In this message, Adam Gray speaks of the call of for all to be about the work of the great commission. He says that not all are called to be be street preaches but we are all to do our part. Our natural response to the love and the work of Christ should be to want to spread the great news. It is not out of duty that we preach the gospel but of love for Christ. 

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Adam Gray, Chuck LaVerdiere, with the following message entitled, Street Preaching theology and practice. Today we're going to give a message on street evangelism, street preaching in particular, and the way we decide to split up the time is to have just a general overview which I'll give of street preaching and getting into some of the theology, some of the things we see in Scripture from that, attempting to apply applications, and Adam Gray will speak on an example we see in the New Testament, the book of Acts of Paul preaching. So before I begin I'd like to open in prayer if you join with me please. Father God, Lord send your spirit to this place. Father, fill us all with an overflowing of your spirit, Lord.

By your grace, we might speak words of truth, Lord, that we would speak words that exalt your Son. Father, that we would, we would all leave this place today with a greater, a greater love for the the sweetness of Jesus. Father, I pray to you as someone who falls so short, passes so many opportunities. Father, you know how unqualified I am to speak here today. I pray for your grace.

In Jesus' name, amen. Now, Street preaching is a subcategory of evangelism, so we're going to speak on things, and I'll use evangelism and street preaching. And you know, street preaching is really a means by which to bring people to the preacher, to the people who are standing there in the street reaching out to the lost, and really it's a tool for bringing in people who have questions about Jesus or challenges or concerns and just reaching out to the lost. So, you know, while I'll say street preaching and evangelism, they're they're not interchangeable 100%, but they're... Street preaching is sort of a subcategory of evangelism.

So I want to start by talking about evangelism, biblical evangelism. Biblical evangelism begins with the sweetness of the gospel. It begins with the heart of a sinner who's been turned to Christ. It begins with a broken heart. It begins with a grateful heart.

It begins with someone who has seen the horrors of their sin. It begins with someone who's mourned over their rebellion and has owned the condemnation and understood and maybe even cried out saying, can I be saved? I don't know. I'm a great sinner. This is the cry of anyone, I believe, who's regenerate, who has been there and wrestled with the scripture, who has come and said, Lord, have mercy on me.

I'm a great sinner. The evangelist cries out with Isaiah, woe is me for I am undone. And God in His mercy brings that sinner low and brings him to his knees and raises him up, filling him with his spirit and exalting his son, whom he has put there, and raising him up to newness of life, not so that he can feel good and have tingly feelings and all these things, but so that he can worship God. God saves people so that they can worship Him and serve Him. The cry of Isaiah after he's purged of his sins is, here am I, send me.

And this is really the heart and the cry of Christians who have seen sin and seen the goodness of God. David wrote in Psalm 51, restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to you. Biblical evangelism is not a trickle, it's not something that just sort of, you know, we just go along in our lives, it gushes out of this heart. It comes from the joy, the just, the indescribable joy of being a new creature in Christ.

It's this heart that that loves God. It's this heart that loves your neighbor and goes out and says, I want to talk to you about Jesus. I want to share the glorious news of what he did for a lost and dying world. And the focus of our message today is on street preaching, but our intent is not to tell you today that teaching transgressors God's ways and converting sinners only happens in the street. You don't need to invest in a soapbox and a bullhorn in order to fulfill the Great Commission.

This is, it's something that particular people in the body of Christ are called to do. If you feel called in that direction, speak to men you know that are doing it, and learn what you can do, and seek to maximize the gifts that God has given you for His glory and to work in His kingdom to the best of your abilities. You know, when we consider the body of Christ, We have many, many members there. The minds may be elders and the theologians and the teachers, the hands or perhaps the deacons who distribute gifts or goods to widows and orphans. The arms, the strong arms, might be Christian mothers carrying groceries and babies, and a street preacher might be vocal cords flapping in the wind.

