chapter 1, sorry, 1st Timothy chapter 2, and if you have your psalm books, if you want to find Psalm 67, because we're going to finish off this time of gathering together with this prophetic psalm at the end, Psalm 67, which I'll explain a bit more about later on. I'm not going to be taking a huge amount of time. I want to be finished by 3.30 if God permits. But the subject that I've chosen for us, which you might think is a little bit of a strange one, but the subject I've chosen is this, preaching evangelistic sermons. Preaching evangelistic sermons. Now you may be sat here thinking, well, what doesn't he realize? This is not a pastor's conference for Kevin and Norman to be teaching us how to preach sermons. It's true. But the thing is, it's very important that I give you a window into the work of the ministry, because in my estimation, and my humble estimation, who am I? I'm just a regular Christian like everybody else, but also a minister. Probably, in my opinion, one of the most urgent needs for the church in England, in this time, is for a restoration of the preaching of the gospel in and through the church. Now let me just give a biblical basis for that. 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 7. And Paul is writing to Timothy, who's laboring. You know what city he was laboring in. Because for those who know their Bibles well, and Norman was encouraging us to know our Bibles well. Are you a Christian who knows your Bible well? Well, we know from the beginning of 1 Timothy, Timothy had been sent to labor in Ephesus. And we know in chapter 3, he was to set things in order and to explain, as we heard a sermon here recently, that the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, the pillar and the buttress. But Paul is writing in 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 7, but if I read from verse 5, he explains in this huge, and it was a pagan city, at Ephesus, people worshipping idols like Diana of Artemis. It says, 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 5, for there is one God. Do you agree with that? There is one God. And there is one mediator. Do you believe that? One mediator between God and men. The man, Christ Jesus. who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Paul is telling us that there's a testimony that the church need to hold fast to, and it's a testimony, a little bit like a law court where you've got eyewitnesses, and there were eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ who saw him in the flesh, People like Matthew, people like Thomas, they handled the word of life. And Paul said he was a man born out of due time. Jesus Christ met him. Where was he met? He was met on the road to Damascus. And he was converted, he was born again, he was changed, he was regenerated. He entered the kingdom of God through the narrow gate. You may say, I've not had that experience. The point is, we don't put our faith in the experiences that we have, we put our faith in the God who's behind those experiences. The important thing is, have we entered through the narrow gate? But Paul the Apostle, he seemed to learn many things in an instant that sometimes take us quite a few years. If Paul the Apostle was here, hearing all this about this man N.T. Wright and this other person, Paul will be tearing his beard out saying haven't you read my book of Romans? And Paul says this, what was his purpose? 1 Timothy chapter 2, he says, for this, that's to give testimony, I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth. I am not lying. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. What is the first thing that Paul identifies himself as doing? The first thing he identifies himself as is a preacher. He doesn't say an apostle first, he doesn't say a teacher, and that he was. He identifies himself as a preacher. He says the same thing in 2 Timothy, the same thing. He says that he's a preacher, then he's an apostle, and then he's a teacher. What is the greatest need for the church today? It is for the need of preaching. Amen? Not preaching from music stands and all this nonsense. I would genuinely say I think so-called preaching from a music stand is an abomination. It's an abomination. What's a music stand for? It's to hold music. It's to hold music. It's not to hold a Bible. We need a restoration of the centrality of pulpits and churches. pulpits. We need a recovery of the word pulpit, of the word sermon. People say, yes, but Kevin, you know, Paul didn't mention sermons. But there's something biblical about a sermon. A sermon is not simply giving a homily. It's not giving an essay. It's a message for the people of God in a particular time. But something more specifically we find here, that if we turn in our Bibles to Romans chapter 1 and verse 1, what do we find in the opening verse of the book of Romans, which is just a magnificent Bible book, and it's written by the Apostle Paul. There are many doctrines that you can never understand properly without reference to the book of Romans. I would contend There are probably, there is probably no other book in the Bible in the history of all redemption, that's a big statement, isn't it? In the history of all redemption that has had more