Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look
us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this
message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
If you haven't already, there are these packets in the back
and if you'd go grab 1 instead of a prayer bulletin back there,
they're right there at the front door.
These are the notes for the conference that'll be coming up
for the next few days. Tonight are just blanks.
You'll know why because it's more of a preaching that we'll
be doing this evening as far as a session.
But then after that, you'll find there's a lot of practical
helps. We'll be going through those.
There's no blanks inside of them.
And I will say for those who are watching online, if you would
like to have a copy of these materials, you're not able to be
here tonight or this week. You're part of our church.
Just e-mail me at pastor@mylibertybaptist.org.
I'll send you a PDF of this so you can follow along as well.
We'll also have another handout that we'll be giving you the
next couple days on top of this. I don't have it in this packet
here because it's something that you can cut and fold and
actually put in your Bible to be able to help you to know where
to find verses to be able to share with people.
Maybe if you're talking about your faith, where you can find
verses about different subjects that might come up in those
conversations. But you ask yourself, what is
soul winning? What is this idea of soul
winning? Maybe you've never heard it
before and it just sounds kind of weird to you.
And that's maybe understandable. But the Bible says that he that
winneth souls is wise. The idea of being is that when
we share our faith with someone else that we can win them to
Christ. Now of course we are not the
ones who save people. It's only Jesus who can save
anyone. It's not us.
But God does want to use us and has chosen to use us to be able
to share our faith with other people.
It's always interesting to me after being involved as the Lord
has allowed me to several times over the years, to see someone
come to Christ. Sometimes later on they'll refer
to me as they're talking with someone else to say this is the
man who saved me or this is the pastor who saved me.
And of course, I understand as they are new to the faith that
they probably don't understand exactly what they mean.
But at the same time, I can't save someone.
You can't save someone this evening.
We couldn't save ourselves and we can't save someone else.
But God has chosen us to be his ambassadors.
God has called us to be the ones who would go and to be able to
give the message of the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone
we come in contact with. And so we want to help you with
that this week. And so I really want us to lay
down some philosophy of that this evening and really focus in
one key area. And so if you go to the front of
your packet here, you'll see that there's a lot of blanks and
it says how to have a greater burden for the lost.
And you can just write some notes as we go along this
evening. And then again tomorrow, I'll
probably be down in the pulpit on the floor and it'll be a
little bit more of a question and answer as we go through.
If you have questions, you'll certainly be able to ask those.
We'll try to make that time available to you as we go along
to be more interactive that it will be tonight.
And tonight, admittedly, will be more of a sermon like we would
normally have on a Wednesday night.
But I do feel it's important for us to set the table for what we
are going to talk about the next few days.
Really, the philosophical part is why should I do this?
Why should I even share my faith in the 1st place?
It's uncomfortable to share your faith with someone else.
You're putting yourself out there.
You don't know how they're going to respond.
You might even be worried. Will they still be friends with
me? Will they shut me out or shut me
down? Will they laugh at me?
Will they ask me questions that I don't know the answer to?
And there's a million and one reasons why we don't share our
faith with other people. But there's one overarching
reason that we should. And that's really where I want
us to focus on tonight. And so we're going to turn to
Revelation chapter #20 So if you'll do that, I want you to
turn to Revelation chapter #20 Why should we share our faith
with loss? Why should we overcome the fact
that we are uncomfortable? Why should we overcome the fact
that we might feel like we don't speak well?
Why should we overcome the fact that we may not know as much
about the Bible as someone else? Why is it important?
Why don't, why do we even go through all of this in the 1st
place? Well, there's a reason.
And the main reason that I want you to focus on tonight is this.
It's because the Lake of Fire is real.
This isn't a palatable message in a lot of churches today, even
those that would call themselves so-called fundamental.
There's a lot of churches that would not admit to you that the
Lake of Fire is a very real place.
And I want us to see this evening that in life the stakes
dictate the pace. What does that mean?
Well, I'll explain you here to just a second.
All right, that the stakes dictate the pace.
Now, can I give you a very unspiritual example?
We'll start there, and then we'll bring it to the much more
spiritual example as we go on through the Word of God.
You say what would be an unspiritual example?
Well, consider the National Football League.
That's a great place to start for an unspiritual example,
isn't it? And I consider that they have
different games that they play throughout the year, but not all
the games are the same. I would give you the Pro Bowl.
