Speak Boldly – Part 1

0:23 to minimize the Word of God and to minimize the preaching of the Word of God. You can catch a lot of sermons with a lot of crowds being drawn on TV that have nothing to do with the Word and churches that are not putting the Word at the center of all that they do. I was in a session, a presentation down in New Orleans when I was working on the PhD down there. and it was a church growth specialist that was giving his speech that particular day. And he was talking about how to grow the church in the 21st century and the church for upcoming generations. And what he did was he went on to talk about one of his main theses was that the role of preaching the word is diminishing in the church today, that it's not as necessary. In fact, that it's being replaced by music.

1:16 And he went on to talk about how if we want to reach people in our culture, We need to put music at the central place instead of preaching the word, put music there because people respond better to music, and that's the more effective way to communicate in our day and age. Well, I was a lowly PhD student sitting in the back, and I didn't want to be bold or arrogant and ask him the question that was coming to my mind. Part of me wishes, now looking back, that I would have. But sitting there listening to this guy talk about how the most effective way today to communicate is music, and so that's going to replace preaching the word, I really wanted to raise my hand and ask this particular gentleman, if that was the case, then why did he not sing his presentation to us that day? You know how you think, I really wish I would have said that at that particular time, but I didn't. And I want us to think about the fact that preaching the Word of God and the proclamation of the Word of God has been central ever since the Old Testament in the history of God's people, and it's not going to change in the 21st century.

2:21 The Word of God is still at the center, and the proclamation of His Word is still at the center. The early church devoted themselves to the apostles' singing or to the apostles' drama or to the apostles' interpretive dance movements. No, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. They taught the Word of God, and it was central in the church. And I'm convinced if we want to reach people for the glory of Christ in our day and age, it needs to be central in the church today. Teaching the Word, the Word of the center. And so what I want us to do is I want us to dive into what's involved in proclamation of the Word and why is the Word, and especially preaching the Word, so central in our worship? Why is it that important? Some of you may be thinking, well, why are we talking about preaching? That's your job. As long as you've got this taken care of, then we don't really need to deal with this. Well, two reasons that I want us to talk about this today. Number one, we need to be a people who know what to expect when we hear the Word of God proclaimed and taught.

3:21 because there's a lot of people who are claiming to be preachers but are not preaching the Word of God, who are preaching anything but the Word of God. And we need to be a people who know how to recognize that which is right and brings honor to God by exposing His voice and that which is wrong and brings no honor to God and just entertains. We need to be a people who know the difference between those two things. In addition, last week we talked some about a missional awakening, that God would wake us up in our church culture in the South to see his glory and his majesty and his mercy in new, fresh ways that would cause us to submit our lives to him and his mission. I want to share with you a quote from a guy named Martin Lloyd Jones, one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century, used mightily of God in London, England there, to really see God do incredible things through his ministry. He said this, any study of church history, and particularly any study of the great periods of revival or awakening, demonstrates above everything else just this one fact, that the Christian church during all such periods has spoken with authority.

4:23 The great characteristic of all revivals has been the authority of the preaching of God's Word. There seemed to be something new, extra, and irresistible in what the preacher declared on behalf of God. In a world of religious pluralism and moral relativism and biblical skepticism, if there is no authority being preached from the Word of God, where is it to be found? And so I want us to dive into why this is so huge and use what's going on here in Acts chapter 2 to give us a picture of the first time we see a Christian sermon preached or taught. Peter stands up, raises his voice, addressed the crowd, and I want us to dive into five reasons why the Word must be central in our worship, particularly the proclamation of the word why it must be central in our worship now i've got to be honest with you i was pretty overzealous when i was putting these notes together turned them in on thursday had a lot of things i wanted to cover and it's just not going to happen today some of you that just relieve your fears right now we're just not going to make it through back in front of this we make it make it through a little bit of it we'll see how God leads, but we're going to have to pick up next week. So don't miss church next week just because it's Labor Day. We're going to pick up the sermon. Hopefully you won't be persuaded not to come back next week as a result of what happens today. So anyway, five reasons why the Word of God must be central in our worship, particularly the proclamation of the Word of God.