impact upon this fallen world in the hand of God than the book of Romans. The book of Romans, do you understand the book of Romans? Do you want to understand it and revisit it? Paul gives an introduction, the man who calls himself firstly a preacher. He says, Romans 1 verse 1, Paul, a servant. servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. So he was a preacher, but especially set apart for the gospel of God. Now, my title here for us today, in closing our time together, is the necessity for, in the church today and in all ages, but specifically for the necessity of the preaching of evangelistic sermons. Now, on Friday night, we heard Norman preach about the conversion of Manasseh. How did you feel? I felt invigorated, did you? That's what that's, I mean, I believe I'm saved and I'm trusting the Lord, but it invigorated me. It convicted me. It strengthened me. My heart burned within me. I felt like saying amen at many points in the sermon. It freshened me. People were just talking after the sermon and everything else and it just brought life into the room, didn't it? That is exactly what preaching evangelistic sermons does. And I am very concerned in the wider body of Christ about the lack of evangelistic sermons in the church. Or further still, of Christians in churches even understanding what an evangelistic sermon is. Now, what we find here is that Paul the Apostle, and what's translated in Romans 1 verse 1, and I really love it, he says, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Do you like that phrase, the gospel of God? That's an English word, it's translating a Greek word, the gospel. It's talking about the redemptive message by which we can be saved and all the doctrines connected with it. Yes, justification by faith is essential. If we distort that, we could block people coming into the kingdom of God. So we need to have clear-cut doctrines. Spurgeon used to say this, we must never try to smooth off the rough edges of the gospel. Thomas Watson, we're glad to see, Norman kept on saying to me, kept on dragging me to the book table, and he said, of all these books, there's one book, Norman kept on telling me over this weekend, that's as good as any other book. He said, it's the book, Thomas Watson, The Body of Divinity. I think they may have all sold out now, but it's just full of truth. But Thomas Watson has another book, very small book, it's called The Duty of Self-Denial. And it's based on this verse where we have in Luke's gospel, who was a reliable eyewitness of events. And Luke reports to us that Jesus said, if you come after me, is there anybody here who says, I want to come after Jesus? Is that anybody? Any amens on the back? No one tells his chairs to take the muzzle off. Should we take the muzzle off? Who would like to come up to Jesus? Amen. Well, I do. But Jesus says, whoa, whoa, before you start thinking about that, he says, you must first deny yourself, take up your cross, and then follow him. So we are in the business of the duty of preaching self-denial, taking up our cross. I remember years ago, I was involved in organizing a big missions meeting in Sheffield, and I chose this hymn about the old rugged cross. Do you know that hymn? uh... some people know it and they you know what what the the the musicians that we're not saying in that this is too old-fashioned we want to be one of more contemporary songs so i was outvoted and we have to out went through the door singing about the old rugged cross but you know what i found twenty years later the truth of the message of the old rugged cross is what we need constantly And there's a problem when people say, well, we don't want that, that might not be what people want. We're not giving people what they want, we're giving them what they need. What do people need in the church today, Christians and non-Christians? They need evangelistic sermons. Now, Paul says he was a preacher. So we need the preaching of evangelistic sermons. Now, I want to just look at this a little bit for us, to help us to know how to pray. Because if we don't get information like this, we won't know how to pray properly. Because we're not only praying for our own church, we're praying for the wider body of Christ. Now, if we look over church history, just in England, just alone, and I know England is not the only country in the world, I'm aware of that, but we do have a rich Christian history. If I look at our own history, who was one of the greatest preachers last century? Well, you'd find it hard to beat someone like Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. Now, I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm not saying this and that and the other, but it would be hard to find a person who would be a better preacher than him. How did he preach over decades? Every evening service he preached to teach the church in the morning, and every evening service he preached an evangelistic sermon. And Lloyd-Jones believed that was the hardest part of his job. He thought that preaching and teaching Christians was less demanding than preaching an evangelistic sermon. Well, let's move another century back. Who do you think was probably one of the greatest preachers in the 19th