The Pro Bowl has been played for years and years.
It is the All Star game of the NFL.
And for the most part, it really means, well, absolutely nothing.
Whether the National Conference wins or the American Football
Conference wins, NFC or AFC, nobody really remembers.
And because of that, it seems that the players don't play very
hard. In fact, if you've seen over the
years, there's absolutely no defense whatsoever because the
game is meaningless and they don't want to get hurt.
That's really all that it comes down to.
And so because of that, the last few years, the NFL has decided
to turn the Pro Bowl into a flag football game.
You can't even make this up because it says there's not
going to be a defense anyway, and they're not going to really
tackle each other. You might as well put flags on
the side of them and, you know, just kind of grab those flags.
All these guys are making millions and millions of
dollars, and they're grabbing flags off of each other.
Why they do it Because the game doesn't matter.
So we take that game. The Pro Bowl matters not at all.
What about the preseason? Three games of preseason?
I believe it is now that the National Football League plays
and you'll see some hustle in the preseason, particularly from
those who were on the edge of being on the team or not.
Some of them are afraid are being cut.
Maybe they were signed as free agents, they were undrafted.
Whatever it is, they're going to give a lot of hustle.
But I'll tell you, your mainline players, they're going at half
speed at best. And the reason why is they just
want to be good for the regular season.
They want to be able to go full strength and don't want to blow
out a knee, blood and ACL during the preseason.
So you'd have the Pro Bowl, which would be way down here,
and then you would have the preseason, which would be a
little bit higher than you have the regular season, right?
Well, now is the time to play ball.
Now is the time to really give it all your effort.
And as they're supposed to do, they would do so and that would
be the regular season. But then the stakes get even
higher in the regular season. What happens?
It's the playoffs. When you're in the playoffs,
what happens? You got to win every game.
If you don't win your last game, you're out.
In fact, someone just asked Mike Vrabel at a press conference
right before the Super Bowl. They asked him, do you think
this is a must win game? And I think This is why
Americans don't trust the press, all right?
Because if you have to ask the question in the Super Bowl, this
a must win game. Yes, you have to win.
If you lose, you're done. You understand what I'm saying?
Tonight, the stakes are high and So what are they doing?
They are going all out. They're leaving it all in the
field because the stakes are so high.
Listen, low stakes, what are you going to do?
You're not going to give a lot of effort.
As the stakes go up, the effort is greater.
Now, let's go to something that's maybe a little bit more
spiritual than the National Football League, but let's talk
about a firefighter. A firefighter is given an oath
that they are going to give their best to be able to protect
property and most importantly, protect people.
But if they get a call about a fire that's taking place in an
area and it seems like there's no property being endangered and
certainly no people are being endangered, they're going to
contain the fire, but they're not going to go to extreme
measures because, well, property and people are safe.
Now, what happens if there's a house fire but there's nobody
inside the house? Well, they're going to give a
lot more effort, but they're probably not going to give the
greatest amount of effort, which I would even say is over the top
effort, which would be someone's in that house and someone could
perish. If someone doesn't just rush in
there and do something that may be very dangerous but is
necessary to save the life of a person.
You see, when the stakes are low, the effort's low.
And as the stakes raise up, the effort is higher.
Now, let's get to a spiritual realm here now, because we're
not talking about the National Football League tonight.
Amen. We're not talking about the
firefighters here tonight. And I'm thankful for those
firefighters that serve so selflessly, but we're talking
about a soul winning conference. And so I want to spend some time
this evening really reminding us about what's at stake.
I think because we don't think about the stakes, our effort is
low. But when we truly understand
what is at stake, when someone trusts Jesus Christ their Savior
or when someone rejects Jesus Christ their Savior because we
forget the stakes for what they are, what happens?
Our effort is low. But if we truly understood, if
we truly had front of mind, that the lake of fire is a real
place, that eternal judgment is real.
And I know this is not a palatable subject.
I know this is not something that makes people excited.
You know how I know that I'm looking at you right now?
No one's jumping up and down about this.
No one's excited about it. But woe is it unto us if we
don't explore and examine and proclaim the fact that the lake
of fire is a real place. And those who reject Jesus
Christ as their Savior, those who refuse the gospel message,
will spend an eternity in that place, which should spur us to
action. Because the urgency is great.
Because the stakes are great, Our effort must also be great.