5:56 Number one, because of the Word's magnitude. Because of the Word's magnitude. And I want us to split this up into two sections. I want to give us a couple of reminders this morning when it comes to God's Word, the purpose of the Word, the power of the Word. First reminder, we need to remember the significance of God's revelation. The significance of God's revelation. Now that's kind of a thick phrase, God's revelation, the significance of His revelation. What does that mean? Well, basically here in Acts chapter 2, when you get down to verse 11, you see the end of this description of all the different languages that are being spoken there among the different peoples. And it says, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Now, Jim mentioned earlier in the service, that is basically most likely a reference to these people and all these different languages proclaiming just what we did today, maybe the Psalms or other portions of Old Testament scripture that declared the wonder and the glory and the beauty of God. That's what they were doing in all kinds of different languages. You can imagine the intensity of the scene, declaring the wonder of God in their own tongues. And that gives us a little bit of a glimpse into the purpose of the Word and the significance of the Word, because the Word is the instrument that God uses to reveal Himself, to show Himself to us. Look at it in two ways. Number one, God reveals Himself as the Word. God reveals Himself as the Word. Remember John chapter 1, verse 1.

7:23 It says, in the beginning was the Word. Not in the beginning was the song or in the beginning was the interpretive dance, but in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's talking about Jesus. Verse 14 says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His power and His glory, the glory of the one and only, full of grace, only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We beheld His glory. How? Through the Word. God reveals Himself as the Word. Jesus is called the Word of God there in John chapter 1. And Jesus is God, so God is revealing himself as the Word. Second, not only as the Word, but God reveals himself through the Word. All throughout Scripture, we see God revealing himself through the means of his Word. This is an Old Testament thing and New Testament thing alike. Let me show you one example in the Old Testament.

8:17 Hold your place here in the book of Acts. I want you to turn to the left back to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel 3. Let me remind you that in the future, if you don't have a Bible with you, when you come to Brook Hills, there are some available out in the lobby that you can pick up on your way in. Feel free to grab one of those. If you didn't have one with you this morning, let me encourage you maybe to find somebody around you who has one now. It'll help guide our time together. But look at 1 Samuel 3. It's right before 2 Samuel in the Old Testament. right after Joshua and Judges, then Ruth, and you come to 1 Samuel. And this is a time when the Word of God was not very prevalent among His people. I want you to look at 1 Samuel 3, verse 1. This will kind of set the stage. Some of you may be familiar with this story, may have heard some about it before. Samuel, this guy Eli, is kind of working under him, and God's going to call Samuel in this chapter.

9:12 Listen to how it starts. Verse 1 says, The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli, In those days, check this out, the word of the Lord was rare. There were not many visions. And so you didn't have much of the word of the Lord. Visions literally means revelations. God is not revealing himself through the word. People aren't paying attention to his word. So God calls Samuel in this chapter. Then we come to the end, verse 21, and I want you to hear what it says. Look at the very last verse in that chapter. The Bible says, The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel. what? Through his word. So God, we know he's there, he's present with us, but how do we see him? How do we hear God? God reveals himself to us through his word, by the power of his word. And that's exactly what we see the rest of the New Testament. We won't turn to all these. You can write some of them down if you can keep up, but I just want to give you a list real quick.

10:10 Hebrews 11, verse 3 says, God created the world by his word. God spoke in Genesis 1. So Hebrews 11, 3 talks about how God created the world by his word. Mark 4, verse 39, Jesus speaks a word and the storms are calmed, the seas are calmed by the power of his word. Mark 1, verse 25, Jesus speaks a word and demons are cast out just because he spoke the word. Mark 2, verse 10, Jesus speaks and sins are forgiven. Luke 18, verse 42, Jesus speaks and the blind can now see. Luke 7, verse 14, Jesus speaks and a dead guy raises to life. Romans 10, verse 17 talks about how faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. In other words, the only way we can be saved from our sins is when we hear the word of Christ. So the word of Christ is necessary for all of those things.

11:05 and we are fools if we think we can manufacture the power of God in the church apart from his word. Why would you want to diminish the word that could cause blind guys to see and dead guys to get up out of the tomb? That's not a very smart way to do church.

11:29 The power of the word, God revealing his character and his work through the word. Now, I want you to see how this relates to worship. I was with the worship staff on a retreat a couple weeks ago, and I describe worship as a rhythm of revelation and response. I thought I'd use a musical term, you know, to communicate to these guys. A rhythm of revelation and response, going back and forth. God reveals himself and we respond. Isn't that what worship is about? God reveals himself through his word. Even through the songs that we sing, as they're saturated with his word, we see God's glory and we respond in prayer. We respond in confession. We respond in commitment. We respond in surrender. We respond and give our offerings. All of that is a response to the revelation of God. It makes sense, but when you look at the contemporary church landscape, if we take the focus on the revelation of God out, what do you have in worship left?