century? Well, you do hard to beat Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He was the pastor then of the largest church in the world. Can you imagine that? And Spurgeon would repudiate things such as the idea of a megachurch. I mean, that was just never anywhere near his thinking. He set out to preach the old rugged cross, and before he knew it, there were thousands of people in London at the end of the Victorian era. If Spurgeon was here today, he might be preaching to 30 people. Who knows? So it's not by my, not by our power, but it's by my spirit, says the Lord. But what we know is in the history of the church, whenever there's a forward movement, there is the raising of preachers and the raising up of the preaching of the gospel. Now, there are a number of American influences that affect our church and affect Presbyterian circles as well. And some people, they hammer on about what you call Lectio Continua preaching. Have you ever heard of that? Lectio Continuum. In other words, what they're saying is that we should be preaching really almost exclusively only on whole books of the Bible. And they kind of rubbish what they call Lectio Selecta, where you select a specific individual Bible verse and preach on that. And so what they've got much of the body of Christ to do today, which is true of much of Presbyterianism in our own country, the only thing you're going to get on the menu, and someone was coming to me about that delicious food and jokingly saying to me, do I have a menu? And of course it was a joke and we didn't. But on the menu for the church, what you're mainly going to get in this country today, unless God changes it, is lectio, continue preaching. In other words, you get almost Bible commentaries, but preaching needs to be more than Bible commentaries. You know, Lloyd-Jones would preach a minimum of one sermon a week in the church, an evangelistic sermon. Spurgeon most often would preach two, but there'd be a lot of teaching in there as well. And so I want to look at this evangelistic sermon. There are three men I can choose just off the top of my cuff, as it were, who believed that preaching evangelistic sermons was a special category of preaching. And the three people I will just choose as an example would be Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. He did. You can say, well, I don't agree with Lloyd-Jones. I've got much better ideas than he has. Well, we'll debate that point afterwards over tea and coffee. Spurgeon believed in the category of preaching, of evangelistic sermons. I'm going to quote him in a little while, Spurgeon, because he really believed you've got to go after sinners and not make them feel comfortable. Can you imagine that? And we need this figure restored for the church. Because there's this laxical idea today, well, everyone's a Christian. Well, only the Lord knows those who are. We found in Sheffield, with some of the trials that we've gone through, that there are people who've been sat in our chairs, and it turns out some of them have clearly never even been converted. Never they would make a profession and I think there's been a lack in my own ministry of the preaching of the gospel and So Martin Lloyd-Jones, let's go to the 19th century, Spurgeon, who agreed that evangelistic sermons is a special category of preaching for the church. Let's go into the 18th century. I can just choose one, and there could be multitudes. But George Whitefield, who would probably preached to almost more human beings without a microphone than almost anybody in the history of the church. And he believed in this special category of preaching. And it seems as if in church history, in the last three to 400 years, the one thing that God has blessed almost above anything else is dramas. I'm joking. It's not dramas. It's not dramas. And it's not having a band down the front. You know, even in Spurgeon's time, you know, you won't believe this, but in Spurgeon's time, they had no musical instruments, and they had thousands of people in the church. What did they do? Well, one man thought he'd help Spurgeon along, so it was in a time when organs were coming back into fashion, so he actually bought an organ for the Metropolitan Tabernacle. And he kindly went to Spurgeon and offered it to him as a gift for the church. And Spurgeon said that he would happily receive that organ as a gift for the church. There was just one caveat, he said to the man, I don't mind receiving this organ as long as it's never seen or heard. put it in the cellar. What he was saying is the greatest voice in particular is the human voice, that's the greatest instrument. And yet we've had since the 1960s, instruments have flooded into the church and it's changed the message. It's diluted things, it's moved people into a sensual direction. And so, George Whitefield, He's another one. Ian Murray, he helpfully explains, there's a book on the back which I've not mentioned, there's four or five copies, on preaching the gospel from Old Testament sermons, using Lloyd-Jones as an example. Ian Murray helpfully explains, unless men are brought to know that because of the fall, their entire relationship to God is wrong, they cannot begin to understand