Revelation chapter #20 Let's begin in verse #10 It says in
the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall
be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
And I saw a great white throne in him that sat on it, whose
face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was no
place found, no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and
great, stand before God. And the books were open.
Another book was open, which is the Book of Life.
And the dead were judged out of those things which were written
in the books according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.
And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.
And they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast in the Lake of Fire.
This is the second death. And whosoever was not found
written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Now drop down into chapter 21 and verse 8, and we'll read just
one verse. But the fearful and unbelieving
and the abominable, and murderers and whoremongers and
sorcerers and adulterers and all liars shall have their part in
the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the
second death. What we see before us is
sobering. What we see before us is serious
here tonight. In fact, it's so controversial,
if you will, that there are many who would just not talk about it
at all and not preach about it at all, hoping that that would
dim the reality of what we see here.
But yet the reality is tonight that what we see is real.
And whether we preach it or not, it is just as real.
And so it's incumbent upon me as a pastor, it's incumbent upon us
to church to open our eyes to what is here tonight and
recognize although the world takes the word hell and use it
as a curse word, and the world takes the word damn and use it
as a curse word to try to desensitize themselves to its
reality. The world tries to take Satan
and turn him into a cartoon character with a pitchfork and a
ale and a smoke and a cigar. And the world tries to give the
idea that if you go to hell, it's really just going to be 1
big kegger or one big party. That that's all it's going to
be. A bunch of your pals together,
rousing and carousing with one another for all eternity.
This is what the world tries to say to dull their senses to the
reality of what we see here tonight.
But yes, Hell is real. The lake of fire is real.
We see it right here in our text tonight.
But there are those who would simply say that the soul sleeps
and that there is no eternal judgement whatsoever.
There were some even in Christian circles who would
present that as reality tonight. Even Kirk Cameron, just a few
weeks ago, has gone online publicly moving away from the
belief of the Bible that there is eternal conscious torment in
hell. He's talked about the fact that
it seems like that's out of God's character, and it seems
like that would not be something that God would do.
And it's amazing to me that there are people that would try
to judge what God's character is.
When we have to recognize that, how are we able to judge who God
is at all apart from the word of God?
And God is love. In fact, greater love had no man
than this. The man laid down his life for
his friends. God is love, but God is holy and
God is just. And you can't take the holiness
of God without the love of God. You can't take the love of God
without the holiness and the justice of God.
It's two sides of the same coin. And so, yes, some even in
Christian circles, because of their uncomfortableness with the
message, because they don't want to think about this.
And I get it. I understand it here tonight.
I have compassion on it, But woe to me as a preacher and woe to
us as Christians if because of our uncomfortableness with a
subject that we cast a blind eye toward it and pretend it's not
there. And in fact, Satan would love
that. Because as our urgency goes
down, what happens? Our effort goes down.
When you truly believe that people will die and split hell
wide open after their death, if they don't know Jesus Christ
your Savior, it'll do something to you, to your urgency to tell
other people about Jesus Christ. So I don't like this pastor.
My answer is I don't like it either.
And that's why we're here, because we want to do something
about it. That God has given a remedy, and
that remedy is the blood of Jesus Christ.
That God has given a plan, and that plan is the gospel.
In fact, I'd submit to you tonight that nobody talked about
hell more than Jesus Christ. People don't think that.
People don't believe that. But Jesus doesn't just reference
hell, He goes into it in great detail.
Consider this short list here tonight.
He says It's a place of eternal torment in Luke 1623, of
unquenchable fire in Mark 943, a place where the worm dieth not
in Mark 948, a place where people will gnash their teeth
and anguish and regret in Matthew 1342.
A place from where there's no return even to warn their loved
ones in Luke 1619 through 31, a place in Luke 16 with the
parable rather the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
I've said before that I don't believe it's a parable.
It's a real story because parables don't use real names.
And the Bible doesn't just say that that Lazarus was in
torment. But if you read your King James
Bible, you will see that it says it's the plural, that he's in
torments. And he says if I could just have
a drip of water, a little drop of water to cool my tongue in
this flame. No, Jesus called a hell a place,
even outer darkness. In Matthew 25 verse 30, Jesus
talks about hell more than he talks about heaven and describes
it much more vividly. There's no denying that Jesus
knew, believed, and warned people actively about a real
place called hell, which eternally will turn to the lake
of fire. And sometimes we use
colloquially that the term that someone will spend an eternity
in hell. And that's I understand why we
say that. But really it says here in verse
#14 and death in hell were cast in the lake of fire.
