It's good to see everybody this
evening. I pray that the Lord would bless us as we read his
word together. I'd like for you to take your
Bibles, if you would, and turn with me to the book of Acts.
Acts chapter one. Acts chapter one, verse number
eight. Our Lord here in speaking to
the disciples and the apostles, in verse eight says, but ye shall
receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.
And ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in
all Judea and in Samaria, and into the uttermost parts of the
earth. The companion verse to this,
and I'm gonna talk about witness this evening. The companion verse
along the same line in Mark 16, 15 says, and he said unto them,
go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. The church, the church, the Greek
name for the church is Ecclesia. It means the called out. This church, then, is what? It's the called out. Who are
the called out? There are people. There are the
people that I stand here and look out at. You are the called
out. The gospel was commissioned to
the church. The gospel was commissioned to
the called out, both collectively and individually. Collectively
in that we support missionaries, we send out missionaries, and
also, Individually, that means every one of us. And what he
says here in this text is a command. We are commanded to be witnesses. What is being a witness? It is
to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This message, the very thought of this being
a witness was pressed upon my heart this week. in an incident
that happened to me, and I'm not gonna elaborate on it. No
need to that. But it really came to my heart
on the importance of this witness of God's people. I was listening
here a while back to a couple of sermons by Ralph Barnhart,
and some of you have possibly listened to Rolf Barnard on Sermon
Audio. He was an evangelist that preached
in the 50s and 60s, and he was literally, I think the history
says that he preached, he had a church. He pastored a church
for a while, but then he took up evangelism, going on the road
with the gospel, preaching. Now he was not a fire and brimstone
type of preacher, but he was one that preached repentance
and believed in the gospel, and he was heavily into repentance.
And some of you may remember, and I was trying to think back,
he preached here. And I'm thinking it was sometime
between 1965 and 1967. And his sermons on sermon audio,
from what I read, most of them were recorded at Henry Mahan's
church at 13th Street years ago. Bartered in two of these sermons,
I listened to two different ones, and one of them, he said this, speaking of the called out, you,
I, We, he says, we are not spectators. Not paying someone else to preach,
but every member preaching in fellowship and partnership. In other words, we're not to
leave the preaching here at this church to Marvin Stoniker alone. We have a work right here in
the midst of Katy, West Virginia. There are a lot of unsafe people
here. We know that because we look
here and there's hardly anybody here. I mean, as far as the whole
population goes. We are commanded to go forth
and preach the gospel. But the message that really struck
me was the one that he preached And this is the truth, and I
want you to listen to this. This is the second message that
I heard him preach. His sermon, he titled it, The
High Crime of Inviting Men to Church. Think
about that. The High Crime of Inviting Men
to Church. The text that we read says, ye
shall be witnesses. So when we invite people to church,
what are we saying? What are we saying? Come to this
building, come to this building of stone
and brick and rock, what are we saying? There's nothing in
this building. This building is simply where
the called out So what are we saying when we
invite people to come to church? And I meditated about this and
I thought long and hard about it. This is not something I just
come up with here in the last few weeks since Marvin asked
me this. I've been thinking about this sermon for a long time.
This is not preaching the gospel. for we got some things we need
to think about. Now, I want you to think with me along these
lines. Now, Barnard didn't say anything
about this. This is just my own meditation on it. Here's my question. When you invite somebody to come
to church, what is their incentive to come? What incentive do they
have to come to this church? Now some of you may have a best
friend that feels indebted to you and you've asked them and
you've asked them and they come out of a sense of a relationship,
but chances are you're probably not going to see too many of
them come back. And then there are people that
you meet every day and talk with that attend other churches. and you invite them to come to
Katie Baptist Church. And listen, this is for me. I'm
talking about myself, too, because I'm guilty of this. I'm preaching
to myself this evening. What I was telling you about
something that happened to me this week, I'm preaching to myself
on this. This is the truth. These people that attend other
churches, they attend those churches, most of them false religions,
They tend to, because they're comfortable with the religion,
they hear. Now we here at Katie, we preach
a religion that most people in this area hate. They don't want to hear it. And
they go to other churches because they don't want to hear what
we've got to say. So you see, there really is no incentive
for them to come and listen. Invite them to church, they're
not gonna come. They know what we believe. There's
been a lot of bad reports of us here. We've all heard of what
people have to say about the church, people that attend local
churches, and listen, we're here at Katie. Our responsibility
as believers is not to go all over the world. We're here, we
have a people right in here in this area that we need to witness
to. But these people that attend these false churches, they don't
want to hear what you have to say. So there's no incentive.
When you say come, how many of them ever come? How many of them
really ever come? None. Then you have the other
type of people that never go to church. They never go to church. Why do they not do that? Well,
I think a lot of it comes from the false doctrine that's being
preached today. People see all these money-grubbing
preachers on television, and they think, boy, I don't want
to be part of that. So when you invite them to come to Katie
Baptist Church, no, no, I don't want to be part of religion.
