One Thing that Matters (Part 2) - Ep. 197

Your story is real, but does it get to rewrite what God said? We start with grief and lived experience, then push into a question that gets uncomfortable fast: does my life line up with the Word of God, or have I made myself an exception. When we build beliefs on pain, tradition, or what sounds good, we can end up sincerely convinced and still off course. 

We also talk about the “buffet” version of modern Christianity: endless denominations, endless opinions, and a growing habit of choosing what we like instead of testing everything against Scripture. We challenge the popular claim that many paths lead to God and bring it back to the Bible’s insistence on one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. The goal is clarity, not hype, and a faith anchored in truth rather than personality or culture. 

Then we walk through what the gospel is and what it means to obey it. Using 1 Corinthians 15, we define the gospel as Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and risen. The big question becomes practical: how do you obey that message? We go straight to the Book of Acts and trace repeated conversion accounts across Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, and “disciples” who still needed correction, highlighting repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and receiving the Holy Spirit as the consistent response pattern. 

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Transcript

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A Vision And A Wound

Speaker 0:03

The vision received was that of blood cells traveling throughout the body, supplying the much-needed oxygen and other nutrients to the differing members of the body to fulfill their purpose. Once the blood cells are spent, they must return back to the heart to be refilled before being sent out again and fulfill their purpose. So if you were here, I'm glad that you're back. I'd I like to finish it, I like to culminate it, and I hope that I have enough time to do so. Um when I last left you, um we talked about how I had lost my mom. She was a ripe young age of 40 years old when she had her heart attack. And I was a young boy of 20 years old. And uh that, needless to say, was a very traumatic event because immediately thereafter I lost my sister, uh, went with her father, who was not my my dad, but went with her father back to Puerto Rico, and I lost two very important people in my life at the time. And uh, you know, I I got some feedback from some of you, and some of you were sharing how you were crying and you had tears, and I that that wasn't what I wanted, but what I was trying

Hardship Does Not Make Exceptions

Speaker 1:30

to do was trying to prepare what I really wanted to share today because each and every one of us has had hardships in our life. Each each and every one of us has had turmoil, we've had trials, we've had tribulations, we've had pain, we've had hurt, we've had death, we've had loss. All of us share those experiences. So my experience is not that unique that you can't understand it. And and so those similarities, you know, give us some sort of connection, but there's maybe other nuances where maybe you didn't lose a younger sister of HIV, you know, like I did. But maybe you've lost someone, someone that you dearly loved. And our experiences are never perfect, we don't have perfect families, we don't have perfect parents. By golly, we don't have perfect children. We'd love for all of it to be perfect, but we live in a fallen world. And we we we can't have that, but God has made a promise that there's gonna be a day for the restitution of all things. So all of the things that the canker worse and the locusts have stolen from us, God is going to redeem and return it back to us, and it's gonna be glorious and more glorious than we've ever experienced in our life, and we just gotta keep our hope in the Lord. But none of our experiences legitimize us in the eyes of God. All of our experiences, relatively speaking, yours may be worse than mine, or mine may be worse than his, or his may be worse than, and none of that really legitimizes us in the eyes of God. But there's one thing that matters, there's one thing that differentiates us from being dead in our sins and being born again. And it's that one thing that I want to talk to you today about. I hope, or or I never got to ask this question last, but maybe I'll start it with