This is the second death for all eternity.
Those who die and go to hell will spend an eternity in the
lake of fire after the judgment. And we'll look at this here in
just a moment. There are those who try to
spiritualize the verses and say, well, this isn't what Jesus
meant. There's some who will say it's
just an analogy. Again, there were some who say
that's outside the character of God, but we have to take the
Word of God for what it is. And if heaven is real, then hell
is just as real. If hell is just a state of mind,
is heaven just a state of mind? If hell is or hell is something
that's just a concept but not a reality, is heaven just a
concept, not reality? But we find very firm teaching
that heaven is real that I would suggest you keep reading in
Revelation chapter 21 and beyond and you'll find that heaven is
real. But that means this, the lake of
fire is just as real as well. There's three things I want us
to see here tonight. And the first is this,
Understand the certainty of judgment of the unbeliever.
And again, you can write these down in your notes here tonight.
Understand the certainty of judgment of the unbeliever.
Look at verse #11 with me again, if you will.
And it says, I saw a great white throne, Him that sat on it, and
whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was
found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and
great, stand before God. And the books were open, and
another book was open, which is the book of life.
And the dead were judged out of those things which were written
in the books according to their works.
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and
hell delivered up the dead which were in them.
And they were judged, every man according to their works.
I see first of all here that when it comes to the issue of
judgement that it's complete, what does it say?
It says that no one has missed. It says that it's the small,
it's the great. It was the ones who remained
alive and those who were dead. It was all those of this great
white throne judgment, all those who rejected Jesus Christ as
their savior. It is a certainty that they are
here at this place. Remember book of Hebrews tells
us and I mentioned this. I feel like every other week
around here at liberty. It's been appointed unto man
once to die, and after this, the judgment, that's as certain as
you could find anything in the Word of God.
And it's certain here that there's a group of people that
come before the great White Throne judgment.
The great, those with money, those with power, those with
prestige, those with cachet, those who invented their own
religions. They are all there, the great
and the small. Those who felt like it really
didn't matter and that they didn't matter.
The small and the great, the small and the great.
That's the right way, all right. The small and the great, they're
all there standing before this Great White Throne judgment.
Really we find that the issue comes around what's called the
Book of life, the book of life. 7 different times in the Book of
Revelation, the book of life is mentioned.
I'm of the belief and I wouldn't argue with anyone over this.
OK, I'd argue with you about it, but I'd argue very nicely about
it. I'd argue that every single
person's name is found in the Book of life because there's a
time, it says in Revelation chapter 3, verse five, he that
overcometh. And if you study the seven
letters that were written to the seven pastors of the seven
churches there in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3, you'll
find that the end of each of them, there's a section to the
overcomers. And it seems to me those are
people who have trusted Jesus Christ their Savior.
It's not saying that they overcome in the sense that you
have to work to be saved. We know that's not the gospel
message, but the way it's speaking is of those who have
already known Jesus Christ their Savior.
So it says he didn't overcome it.
The same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not
blot out His name out of the Book of Life.
But I will confess His name before my Father and before his
angels. It's of my understanding.
This is just me, but I do believe I'm standing on
scriptural ground here tonight to say that every person's name
is written into the book of life until they get to the place
where they depart from this life.
And their name is then blotted out for not having trusted Jesus
Christ as their Savior. I mean this, they had the
opportunity. They had the chance that
everyone, by the way, not even what the Calvinists would teach
that, well, their names were already blotted out before the
foundation of the world. No, no, that everyone had the
opportunity to be saved, but yet they came to the place where
they have rejected Jesus Christ. If your name is blotted out, as
it says here, the books were opened.
It says another book was open, which is the book of life.
The dead were judged out of those things which were written
in the books for their work. So there's a lot of books there,
isn't there? So we've already established
there's a book of life that's in the middle of that verse.
But it says there's also books that are open.
Understand that the Great White Throne judgment, this will be
for unbelievers, the unbelievers who will be here and they will
be judged. I could imagine that the
conversation will go something like this and I, I can't even
begin to imagine exactly what this scene in its holiness and
severity will be. But I can imagine that the book
of life is opened and that person's name is blotted out.
