In one announcement of what our brother had
to say, we were having a week of
special meetings, the gospel, oh, not the gospel
center, the business.
You wouldn't think after 16 years I would
sit at Northgate for 16 years and sit
at the gospel center.
Maybe it was that announcement about welcome, excuse
me, that.
No, at Northgate, our brother Linden Sheridan, a
brother that is in use of the Lord.
I don't know how many of you have
heard him.
He has a study on the tabernacle that
the Lord has certainly blessed, and that will
not be the subject.
He's speaking on the church today, and we're
looking forward to a good week.
If you have an open evening, come along
at 730 and be with us at Northgate
Chapel during this week.
I'd like for us this morning to look
in Matthew's gospel, chapter 28, and
verse 16.
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee,
into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.
And when they saw him, they worshipped him,
but some doubted.
And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying,
All authority is given unto me in heaven
and in earth.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the age.
Amen.
And just one verse, Acts chapter 1, verse
8.
These, incidentally, are the last words spoken by
our Lord Jesus Christ here upon the earth
before he ascended back into glory.
But ye shall receive power after the Holy
Spirit is come upon you, and you shall
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and
all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the
uttermost heart of the earth.
And may God add his blessing to the
reading of his holy word.
It's always nice to remind ourselves of what
the priorities for the Church today are when
they're found in the word of God.
I believe that the first priority for the
Church today is the Lord himself.
Colossians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul reminds us
that God wants the Lord Jesus Christ to
have the preeminent place.
He wants him to have first place.
And Christians, before you do anything else, before
you try to work for the Lord, serve
the Lord, witness for the Lord, you be
sure that the Lord Jesus Christ is enthroned
in your heart.
That's so important.
Everything else becomes meaningless unless Christ is Lord
of your life.
Now, he's Lord of our life when we
yield our lives under control of the Spirit
of God, and we look for that guidance
and direction for our lives in which there
can be glory for God in our lives.
So many think in terms of service being
the most important thing that we can do
with our lives as Christians, but it's not.
The first priority for the Church, for the
believer today, is the enthronement of Christ in
your heart.
Let him have first place.
I believe the second priority for the Church
today, Paul speaking in 2 Corinthians 8, verse
5, refers to the Church of Macedonia.
He says that they first gave themselves to
the Lord, that's Christ first, and then they
gave themselves to us.
And I believe today what the Church needs
is a revival of God's people in loving
care for each other.
That comes even before service.
That comes even before carrying the gospel out
to the world.
A loving interest that we should have in
each other.
One number suffers in the body, we all
suffer together.
And if there's not that kindred spirit and
love for each other within the body of
Christ, all else, again, things mean.
This divine order is established in the word
of God, and once we are sure he
is Lord of our lives, and we are
sure that indeed the believer in Jesus Christ
is a member of our body, and a
body that we love because our Lord, he
shed his precious blood to purchase the body,
the members of the body, those living stones
that go to make up that body.
And then we are to go out into
the world.
We are empowered for a purpose.
Now, godly living is one of them, but
to be a witness for Jesus Christ is
a part of this whole bit of being
a Christian.
But it's not the first part.
I'll remind you of that, and I would
urge you to be mindful that there should
be a balance here.
One might devote his whole life to a
service of carrying the gospel to the world,
and omit the first two.
And again, it would not indeed be within
the scope of God's sovereign will for that
life.
So, with those thoughts in mind, I want
us to think about the third one this
morning, our witness as Christians.
The psalmist reminds us, this is Psalm 107,
verse 2.
He says, "...let the redeemed of the Lord
say so."
Now, God's people think there's been quite a
revival within the last year or so, especially
during the time of the political campaign.
A lot of reference has been made to
the moral majority, and I suppose encompassed in
that is those believers that would be labeled
as being evangelical, those that are fundamental in
that sense.
So, we are reminded that believers in the
Lord Jesus Christ should be vocal.
They should speak out and announce where they
stand as Christians.
Christian witness, sometimes, is such a subdued, passive
thing that others can live around us, be
in contact with us, and not really know
that we're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
They've never told themselves.
The psalmist speaks out and says, "...let the
redeemed of the Lord say so."
I mean, don't keep people in doubt.
Let them know where we stand.
So important.
I've heard many say, "...I let my light
shine."
Praise God for that value.
Let your light shine, because indeed this is
a dark world in which we live.