12:25 It is hollow apart from the Word. You may sing, and you may get good feelings, and you may walk away with a nice, tingly feeling down your back, but if you've not encountered the revelation of God, it's impossible to worship because worship is a response to the revelation of God and His Word. God reveals Himself as the Word, and God reveals Himself through the Word. Now, that's the significance of God's revelation. Now, let's take it a step deeper. Remember the seriousness of man's proclamation. Now, here's where it particularly relates to the preaching of the word. The seriousness of man's proclamation. When Peter comes to Acts chapter 2, Bible says he stood up with the 11, raised his voice, and told a joke. No, no. Peter stood up with the 11, raised his voice, and said something witty that got them to laugh.

13:24 No, he stood up, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. You could circle that word in Acts chapter 2, verse 14, put a note that says this literally means to speak with gravity, to speak with seriousness, and with the weight of something very important. It's a word that's often used to refer to prophecy, spokesman for God that takes the Word of God and speaks it to people. That's a serious thing to do. So Peter stands up, raises his voice, and speaks with gravity to the crowd. It's a very serious thing. Two things the preacher does that we're seeing Peter do here. Number one, the preacher exposes the voice of God. Preacher takes the voice of God. That was the job of the prophet. We see him talking about prophecy here, quoting Joel. Preacher takes the word of God and proclaims the word of God. That's exposing the voice of God. We're going to talk about that more in a little bit, just a little more in depth. But he exposes the voice of God. And second, the preacher exalts the greatness of God. Because when we expose the voice of God, we exalt the greatness of God. This is a radically God-centered sermon here in Acts chapter 2. I want you to look at it. You could put an underline or something on these different parts.

14:32 I want you to see how Peter is constantly emphasizing the activity of God and what God is doing. Look at Acts chapter 2, verse 17. In the last days, God says, I'm going to pour out my spirit on all people. And in verse 22, two times over here, men of Israel, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God. God put a stamp of approval on him to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did among you through him. Verse 23, this is a pretty heavy verse. This man, Jesus, was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge. God did that. You hear what he's telling them? When they put Jesus on the cross, it wasn't an accident. It Was it, oh no, it's out of my hands. The people have taken Jesus and they're putting him on a cross. That was God's set purpose. Jesus came to die.

15:25 Jesus came and by the purpose of God, he took the wrath of our sin upon himself on a cross. And it was God who poured out wrath on his son instead of on you and me. God did that. Verse 24, but God raised him from the dead. That's the good news. God raised him from the dead. Verse 30, he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Verse 32, God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Then it comes to a culmination in verse 36, that all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. This whole sermon is about what God is doing, and it's God-centered. Now, in light of that, preacher exposing the voice of God and exalting the greatness of God, I want us to begin to think about how this is looking in our culture today. In our worship or in our preaching, would you say that our preaching and our worship is more man-centered or is it more God-centered? What are the questions we ask each other when we walk out of this room? Well, what'd you think? Did you get anything out of that? How'd that help you out? How many times do we walk away and over lunch on Sunday afternoon, we sit around and have a discussion about what God thought of our worship service? Man-centered or God-centered? And I'll take part of the blame for this. I think preachers are much to blame for this because we have taken the Word and put such a man-centered emphasis on it that we have lost sight completely of the God-centered crux of this book. This book is a book not about us, but about Him primarily.

17:20 And in our efforts as preachers to try to apply the Word of God in different people's lives, which is a good thing, we'll talk about that more later, it's a very good thing, we need to see how the Bible is relevant for our lives, but in our efforts to do that, many times we bypass the most important part of the Bible, and that's the fact that it is bringing glory to God. Let me give you an example. Turn with me back to Genesis chapter 39. Genesis chapter 39. First book in the Bible, Genesis chapter 39. This is a story that some of you may be familiar with, a guy named Joseph. Joseph was, by God's grace, put in Potiphar's house and given a lot of responsibility. Potiphar trusted Joseph. And so when he was there, things were going good until one day, Potiphar's wife decides she's going to kind of approach Joseph inappropriately. And so she does. And Joseph runs. And basically, he ends up getting framed for doing something he didn't do with Potiphar's wife. And what happens is Potiphar puts Joseph in prison. Once he gets to prison, he meets some pretty strange characters. They have some dreams. Joseph interprets those dreams, gets a little bit of trouble as a result of that. And then finally, he's let out of prison, and he comes back to Potiphar's house.