I mean, if I saw vocal cords, I probably wouldn't even know what I was looking at. But that's possibly the street preacher's part in the body of Christ, but it's all one corporate body that works together for one glorious purpose for Jesus Christ. And we are not, as street preachers, elite Christians. We're not the special forces of Christendom. We're not God's sole remnant here in the United States of America.

There is this sort of attitude in some circles, but that's just not the case. The body of Christ is the body of Christ, and street preachers play their role there. And just like all Christians, we should all be seeking to maximize those gifts and talents that God has given us, and a wise investment of our time is investing it in His Kingdom. So saying that, while not all Christians do have this specific calling to be a street preacher. All Christians have the calling to preach the gospel, to evangelize the lost, to be always ready with meekness and fear, to share the gospel.

Sorry, excuse me. We are, we are called to, to die to ourselves and to serve Him. Every place is, is in bounds in this battle. Your office space, the gas station, anywhere you go as a Christian throughout your life is a place to preach the gospel, is a place to talk to people about the sweetness of Jesus. You don't need to stand at a gay pride parade, you don't need to stand there in front of an abortion clinic, although those are good places to preach.

Everywhere is a good place to preach. Christ has been given all authority. Nowhere is out of bounds. Charles Spurgeon said in 1873, every Christian here is either a missionary or an imposter. It cannot be that there is a high appreciation of Jesus and a totally silent tongue about him.

The most common objection we hear in the streets is not from the atheist who's offended at the words of the gospel or the call to repentance. It's, in my experience, it's from the professing believer who says, this is not how you win people to Christ. And so, in answer to that, we don't say, well, it works. We don't say, well, here's some examples of people who have heard the gospel and repented, and we say, what what sayeth the Lord? And so our reason for going to the streets is not pragmatic, it's simply the Scripture is sufficient.

Scripture is sufficient to show us what outreach is like to the lost around us and your city and your town, things like that. And while it doesn't always mean street preaching, that is what we see in the New Testament, in fact the Old Testament, Genesis to Revelation, we see public proclamation of God's Word as a primary means by which people are brought into the church. The long answer to that, why do we street preach, is well it's again Genesis to Revelation. There's some good read through the Bible in a year plans, the next time you do that, look at it from that perspective, and it just jumps out at you. So I'd like to take a few examples to look at Old and New Testaments and see where we are there.

Who were the Old Testament prophets but men raised up by God to proclaim that men must either turn from their sins or suffer the wrath of God to come? From Noah to Malachi, the first ninety-three, excuse me, thirty-nine books of the Bible are chock full of public preachers who God has raised up to speak the truth about his coming judgment and the safe haven that he sets aside for those who will repent and turn from their sins. I would like to read Proverbs 1, starting in verse 20, and go through a good chunk of that. Wisdom calls aloud outside. She raises her voice in the open squares.

She cries out in the chief concourses at the openings of the gates of the city, she speaks her words. How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke. Surely I will pour out my spirit on you.

I will make my words known to you. Because I have called you and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded. Because you disdained all my counsel and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your terror comes. When your terror comes like a storm and your destruction comes like a whirlwind.

When distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me, because they hated knowledge, and they did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way and be filled to the full with their own fancies. For the turning away of the simple will slay them and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

But whoever listens to me will dwell safely and will be secure without fear of evil. Praise God that this is the message that he gives us in his word, the personification of wisdom, crying out to the masses of people in the most public of public places, saying, turn to me, it's good here, and yet sinful man turns away. Public preaching is not only used by God to affect individual salvation, but also to avert the outpouring of his wrath on entire nations. God says in Jeremiah 18, verses 7 and 8, the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up, to pull down and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. He follows with instructions to Jeremiah in verse 11, Now therefore speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you.

Return now everyone from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good." Jeremiah in 26 verse 3 tells us that God says, perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may relent concerning the calamity which I purposed to bring on them because of the evil of their doings." When Jonah preached to Nineveh, he said, "...yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Everyone from the greatest to the least in that city repented. They turned, they put on sackcloth, and they called for fasting. God wanted to avert His wrath from a hundred twenty thousand plus people who didn't, couldn't discern their left hand from their right, and also much cattle, as we see in his word. I remember when I first read Jonah, and I got to the end of that chapter, and I flipped the page, and I see Micah. This can't be the end.