Does Your Life Match The Word

Speaker 3:20

this question. I'd like you to consider does I I guess it's a rhetorical question, and I'm gonna say it as if I was you. Does my life experience line up with the word? Or does it make me an exception to the word? Does my life line up with the word, or does it make me some special, unique exception that I don't have to abide by what's found in the word? You see, our experiences in life do not trump the word of God. His word is sure, and his word stands forever. Regardless of what we've experienced, our life and the experiences that we've had do not make us an exception to the requirements that God has declared from the foundation of the world. It doesn't matter where we come from, it doesn't matter our family, it doesn't matter our culture, it doesn't matter the good things we did, the bad things we did, the ugly things we did, it doesn't matter that our family and our ancestors had good things and bad things and ugly things. None of that matters because truly the point is that all of us, all the world has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no one good. There's no not one. And I might have thought that I was good and I was okay as I was growing up. I I I mentioned last week that I really wasn't a bad kid. I I was generally obedient, I was generally compliant. Um, but you know, I said, as I grew into my adolescence, I got into that adolescence stage, and I had a lot more knocking heads with my mom. But you know what the good thing is that out of the 7 billion people that are living on this world today, and out of all the billions and millions of people that had lived before this day throughout human history, 6,000 years of human history, God had a remedy. He alone has made a way to reconcile himself to us and us to himself. Contrary to public opinion, there is not a myriad, a plethora, there's not many ways for that to happen. There's actually only one way. He's made the way. There's this idea, I don't know if you've ever heard of this word, it's called ecumenicalism. It means that there's a bunch of Christian denominations, and it really doesn't matter which one you're involved in, they all lead to the same God. There's a bigger one that's more worldwide, new word, syncretism. It doesn't matter what world religion you are a part of. Maybe you've heard this from very popular people that had this very popular TV show where they believe that, oh, it doesn't really matter which way you go through, whether it's Allah or Hare Krishna or the Buddha or the Pope or Catholicism or any of the other religions, they all lead to the same God. You've heard of that before? Anybody? It's a lie. There is only one way, and I'd like to touch upon that tonight. I'd like to challenge us to consider our experiences in this life and the present state of being in the light of what we find in the Word of God. You think you could do that with me tonight? Because I want to answer this question. Are we aligning our experiences? Are we aligning our beliefs according to the word? Because too many times we develop these beliefs and they become ingrained and they become cemented by our experiences, and then we think that the way that we were taught or raised is it is right, but we're not comparing it with the word of God, and it's not right, and we have to be humble enough to admit that. Because if we're not humble enough to admit that, then our eternity is in jeopardy. Are we still trying to save ourselves in our own power? Are we trying to clean ourselves with our own cleansing agent? Are we trying to heal ourselves according to the thoughts

One Way Not Many Ways

Speaker 7:40

of what it takes to be healed? You see, when I look upon the religious world today, the world that we call Christianity, which I fully am not a part of, I can't help but be reminded of a buffet. Anyone ever been to a buffet? You got ribs over here, you got chicken, you got fish, you got sushi, you got rice, you got vegetables, you got all sorts of desserts. I mean, you have whatever you want. You pick whatever you want, whatever you like, whatever your heart's desire, you get to choose it and you like it. Well, that's how I see Christianity. Because some of us have itching ears, and we just listen for that message that just, oh, oh, it scratches our ears, and we just feel so good about it, but we're not looking to the word. In Christianity today, there's a smorgasborg of choices. Let me name you a few. There's the Methodists, and there's the Lutherans, and there's the Baptists and the Seventh-day Adventists, and there's the Presbyterians over there. And then over yonder you've got the Catholics and the Anglicans and the Orthodox, and over there you've got the charismatics, and you've got the Pentecostals over there. And then over there yonder, you got the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and you got a whole bunch of other choices. And when I first gave this message about 2010, I gave an abbreviated message. Back then, the the research said back then that there was about 35,000 Christian denominations in the world. Today, the recent research says that there's 45,000 plus different denominations. So in the last 10, 12 years, it's it's like grown exponentially. And I sit back and I think about how did it come to this? 45,000 Christian denominations in the world? And they all believe in this one book? There's not 45,000 pages in this book that we call the Bible, the 66 books. But I was raised in Florida and in Miami. You had a different church on every corner, literally like every one or two blocks. You had a church, another two blocks, you had another church, another two blocks, you had another church. There's churches all over the place, and they're all different. They're all they're all within walking distance from each other. That didn't make sense to me. But as I studied the word and I looked into the history of the civilizations, in the eyes of the word, it is quite apparent to me that in the beginning, it was not so. In the beginning, according to the letter of Ephesians, and I think some of these scriptures are going to be pulled up, Ephesians 4, 4 through 6 says, There is one body, there is one spirit. Just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all. There's one body, one faith, one baptism, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all creation. And in the beginning, there was only one gospel of the kingdom. It was started by a Jewish man. He was crying in the wilderness. Anybody know who I'm talking about? Anyone can guess? Who was this one that was crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Lord? John the Baptist started the gospel of the kingdom. You'd find that out if you read through the scriptures. It shouldn't be surprising to you, but in Matthew 3, 1 and 2, it says, In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at heaven, is at hand. That's what he said. If you go to Mark 1, verse 14 and 15, it says, After John was put into prison, so He started preaching the kingdom. He started preaching about repentance, for the kingdom of God is at hand, and then all of a sudden he was put into prison. It says, Jesus came to Galilee. And what does it say? Preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. What did he say? He said, The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. He continued the same message that John continued. It wasn't called the gospel of the kingdom when John spoke it, but when Jesus started preaching, it was called the kingdom of God. The gospel of the kingdom is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. So he continued the message. If we go to Matthew 4, 23, it says, Jesus went about all of Galilee. He was teaching in all of the synagogues. He was preaching the gospel of the kingdom. And it was healing all kinds of sicknesses and diseases among the people. In Matthew chapter 9, 35, Jesus went about all the cities. He went about all the villages. He was teaching in the synagogues and the gospel of the kingdom. And if you go all the way to the last almost to the last chapter, to the end of Matthew chapter 24, it says, This gospel of the kingdom, Jesus said, this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. So the gospel was first preached by a Jewish man named John the Baptist, and his cousin began to preach that same gospel after he was in prison. And then Jesus said, This gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world. Keep those in mind. Because then we then well, I I notice very uh infamo, not infamous, but very famous people, people that we admire from the scriptures, named Peter and Paul, spoke about this gospel of the kingdom. And you know, if you know anything about the scriptures, Peter was uh minister to the Jews, and Paul was a minister to the Gentiles.