18:33 That's the story, Genesis 39 and 40. Now, at this point, if we're gonna focus on this text, for example, in our worship, and I'm gonna preach from this text, there's a lot of practical things I could give you from that text. A lot of practical things we could emphasize. I could talk to students and I could say, you need to be pure. You need to resist temptation, just like Joseph. Follow Joseph's example, be pure and resist temptation. We get a whole sermon built on the purity that we need as teenagers built on Joseph. Or maybe I could, let's think of some other practical things. Maybe I could preach on how it's better to have some business experience if you're going to get thrown in jail before you get there. It'll help you out some.

19:17 It's one practical application. Maybe we could preach on, you know, don't share your dreams with others. Sometimes you get in a little trouble when you do that. Maybe you shouldn't do that. There's some different practical application we could take from this. But if we rush to the practical application, I think we can easily miss the whole point of this passage. I want to read for you just a few verses. And I want you to see there is one phrase that is mentioned four times over and over and over and over again in this passage. Verse 2. The Bible says,

20:01 Now in just those two verses, did you see one phrase repeated twice? The Lord was with Joseph. How did Joseph prosper? Because the Lord was with Joseph. How did he have success? Success because the Lord gave it to him. Look over in verse 21, end of this chapter. While Joseph was there in the prison, here he is in jail now, the Lord was with him. There it is again. He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because, here it is again, the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. You look at the background of this, you'll find that Isaac and Jacob, Abraham, received the same promises over and over and over again. Genesis 26, Genesis 28, Genesis 35. The Lord is with you.

20:53 Come to Genesis 39, it's emphasized again. When we come to the New Testament, Stephen is quoting, talking about the story of Joseph. Acts 7, verse 9 says, The Lord was with Joseph. Stephen knew. These guys in the Old Testament know, and somewhere along the way, we can miss the fact that the hero of the story is not Joseph. The hero of the story is God. And I want you to think about how that changes the way we teach and preach and how that changes the way we worship. Then it's not about me coming in here and giving students some practical tips on how to be pure. It's about me coming in here and saying, in the middle of the temptations you face, no matter how hard it may get, right in the middle of that, you have a God who is with you. He doesn't leave you to face those temptations alone, and he gives you strength, and he'll provide the way out in those temptations. And then I can go further and talk about how when you go to your house, things are getting torn apart, and mom's fighting with dad, and things aren't going the way they're supposed to.

21:48 There's a guy who knows what it's like to be in that situation, and he learned that in the middle of those difficult times, there was a God who was in control that was still with him. in his exaltation, in his humiliation. God was with Joseph. God gave him success by giving him his presence and took care of him the whole way. Now, that'll preach. That's a God-centered way. And we walk out of here and we don't say, all right, now I gotta try to be pure just like Joseph. We walk out of here and say, God, thank you for being with me and the things I'm gonna face this week. And that changes the word, how we handle the word, changes the way we worship, and it changes the way we live out the Christian life. transformed from man-centered to God-centered.

22:30 And that's the essence of what I believe I'm supposed to do week in and week out with the Word, to show you the greatness of God in the Word. Albert Einstein, obviously a genius, knew more about this universe than most of us put together. Genius. There's a guy named Charles Misner. He's a scientific specialist in general relative theory. He studied Einstein, and I want you to hear what he said about Einstein and religion, particularly church. Listen to this. The design of the universe is very magnificent and shouldn't be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religions, although he strikes me as basically a very religious man. Listen to this.

23:23 he must have looked at what the preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that churches he'd run across did not have proper respect for the author of the universe. my job week in and week out is to open the revelation of God in his word and give you a glimpse of his greatness and his mercy and his majesty and his holiness and say to you, he is worth every bit of your life. He is more important than your statistics. He is more important than your grades. He's more important than your 401ks.

24:15 He's more important than your careers or your jobs. He is everything and he is worth all of our submission. We don't see that if we don't open the word of God and see his majesty and his glory and his holiness. Now, now bring that to what we were just talking about with the seriousness of man's proclamation, exposing the voice of God. That is the job of the preacher. We magnify God by magnifying his voice to expose his voice to the people. I don't know if any of you, if you watch the old DVD documentary, A&E biography that was done on David Platt. I don't know if you saw that, but if you did, you may have seen that the title I've had down in New Orleans is assistant professor of expository preaching. And some of you thought, what in the world is that? Expository preaching.

