their background. There's no agreement. For we are the temple of the living God. Paul goes on to say there's something profitable about spiritual purity. There's something profitable. Don't do it. He says, number one. Number two, he says, boy, this is logical. Number three, there's profit here. Don't you want this? Don't you want to run from spiritual adultery so you could have this? Isn't this better as I hold this out to you? Look at what it says in 16b. Just as God said, I will dwell in them. These are the promises for those that reject unions of spiritual denominations that are apostate. I will dwell in them and walk among them. And I will be their God and they shall be my people. Peaceful relations with God and the people. Verse 17, it even gets better. Therefore, come out from among their midst and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean. And then what? There's the payoff. And I will welcome you. You give me allegiance. You say no to these other things and organizations. And I'm sure your pastor gets them. Well, we'd like to invite you to the prayer breakfast with the other pastors in town. And we'll get together and we'll pray for the community. And then we'll have a little breakfast and it'll be a nice prayer breakfast. And I think, do you know what? I could do with R.C. Sproul. He's a believing man. But this person, this particular PCA, I mean a USA Presbyterian, it's not even a believer. There's the Roman Catholic priest. There's the rabbi. And then there's some baguan kind of person or something. And I'm sorry, I just can't go. Your cause may be good, but I can't go. And then everybody says, look at him. He's the cult leader. He's out there in the outskirts. See, it's worse than Pizza Hut. It's a cult leader Pizza Hut group of guys. And look at him. Let's just get away. They're the anti-church. We're not going to go there. Don't send your kids to the VBS. Don't send your kids to O'Wana. Stay away. And we're just going to just turn our back on these kind of King James only fundamentalists kind of separationists. And you know what? It doesn't feel good. But how about this from God? But I will welcome you. I welcome you. I'm not trying to say that we should run around and saying, if you're a Presbyterian believer that we can't do anything with you, because that's not what I'm saying at all. But if you're a Presbyterian unbeliever and an unbeliever, it's like people that say, well, could we use your church building for things? Okay, I got to keep going. Number four. All right, we're in good shape. We're in good shape. Number four. See, you already got one extra one that you let you bargain for. I said only three. Now that's a fourth one. But they're more coming. What can we learn from the downgrade controversy? And if you're dying for a verse-by-verse exposition, come tomorrow. We're going to do that, too. See how many times I have to make an excuse for that? If you ever travel out of town, here's what you do. What church should I go to? And you kind of look in the yellow pages and find one, maybe, and you call them up. Hi, my name's Mike Abendroth. I just wanted to ask you one question about your church before I come on Sunday. Oh, sure. What book of the Bible is your pastor preaching through verse-by-verse this week? Now, if they're doing it, they'll say, oh, he's going through Mark verse-by-verse. And if the pastor regularly does it, but isn't for this Sunday because there's something that's going on and so fine to preach a topical message, they'll say, oh, he usually goes verse-by-verse, but this week's the exception. Number four. There's a way to preach the gospel that guts its power. There's a way to preach the real gospel that guts its power. Turn Your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17. You've got a lot of people saying, I believe in the gospel and trying to preach the real gospel. That is to say, Jesus dies on behalf of sinners and is raised from the dead. And the response is repentance and faith and trust and following. And they've got the facts right, but can you see in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17 that not only content is important, but method is important. Content and method have to be harmonized. There's a way you can preach the real gospel in a way that guts its power. We condemn people who don't preach the gospel, but how many times do we condemn people that preach the gospel in a way that makes it void in meaning? Verse 17, For Christ did not send me to baptize. A good verse to use for our enemies that say you have to be baptized to be born again. But to preach the gospel, this good news, this good news that you want to shout. By the way, when you think of good news, it's not just the message, but it's how it's proclaimed. I've got good news. If you ever gave anybody some good news, I'll tell you the kind of good news they gave in the New Testament era. There's a big battle going on and I'm a general and I send a runner to the front. How are we doing up at the front? And he comes running back and he's like, I got good news. We're crushing them. Good news. Now the way you say that is not, I've got some good news. Because that betrays the content of the message. I mean, we have four kids, Hailey, Luke, Maddie and Gracie, and to tell people when those kids were born, it's a girl. You should see her eyes. Maybe for some of you, we could use a political one. I'm not political, I live in Massachusetts where the Republicans are Democrats. So, Ronald Reagan won the presidency. That didn't go over. And we see we have this good news that Jesus died for sinners. Just think for a second how many times you sin in your past and think, how many skeletons do I have? How many of those would damn me to hell forever because they're against a thrice, holy God. That God that the seraphim are swirling around like hummingbirds. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. And we sin against that God. How many times does it take to spit in your master's face before he's going to do something about it? And he's forgiven us at the cost of his son. His sons reconciled us to him. He's redeemed us because Jesus was the ransom price and God confirmed it by raising him from the dead. And we tell this message a certain way. And here, he says, not in cleverness of speech. See, that's what they wanted there in Corinth with these philosophers. Because if you preach the Gospel in cleverness of speech, focusing on the oratory, focusing on the deal and the art of it, what does it do? It eviscerates the Gospel so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. You just got to let that sink in for a minute. So that the cross of Christ should not be made void. Leon Morris commented, the faithful preaching of the cross results in men ceasing to put their trust in any human device and relying rather on God's work in Christ. A reliance on rhetoric would cause men to trust in men. The very antithesis of what the preaching of the cross is meant to effect. I think it's happening today, except instead of preaching the real Gospel in an oratorical way, we preach the real Gospel in a way that meets people's felt needs. And people talk about Jesus' death very own resurrection, and then they tell you how it's going to fix your felt needs and fix your marriage and fix your loneliness and build a better life now. I think the felt needs approach eviscerates the Gospel. We're talking about the cross here, the pull that's used to punish prisoners. But I've got to manage my relationships. I've got to work out my divorce issues and parenting and marriage and money and worry and debt and coping with stress. Now, I know it wouldn't happen at this church, but if you put it on a conference, a Bible conference, and you say, we're going to have a conference that's going to be felt needs, finding fulfillment from the Bible, coping with stress and worry from the Bible, how to deal with workplace problems from the Bible, and bereavement from the Bible. You know what? We'll have 10 times the people. There's a way to preach the Bible that makes it seem like God's lucky to have you believe in Him. I'll just crazy about you. And if we think about it for a second, just a brief second, even though I'm super glad God saved me from my sins, because I have a lot of them. I just think sometimes I just look back and go, I just cannot believe I get to go to heaven based on not what I've done, but what Jesus has done in spite of what I've done. And I say to myself that God would forgive me. But that's not even the main reason why Jesus died. It's not mainly for me. It's to glorify the Father. I'm an afterthought. I'm just like secondary. Yes, we praise Him. Worthy is the Lamb who is slain because of what you've done for me, Lord, by your sovereign, free, distinguishing grace, I'm going to praise you my whole life. But it's not about my salvation primarily. It's about how God, the Father, Son and the Spirit have displayed glory and received glory. The gospel is all about God. He and His glory get the ultimate priority. Number five. Let's just do a few more. We're going to just keep going until 830. Do not judge a culture war by its cover. Number five. Do not judge a culture war by its cover. I alluded to this earlier, but let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter four. May I now stress that the issue is faithfulness, not winning. The issue is faithfulness, not success. The issue is faithfulness, not numbers. Spurgeon said, your duty is to do the right. Consequences are with God. All right. Let's take a look at chapter four of 1 Corinthians verse two. Boy, this is a breath of fresh air in a world of might makes right. How are we going to win this culture war? That's the wrong question, by the way. How am I going to honor God and be faithful? Verse two of 1 Corinthians four. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they must be found what? Faithful or trustworthy, dedicated, sacrificial, loyalty, not fluent in rhetoric and logic, not eloquence, stewards are to be found. Faithful, serving Christ Jesus. By the way, this is encouraging to me because depending on how gifted we are or aren't, we want to just be doing what the Master wants us to do. Faithfulness. Verse three, but with me it's a very small thing that I should be judged by you Corinthians or by any human court. In fact, I don't even judge myself. Why? Because I'm looking for the well done good and faithful servant. That's what I'm looking for. On that last day, you think if I get approval from the church, that's what really moves me? He says in verse four, for I'm not aware of anything against myself but I'm not thereby acquitted. It's the Lord who judges me. I can't even judge myself with infallibility, with inerrancy. I'm an unreliable guide of my own self. I've got one Master. And then he says in verse five, how refreshing. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time before the Lord comes who will bring to light the things now hidden in the darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. And you know what, if I was going to write this, here's how I'd write this next sentence, listen up. Then each one would receive his rebuke from God on that final day. Isn't that remarkable? Then each one will receive his what? What about the good faithful stewards? You receive your commendation from God. How'd you like to have God's commendation? Then quit trying to figure out how to win the culture war and numbers and influence and be faithful in what God has called you. By the way, if you think to yourself, how am I going to take over the world in a radical way when I'm an ordinary stay-at-home mom? Just be radical. You tell me how moms can be radical, please. By buying double diapers this week instead or using coupons, I'm being radical for Jesus. I'm so radical. Radical at home. I'm radical changing oil in the car because that's what I do for a living. How'd you like to receive commendation from God? Be faithful to do what God has called you to do. That's all you have to do. That's radical. To receive a commendation from God. Number six. Don't forget that the real cross offends everyone but real Christians. The real cross offends everyone but real Christians. Oh, I could probably say someone being drawn by the Father. But the real cross offends everyone but real Christians. The downgrade controversy, they were after substitution and atonement. They didn't like it that God was angry and that there was a wrath that had to be a swage. We're going to talk about the atonement a lot tomorrow. But if you go back to 1 Corinthians 1 verse 18 with me, the Bible says the word of the cross is what? Folly are foolishness to those who are perishing. Now think like an unbeliever just for a second. It's foolish. You mean to tell me out of 30,000 Jews that died on crosses back in those days underneath the Roman government, there was one Jew and he was more than a man, he was a God-man and if you believe in what he did as he was the eternal Son of God cloaked himself with humanity, lived a perfect life, died on the cross as a substitutionary death. He didn't die for his own sins. He died for our sins. It was raised from the dead. When Jesus said it is finished, God said amen. God the Father said amen by raising him on Sunday. If I believe in him, if I trust in him, if I repent and turn for my sins and embrace him by faith, I get to go to heaven. Now we're so close to the cross that it doesn't sound foolish to us because to believers it sounds good. But the unbeliever are thinking that's stupid because that's the exact word right here. It's moronic. It's nonsense. God's wisdom. Somebody naked on the cross. Really? That word foolishness is used in the Old Testament, Greek Septuagint. It means someone who is oblivious to their self-destructive behavior. Now we were told yesterday don't watch the Orlando news. So, since we're fallen creatures, that's the first thing I wanted to do when I got back to the hotel room. I'm not kidding. It was just one of those things where it was almost like it was a parody or something, one after another after another, and you know what? There's so many lives destroyed and murders and all kinds of things. I thought you know what? A lot of these people are oblivious to their own self-destructive behavior. And that's what the Bible is talking about here. The cross is moronic. Remember, unbelievers were crucified on crosses because they were miscreants and slaves. They were shameful. They wanted to let your kids say, like, stupid. They're not allowed to say that. They're not allowed to say any four-letter words or swear words. You didn't want your kid to say crucifixion back in those days. Cicero said the very word cross should be far removed not only from a person of Roman citizenship, but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears. You mean to tell me that the lowest of the lowest scumbag who's crucified on the cross is the Messiah? Not really a message for the upwardly mobile I think. Torturing these people on the cross mutilating even their unmentionable parts. And by the way this is really stupid because Jesus is going to try to save other people and he can't save himself. It'd be one thing if he was a martyr but he's trying to save people. He can't even save himself. This is really foolish. And then you know more I think about it. Jesus wants me to follow him and all his talk is follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me. And if I follow him, I'm next. That's foolish. There are places to go and people to see. Think about it. We can't even stomach the death penalty in America. Just over in Europe. It's gone. Coming to a theater near you. How many people do you have to kill in cold blood and murder before they take your life? We can't even stomach the death penalty and that's what the cross is. No wonder people freak out about the cross. I did some research a while ago about ways people are killed. Lethal injection in America, electrocution, hanging in the old days. But back in the old days, right up there with crucifixion were things like this. Snake pits throw people in a pit of snakes and have them killed. Slow slicing. It was called death by a thousand cuts. What if I were to tell you, the way you get to heaven is believing in the person that was sliced one thousand times for you. That's stupid. How about necklacing? Jam the tire around people, light it with gasoline, light it. They used to kill