how their problem is to be dealt with. I'll read that one more time. In terms of preaching evangelistic sermons, the starting point of an evangelistic sermon is not the gospel itself. Let me say what Ian Murray says, unless, let me find where it is, unless men are brought to know that because of the fall, their entire relationship with God is wrong, they cannot begin to understand how their problem is to be dealt with. The first point of an evangelistic sermon, should it be scriptural? Absolutely. It's got to be based on the Bible. That's non-negotiable. All preaching must be expositional, based on the Bible. But this category of sermon, an evangelistic sermon, its starting point is not the good news. And it's not even the bad news, it's the truth that our relationship with God is completely wrong. And we have to persuade and convince people of this with all of our ability to persuade. And that's why Lloyd-Jones would say this, that preaching evangelistic sermons is one of the hardest things that a preacher will ever have to do. Because it takes preparation, it takes prayer, it takes crying out to God in your absolute inability. How am I going to persuade people of their inability to come to the Lord? And it teaches us as a preacher and then as a congregation of our dependence upon the Lord. We need the powerful working of the Holy Spirit. So when we begin to think about this, it will begin to help us now to pray properly. Oh Lord, unless you come and smite us with conviction, we're gonna be lost. It's begging the Lord for his mercy to bring conviction of sin. But of course, using the truth of God. And like I've said, it was Lloyd-Jones' conviction that the gospel itself is not necessarily the main subject in true evangelistic preaching. Rather, the main subject must often be the truth which brings home to men and women their need of the gospel. And that is what's lacking in this country. When you've got bookstores awash with false teachings on justification, the problem goes further down the stream than that. The problem further down the stream is the lack everywhere, and there's been a lack in Sheffield Presbyterian Church. I'm not saying that we've got it right. Far from it. But we're trying as elders to redress that balance. I don't think if you speak to people, because we've been preaching the gospel every morning service this year, I don't think there's anybody in the church would say, well, we're now in April and we're getting fed up of this. if there is, Ali Uda would like to talk to them. No, because it invigorates you. As one elder said, what is important about this, yes, we have probably a different style of preaching in the evening service, but what is important, Ali Uda, sorry, Agrippa says this, one of the elders, he said, what's important is that we can get so involved in certain pet doctrines. Get involved in this, get out of balance with that. He said, by having the gospel preached every week in the way that I'm describing, it keeps us all focused on the main thing. It keeps us all focused on the main thing. Unless we repent, we will perish. It kind of stiffens up the church. It gives us a fresh boldness. that people don't even realize it. You know, where people don't even realize, but during the week they're prepared to talk to their next door neighbor about the gospel or a relative. They may not respond. In fact, no one will respond unless God grants the Holy Spirit to respond. That's a whole nother story about the deadness of man in his sin. It's not about, we're not here selling a product to people. We're presenting the truth. but it needs to be the powerful working of the Holy Spirit. And how this kind of preaching is desperately needed in the church. The preacher needs a single eye in order to discern the necessity of such preaching. There is a need for the recovery of this category of evangelistic sermons to be preached in the church. It produces a sharpness. It produces a vitality. It produces a joy. And guess what? It produces a spiritual awakening upon the hearers of such sermons. Secondary matters laid aside. Furthermore, it becomes easier when you're preaching evangelistic sermons, because who is, who are the, where do all the lines lead in an evangelistic sermon? Of course, we worship the triune God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But Colossians 1 verse 18 says that Christ Jesus must have the preeminence. It's impossible to preach a true evangelistic sermon without leaving people with the pinnacle of all revelation, which is Christ Jesus. And don't we need a recovery of an emphasis on the exaltation of Christ Jesus? Less stories in the pulpit and more of Christ. Can you say amen to that? We don't want to be hearing stories about, yeah, when I was doing this and blah, blah, blah, I was doing that. I mean, we haven't got time to be listening to this. Even when the NHS, if you go and see a doctor, you've sometimes only got eight minutes. You know, you just sat down, and before you've even got yourself seated in your chair, you're being asked, what's the reason you've come today? You think, well, I've just sat down. And you know you've got seven and a half minutes left. You say, well, I've got this terrible