25:09 I was preaching at a conference recently, and there was somebody who was introducing me, and said, this is David Platt. He is the assistant professor, down at New Orleans Seminary, he is the assistant professor of suppository preaching. Expository. Expository preaching.

25:36 And all that is, is saying when the preacher stands to proclaim God's Word, it better be God's Word that he's exposing. Exposed to unfold something. I picture it like this. Go to the Grand Canyon. My wife and I were there in the spring. Go to the Grand Canyon. When you get to the Grand Canyon, you don't have to work to show the beauty of the Grand Canyon. All you have to do is take people, open their eyes, and say, here it is. You don't have to make the Grand Canyon beautiful. Well, the Bible teaches in Psalm chapter 19 that his revelation is greater in his word than anything in creation. And so if we see the beauty of God in the Grand Canyon, we're just opening our eyes. And I'm convinced we can see the beauty of God even more clearly if we would just open our eyes to his word. And the preacher's job is just to say, hey, let me take you on a little tour and show you that which is more beautiful than anything you have ever seen before. That's what exposing the voice of God is about.

26:29 Now, here's the deal. If we're going to magnify God, then we must magnify his voice, kind of like the microphone does for me. It magnifies my voice, magnifies what I'm saying. The preacher exposes the voice of God to magnify the glory of God. If we're going to maximize what God is saying, then that means we have to minimize what God is not saying, right? In order for you to hear the voice of God, you don't need to hear the voice of man. I'm quite confident that nearly 4,000 people have not gathered here together at the Church of Brook Hills today to hear the opinions of David Platt. If you have, I would say that you have made a poor choice on what to do on Sunday morning. because my opinions really don't have much merit for all of our lives. However, if you have come here to hear the word, the voice of God exposed among his people, then it is worth every minute we spend in this room.

27:28 Maximize what God is saying and minimize what God is not saying. The trend though in preaching today and what many times we do in church is we reverse it and we minimize what God is saying and we maximize what the preacher wants to say. and his opinions, and his soapbox, and his desires, and somewhere along the way, the word of God just falls to the background.

27:52 And there's evidence all over the place of that. One of my favorite books, Nehemiah, in the Old Testament, incredible book, about how God, once again, Nehemiah, not the hero of that story, God the hero of that story. Chapter two, all throughout, chapter four, verse 15, four, verse 20, chapter six, verse 16, chapter 7 verse 5 over and over again Nehemiah says God's doing all this God's the one who's making this thing successful and prosperous an incredible book about how God takes his people who are hurting and going through difficult times and he restores them and he builds them up to be a display of his glory that's what the book's about however you look in the Christian bookstore today and you will inevitably find at least a few books on leadership based on the book of Nehemiah And if you take a survey of church series over the last couple of years, you will hear all kinds of sermon series on how Nehemiah is God's textbook on leadership.

28:49 And so what we've done is we've taken the book of Nehemiah, and we've said, if you want to be successful in business, do these things. Nehemiah did these things, and that will help you be successful in business. We've taken a very God-centered book, made it very man-centered, and bypassed the whole point of the book. Now, here's the problem. When we do that, and we use Nehemiah as a platform to share what we think are good leadership principles, we encounter some problems in the book of Nehemiah. I won't ask you to turn there, but I just want to read you one part at the end of the book. Nehemiah chapter 13. Listen to this. Listen to what Nehemiah says. Pay attention closely. Nehemiah, God's textbook on leadership, how to lead successfully. Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. So Nehemiah says, I rebuked them and called down curses on them.

29:49 I beat some of the men and I pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God's name and said, you are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves. Now, is this a good leadership principle that we want to put before? You don't sell a lot of books when you say, when you get angry and things aren't going well in the organization, Go to the main leaders, get right up in their face, and just yell at them. And if that doesn't seem to be working, take your hands and rip the hair right out of their head. Well, obviously, Dave, we're not going to use that as a leadership principle. Be careful, because at this point, you are now deciding which leadership principles you are going to use and which you're not going to use from the book of Nehemiah, and you're maximizing what you want to say and minimizing what God has said.