Surely there's, you know, I must have gotten a Bible with a major typo here. I went online and I checked. Is this really the end of the book of Jonah? God says He's turning away His wrath from cattle. This is the mercy of God.

He made the world, He created everything, men to cows, and He loves His creation, and He sends people, even someone like Jonah, who had such a stubborn, unwilling heart, and He sends them out so that, at times, so that when it pleases Him, so that he can turn his wrath away from from a heathen city like Nineveh. Praise God for his mercy. Contrast Jonah with Noah, a preacher of righteousness. Did Noah have better results? No, the hearts of these two men were so very different, yet over 120 years, God only put seven other people on that ark with Noah, while the rest of the world was destroyed all around them, every single person.

This is the justice of God. Praise God for his justice. It's not the preacher's motivations, it's not their style, it's not the obedience of their heart that makes sinners repent, it's all God. God calls his people to spread the word and he does the work of conversion. That's a very important thing to remember.

The preachers of the Old Testament were just as subject as we are to the fact that he will manifest his glory by either softening or hardening. A sinful people. His word never returns void. Our job is simply to preach. What long suffering and kindness God extends to the world by sending preacher after preacher after preacher.

We see it in the scripture with to the nation of Israel, we see it to the heathen nations, we see it all over. I see it in my own life when I look back, God sent preacher after preacher after preacher, and yet I woke up 28 and a half years of my life every single day, and I took a breath of air, and I looked around with my eyes that can behold the beauty of his creation. I tasted food, and I felt feelings, and I smelled wonderful smells and touched things and heard things, and yet I refused. I refused to worship and give thanks to God. God sent preachers in so many ways and I'm so thankful for that.

It's so undeserved and he's very patient God. The New Testament is full of street preachers as well. As Mr. Brown said last night, Jesus Christ is probably the best example of that. He went on the roads and houses and fields, he stood out in a boat and preached to people on the shore, he publicly proclaimed his father.

John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Stephen, all public preachers who are used by God. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. John the Baptist. Peter's cry to the Jews in Acts 2 verse 40 is, be saved from this perverse generation. In John 10, verse 27, the Lord Jesus Christ tells us, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow.

And as Paul asks in Romans 10, verse 14, how will they hear without a preacher? So because the focus of public proclamation of the word is conversion, but it's preaching God's Word in faith in the hopes that God would convert. We do hope for that, knowing that it is up to Him, but we pray, we beseech him that he would turn our fellow countrymen, our families, he would turn people from their sin and to come and worship him because we want people to worship God. Yet, so the street preacher's message needs to contain the gospel. We need to talk to people about who God is and His holiness and His righteousness.

Don't start with, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, or Jesus loves you, you need Jesus. It's not about fixing things, it's about proclaiming who God is and His character, His holiness, His justice, His power, His righteousness. His eyes are so pure, He can't look upon iniquity. When you don't have that starting point, the bad news about who man is, is, in my experience, just doesn't strike home. People say, well, everyone is a bad person, everyone sins in this way, so God's got to bend the rules.

We need to tell them who man is. We need to tell them that man is sinful and rebellious and that he's helpless in his state of death, in his sins and trespasses. Jesus Christ commands that man be perfect just as his Father in heaven is perfect, which brings us to our third point. The most important point is that the proclamation of what God did to bring, to reconcile sinners to Himself. He sent His only Son to die on the cross and be the sacrifice to purchase the people to Himself and pay that price.

The wrath that everyone deserves was poured out onto Jesus for His bride when He made that purchase. We need to proclaim this and the sheep will hear. This is the gospel, plain and simple. This is what we need to preach. It's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.

I am running over on time and need to get through a few points. Scripture is sufficient for apologetics. One of the things we get as questions from other believers are, what do you say to this? What do you say to that? Well, when people tell you they're an atheist, don't believe them.