pain in my heart. He says, well, you better be quick, because we've only got six minutes left. You better tell us, is it shooting pains or what? So in other words, time is limited. No one knows the day or the hour when Jesus will come back. If preaching is not going to be happening through the church, who is going to be doing it? If preachers are not going to be preaching evangelistic sermons, then who is? In the 1980s, there was a well-known evangelist you may well have heard of called Billy Graham. Billy Graham came to Sheffield in the 1980s. I wasn't living in Sheffield at the time, but he came in the 1980s and he used a football stadium called Bramall Lane. And every night for about eight nights, I think it was, he would preach the gospel. or preach an evangelistic sermon, and 30,000 people were going there every night. If Billy Graham was alive today, how many people do you think we could get to fill Bramall Lane? This is an example of how much the body of Christ has shrunk in my lifetime. Have you seen the body of Christ shrink in your lifetime, in this country? Well, I have. over three plus decades, I would doubt that Billy Graham, if he was alive today, that he would be able to get much more than 3,000 people every night. He wouldn't need the stadium. He wouldn't even need the whole cop. And if we got 3,000, we'd think that would be revival, wouldn't it? But the body of Christ has shrunk. Why? Well, there are many reasons why. But clearly, an obvious solution is to come back to the Bible, come back to truth, come back to the history of the church, come back to what Paul says. First and foremost, he was a preacher. He wasn't giving talks. He wasn't sharing. He was preaching. And Norman would say, I know we quoted Norman a lot, but Norman would say, There are many people today who don't even know what preaching is. They've never even heard true preaching. Isn't that shocking? And even worse still, people's appetites have been changed because of post-modernism. What's post-modernism? Not post-millennialism. Post-modernism, what is it? It's where people don't even believe that there is truth. Well, the first thing about preaching evangelistically is that the preacher needs to choose a text of scripture through prayer. One that would fit the need. Why? We know 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16. Can anybody quote that? It begins with all. All scripture is inspired of God. So we need to launch God's Exocet missile into our midst, because the power is in the Word of God, the written Word of God, and needs to be unlocked. All Scripture is inspired. God breathed. Theopneustos. I'm told by one theologian, apparently Paul came up with that word himself to explain scripture. So all preaching must be scriptural. Have you been in meetings where the Bible's barely opened? It's a shocker. But even when the Bible is open, the Bible alone is not enough. Preaching alone is not enough. We need preaching from the Word of God. We need experiential Christianity. We don't want to be comfortable all the way through a sermon. We don't want to have our egos stroked there, there, there. Everything's fine. You're a lovely chap, and the way you were serving that curry today, I can't imagine that you'd ever have a bad day. I can't imagine you've ever been angry. You seem so delightful. Well, you can live with it, but you'll find out we're all sinners, aren't we? And we need this category. And so preachers need to choose a text of Scripture. And we need to revisit the whole of Scripture. Notice what Paul said. 2 Timothy 3 verse 16. What's it begin with? All. All Scripture. There are 66 books of the Bible. We need to have gleanings from the book of Nehemiah. We need to have gleanings from the whole panorama of Scripture. And the text of what the Lord seems to have used in the history of the church for evangelistic preaching. as often being, not only, but often being, there's no single straitjacket, amen? This is not robotic kind of, you know, press one, two, and three, and out comes the sermon. It's not robotic, but often God has especially used preaching where the preacher has often had just one or two verses of scripture. And, you know, it's not my word like a... Does what? breaks into pieces. And so preaching, it takes the hammer and keeps hammering on the nail, the same nail, and getting the nail, not by repeating, and to break open the rock. Why God has used that, I can't really say. I don't know exactly, but I know in the history of the church it's often been the preaching of one or two verses with this category of preaching. I'm not saying there shouldn't be sermons that are more teaching-based, I'm not saying that, but there's got to be the recovery of the preaching of evangelistic sermons. And so I'm preaching, we're gonna follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Because I mean, even the phrase, he was the preacher par excellence, I think is very deficient. You know, he's, but he is, there's no preacher who compares in history, past, present and future to Jesus Christ. And people don't realize that he was first and foremost, Jesus was first and foremost a preacher. He wasn't wandering around Galilee with a beard and long hair