And I see that all the time. in the papers quite a bit. So
I say again that an invite to come to church is no witness. So just briefly, what is a witness?
Well, you know what it is. The witness is to tell people
about the righteousness of God. That's the first thing that is
to be preached. The righteousness of God, he
is holy, he is just. He is no wise gonna clear the
guilty, the scripture says. And people need to be taught
that. Listen, we have got to get to a man's conscience and
to his heart with the gospel. That's the only thing that the
Holy Spirit is gonna use, is the preaching of the gospel.
And that witness, the second part, is the condemnation of
men. That's not to tell them that
they're sinners. If we were to take a count, I
would say 75 out of 100 people would say that they're a sinner. They admit to it. They would
admit to they're a sinner. Everybody does. But when you
tell them that they're condemned to a devil's hell, and eternal
damnation because of their sin, now you're starting to get some
attention. And that's what the part of the
gospel is. And then lastly, of course, we must tell them that
there was one, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to deliver sinners. He came to deliver the condemned. That's what they need to hear.
That's what preaching the gospel is. And that is what every one
of us, and I include myself especially in this, I'm guilty. And I need to take
heed to what I'm saying today. Now, here's the problem we have
in this witness. Witnessing to unbelievers is
not a natural thing. The Bible teaches that you're
gonna be hated They hated Christ, he said they're gonna hate you
for the same reason for preaching the gospel. And the old pride
in this man, there's an old pride in all of us, there's a pride
in me and there's a pride in you, and you know that. That
pride kind of holds us back. That old man says, well, maybe
I shouldn't be saying things that, you know, I'll look at
a later date or maybe something. That's the way we are. That's
natural because of pride. So what it's gonna take, brothers
and sisters, I and you need a heart for lost sinners. We can't whip
that up, we can't stir that up. That does not come naturally
to us. That's gonna come only through
and by fervent prayer unto the Lord God, that the Holy Spirit
might come and give us a heart for people's souls. Think about
it. We say we love the gospel, we
really want salvation, and we're totally unconcerned about others.
Is that our case? I pray not, I pray not, I hope
not. But it's gonna take strength,
it's gonna take strength in this inner man. And that's what it
takes. It's gonna take fervent prayer,
fervent prayer over and over. Lord, give me a heart for lost
sinners. Lord, give me strength to speak
to these people. And more importantly, and this
is very important, we have to pray to the Lord that he would
open doors. You just don't run out here like
they do, like some of these churches on Tuesday night and Thursday
night, whatever night, for what they call visitation night. Man comes home from work. After
a day's work, he's tired, he sits down to his supper. He wants
to go in the living room to relax. And along, somebody knocks on
the door. And here comes a man that's gonna
tell you about Jesus. The natural man, the scripture
says, is enmity against God. That man already has a bad heart
toward God. You just as well be a traveling
salesman as to do that to a man. When you read about the Lord
in the scriptures, everything was always planned. Doors were
opened. Think about Paul on Mars Hill.
when he was in Athens, he walked around, he saw all the idolatry
of that country, that city, and the scripture says it grieved
him. And as he walked around, he saw that one statue, and there
was a whole bunch of them, I guess, he saw that one statue, it said,
to the unknown God. And Paul was able to stand up
and said, he who you worship, Ignorantly, and that word, ignorantly,
means religiously. Paul wasn't condemning them about
being ignorant. He says, men, brethren, he says,
I see that you are very religious people. The door was opened for
the Lord Jesus Christ with that one statue. And we see that over
and over again. The Lord did not go, we don't
read it, just go knocking on doors and so forth. Why? Because a man's heart is naturally
set against God. He doesn't want to hear about
God. Nobody wants to hear about God. The false professors in
these false churches, they don't want to hear what you have to
say. They want to hear about free will. They want to hear
about free will. Tell me how I can choose. Tell
me how I can choose. And the instant you mention that,
it's all over with. You're done. You've got no more. Witness, so this witness, this
witness of ours, of the gospel must be, it must be, and I can't
emphasize this enough, and I've read the scriptures, and I've
read the scriptures about this, and I've studied it. I've been
looking at this for a good while. Takes fervent prayer and strength
from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we think we have the
strength. Like I said, I learned about that this week. Now, while that's important,
souls of lost men are important. It's more important that we think
about the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did, what he did for
sinners, what he did for you and I, what he did for you and
I. Think about on the cross, as
he hung there on that cross, bleeding and dying, what was
his prayer? prayed for sinners, Lord, forgive
them, for they know not what they do. Did God hear that prayer? He certainly did. On the day
of Pentecost, there was what, 3,000 men added to the church,
and I'm sure some of those men that stood under that cross was
among those that were saved. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
save sinners, and we're not the only sinners in this world. The sinners are all around us,
up and down this road, your friends and your neighbors. Invite them
to church, it's no witness. And like I said, I'm the guiltiest
of all. The Lord in his salvation, and
you read through the book of Psalms, And oh my, the Book of
Psalms is a very good study of all the suffering that he went
through. The shame, the hatred, the enemies, and yet he prayed
for his enemies. For the very men that persecuted
him, he said, when they were in trouble, he says, I wore sackcloth. He says, I put on sackcloth and
I made prayer for them. He says, I treated them as though
they were my mother. Do we do that? Do I do that?