God tells us in Romans 1 that He has made the knowledge of Himself manifest in everyone from the creation of the world. No one has an excuse for not worshipping God and giving Him thanks. This is what, this is why it's just for Him to cast people into hell. They know God, and yet they want to, they construct this obscure false reality where there's no, there's no consequence for sin, there's no eternity, everything's material, and it's because they want to be comfortable in their sin So just just know that just open open your Bible read your Bible know what God says about the sinful heart of man and how to speak to him. There are some good resources on this.

Always Ready is a great book. It's a compilation of essays from Dr. Greg Bahnson and there's a website. Proofthatgodexists.org is a good website, but it all just boils down to Scripture is sufficient for apologetical methods. In closing, my portion I'd like to make one more point.

In Romans 10 and verse 14 we're familiar, How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher?" In verse 15, Paul goes on to write, "...and how shall they preach unless they are sent?" Street preachers are not vigilantes. They're not lone Rangers. They're not going out doing cowboy work. They are sent, they are under authority.

It's so foolish to bring, to remove yourself from the authorities that God has put in place for your good. Civil, church authority, all these things, you know, when a street preacher goes out and says, I'm just gonna go out and do it myself he is removing himself from these safeguards that God has put in place for his good and it's a very foolish thing to do police officers are therefore as ministers of God for his good believe the Bible when it says that respect police officers these same preachers who go out you know often find it so hard to plug into a local church and they practice this catch-and-release evangelism. The purpose of street preaching is to build the church of Jesus Christ. Proclaim his word that his sheep might hear. If you're not centered on on that, you need to be.

It's always centered on working with a church and bringing people in for discipleship, not just going out and telling people, but bringing them in so that they might be taught to obey all the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have your Bibles, will you turn with me to Acts chapter 17 as we finish our session here? We've had the foundation laid, the framework is erected, and now we're going to slap on the walls and see what actual application of street preaching looks like in the New Testament. Acts chapter 17 beginning in verse 22. So The Word of the Lord says, then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious.

For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found on the altar with this inscription to the unknown God. Therefore the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you. God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshiped with men's hands as though he needed anything, since he gives to all life, breath, and all things. And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times of the boundaries of their dwelling so that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and have our being.

As also some of your own Poets have said, for we have also his offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance to this, to all, by raising him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, we will hear you again on this matter.

So Paul departed from among them. However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman called Damaris, and others with them. Well unfortunately we don't have enough time to unpack everything that is in this text. We can gain from it exactly what an application of street preaching looks like from from Paul's message here. First we know to the beginning of his message Paul has has seized an opportunity.

Athens was not Paul's original intended location but yet he finds himself there and because he finds himself there he seizes the opportunity to preach God among the pagans, among the idolatry of Athens. May they be found of every street preacher that we would seize every opportunity that God gives us, that a day would not go by when we are not convicted for the glory of God and for the lost souls of men. So Paul first points to something tangible, to the altar, to the unknown God. He finds in essence what we would call a segue or a springboard. Paul uses this altar observing his around his surroundings using what is tangible is what Christ did in his ministry as well in Matthew chapter 13 and 22 we have eight such occurrences speaking of the kingdom of God that Christ pointed to tangible things that people could latch onto.

Finding that segue, use your surroundings, use what's around you when you're preaching Christ on the streets. Use what is most recent in people's minds. News articles that the death of someone noble or someone important in society. Use that opportunity not simply to draw, you're not trying to draw them in with this. You're not trying to to capture them or to wow them with your knowledge as has been pointed out already.

The purpose of this is not to attract them but to relate the physical to the spiritual. God will draw those to the preacher whom he has ordained to hear the message. We should never think that we can draw anyone in by our craftiness or by our intellect, but we trust in the sovereignty of God to bring people to hear his word preached. Paul reminds the church in Corinth of this in 1 Corinthians chapter two, verses one through five. While the street preacher is required to exercise some level of biblical wisdom concerning scripture and the things of God, He is not to rely on himself as any source of conviction in the message.