We have to be careful we don't put
it under the bushel, and we don't put
it under the bed, we don't hide it.
We want it to be right out there
where others can see it.
We don't want to confuse anyone about where
we stand as believers.
But in Acts 1, our Lord says this
power that will be resident in every believer
in Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God, will
be there for a purpose.
Not to go out and to, in a
sense, impress others with what we are, necessarily,
but that we might be a witness with
our lives.
Now, our English word witness comes from a
Greek word martyr, from which we get our
English word martyr.
And over the years, down through the centuries
since these words were written, many men and
women have shed their blood as martyrs because
they were faithful witnesses for the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Well, thank God today we are indeed found
in pleasant places.
The psalmist says, the lions have fallen unto
me in pleasant places.
We have an open Bible, we have the
right of assembly, and no one is persecuting
us, no one is, in a sense, threatening
us with arrest because of our Christian witness.
But there's not a lot of Christian witness
going on.
Individual Christians in this day in which we
live too often have taken for granted what
they have as believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Do we really treasure the salvation that we
have?
The Lord Jesus Christ said, If you love
me, you keep my commandments.
John 14, 15.
Now, if you love the Lord Jesus, how
often we sing in our hymns, Oh, how
I love Jesus, I love the Lord Jesus.
Are you keeping his words?
Are you doing the bidding of the Lord
Jesus Christ as a Christian?
Are you filled with the Spirit of God?
Are you witnessing for Jesus Christ with your
lips and with your life?
And the two go hand in hand.
Without the life to support that testimony, word
with lips becomes meaningless.
The two must go together.
A godly life and the spoken word, indeed,
is what we need in the world today.
We need Christian men and women that are
committed to serving a risen Savior that is
seated at the right hand of God in
the glory.
So, often we're asked the question, how far
should we go in our witnessing?
Some people only think in terms of witnessing
and going to the mission field, someplace like
that.
They're willing to go out to the airport,
fly thousands of miles, sit down in some
strange place, strange culture, and there they're going
to be a witness for the Lord Jesus,
and they've never witnessed right where they were
living.
I don't believe in that person.
A man's going somewhere to be a missionary,
and he's going somewhere to tell people about
the gospel.
I want to know what he's doing right
here.
And he's out witnessing right here where he
is.
This verse says, "...at Jerusalem first."
Brother and sister, if you don't know how
to open your lips and declare yourself to
be one of those redeemed of the Lord
where you are, don't be thinking in terms
of going to some faraway place to tell
others about Christ.
There's a cry today, bring our missionaries home.
We need them here.
If there's any darker place upon the face
of the earth, and this land that we
live in today, I don't know where it
is, the God of this world, He seems
to have engulfed America.
And while we're comfortably seated in this building
this morning, and we're enjoying the fellowship, one
with another, around the word of God, Satan's
emissaries walk the streets.
They're Russellites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other cult members
going door to door, spreading their evil doctrine
and teaching.
You know, sometimes these things remind us that
perhaps we've forgotten what our mission really is.
In this area of being a witness for
the Lord Jesus Christ, it's important for us
to remember that my field of service may
be within the scope of my own family.
Are there still unsaved members of our family?
Have we done all that we can do?
And I know, and it sometimes causes just
a tremor of fear to come through my
heart, I know that the Spirit of God
sovereignly convicts men of sin, of righteousness and
judgment, and I can't do that.
I can only proclaim a message.
I can only be a witness for Jesus
Christ.
So, in a sense, we're locked up to
God in our witnessing.
But when I think about our children, I
think about members of my own family, and
I do believe every man ought to at
least hear the gospel one time before everybody
in this world has been witness to, and
witness to, and witness to, hears it two
times.
You know, people become gospel-hardened.
I don't find any comfort in that, because
I've got some loved ones, and I love
them.
They're near and dear to me, and when
it comes to the things of God and
spiritual things, they're a barn to the bat.
And I know I can't wake them up,
but I get out on my knees and
I pray to God that he'll open their
eyes, and wake them up, and shake them
up.
But I'll tell you, when you have children,
and you have loved ones that are outside
of Christ, and you think of the imminent
return of the Lord Jesus, and I see
them heaping upon themselves so much hurt and
sorrow for their lives, it grieves me.
It makes me feel so sad within my
soul.
Thank God he's still on the throne, and
we have a wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus.
As the Spirit of God directs, let us
be a faithful witness for that Savior.