Christianity As A Buffet

Speaker 13:40

So Peter wrote a letter, and in this letter he said in 1 Peter 4, 17 and 18, the time has come for judgment to begin in the house of God. And if it begins first with us, what will the end be to those who do not obey the gospel of God? If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? In other words, if if if the righteous is barely saved, what chance does the ungodly have? Nothing. But then, separate and apart from this letter, Paul writes a letter. He writes to the Thessalonians, and he says in 2 Thessalonians, talking about the return of Jesus, it says, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who do not know God and what? Can anybody read it from up there? Is it up there? It's not up there. Oops, I don't know where he's at. Okay, so I'll continue it. Them who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Two apostles wrote two separate letters and talking about the gospel of the kingdom. And did you see anywhere where it was saying that he was coming back taking vengeance and judgment on people that did not believe the gospel? Is that what it said? No. Did anybody catch what it said? To those who do not obey, that's completely different, folks. Family, brothers and sisters, that's completely different. Do you have to obey the I mean believe the gospel? Yeah, but according to what Paul and Peter are writing, it's about obeying the gospel. Both of the messages of these apostles were virtually the same. They both agree that there are very dire consequences to those who do not obey the gospel. You see, the sinner's prayer, this is what I talked about last time, so I'm trying to connect it. The sinner's prayer that I believed was what saved me because I went to the front on seventh grade and I went to the front of the altar call in eighth grade. I that doesn't save. If you do a little bit of research and and try to figure out when in the world did this sinner's prayer come about, it came about and it formed in the 20th century. It's not like you can go find it in the Bible. I challenge anyone, I challenge anyone to go show me where the sinner's prayer, as it's been preached for the whole 20th century into the 21st century, I challenge you to find that. Show me an example of that. Were any of the apostles told anybody, hey, come over here, we gotta pray your sinner's prayer. We gotta invite Jesus in our heart. Show me. I challenge you. But really, it's a challenge for yourself. It was invented in the 20th century by preachers as a quick and easy way to quote get people saved. To bring them into their church, to bring them into what they considered was how to get saved. And unfortunately, it's a false doctrine. It uses words found in the word, so it's very deceptive that way. But it's not rooted in biblical principles found in the word. And I want to go over these biblical principles today. You see, Paul stated and he declared to the Corinthians the gospel. The gospel is not difficult, it is actually very, very simple. The gospel of God is very simple. And Paul said, Hey, I declared unto you the gospel which I preach to you in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 through 4. He says to them, You also received it and you also standed it, by which also you were saved. If I love the ifs of the Bible, so if you ever run into an if, you better figure out that, oh, that's a condition. It says, If you hold fast the word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. And then he says in verse 3, for I delivered to you first of all that which I also received. He said, I delivered to you that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. I love that he put that there. I so love that he put that there, according to the scriptures. And then it said, and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures. Now that's the gospel. If that's the gospel, and that's what he said, I'm quoting the great Paul the apostle. He said, That's the gospel that I preach to you. So now tell me, how do you obey it? It's a rhetorical question. Because Paul and Peter both said that the gospel of the kingdom, he's coming back and vengeance for those who do not obey the gospel. Well, if that's the gospel, how do I obey it? Virtually, listen, virtually, most, if not all, of Christianity believes that right there. That Jesus died, that he was buried, and he rose again on the third day. The Catholics believe that, the Methodists believe that, the Presbyterians believe that. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that, and the Mormons believe that. So, what's the problem? They all believe that gospel: that he died, he was buried, and he rose again, and he died for your sins. How does this explain the various sects and denominations that make up Christianity? The problem and the root of all of this division is their differences in how they obey the gospel. That's why we have so many denominations. That's why the Baptists don't really congregate with the Presbyterians, and the Presbyterians don't really congregate with the Catholics, and the Catholics don't really congregate with the Orthodox because they all believe this, but they all obey it in very different ways. Some obey according to their own individual beliefs, some obey according to their own opinions, some obey according to what their denomination says, but very few obey and believe on him. And I'm gonna put this in quotes. This is very important. We must believe on him as the scriptures