If conviction of sin is the responsibility of the preacher, then we have missed the power of the Holy Spirit to convict all men of sin, of righteousness and judgment. Then Paul springs into his message. He spends very little time talking about this tangible example, but he seizes them, he seizes the opportunity to point out to the tangible aspect of his surroundings. What does Paul first preach on? He does not first preach on the depravity of man.

He first preaches on the greatness of God. Let this be our first and greatest point in preaching. To exalt God and exalt Jesus Christ. We're out there to glorify God first and foremost, he is our first love. Verse 24, he speaks of God as the creator, that God is transcendent, that God is high and holy above his creation.

As he has not yet a part of it, as Paul states later on in his message, he is still active in his creation. Now this stands in complete contrast to the Stoics who were there listening to Paul's message. The Stoics believe that all mankind is on is somehow on some level divine with the other pagan God. So what Paul preaches of a God that is transcendent above mankind is completely contrary to how they were raised and what they believed. As creator, he teaches his omnipresence.

Lest they believe that God is confined to a temple made by man's hands, that man can somehow constrict God to a certain location. Paul reveals God's omnipresent that the people might know that they can not simply hide their God over here and clothe him over with a veil as they would do with some of their idols that their God might not see what they were doing. Paul says God is everywhere. He sees all things. As Creator God is seen as omnipotent.

The idols of this world, the idols of the Athens, they needed people to prop them up. They needed people to drag them around. They needed people to clothe them. They needed people to offer things to them to feed the idols, to literally put into their hands food and to press it onto the mouths of some of their idols. They were dead.

Dead. They were not living. God needs nothing from us. And so Paul exalts that aspect of God, that character, nature of God, that he is omnipotent, that he needs nothing from us. In verse 26, that God is sovereign that he is sovereign the God who made all things who was made from one blood every nation of men to dwell in all the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling God is sovereign in all of the actions of man lest the Athenians believe that God was so far removed as the Epicureans thought.

Paul says, no, God is active among mankind. He is imminent. Transcendence speaks of God's highness and his holiness and his imminent speaks of God's immediate presence and action among mankind. God is not someone who was distant, who was far off, who was absent from man. He is someone who is directly involved.

Whether they realized it, whether the hearers of street preaching realized that God has ordained to that time that they would hear that message. God has constructed their boundaries, He's placed them in a certain point in their life by His will, by His design. Verse 28, for any of him we live and move and have our being. God is the provider and sustainer you understand in an idol worshiping world even as we have today God is not seen as the provider and sustainer If you want to provide for yourself as the world thinks today, you have to earn it. You have to do what you can to crush your fellow man to gain a foothold in life.

You sustain yourself, says the world. And the men of Athens thought no different. You know what is amazing is we look at this passage, the wonderful and horrific parallel that exists between Athens and today. The idolatry that Paul was preaching against is the same idolatry we see today. It may not be by stone on a corner, by altars laid out in the streets, but it is by idols of the heart that we face today.

God not only provides but sustains and continues to provide. The phrase to have our being here in verse 28 literally means to have hope or to have a promise that is Paul is exalting Paul is preaching to them that God provides the next heartbeat the next breath and every aspect of life that keeps us going, not just the food, but the very functioning of your body. Paul says God controls. Knowing that, And by the conviction of the Holy Spirit should sober most hearers of the Word up. To know that God controls your heartbeat, that God controls your breath, means that God can also stop it whenever he so wishes.

Only once the greatness of God has been preached, only once the glory of God has been exalted in our message, might we then begin to preach on the sinfulness and the depravity of man. Now understand God is the standard unless we preach God as the high and holy and righteous standard sin makes no sense. That is why rushing to Romans 3 23 is in essence in most application of evangelism today a watering down of sin because you ignore the previous two chapters in 22 verses prior to that where Paul in Romans identifies specifically who God is and what sin is. Paul exalts who God is. He preaches on the highness and the holiness of God, the omnipotence of God, the transcendence of God, the imminence of God, and now he preaches on the depravity of man.