And the question will then be, by what of your, your own works
should you enter into the Kingdom of heaven?
If not by what Jesus Christ did in the cross, by what of your
works will you enter in? And that person will make a plea
upon their life, the plea upon the good things that they've
done, the money that they've given, how philanthropic they
were, how caring they were for the poor, how they're a member
of a church, how they were partaking of the sacraments.
But yet I believe it says when the books were open, the answer
to what those books are is at the end of the verse out of
those things which were written in the books according to their
works. So your name is not in the book
of life. Well, then you will be judged
upon your own works. We could even put it this way.
If you can't be saved by the righteousness of Christ, which
is the only way to be saved, Amen.
If you can't be saved by the righteousness of Christ, you
have to prove that you could be saved by your own righteousness.
And the absolute horror of that is that every single person will
be guilty. Why?
Because all of sin had come short of the glory of God.
Isaiah 64 six. But we were all as an unclean
thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and we all
do fate as a leaf. Our iniquities, like the wind,
have taken us away. God saw me as a teenager who
would swear and like to cause trouble, like to not listen to
his parents. No, I wasn't the worst teenager
on the planet, but I was trying to get there if I could.
I was trying to do what I could wrong.
I thank the Lord on that road that was leading straight to
hell, a road that was paved with good intentions and Lutheran
works, that I found Jesus Christ, that he saved me.
I'm thankful for that, but God commendeth His love toward us in
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, for the
unbeliever. There is no escaping this day.
The small and the great, they all stood there, those alive and
those who had died previously, they all stood there.
It says death and hell were cast rather right verse #13 right
above it. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which
were in them, and they were judged every man again according
to their works. There's no escaping this day.
But I should be a little bit more precise than that.
There's no escaping this day on your own.
John 336. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
That word wrath, if you look at the 1828 dictionary, is this
because we use the term wrath today?
If I'm filled with wrath, I can tell you nothing wholly about
it. In fact, it's probably filled
with my own anger, my own emotions.
The wrath of God is not like the wrath of man.
The wrath of God is a holy wrath, if you will.
In fact, again, that definition, His holy and just indignation
for sin. The wrath of God abideth on the
unsaved, but he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life. John 336 Romans 59 just
mentioned Romans 58. Much more than being justified
now by what is blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
So #1 understand the certainty of judgment for the unbeliever
that I'll put a pep in our step when it comes to the issue of
soul winning. Understand the certainty of
judgment of the unbeliever. But #2 tonight, understand this
the clear reality of the lake of fire.
Understand the clear reality of the Lake of fire.
Now we understand this evening, the thought of the lake of fire
is unpleasant, but yet we see it's a reality.
In our text. We just read verses 11 through
13 where it said that this is what's going to take place in
that great White Throne judgment, but it says in verse
14 and death and hell again, hell being that temporary hold
in place, it is appropriate for us to say that someone can die
and go to hell if they don't accept Jesus Christ as their
Savior. However, they will not spend an
eternity in hell. If we're being technical about
what the Bible says, and we ought to try to be biblical and
what the Bible says, it says that they were cast in the lake
of fire. This is the second death, and
this is where they will abide for all eternity.
That's why it goes to verse #8 But the fearful and unbelieving
and the abominable, and murders and whoremongers and sorcerers,
idolterers and all liars shall have their part in the lake of
fire, which in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death. I mentioned just a few moments
ago, Luke chapter #16 he said that he was in torments.
I'm tormented in this flame. It says in verse #24 of Luke
chapter #16 there are many arguments for a literal fiery
hell, and I'm not going to go through all of them this
evening. That's not the point of the
message. But I will say the Bible is
clear on the issue. And it's uncomfortable to be
able to get to the place where you say this is what the Bible
says, particularly when you're looking at someone else who, if
they don't get saved, is going there.
But again, I want to make clear, the fact that you are
uncomfortable with what the Bible says should not suppress
you from giving the gospel. It actually should encourage us
to go again, Why? The stakes are high.
In fact, they couldn't be any higher.
We're not talking about this life alone.
We're talking about the life to come.
And so we must do all that we can to let people know about the
reality of the Lake of Fire. It is a place of real torment.
It is a place of real flame. It is a place of outer darkness.