31:01 Does that make sense? God raised up a people at the church at Brook Hills that want to see the glory of God and the voice of God. I pray that we will become people that wants more of him, less stories, fewer stories, and more of him. I pray that God raises up students from this church that will go off to camps and conferences and when they hear a speaker come up and tell all kinds of funny stories and entertained for an hour, they will go up and complain because they haven't seen the glory of God in his word. Make us a people that aren't content with that. We can get amused everywhere else in our culture much better than we can in the church. If we want to see the glory of God and the greatness of God and the majesty of God and that which really counts in our lives, then let's open the word and expose his voice.

31:57 Because when, check this out, when the preacher exposes the voice of God, God is magnified in his voice, and listen to this, the sermon now becomes worship. You catch that? That's why you will never hear somebody say at the church at Brook Hills, we're going to have some time of worship, and then we'll have the preacher come up. Well, what am I supposed to do? Well, I'm glad you've enjoyed worship. Now just come along with me and we'll just do something else over here. No, that's the center of our worship because God is revealing himself. And in our hearts, as we hear the word, we're being awakened in our eyes and our souls and our spirits, seeing his goodness and his grace and his mercy, and we're enthralled with him. We're captivated by him. My job is to present day in, week in and week out the glory of Christ, the majesty of God in his word by exposing a voice and exalting his greatness. Now bring this back to the seriousness of this thing.

32:57 there's a lot of people saying today that that preaching needs to be more amusing and it needs to be more funny and it needs to be lighter lighten up preacher Can you imagine? Lighten up, Peter. stop telling them they crucified the son of God tell a joke Peter say something witty we realize the gravity of this I come in here this morning and I know that across this room there are couples that are on the verge of divorce and wondering what to do to get out of the situation they find themselves in and I know that there are single moms in this room that are struggling with the routine of school because the guy who was there at one point has left you on your own to do this thing.

34:15 I know there are sons and daughters from this room that are fighting a war in another country. And I know there are men and women, moms and dads, husbands, wives, grandmothers, grandfathers that are suffering from cancer and debilitating diseases as a family wonders how to say goodbye. amidst the pain. And I know we have a family who has a nine-month-old child who's been in the hospital every single day of her life while her parents sit there in agony when they expected to be in the middle of the joy of raising a child. And in the middle of all that, I'm going to come and tell a joke. to entertain? or to say something witty,

35:13 lighten up. Do we realize the gravity here? 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, says the God of this world, meaning Satan, God, lowercase g, the God of this world is blinding the minds of unbelievers to keep people from seeing the glory of God in Christ. That's 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6, two verses later, says the true God, listen to this, is shining light into the hearts of people so that they can see the glory of God in the face of Christ. So you've got the God of this world blinding minds in verse 4. God, true God, holy God.

36:14 In verse 6, shining light into hearts. Verse 5, you know what it says? In the middle of this battle between the God of this world who's blinding minds and the true God who's shining light, verse 5 says, we preach Christ. That's the proclamation of the word. amidst this battle. Preach the one who died on a cross and conquered sin and conquered death and conquered the grave so that we don't have to fear death and we don't have to struggle with sin and we don't have to worry about what happens in the grave because we have the light of the knowledge of God and the glory of Christ living in us. That's the battle between these two. Get the picture. Grasp the seriousness of this thing. The God of this world Satan doing everything he can to blind all of our minds from seeing the infinite holiness of God and seeing that our sin is infinitely offensive in his sight and seeing that his wrath is infinitely just and his grace is infinitely precious.

37:29 The God of this world is trying to blind our minds from saying that our life is brief. Every single one of us in this room, in this church, in this community, our lives are brief. And every single one of us in this room is headed to either everlasting joy or everlasting suffering. if preaching doesn't carry the weight of those things, what will?

37:59 Television? Surfing the internet? DVDs? there's a God who is trying who desires to shine light into our hearts so that we see the glory of Christ and we bow in submission to him and there is the God of this world Satan who is doing everything he can to blind us so that we burn in hell Thank you. and I'm supposed to stand and give a casual talk about God.

38:47 No. No, I want us to see the greatness and the mercy and the majesty and the holiness and the love. of God and submit ourselves to his all-conquering, all-captivating, all-consuming grace in our lives. That, that's what the word is there for. And if we lose that, in our day and age, a Christ-diminishing age, soul-destroying age, where all across this room, we are being lured away by the God of this world into the mind-numbing pleasures of the world.