and a pair of sandals simply healing people, as some people think. He was first and foremost a preacher. And so preaching needs to be focused on Christ, and what was the opening message really he gave to Nicodemus? We need a recovery of this. When I was a young Christian, it came in from America, but there was a lot more commonly said. Americans, we almost would mock it slightly, but an American would say, well, I'm born again. And you would never quite know whether they were really converted or not. It became a bit of a badge, I suppose. But we do need a recovery today of the doctrine of regeneration, the doctrine of the new birth, And what more? We need a recovery of the doctrine of the new birth, that you can't reborn yourself. You can't make yourself reborn. You say, well, what kind of message is this? We're showing sinners their total inability. You're naked before God, you're condemned. Yes, you're condemned, but the way out is to enter through the straight gate, enter through the narrow gate. And Jesus says, ask and it shall be. given, seek and you shall find. So if we teach people and preach people, if you seek the way of salvation, you'll find it. But sinful man most often, unless the spirit of God is at work, will never seek it. They'll walk out the door and say, forget about them. Why? Because man in his sin hates God. You in your sin hated God. Oh, no, I didn't. My parents think I'm delightful. Yeah, but in of yourself, your sinful nature, we are haters of God. Just read John Calvin and his institutes on original sin. We need the recovery of the preaching of original sin. There are many preachers today who don't even believe in a literal Adam. Can you believe that? Can you imagine preaching an evangelistic sermon, and if you were a man preaching, but you don't believe in a literal Adam? Well, that means then that you believe that the Bible's full of fairy tales. God created the heavens and the earth in six literal days, and on the seventh day, he rested. And Adam was a literal man. People like, we've not even mentioned, John Stott. John Stott used to teach, one of the greatest Anglican teachers. He didn't believe in a literal Adam. Can you imagine that, Adam? He didn't believe in a literal Adam. You shouldn't have called him Adam, you should have called him something else. Hominid. hominid more your dinner's ready he comes trotting downstairs because John Stott used to teach that there were there were thousands or millions of hominids whatever they are they're they're you know kind of subhuman species and then and then and so therefore they would claim believe there was death before the fall and then he if you don't believe me read John Stott in Romans chapter 5 When I was told this years ago, I didn't believe that. I said, no, no, no. And this friend of mine actually took the commentary out of Romans 5 and showed me the ink on the paper. And I thought, he does? And I've got it on my shelf. He believed there were hominids all over the earth. Do you believe that? No, we hate those lies. And he claims that God came along and thought, oh, I'll tap this man on the shoulder and he can be the first man, Adam. But the problem is that a friend of mine, Palmer Robertson, has written another article counteracting this because it's flooded through the PCA in America. Many men in the PCA, they don't believe in a literal Adam today, but many evangelicals don't believe in a literal Adam. They should never be allowed in the pulpit, should they? They should be barred from the pulpit. We should change the locks. You keep people out. Escort them out of the building. Grab hold of them from the pulpit and say, we refuse to listen to such a man that would believe such heretical, well, they're not truths, heretical theories. And so if there's a problem with Adam, a friend of mine, Palmer Robertson, has written an article. If people don't believe in a literal Adam, well, where has his wife come from? They don't explain about all these female hominids. It's a half-baked fairy tale, isn't it? But it's a core dilution of the truth. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If we can't believe the ABCs of the Bible, what are we going to be at down the river? We're going to be reading books by N.T. Wright. So we need a wholesale recovery. We need a recovery of the reality of the teaching of the righteousness and the justice of God. Yes, we need evangelistic sermons that will preach. I mean, I'm working on a sermon at the moment. It's called Eternal Torment. Are you looking forward to me preaching that one? Eternal Torment is take of revelation. It's not trying to frighten people. Eternal torment is tied up with the character of God. That God is a just God. And His justice will be executed. And His justice, there are only two possibilities. You're either going to go to heaven on the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ as a gift, not of works, lest any man should boast or You're gonna spend eternity. There's no such thing as purgatory We need a recovery of the exposure of Roman Catholicism because Roman Catholicism Catholicism has not gone away. It's as satanic as it's ever been with its tentacles everywhere Destroying the church wherever