One Gospel From John To Jesus

Speaker 20:40

say. You see, in John 7, 37 and 38, on the last day of the great feast, Jesus stood up and he cried out with a loud voice, If anybody first, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, and he said this, as the scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Jesus said that. No, they gotta believe on me as the scriptures have said. That's very different. Because everybody is believing in the yeah, there was a Jesus, yeah, yeah, yeah. About 2,000 years ago, there was a Jesus, yeah, yeah. They didn't find his body, yeah, yeah, yeah. But as the scriptures have said, it's vitally different. So after reading what I read about what Peter said and what Paul said, and wrote in the scriptures about this concern about not obeying the gospel, I came to realize two things. And I hope that these two things will occur to you right now and become somewhat significant and important to you. The first thing I said was I need to know what the gospel is. I mean, if I I gotta obey something. Well, I gotta figure out what's that something. So, what's the gospel? Number two, I need to figure out how to obey it. Because if he's coming back taking vengeance first on the house of God and on the rest of the world that is not obeying the gospel, I better, I better shure this up in my life. And so I hope that that same question comes to you. I gotta, you gotta shore this up in your life because he's coming back to deal with those that didn't obey the gospel. Not just that didn't believe in God. It specifically says those that do not obey the gospel. Now to me, finding out the gospel was the easy part. First Corinthians 15, 1 through 4, what Paul said was the gospel. Well, that was easy. But you know what? It was harder to figure out for me, at least, because of my upbringing and all these different Christian schools that I went to and the different churches that I went to, a Seventh-day Adventist here and Baptist over here, and some charismatic Spanish church over there, and this church over here, and all of these different things. It became hard to figure out how to obey it. And it's because the last 2,000 years, there's all these rise of heretical teachings, different ways of how to obey, how to how to how to come to terms with this gospel. So for me, finding out how to obey was just a little bit more difficult. But if I would have just kept my nose in the word, if I would have just kept my nose in the word and kept reading and kept reading and kept studying and kept asking questions of the Lord as I read and as I studied, finding out how to obey would have been a much easier answer if I would have just stuck in the word. So Matthew 7, 7th rate says, you know what? Ask and what? It will be given to you. Seek and what you will find. Knock and what? And the door is gonna be open unto you. It's that simple, brothers and sisters. It's that simple. So sometimes the problem, the problem is not for us that it's easier to listen to popular, well-meaning, well-intentioned individuals. It's just easier. They got the suit, they're on TV, they got the popular, you know, weekly podcast or a weekly show on TV. I mean, it's just easier to just sit back and like, ah, my ears are being scratched. I feel so good right now. The prosperity teaching and and all the other teachings that are coming out, it makes you feel good, but it's easier to do that rather than to study for yourself to find out the truth. The problem is that well-meaning, well-intentioned individuals, though extremely sincere and genuinely believing that what they're preaching and teaching out to you is true, can be sincerely and genuinely wrong. They could just be flat out wrong. And they completely 100% believe in what they're saying is true. So on the day of judgment, listening to this sincerely and genuinely wrong individuals will not be an excuse for you or me not obeying the gospel. Now I figure, and I kind of said this in other teachings before, that I figure if I'm willing to spend 18 plus years in education, kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth nine, tenth, eleven, twelve, my bachelor's degree, my postgraduate degree, eighteen plus years. If I spend 18 plus years to earn myself a paper diploma, I really have no excuse why I can't search for the truth myself in the scriptures and find it out. And I don't mean to confront you to your face, but I don't think you have that excuse either. Because we always do what we want to do. We always go where we want to go. We deciding all of our lives what we do, what we listen to, what we want to watch, what we want to. We gotta make a decision. Is this truth important enough to us? Is it that precious ruby that's in the field, that precious jewel, that precious stone that that got lost that's in the field, and I gotta go find it, I gotta go find it. I don't care if I have to find it like a needle in a haystack, it's the most valuable thing in this life. And I gotta go find it. Not not my brother, not my sister, not my mother, not my father. I tell my children, you're not gonna get saved on my faith, you're not gonna get saved on your mom's faith. You gotta find it out for yourself. You gotta be fully persuaded in your own mind, like I am. Now, having shared all this, I've also come to realize that the most neglected book in all the Bible, at least as far as my experience is concerned, actually had the answer to the question. And here's the question: how does one obey the gospel?