I personally believe that Christians, if you want
to have a meaningful Christian life, you must
be a witness for the Lord Jesus.
If the Church is to be a meaningful
expression of that witness in its corporate members,
we must be a witness for the Lord
Jesus.
Because, believe me, the world is a better
place because of our witness.
This world is a better place.
The city of Raleigh is a better place
because of every Christian that lives in Raleigh.
I'm reminded of very sobering words that tell
us, when he that is restraining in this
world restrains no more, this won't be a
fitting place to live.
You wouldn't want to live here.
Lawlessness, anarchy, men with all of the seriousness
that's bound up in the souls of natural
men, it will be unleashed.
The Christian will dissolve in it as we
present to the world.
The fact that the Spirit of God is
still here, he is restraining, and he's ever
so patient and kind and merciful.
Our God is.
He waits.
I think about the 15th chapter of Luke's
gospel, and we have accounts of some things
that were lost there.
There was a lost sheep, and when he
went out and he found that sheep and
brought it home, everyone rejoiced with him because
that which was lost had been found.
There's more rejoicing in heaven over one that
has been lost than all of the 19
nuns that are safely within the fold.
We think about that woman that lost a
coin she searched diligently for it, and when
it was found, it was rejoicing.
Then we think about the prodigal son, and
all of us, in a sense, have been
prodigals.
We ought to be able to understand this.
Went away from home, did so many things
that you just detest when you think about
it, and finally made his way back home.
That was the father waiting for him.
And it was rejoicing.
This is my son that was dead, and
now he's found.
He's alive underneath.
Well, you know, perhaps the reason today there
are so many joyless Christians.
They're not witnessing.
They're not telling others about the Lord Jesus.
I know that David, in Psalm 51, says,
"...restore unto me the joy of thy salvation."
Brother and sister, when you get the joy
of God's salvation in your soul, you're not
going to tell somebody about it.
Then will I go out and I will
tell sinners about the Lord Jesus.
You know, this may be some of this
limited feeling about being a Christian and being
a witness for Christ.
Too often there's no more joy associated with
it.
We're just going through the motions, and we
love each other and we love the Lord.
We're not fulfilling this divine commission, the joy
of God's salvation.
Do you ever savor the sweetness of it?
Do you ever say to yourself, oh, thank
God I'm saved.
I'm on my way to heaven.
It just thrills my soul.
I know what I deserve, but I'm not
going to get there.
I'm already seated together in heavenly places in
Christ.
That's how sure I am of my salvation.
Positionally, I'm just as good as already there.
He sees me there in Christ.
Not because I'm there, not because I deserve
it, but do you appreciate it?
Does it mean something to you?
Is it an expression of gratitude that flows
out of that life of yours as a
Christian?
The Lord Jesus looked out on those fields
of wheat that were white under harvest.
You look out on those people coming from
that village way there on the hill, and
he could say, the fields, they're white under
harvest.
He'd spoken to a woman, met her knees,
she'd gone back into that place and she
told other men and other people about the
Lord Jesus, and they had to come and
see for themselves.
Are you excited enough about your salvation to
go and share it with someone else?
That's the bottom line.
You're no longer excited about it?
There's no joy in your soul over being
saved?
It's not likely you'll tell anybody.
You'll just say, I accept the status quo.
We meet together, we have lovely Christian fellowship
together.
We meet around the word of God.
We're thrilled by those things that come from
the word of God to refresh my soul.
Praise God for that.
But we never go out.
We never go out into this world.
If we're going to be dependent upon the
preaching from the pulpit to carry the gospel
to this world, we might as well forget
it.
I thank God for the media today.
Thank God for Brother McNeil on the radio.
My, he reaches many people.
You'd be surprised how many people tell me
they hear Brother McNeil.
And they hear many others on the radio
and on television, as much as I dislike
television, that there are those that are faithfully
proclaiming the gospel of the Lord Jesus over
television.
God's using it.
In a sense, he's using it because God's
people very often are derelict in their responsibility
to go out and tell others about Christ,
those early disciples.
After the Lord had given them their instructions,
and they went out, and you can just
draw concentric circles around Jerusalem, and they just
went out, and they went out, and they
went out.
And the Apostle Paul, I'll tell you, he's
an example to all of us.
That was a fellow that really had that
burning joy in his soul, and he knew
what he'd been delivered from.
He'd been delivered from religion, I'll tell you
that.
He'd had enough of that religion, too.