people for capital punishment crimes with elephants. And the elephants were so trained that they could put their foot on the skull and they could either slowly crush it or quickly, depending on how bad the person was. The guillotine, brazen bull is also known as the Sicilian bull, one of the cruelest methods, and they would take a solid brass, not solid, a hollow brass bull, jam the person inside of it, and they were so wicked in their depravity that they made the nose in such a way that it had musical sounds come out when the person inside was screaming because the whole thing is on top of a fire. Sawing people in half. Salvation through the death penalty. When you're preaching to people the cross, that's what you're preaching. Jesus dies. The sins that we committed deserve capital punishment. And then finally, number six, this is the last one. We have three minutes, I'll make it fast. Oh, you know what, let's just leave it as five. Let me just give it like a sub-point five. We won't even make it to six. I'm still thinking about the cross as foolishness, let's tie it in with that. Who am I? I want to talk to you about a scandal of the cross. Who am I? Serial killer. Made zombies of his victims. Put some of their body parts in our freezer. Pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Was tried and the court found him guilty of 15 counts of murder, 957 years of prison. This man said, if a person doesn't think there's a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I always thought anyway, in his Dateline NBC interview to Stone Phillips, he said, I always believe the theory of evolution as truth, that we just all came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there's nothing. But then a pastor showed up and began to preach to him. And the man said, I feel very, very bad about the crimes I've committed. In fact, I think I should have been put to death. After he got attacked in the jail, he said, some guy tried to cut my throat open with the razor, but didn't succeed. The razor broke and my neck was only slightly scratched. I believe that it was only the protective grace of our great Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, that saved me from injury or death. Attacked again later and killed. Who am I? Founded missionaries of charity in Calcutta served people for 45 years, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, received India's highest civilian honor, did humanitarian work with HIV patients, leprosy, tuberculosis, went to Chernobyl to help radiation victims. Albania's airport is named after her. She has a university named after her. She has Indian railways named after her. And she said, some call God Ishwar, some call him Allah, some call him God, but we have come to acknowledge that he is the one who made us for greater things to love and be loved. That's what matters, is that we love. Make your family one heart full of love, the heart of Jesus through Mary. When asked do you convert people, she replied, of course I convert people. I convert you to be a better Hindu or a better Muslim or a better Protestant. Once you found God it's up to you to decide how to worship him. She said, we must bring Jesus back into the homes by consecrating them to his sacred heart by teaching them to say the rosary. Priests always used to do this before and they should start doing it again. Mary is our patroness and our mother and she is always leading us to Jesus. And here's the offense. Here's the offense of the cross and this is the offensive cross that we're preaching to people as the only way of salvation. If Jeffrey Dahmer really believed what he said, he believed about Jesus, he's in heaven. And if Mother Teresa really believed what she said about Jesus, she's in hell. We live in a works world. One man said, it is the sickest part of Christian belief that their God will forgive and not send to hell a monster like Dahmer, but will burn my loving, kind, harmless, sweet mother eternally because she was agnostic. I have no doubt who is the worst monster. I have nothing but contempt for his supporters. And a member of the congregation of the pastor who went to go preach to Dahmer in jail said, if Jeffrey Dahmer is going to heaven then I don't want to be there. And I'll say it again just to make sure I'm emphatic. I have no idea where those two people are. I hope they're both in heaven. But if you're a Christian savior, you have eternal life. And if you die trusting in works and Hinduism and Mary and the Rosary, you'll die in your sins. That's what the Bible says. And for Spurgeon and the downgrade controversy, they used words like Bible, Jesus, sin, atonement, but he had to run away from the other preachers when they said I will build my church. And he'll build it through his means, the proclamation of the offensive gospel. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the night tonight. Thank you for fellowship. Hard truth as I know. But encouraging to know as well that your word is true. And I know that you're going to be there. And we're going to know as well that your word is true. And we are under shepherds of your word. We just want to proclaim it. We want to just tell people about the love of God found in Christ Jesus. How you loved, how he loved, how your spirit loves. Thank you for demonstrating your love towards us that while we were yet sinners. Jesus died for us. We ask this in Jesus' name. About five minutes, maybe a little bit less even. If you've got those three by five cards.