Belief Versus Obedience

Speaker 27:10

So I went through this many, many years ago because I started asking myself, you know, let's ask him rhetorical questions, you don't have, just listen to the question. Did anyone here sit down and eat with Jesus? Yeah, you know that's no. Did anyone here hear him teach as he traveled throughout the countryside in Israel? Nope, I didn't either. Did anyone see him here nailed to the cross? Did anyone see his broken, bloodied body gasping for his last moments of air before saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what to do? Is anybody here where they? Yeah, neither was I. Did anyone here walk and talk with him on the road of Emmaus, on the Emmaus Road, where people were seeing him for 40 days after he resurrected, before he ascended into heaven? Anyone here that was involved in that? That is a witness to that? Yeah, me neither. Was anyone here alive and walking with Jesus and his disciples, you know, when they turned apostles in the first century?

unknown 28:08

No.

Speaker 28:10

Did anyone here witness what the apostles preached and taught after Jesus ascended? Anybody here? No, no? Did anyone here witness what the apostles expected the hearers of their gospel to do? Anyone here witness to that? No.

unknown 28:26

No.

Speaker 28:27

There's only one way to find out this. There's only one way to review is by looking at the testimony of those that were there. You have to listen to the testimony of those that were there. They recorded it, they did it. God allowed them to record it so that we would be able to look into the witness, look into the testimony. Bishop T.D. Jakes wasn't there. Joel Austen wasn't there. Benny Hinn wasn't there. That was more 10, 20 years ago than my time. Anybody know his name? Billy Graham wasn't there. That's a big wig of the 20th century. That's a sacred holy cow that I might have touched. Oh well. My point is that no one here today in the 21st century or in the 20th century, no one has been given the divine authority to make up their own ideas on how one needs to obey the gospel. No one. So I want to take you through the book of Acts. This is my condensed version of walking through the book of Acts because I want you to see the testimonies for yourself. And when we leave tonight, you're gonna have to decide for yourself who you're gonna listen to. Are you gonna listen to the testimony of those that walked with Jesus, those that sat under the tutelage of his teaching and his doctrine, or are you gonna listen to the popular preachers out there that have the number one best-selling books and have a mansion here in this state and a mansion over there and a mansion over there, and they get to fly in their jets all over the place? Who are you gonna listen to? There are explicit, unambiguous examples of how the early church obeyed the gospel. And I've come to find out that the book of Acts is the only book in the Bible that has those examples of obedience to the gospel. You're not gonna find it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Their purposes of those let those of those letters were not to show how one obey the gospel, they were to show who is Jesus Christ. Who is that man? But when you get to the book of Acts, and also it's not even found in the letters, the letters were written to people that already obeyed the gospel. They were already in what we call the church, they were in the kingdom because they had been born again. They had listened to the preachings of Paul and Peter and the rest of the apostles. So they were writing letters to them to show them how to continue their walk with the Lord, how to mature in the Lord. But this one book in the Bible, the most neglected book of Acts, is where you find out how do you obey the gospel. So I've narrowed it down to five examples, five witnesses, I call them, of Acts, of how the first century church disciples obeyed the gospel of the kingdom. So we know about Acts chapter two. Acts chapter two was the day of Pentecost. They received the gift of the Holy Ghost because God poured out his spirit. He said, Wait in Jerusalem until you be endued with power on high. And they received the Holy Ghost. They began speaking in tongues with coven tongues of fire, and they were creating such an uproar, and all of this pandemonium was happening, and people were around who came from far regions of different parts of the world at the time wanted to come to celebrate Pentecost, and they heard all of this noise abroad, and they saw all these people that were acting like they were drunk, and they were like, What is going on? Why are they drinking? It's 9 a.m. in the morning, they're already drunk. And that's when Peter stood up and he said, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, you've missed it. And he started preaching to them the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom. He said, This is that which Joel prophesied, that he's gonna pour out his spirit upon all your flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophecy and see visions and all of these wonderful things. And then he started talking about Jesus and who he was, and that he was this Messiah, he was this anointed man of God that was going about doing these marvelous healings and miracles. And then he says to them, This is the man that you crucified 50 days ago. This is the man. And if I narrow down, it said first Peter talked about him being the Messiah, the anointed one, the promised one. Number two, he talked about how he was crucified for their sins, and number three, he rose again on the third day. And then he said after that, this man that I'm talking about was made both Lord and Christ. Not just the Messiah, not just the promised one, not