I've heard people say, well, well, how can it be flames and
outer darkness at the same time? And, and certainly the way that
we look at things in this life, we would see that that might not
be possible. But I've also heard that there
are sunspots on the sun that are dark that actually could be the
hottest parts of the sun. So certainly scientifically that
could be the case, but may also remind you that God's in control
of all of those things. And if God says there's outer
darkness and God says there's flames at the same time, I have
a feeling God can do that, That we just take the word of God for
what it is instead of trying to square the circle and trying to
make it into what we want it to be.
There's a lot of things about heaven that don't make sense,
but we see it there. How are there 12 gates of 12
pearls? You know, sometimes we read it
as gates of Pearl, the pearly gates, you know, that there's
just these pearls that are studded over.
It says 12 gates and 12 pearls. That means 12 oysters that are
really big. All right, that don't make
sense, but that's what the Bible says.
But nobody blinks at that. Why?
Because it's heaven and it makes us feel good.
Nobody questions what the Bible says about heaven because it
gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling.
And to be honest with you, it ought to.
But there's a different kind of warm feeling that should be
given to us about hell. It should be a burning within
our bosom to be able to tell as many people to avoid this place
because Jesus Christ does not want them to go there.
That's why he came to this earth.
That's why he died on the cross. That's why he rose again so that
all could be saved. That's his desire to seek and to
save that which was lost. And I would argue as well that
perhaps the greatest reality of hell is not the flame itself.
The flame is real. I think I've made that clear
over the last 2025 minutes. I'm not discounting that, but
the fact that is eternal separation from God for all
eternity. Separation from God for all
eternity. See, the lost can't even
understand that because they have the common graces of this
earth. The rain falls upon the just and
the unjust. They receive the kindness of God
and they don't even realize it. But imagine for all eternity no
longer receiving that kindness. They can't even fathom what it
would be. You understand, to the lost,
this world is as close to heaven as they'll ever get.
That's a sobering thought. To the believer, this world is
close to hell as we'll ever get. And thank the Lord for that,
because this world's still pretty amazing.
The heavens declare the glory of God in the firmament.
Show this handiwork. But what I'm saying is, for the
believer, it just gets better from here.
But for the unsafe, this is as good as it gets.
And then that common grace that they have now, the idea that God
does rain upon the just, the unjust that will be gone.
How do we in words articulate that?
I don't know that I can. I just know that it's real.
And I also know this, that those who would spend an eternity in
hell, that was their desire because God kept saying come and
they kept saying no, and he will give them what they want.
In just a few moments, they'll realize it's not what I wanted
at all. Do I understand it all?
I don't. I understand enough from what
the word of God says. That ought to put some urgency
into telling other people about Jesus Christ.
Number one, we need to understand the certainty of
judgment of the unbeliever #2 we need to understand the clear
reality of the lake of fire, and #3 we need to understand the
choice of all mankind. We're all guilty before God, all
deserving of eternal punishment. But again, the good news is that
Christ desires for all to be saved.
John 317 and 18 For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but the world through Him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he had believeth
not is condemned already, because he had not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Luke 19, verse 10 For the Son of man has come to seek and to save
that which was lost. I referenced that a few moments
ago. John 129 For the next day, John
seeth Jesus coming unto him, and behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world.
The choice is real. Now if this was a Sunday
morning, I would make a little bit more of an appeal to those
who are here that don't know Jesus Christ their Savior.
And I want them to wake up to the reality that judgment is
real. Now, I'll say this on a
Wednesday night, I don't know people's individual state before
the Lord, and I'm not trying to talk people out of being saved.
That's not my desire. But I will say I don't know the
hearts of every person here tonight necessarily from the
inside out, which you might be struggling with.
I don't know who's watching tonight or listening to this
later. I will say this, if you have
questions, it is not worth taking a chance for all eternity
because of your pride, because of your fear, because of the
thought of what will other people think?
What will other people think? They thought I was saved
already. You know, I can't imagine that
if you were struggling with your salvation and you truly were
born again and you came before the church and you announced
this or we announced it for you on your behalf that someone
would come up and say, I can't believe you.
You walked around here for years and you were you said you were
saved. I don't want anything to do with
you. Who are you're a charlatan.
You're you're not. We don't want you here anymore.
That's what Satan wants you to think.
The Bible says you get saved, the angels will rejoice, and I
imagine the angels ought to rejoice and we ought to too.
Amen. If you're struggling with that
and you need to get saved and get saved, there's no person in
this room that would say anything other than praise the
Lord. You got it right.