Now in this, in this salvation of sinners, scripture says he
set his face like a flint. He bore everything. There was
nothing that he did not bear. He bore our sins. He bore our
troubles, our trials. He went through the same thing.
That's what it means. He suffered the same things that we suffer
in this life, only much greater. There was never a man, never,
never a man that suffered like the Lord Jesus Christ. And he left the charge to a people. Who are those people that he
left the charge to? To be a witness for him, the
called out. This thing of our church, the
church is not like a corporate organization where you have a
president that does all the commanding and vice presidents under him
and on down and there's command, no, uh-uh. We all march under
one banner, one leader, one king, one priest, and that is the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it is he alone that's given
us a charge to be a witness for him. Preach the gospel. And there's such a thing in this
world as the advancement of his kingdom. We are, we are here
to work toward the advancement of his kingdom. Remember the
Lord's prayer? He said, you pray this, thy kingdom
come. Thy kingdom come. He was talking
about not only the future kingdom, he was talking about this earthly
kingdom. Thy will be done. What's the
Lord's will? You shall be witnesses unto me. Christ our Lord, when he was
but 12 years old, listen to what he said. He told his mom and
dad after they had left him in Jerusalem, and forgot about him
and he wasn't in the caravan, it was going home and they went
back and found him in the temple disputing and talking to the
doctors. He said, I must be about my father's
business. Well, if God is my father, if
God is your father, what is my business? What's your business?
Is it not that we be witnesses, real witnesses? I'm talking about
talking to people That's what we're here for, to advance the
kingdom of the Lord. There's a parable in Luke chapter
19, where a man, he was going off
to a far kingdom, and he had 10 servants, and he had 10 pounds,
and he was gonna leave one pound each to those 10 men, excuse
me, for them to improve upon it,
and all of them did but one, He didn't waste it, he kept the
10 pounds. It says he rolled it up in a
cloth and hid it in a closet or something like that. But he
did not improve on the Lord's own. The gospel of Christ is
the Lord's own. That's what he came for. He came
here to save men. It is done by the preaching of
the gospel, that's it. No other way. But like I said
before, Marvin stands here in his pulpit three times a week
preaching, and I marvel, I marvel, I may just, in not preparing
this sermon, I may just see the work he does. But he still can't
spread the gospel to everybody in this area. He's just not physically
capable of doing so. But we, We are, and we are commanded. And if we love Christ, if we
love Christ and we want to see the furtherance of his kingdom,
then we will witness. And that witness is to preach
the gospel and not merely invite men to church. So in closing,
I'll keep it short, in closing, as I was preaching this, or thinking
about this message, this song come to my mind, and it's a good
song. Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
ye soldiers of the cross. We're soldiers, we're soldiers. What's a soldier do? It's to
see that the kingdom he fights for wins. that it's not defeated,
and he puts his full effort, that soldier puts a full effort
into his fight. Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
ye soldiers of the cross. Lift high his royal banner. And here's the crowning line. It must not suffer loss. And I ask myself in closing tonight,
is the cross of Christ and his kingdom, is it suffering loss
at my hand? I pray not. And I pray not for
you too. I pray not. That we might be
encouraged, we might be encouraged, that we take that opportunity.
Now listen, when you're talking to people, and I'm talking to
people, There are always opportunities to bring up the gospel. If you
talk to somebody long enough, little innuendos and things that
pop into the conversation, you can weave the beginning of that
preaching into that. But like I said, we're gonna
have to pray. It's gonna take fervent prayer. It's gonna take
a heart. And sometimes, and I know you
probably, some of you may feel the same way, I feel like I'm
a hypocrite in not being more zealous about doing that. And I pray, I pray, I pray for
all of us, the Lord to give us a heart here at this church,
a heart to back Marvin, a heart to preach the gospel, to those
that we come in contact with. Listen, we have our children.
We have our brothers, we have our sisters. And if you've ever
sat down or laid in bed at night and really contemplated the full effect of banishment
from God for eternity, it ought to scare us to death.
I mean, it ought to make us run straight to God and cry, God,
have mercy on me, a sinner. Have mercy. Because if he doesn't,
I'm not gonna care about anybody, and probably not even gonna care
about myself. So with that, I'll close. I pray the Lord will bless
it, and that we might take up the gospel and preach it to people,
and that the Lord would give me grace to do that. Okay, Gary?