The Sinner’s Prayer Questioned

Speaker 33:10

just this special man, he was also made the Lord. There's only one Lord. Remember? There's only one Lord. Jesus was that Lord. And when they received that, it says they were pierced, they were pricked in their heart, they felt a twinge of, oh my God, what have I done? And they looked to Peter and they looked to the rest of the brethren and they asked the most important question. Men and brethren, what do we do? How do we fix this? We just crucified the Messiah, the one we've been waiting for. We just killed him 50 days ago. We can't fix it. How do we fix this? They were convicted. And that that that question, men and brethren, what shall we do? Is the most important question because once you find that out, you'll then understand how to obey the gospel. What do we do about this? And what did he say? Peter said, repent. Peter said, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And three, receive ye the Holy Ghost. I mean, it can't be more clear, it can't be more plain than that one example. But I'm gonna go to others because I want you to see it's repeated with different types of people in the earth. This is the day that Peter rose up and spoke to the Jews. And this is what he told the Jews. What they must do is repent, change your ways, change your heart, change your mind, change your thoughts, and start walking in a manner that's more appropriate for being one who is a child of God. Number two, you need to get baptized in his name, the name of the one that you crucified, because he died for your sins, and then you need to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Let me ask you something. It's such a simple, it's such a clear response to such an important question. Why can we not make that statement today? Why do we have to come up with a book about the four laws? The four laws of how to get saved and all of this stuff? We have we came up with some pamphlet in the late 20th century about, or the four laws and again, the sinner's prayer, and again, inviting Jesus in your heart. I don't see that's what Peter said. That isn't what he said. He says, and there are very specific things that you need to do in response to this gospel. This is how you fix it. But again, all these denominations, all these organizations under the banner of Christianity, they tell their listeners to obey the gospel differently from one another. But more importantly, more importantly, they tell these listeners to obey the gospel differently than what the apostles taught. That's the problem. You see, they've come up with their own idea of how to get saved, and it's different than what the apostles taught. And my question is: who gave them the divine authority to change what the apostles said you needed to do? Who are they that we should listen to them over the apostles that walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus and ate with Jesus and went to the bathroom with Jesus and were sent out to go and deliver all the saints and heal all the people that were sick. Why are we listening to these other people? I don't get it. I'm I I do because I was in darkness as well. But but when God starts speaking to you, you gotta start listening, you gotta start responding, you start to start getting into the word and stop being a reader and be a studier. You gotta be a studier of the word to show thyself approved, not a reader. We got enough readers in the seminaries, and they come up with all sorts of foul heresies and doctrines when they come out of the seminaries. The next witness is found in the book in the same book in Acts chapter 8. So you got Philip, he's an evangelist. He was just priorly anointed as a deacon, but he went about and he started evangelizing abroad and he went to the Samaritans. Now you got to understand something about the Samaritans, they're the half Jews, they're the mutts. They didn't look really highly on the half Jews, the Samaritans. But he went there anyway. You see, because before Jesus ascended, he said, Go out and preach the gospel to all nations, starting where? In Jerusalem, in Judea, that's the surrounding region that encompassed Jerusalem, and then where? Samaria. So all that was happening was the gospel was just moving across boundaries and borders, and it was going farther out. So he goes to the Samaritans, he starts preaching them the same gospel that Peter preached about Jesus, about him being the Messiah, about him dying and him being rose again, it was died for your sins, and they believed the gospel. And what happened? He baptized them because they believed the gospel. They were repentant, they were changing their ways. And I there was a certain point in time in my life where I was looking into this and like, oh, okay, so then that's all you have to do. But then, but then I kept reading, and then I found out that that wasn't good enough. Why? Why do I know that? Well, if I keep reading, I find out that uh Peter and John and the rest of the apostles in Jerusalem that were hearing what was going on, they felt like they had to get up and go over to Samaria because they had yet to receive what? The Holy Ghost. You see, some people think all you gotta do is repent, all you gotta do is get in that water. You're not done. You're not done with the covenant, you're not done with being born again. He said, Nicodemus, you need to be born again of the water and of the Spirit. So it was important to him to leave Jerusalem, go to Samaria, lay his hands on them so that they can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And that's exactly what happened. But you see, today, if you listen to the denominations, they say, You but when you believe,