it goes. Yes destroying the church we need to expose the papacy and all of its false doctrines and Because it sends people to hell. And liberal Protestantism is sending as many people to hell as Roman Catholicism. Both are wrong. We need the preaching of evangelistic sermons. And what it does, it's like smelling salts for the church. It turns the temperature up of the room. You're either going to come into the church and sit into that and begin to turn your face to Christ Or you're gonna harden your heart and walk out on Jesus, walk out on the gospel, and walk out on the church. But if people do that as a result of preaching, they may well end up wishing they'd never been born. Because every one of us will face the righteous judgment of God. And Satan is in overdrive at the moment, through technology, through TV, through the internet, distracting everyone. We heard N.T. Wright and all of his nonsense, and all that narrative, telling people that, you know, giving an idea that we can kind of save ourselves. Or what is the point of Jesus coming if we can save ourselves? But the church needs to make clear. We need to preach Christ and Him crucified. We need to preach the old rugged cross. There's an Arabic proverb, it was used to describe the preaching of George Whitefield, that the best orator, it's an Arabic proverb, is the one who can turn a man's ears into eyes. And as we come a little bit to a close, I've got to finish off, though, by citing for you in a moment, I've hardly begun my notes. I'm like Kevin McGrane. I've hardly begun my notes at all. But I want to say it is a special category of preaching. And Spurgeon has, you know, he has a book called Lectures to My Students. Have you come across that book? And he has a lecture on that called Preach Persuasively. I'm going to finish off with this in a moment. But before I do, there's this famous story of Whitfield, especially George Whitfield, and particularly a gift to turn men's ears into eyes. And he would describe the story. in one occasion, in most vivid terms, of the inability of man to save himself. And he gives a story of a blind man that is painting in graphic detail, a blind man with a walking stick, and he has a blind guide dog, and he's walking near to a cliff. And there's the sea, you know, let's say a thousand feet below or whatever else, and this blind man is walking along near to a cliff, and it's difficult weather, and the dog actually escapes and runs off, so the blind man is having to walk along without the dog. And there were aristocratic types who sometimes would hear George Whitefield preach. Not all of them would be born again. Some were. but not all, but one I'm not sure what his state was before the Lord, but there was a man called Lord Chesterfield who was gripped by the preaching of Whitfield. And Whitfield's describing, and he's saying that that's what we're like. We're like blind beggars walking through the dark. And most people are walking into hell in their blindness. And so he's describing the condition of a sinner. And as he was describing this blind man who was very close to the edge of the cliff, Lord Chesterfield almost couldn't stand it anymore. And he cried out something along the lines of, he's gone, he's gone. And he stood up to his feet and kind of wanted to grab the blind man who'd gone over the edge. Of course, he hadn't. But it was so graphically illustrated that Whitfield had the preaching gift to turn men's ears into eyes. And may God recover those kinds of abilities so that the gospel of God will be made known, the old rugged cross will be made known. Jesus said, unless you repent, this is what Jesus said, you will likewise perish. If we don't hear about everlasting punishment in church, where are we going to hear about it? This is the six o'clock news, it's the BBC. Are they going to be announcing that news? Are they going to be saying, there was an earthquake today in Lisbon, 40,000 are dead or whatever, but that's not the main point. No, we're not going to tell that. The world will do everything to suppress this, but may the church not. So we're gonna finish off, I've been looking briefly at Paul the Apostle, and yes, Paul did write Romans, and yes, Paul did write as an apostle to one Corinthians and two Corinthians. We don't believe this NT right nonsense and the new perspective. But Paul talks in two Corinthians chapter five, that we need to preach to people, it's an imperative, be reconciled to God. We need to command people to be reconciled to God. We need to command them to do what they can't do on their own. They need to know, you need the mercy of God. But we need to tell people, 2 Corinthians 5.20, to be reconciled to God. But we need to, I'm gonna finish off with this, expect responses from preaching. Expect responses from preaching. This is a final comment. We're not looking for altercals, by the way, that goes without saying, or any such methods. We're not looking for the use of music to attempt to move people to a kind of decision. And that's been used, that was used a lot during the Billy Graham era. You know, I don't know how many times you would hear, Just As I Am. You remember that, those days? Some of you are not old enough, but