He had lived zealously his life as a
Jew, as a Pharisee.
His commitment to Jesus Christ and his gratitude
to God for what he has sovereignly done
in his own soul.
I can't say here, I can't say here,
I've got to go and tell others about
this wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus.
He did go, too.
You read the book of the Acts tirelessly,
and he didn't do it sitting in the
back of a cattle like you, often walking
along rocky pathways, sailing on stormy seas.
But that desire to fulfill that divine commission
that is burnished way into his soul, I
must, I must.
And the Apostle Paul was a joyous Christian.
He had real joy in his soul.
So, if we as Christians want to have
the joy of God in our souls, we've
got to tell someone else about this wonderful
salvation.
I want to tell you what the Lord
Jesus has done for me since the last
time you told anyone about the Lord Jesus.
I can't speak to people.
I'll tell you, there's such an abundance of
good Christian gospel tracts today.
We don't have to say much.
The printed page, and that has indeed done
a fruitful field of work to go out
and to distribute the word of God.
How many testimonies do we hear of people,
as I said, quietly reading and meditating upon
the contents of that little piece of paper?
Well, the Spirit of God came upon me,
convicted me of my sins, and I received
the only provision that God has ever made
for salvation, the Lord Jesus, and I accepted
it.
How many testimonies have you heard like that?
We have many that were saved through reading
gospel tracts.
Use them!
You've got them in your tract rack.
I see them, and use them for the
glory of God.
The Apostle Paul, when he wrote the book
of Romans, he addressed himself, of course, to
that which is basic to our faith as
Christians, that we are justified by faith in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bless nothing, bless nothing.
You don't need anything else.
The Apostle Paul could say, there is no
difference.
We have all sinned and come short of
the glory of God, but we have to
admit there are differences in people.
They look different, they dress different, they have
different stations in life.
But when it comes to this matter of
all being sinners, we are all alike, brother.
We are all in the same boat.
You may not admit it, you may not
think of yourself as being defiled and unsuitable
for the presence of God, but if you've
never received Christ, you're not fit for God's
presence.
The only ones that will ever come into
his holy presence and be accepted are those
that are accepted in his beloved Son.
You see, the provision that Christ has made
is so adequate.
When he hung upon that cross, when in
the depths of his soul, he that knew
no sin, the sinless Son of God, he
is our substitute.
He bore the brunt of the wrath and
judgment of God that I deserve.
He did it because he loved us.
He did it to carry out perfectly the
will of a holy and a righteous God.
He provided salvation for me.
The pressure shed blood of the Lord Jesus,
shed before sin.
Let us share with others the message of
the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
Paul says, man, that's the power of God
and the salvation.
Paul believed the gospel.
He said, I'm not ashamed of it.
I've known brethren that you mention the gospel,
you talk just a little bit about it
in mixed company, and they seem to want
to shrink into the corner.
I know some people are just naturally timid,
but they shrink away from this thought of
being openly associated with the gospel.
After all, not everyone is very favorably inclined
to believe the gospel.
So what?
Paul says, it is still the power of
God and the salvation for every man that
believes it.
You just believe it.
What is that gospel?
It's the truth that Jesus Christ, God's Son
who came from heaven's glory down to this
earth, he died upon a cross for our
sakes.
He was buried and he was raised again,
all according to the scriptures, says Paul in
1 Corinthians 15.
That's the gospel.
That's the good news.
God loved us, Christ died for us.
Christians, we have a glorious message to share
with the world.
You know, I don't want to absolve myself
of any responsibility in carrying that message, but
you know I'm not responsible for results.
I don't have to keep the book.
God writes down.
All I have to do is just do
what I'm supposed to do.
God keeps the record, and I don't have
to say, oh I failed, that person didn't
receive the message.
I'll leave that with God.
My responsibility is to be a witness for
the Lord Jesus, to give him the gospel.
I leave the rest with the Lord.
I'm not going to fret about it.
I'm not going to worry about it.
That's God's part.
I'm just doing my part.
Angels could do a much better job, but
he entrusts you and me, poor sinners, saved
by the grace of God.
He entrusts with us that privilege of carrying
the gospel to the world in which we
live.
A wonderful privilege.
It's all bound up.
In the gospel, it's Christ.
You hear a lot about power.
If you watch as that space ship went
out into space just the other day, I
don't know how many pounds of thrust that
it took to launch that thing, but a
whole lot.