Acts Shows The Response Pattern

Speaker 39:20

you what? You receive. Well, this scripture just contradicts that because they believed. They repented, they were baptized, they hadn't received. You understand that? They hadn't received. That's why John, yes, John and Peter went over to Samaria to lay hands on them that they would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now it's complete. Coming into this new covenant, coming into this born-again experience. Repentance, water baptism in his name, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. So all this time, Saul is about persecuting the church. And if you go to the next uh uh chapter uh of the book of Acts in Acts chapter 9, you read Paul's testimony. He's going down Damascus Road, he's persecuting the church, he's he he's jailing them, he's killing them because uh one of the uh one one of the uh uh ministers, and I forget his name right now, he had just been stoned to death. And his his garment was laid at the feet of Paul because Saul, actually, Saul at the time wanted that to happen. Stephen, there you go. Stephen, that's right, Stephen, martyred. So he's going down Damascus Road, he's on horseback, he's on with his entourage of people, and Jesus comes, blinds him, and says, What are you doing? Isn't it hard to kick the pricks against the stone and all of this stuff? And it's like, Lord, who are you? What is this? What is going on? And he was blinded. And I want you to pay attention to the words that I read. In Acts chapter 9, 6, Paul Saul was trembled, he was astonished. He said, Lord, what do you want me to do? You see that question again? Men and brethren, what shall we do? Paul says, What do you want me to do? I gotta figure that out. If I can get an answer to that, that's gonna help me because whatever Paul had to do, I have to do. Whatever the Jews at Pentecost had to do, I've got to do. Because he died not for their sins, he died for the sins of the whole world. So, how do we fix it? Well, let's figure it out. So he goes to Damascus, he waits there, and Jesus calls a brother named Ananias, and he says to Ananias, You need to go find this brother Saul, and you need to do a work with him. I'm I'm paraphrasing, I'm trying I'm trying to get to it to the point. And the point is, when he got to Saul, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and what? Be filled with the Holy Spirit. You see how important that is? You can't bypass the spirit and think, well, that's not really significant. Because today you might listen to the charismatics and they say, Well, when you receive the spirit, you receive power, but it's not really necessary. I mean, it's okay if you get it, but if you want to walk in pattern, stop it. Stop perverting the word. Period point blank. You need to receive the Holy Ghost. You need to receive because the Holy Ghost is Jesus. You want to receive Jesus in your heart? Receive the Holy Ghost, because that's the Spirit of Christ. So immediately scales fell from his eyes. He received the sight and he arose and was baptized. And you know what? When he retells his own conversion experience in Acts chapter 22, uh, he talks about Anias. He was a devout man according to the law. He had a good testimony with all the Jews. He came to me, Paul says, He stood and said to me, Brother, you need to receive your sight. And at the same hour, I looked up at him and he said, The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know his will, that you should see the just one and hear the voice of his mouth, for you will be his witness to all men who have who men of what you have seen and heard. And now, are you waiting, Paul? Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. So the same gospel of the kingdom that went to the Jews, that went to the Samaritans, half Jews, that went to now Paul, the great Paul the apostle, he's got the same requirements. It doesn't matter where he came from, it doesn't matter who his family was, it doesn't matter that he was taught by the great Gamaliella, the teacher of the law, it doesn't matter. God is ordained from the foundation of the world what are the requirements to receive his promise of salvation. Acts chapter 10. Fourth, I'm almost there. Acts chapter 10, fourth one. Peter is sent to the house of Cornelius a Gentile. And it says very early on, when the Lord was speaking to Cornelius, he said, I want you to send men to Joppa. I want you to send for Simon, whose surname is Peter. He's lodging with Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea. And listen to the next few words, because I don't know if it's up there. He shall tell thee what thou ougest to do. Boom. Three times now. What shall we do? What do I do? He's gonna tell you what to do. So let's follow Peter.