Just As I Am, you sang it until you thought you couldn't sing it anymore. And I remember, before I was converted, what was interesting, in 1989, in London, in Earl's Court, I went to an evangelistic meeting with Billy Graham. Well, Billy Graham was preaching. And guess what he was preaching? He preached what Norman preached last night. He preached on the conversion of Manasseh. And I sat there, I wasn't in a position really to go forward and to surrender my life to the Lord, but I knew that one day I'd be doing what Billy Graham was doing, preaching. And there were these people turning around to me, do you want to go down the front? I said, no, no, no, I don't. And they were determined, almost like trying to drag me down to the front against my will. That's not what we're looking for. We're looking for genuine workings of the Holy Spirit. But as we're going to close, I'm going to close with powerful words from Spurgeon. Spurgeon said this for preachers. That's what we need to pray for preachers. We need to pray for our preachers. Spurgeon said this, do not close a single sermon without addressing the ungodly. Now we could all say amen to that, couldn't we? Well, he doesn't stop there. Listen to this. Carries on. But at the same time, he's talking to preachers now, set yourself seasons for a determined and continuous assault upon them. and proceed with all your soul to the conflict. On such occasions, aim distinctly at immediate conversions. Labor to remove prejudices, to resolve doubts, to conquer objections, listen to this, and to drive the sinner out of his hiding places at once. So anybody who's unconverted, people who look like a Christian or not, a friend of mine who was in the ministry today, he left home, but he was never converted. He went to Loughborough University, but he would go to church, because that's what his parents always did, and he would wear like a dark suit. He'd turn up at church. with a dark suit and the pastor would say good evening on the way out of the door and asked him what he was going to do when he finished his engineering degree and he told him. And the pastor said, well that's not very Christian vocation that is it? And he turned around to the pastor and he said, but I'm not a Christian. Really? said the pastor. He thought because this young man turned up in a dark suit with a Bible under his arm that he was a Christian. He'd never been converted and he knew he'd never been converted. So we can't assume that people have necessarily been converted just because of that. Spurgeon said, we need to make, as preachers, make a continuous assault, driving people out of their hiding places. That's preaching that will awaken this country. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I don't even know how to begin to pray for such a spiritual awakening. But I pray for the restoration of that kind of preaching. Preaching that would, with the mercy of God, make a continuous assault. Not wanting to be Mr. Nice Preacher who's having his hand shook at the door. We want people to come under conviction of sin. We want sinners to be driven out of their hiding places. We want to be driven out of our hiding places as professing Christians as well. Because we know that the day will come faster than we realize for every one of us, when we will stand naked before the judgment of God. And Lord, we want to prepare for that day and prepare others for that day. May you restore the church in this land to be salt and light again. Lord, we beg of you for this. not really knowing how to pray as we ought, but presenting our petitions to you in and through Jesus Christ. Restore evangelistic sermons to be preached. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. Shall we close with a song and then we'll take a 10-minute break. We'll put a table down in front and we'll have this Trinity Presbytery. Everybody's welcome to remain for that. If you have to go, feel free to go, but you're welcome to remain. But we want to finish off by singing Psalm 67, which is really a prophetic psalm. It's really, it starts off, God be merciful and bless us. It really is a psalm that really is shaped around what's known as the Numbers chapter 6 benediction. Remember that one? The Lord bless you, sorry, the Lord keep you and so forth. It's shaped around that, but it's prophesying the gospel will go to the ends of the earth. And so when we sing this, we're singing and asking the Lord that he would restore the gospel to shine gloriously in the church again. So should we stand together and sing Psalm 67? Let's sing it most heartily. You want me to start off or somebody else? God be merciful and bless us. That's the tune. Ready? God be merciful and bless us, shine upon us with your face, that the earth may know your actions, and your hands your saving grace. On the way the peoples praise you May all people sing your praise For you judge the nations justly Ruling over every race May they sing with joy and gladness. May they all rejoice as one. O God, may the peoples praise you, as they all unite in song. Then the land will yield its harvest. God will pour His gifts abroad. God, our God, will surely bless us. All the earth will fear our God. Amen. Let's take a seat.