Therefore since we are his offspring, we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Athens was full of countless gods. If you didn't like this God you could simply go down the street and find another one And if you didn't like that God and you couldn't find one among the Athenian idols, simply make your own or hire someone to make an idol or a God for you. Is that not in the heart of man today? You don't want God?

Then make one up. Oh, my God wouldn't judge. My God is an all-loving God. He accepts all religions. He accepts everything.

He would by no means cast anyone out. You're right, your God wouldn't judge because your God doesn't exist. He's a creation of your own heart. While Paul does hit on the sin of idolatry here. He also ties it in with the first of God's 10 commandments.

Because God is not the primary affection of the Athenians, and I fear that in many ways God is not the primary affection of majority of the world today. Knowledge and self are the central aspects of Athens. Who do the people of Athens care about? Themselves. These high-minded wise philosophers go about all day long doing nothing but debating knowledge and wisdom.

How many do we see coming out of colleges and still in college campuses today that would sit around and debate until you are blue in the face about whether God exists just because they took philosophy 101 this last semester they know it all Oh God surely can't exist why because my professor told me where'd your professor get his knowledge he got his knowledge from another school what did the school teach well they taught out of a book so you got your knowledge of another book you simply say the Bible can't be trusted did you trust the words of man over here the idolatry that exists and still exists today is a self-centered pride field idolatry that exists in the hearts of many as has been preached on already we as street preachers and those who are called to that area of ministry need to be careful that we don't make idols of our street preaching. We need to be cautious of that as well, that we are not hypocrites standing on a corner, standing on a soapbox preaching against sin while we ourselves have made that ministry an idol. That we sacrifice everything to that ministry.

We sacrifice our prayer life. We sacrifice the study of the Word of God. We sacrifice our families to that. Brothers and sisters, I've seen so many that have sacrificed their families on the altar of street preaching. They have given their families over and they said I have no time to be a husband I have no time to be a father for their souls out there to save and yet those souls that live under their own roof are starving to death.

That's an added bonus. Wasn't part of the actual message. God has thus given his law to us. Identifying his character and his nature understand that God's Ten commandments don't simply identify what sin is, they identify who God is. Why is it wrong to lie?

Why is it a sin to lie? Because God is truth. Why is it a sin to commit adultery? Because God is faithful. Why is it a sin to steal what is not rightfully yours?

Because God is the provider. Romans chapter 3 verse 20, because by the works of the law none of all flesh will be justified in his sight. For though through the law is the knowledge of sin. Galatians 3 24, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster or our teacher to bring us under Christ that we might be justified by faith. Paul identifies what sin is.

He brings it to the forefront once God has been preached and in his righteousness and his glory That man might know Specifically what sin is again to simply quote quote Romans 3 23 and say, well everybody sin just generalizes it. God's Word is piercing to the heart of man. The Holy Spirit convicts men individually and brings them individually to repentance and faith in Christ. And lastly Paul preaches to them the proper response. Truly these times of ignorance verse 30 God overlooked but now commands all men everywhere to repent because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world and righteousness by the man whom he has ordained he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead Might I say this is this is probably the street preachers I'm gonna speak for all of them all of a sudden but this is probably the street preachers favorite point to get to the grace of God not to rush through it to ignore the judgment of God but to get to the grace of God.

To pray that as the Holy Spirit has been convicting through that message, that as you come to that point of speaking of repentance and faith in Christ, you haven't left them dangling on a cliff over over the bowels of hell waiting to be thrown in but you have shown them who can save them from their sins. Finally preaches on the judgment and the salvation that is found in Christ, and we see the responses, mocking. Some are interested, and some are converted. Friends, in closing, let me simply put this in street preaching. The power to save is not upon the preacher.

The power to save is upon God. If you move out of the way, if you get out of the way of the message and you simply preach Christ and him crucified, God will save as he has so ordained to do. May God bless you in your continued ministry. Thank you for listening. The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is dedicated to proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life and to the establishment of biblically ordered churches.

For more information, resources, and products, please visit our website at www.ncfic.org. Thank you. Thank you.