You got it taken care of. Don't worry about that.
Don't. These are the things that Satan
puts in the minds of people to be able to keep them in the Pew
or to be able to keep them from kneeling down and accepting
Christ as their Savior. These are the things, but truly
I want us to just talk for ourselves here for the next few
moments here tonight because we're the ones that understand
this truth. You understand this truth
because you're saved. So you have to understand that
this is real. But here's the problem is that
we understand theologically that it's real.
It's a lot like we talked about with omnipotence on Sunday.
Theologically we understand it's real, but if we're not careful
has no practical application in our day-to-day life.
Well, I'm not going there. I guess I'll go on my merry way.
And by the way, thank the Lord we're not going there.
But that doesn't mean that it should never cross our thought
process for the rest of our lives.
It ought to be able to govern the way we think about the lost.
It ought to govern the burden that we have to be able to share
our faith with other people. Why are we doing what we're
doing this week? Because we all need, first of
all, to learn how to share our faith.
But #2 we all need to be reminded why it's so important
to share our faith. Because we get to the point with
this world that it just annoys us more than anything, and we
just want to be done with them. Am I the only one here tonight
like that? OK, Good.
I'm not the only real person here tonight.
OK. Because you see what's going on
out there. And it's almost to the point
that you could say something like this.
Just let them go to hell. And I don't say that flippantly.
I'm saying that that can be the attitude.
If that's what they want, let them go.
But Charles Spurgeon said this. He said, if sinners be damned,
at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies.
If they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about
their knees, imploring them to stay.
If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our
exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unpraed.
For he's saying this, if they go, If they go, it's not because
of our lack of doing what we can to tell them everything we can
about Jesus. Now understand, that doesn't
mean that every time you come in contact with someone, you give
them a gospel presentation. You're going to have a hard time
getting through the day if you do that every time you meet
somebody. That doesn't mean everybody you
meet at work, you give a gospel presentation every time you're
with them. You may not work at that job for
very long, but it does mean this.
It means that you are to show Christ to everyone you come in
contact with. It means that you may be the
only Bible they ever read. I'll run that by you one more
time. You may be the only Bible they
ever read. I mean, what they know about
Christianity doesn't come from this book because they haven't
opened it. It comes from how you handle
yourself. That ought to be a sobering
thought for us tonight because when we're just done with this
world, and again, this world is crazy and people are crazy and
it's amazing to me when I preach messages like this.
That seems like the day that I preach messages like this, the
Lord brings every cuckoo bird out of the out of the Bush to
come in contact with me to remind me, well, yeah, they need
to be saved too. They need to be saved too.
Because all I'm thinking is that person on customer service that
is not getting it. I don't care whether they go to
heaven or not. That person that cut me off, I
don't care if they go to heaven or not.
But the problem is I have to care whether they go to heaven
or not. Can I show Jesus to that person
who cut me off? No, you can show a lot of
ungodliness for sure. But you know, I can show in the
way I handle myself and keep my spirit, right, so that when I
get out of the car, I'm not so messed up that I'm not able to
be able to minister to someone else because I'm so agitated in
my spirit. It all goes together.
And the idea is, is that you and I have to truly believe and
understand. I know that you believe tonight.
We have to have deep within our heart that this place is so real
that we will do anything we can to make sure we tell as many
people as we can so that they can be saved.
That's why we're here now. We're here to fulfill the Great
Commission. We saw that on Sunday, Matthew
28, and God will empower us to fill the Great Commission.
But the same time, what's the very first part of the Great
Commission got to win people to Christ.
We got to be able to share the gospel with the people around
us. And I'm just afraid that for us
as believers, we weigh out the pros and the cons of sharing our
faith and the cons of awkwardness, uncertainty, social
stigma, All of those things weigh out the fact of that
person will spend an eternity in the lake of fire if they don't
get saved. And it shows that we have a real
misunderstanding when we're more worried about our temporary
miscomfort than we are about someone's eternal discomfort.
I'm speaking to myself here tonight.
I am. I have friends, I have family
that I have not given the gospel as I should.
I'm not saying I never have, but I have not as I should.
And again, you have to be careful because if you give it
to them every time you talk to them and never love on them,
then they're not going to listen to the message either.
So you do have to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.