There it went forward around in space.
Tremendous power.
I know a friend of mine that is
a great hunter, and he uses a bow.
He knows exactly how much to pull, how
many pounds to put on that thing that
he kills.
Well, go to his trophy room, there's bear,
there's elk, deer, whatever, all over the place.
And he knows the power of this instrument,
his bow, that he kills all these animals
with.
I don't.
I don't want to.
But he knows and he felt that power,
and we felt the power of the gospel,
and we know what it does.
That power that's unleashed by the Spirit of
God upon our souls, what it does, it
changes, it revolutionizes lives.
It takes us out of the fear of
death into the fear of life in front.
I'll tell you, that's a dramatic change.
But that power, though.
Christians know that power.
They experience that power in their own lives.
You're going to keep it locked up in
your life, your little life?
Never be any demonstration of that power as
you live day by day in this world
that is filled with so much, the greed,
so many broken hearts, so many lonely people,
so many that are just groping in spiritual
darkness.
We need to share the power of the
gospel of Jesus Christ with this world as
never before.
And try it just so in a day.
We want a challenge.
We want something that'll really thrill you sometimes.
It doesn't hurt Christians to get doors slammed
in their faces.
It's a good experience.
You think about the Lord Jesus?
You think about Paul?
I think they had that experience of being
rejected.
It doesn't hurt us to be rejected once
in a while.
It does us good.
So, we know that we're suffering for righteousness'
sake.
Knock on a few doors.
Go through the neighborhood.
The cults are doing it.
There's some gospel tracts.
I just want to let you know, I'm
your neighbor.
I'm your friend.
I want you to know, I know Jesus
Christ is my Savior and share it with
that neighbor.
You want an exciting experience?
You want to have something happen to you,
make your heart flutter a little bit?
Try that.
You'll be fulfilling God's will and way for
your life.
Our Lord Jesus says, be a witness in
this world.
I'm so thankful that the scriptures point out
that there's not a multitude of ways to
come to God.
There may be many, many a pathway, diverse
in its meaning, that leads to Christ.
There's only one way to come to God,
and that's through the Lord Jesus.
He says, I am the way, the truth,
and the life, and no man can come
to the Father except by me.
If you're going to come to God, you're
going to come God's way.
I personally believe you'll come in God's time.
That doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to
witness for the Savior.
But listen, there's only one way to be
a Christian.
There's only one way to find acceptance with
God and His truth, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is that solid rock.
You've heard the old expression, anything else that
presents itself as being solid ground is a
shamrock.
Christians are men and women that have personally
accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Christians that believe and love the Lord Jesus
and obey His command are those that go
out and witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And there are no excuses, brother, no excuses.
We've got more spare time, we have more
leisure time than we've ever had, or shorter
work weeks, and all of those things.
And perhaps less and less personal witnessing by
evangelical Christians in the world today than ever
before.
Soft living, a lot of leisure time has
not promoted, when in this land we live
in, a vital witness for Jesus Christ through
God's people.
They become soft.
They sit at home and look at television.
They run around the countryside.
They do all sorts of things.
And I know when they go to the
beach and go to the lake and all
those other things, I've never seen any of
them witnessing for the Lord and passing out
traps or doing anything else.
A brother told me one time we went
fishing and I had some traps and I
was going to hand them out.
He said, brother, I didn't come down here
to witness, I come down here to fish.
And I say, I didn't use a lot
of time.
Well, think about it.
I believe it's clearly set forth in the
word of God.
If we want to really rejoice in our
souls and enjoy God's salvation, restore unto me
the joy of thy salvation, O God, when
you do, I'll go out and I'll tell
others about the Lord Jesus and poor sinners
and bring down Satan's stronghold.
God of this world has blinded the minds
of those that do not believe.
Brother, we've got the weapons.
We've got what we need to defeat Satan.
Let's use it and use it for God's
glory.
Shall we pray?
Our Father in Heaven, we do bow in
our presence this day and give thanks to
thee for the Lord Jesus.
We thank thee for that day that you
awakened this poor sinner's heart.
We thank thee for the day that the
Spirit of God came upon me and broke
me down and humbled me so thankful today
that I bowed my knees and confessed with
the tongue that Jesus is Lord.
And O God, help me today and help
everyone in this room that knows the Lord
Jesus to go out and to share him
with this world.
For we ask this in his lovely name.
Amen.
Father, do you have a hymn?