If you're hitting them with the gospel gun every time you see
them, they're going to be like, hey, layoff, do you even care
about me as a person? And you want to say, well, I do
care about you as a person. This is why I'm telling you
this. But sometimes people need to see
how much you care before they want to hear that message.
I'm getting into some other part of philosophy here tonight, so I
don't want to get too far off. But I will say there's so many
people that are out there. And just because we get
aggravated or don't like them or because of any of those things,
we don't want to give them the gospel.
But I will tell you this, the best thing you can do is to keep
deep within your heart the reality of what we've spoken
here tonight because it will push you through doing a lot of
things you normally wouldn't do. You know, there are types of in
certain situations where maybe I don't want to have a
confrontation. I'm just talking about in
general. I'm even talking about the
gospel. Y'all just let something go.
If there's a situation at a restaurant, they bring me the
wrong food or maybe it's not as hot as I wanted to be.
Maybe just because of time or whatever, I'll just say, you
know, whatever, it's fine. I'll just, I'll eat it.
I'll, I'll leave it alone, whatever.
The stakes are low. But I think about, you know, if
you mess with my kids or you mess with my wife, all of a
sudden, the whole idea of not being comfortable with
confrontation, I'm going to be able to overcome that real
quickly. You know why?
Because I love them. My part, you know the food big
deal. I need to protect them.
I'm going to do what I need to do.
There are people that need you to protect them and they don't
even realize there are trouble. They don't even realize what's
up ahead. And here we are.
We have the greatest gift but there ever could be, and it's
almost as if when we get it, we're satisfied.
Well, I'm good. Aren't you glad someone didn't
do that to you and got out of their comfort zone a little bit
to talk to you about salvation? I could go on.
I'm going to, I'm going to stop here in just a moment.
But I do want you to consider for just a moment there was a
message that was preached here in New England 300 so years ago
by Jonathan Edwards, called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God. That message sparked what would
later be called the First Great Awakening here in the United
States. I'd encourage you to read it if
you never have before. You can find it on PDF form
online. There's no live stream of it
back then, sorry, 300 years ago, but you'll have to read it.
It was said that as Jonathan Edwards preached A sermon,
interestingly enough, he read it in a manuscript form.
We're not talking about a man who, you know, doing all this
kind of stuff. That's.
Yeah, that's. I'm glad you're back, Rick.
Thank you for the. I'm glad someone finds me
entertaining. But, you know, just, you know,
it wasn't a carnival show, is what I'm saying.
He literally just read it. But the power of God was so real
and the people's hearts were so tender.
The the Bible history says that people started to grab onto the
pews in front of them during the message.
People started to call out to the Lord during the message.
There were some who were in such terror.
They literally grabbed the pillars on the side of the of
the building, believing that the earth could have opened up in
that moment and swallowed them up and they would spend an
eternity in the lake of fire. Now we are such so desensitized
as a as a world now, I feel like people wouldn't respond that
way. People see so many things
online, people see so many videos and all these things.
People are desensitized. But I will say this is that the
idea, not the idea. The reality of hell as it was
preached and as it was considered by the people got
people to think. And for us, we got to think
about it. I don't like it.
If hell opened up for five seconds and we were able to
hear, to see, to smell that which was in that temporary
place before the lake of fire, we would be the greatest soul
winners this world has ever seen. 5 seconds.
But because we haven't, but because all we have is in this
book and we can easily just turn away and just let it not Pierce
our soul and conscience, then we can have very little desire to
reach the lost. I think you do have a desire to
reach the lost. You're here tonight.
I think you have a desire to reach the lost because you're
part of Liberty Baptist Church. I'm thankful for that.
Over the next couple days, we're going to help you, but I really
struggle with how we're going to start this evening because we
can give you all the tools that you want, but if you have no
desire to use them, then why do we even give you the tools in
the first place? So I'd rather invest a night
just preaching on this to be able to make the most of the
next two days that we have so that when you do go out, you
say, well, I'm not going to do it right.
You may not do it the best. You know what?
I've been doing this as a pastor for a lot of years now.
And I walk away from interactions with people about
the gospel and I go, man, why did I say this?
And why did I say this? And I replayed in my mind, I'm
thinking, how long do I have to do this until I get it right?
But you don't. You just give the word of God.
Let the Holy Spirit do it. Only the Holy Spirit could do
and trust that He can use you. He can use you, but you have to
want to be used. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.