Pentecost Repent Baptize Receive

Speaker 44:40

Peter goes into the house of Cornelius. He starts preaching the gospel about Jesus. He's the Messiah. And before he even gets to finish, bam! The Holy Spirit follows on Cornelius and his wife and his children and his servants and the whole family is speaking in tongues. How did they know that they received the Holy Ghost? Because it says the Jews that followed Peter looked and said, holy moly, pillamel, and tumble bumble till they all fell down on the green, green grass. The Holy Ghost just like we did. How did they know? Because they were speaking in tongues. That's how they knew. So how do we figure out if someone has received the gift of the Holy Ghost today? Is it because someone laid a hand on the fellow black? Let me say somebody touch me and I feel a black and I got the Holy Ghost. Uh-huh. I'm sorry. Your life experience does not make you an exception to the word of God. The word of God says when you received the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Jews in the first century knew that they received the Holy Ghost because they spoke in tongues just like we did. And this was 10 years after Pentecost.

unknown 45:52

Ten years.

Speaker 45:53

They were expecting the same thing. My last witness comes from Acts chapter 19. Oh, by the way, by the way, let me not forget this. They received the gift of the Holy Ghost before he even finished preaching. And he wasn't gonna argue with God and say, God, what are you doing? No, he said, Who am I that I should forbid them to be baptized in water? Boom! He baptized them in the name of Jesus. Are you seeing a pattern? I'm trying to make the pattern so abundantly clear to you. So in Acts chapter 19, then we see the apostle Paul. He's roaming around the countryside. He runs into some people, some apparent disciples, and he gets to chit-chatting with them. And he starts talking with them, and boom, wait, all of a sudden, he says, Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? They said, We ain't never heard about no Holy Ghost. What are you talking about? And so he follows up with another question. Listen to the questions because they're giving you all the answers. The next question was, Well, what were you baptized into? And they said, Well, we were baptized into John's baptism. Oh, these were John the Baptist's disciples. They haven't got the full revelation yet. They need to be shown the more perfect way. So let me tell you about Jesus. And he started telling them about Jesus. And when he told them about Jesus, they went into the water, they were baptized, he laid hands on him, they received the gift of the Holy Ghost because they were speaking in tongues. You can read the excerpts for yourself. The testimonies are clear, they're unambiguous. So once again, the gospel of the kingdom was preached to the Jews. I'm not a Jew. Okay. Preached to the half Jews, the mutts. Yeah, I'm not a half-Jew either. Uh, then it was preached to the Gentiles. Ha, that's me. That's probably all of you, right? Yeah, the Gentiles. And then these apparent disciples, now this is really important because these apparent disciples, I love reading this scripture because many people believe that since their parents or their grandparents or their close family relatives are Christian, that they themselves are alright too. They're okay. But see, they lay their foundations on something that's outside the word of God. For those who believe there is no need, they they believe that there's no need to be rebaptized. I was be I was baptized when I was a baby. They sprinkle water on my head. I probably started crying. Um and some of them are baptized in something other than the name of Jesus. You know what I'm talking about? I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Have we run into any example where they baptized in anything other than the name of Jesus? We have not. And I challenge you with another challenge.

Samaritans Paul Gentiles Disciples

Speaker 49:00

Go find me where they did. Go find me just one example, and I'll find you other examples of where they kept baptizing in the name of Jesus, baptizing in the name of Jesus, baptizing in the name of Jesus, because you got to be baptized in the name of Jesus. He's the one that died for you. After my mom died, I spent a year searching. The foundation of my life was all of those Christian teachings that I was getting from all the Christian schools and all the Bible memory verses that I was reading. And and eventually I met my wife in a church. I'm making this a very condensed version, and then eventually my first baby was born, and we got to visit a a someone that you you may or may not know, but you know his daughter. His daughter is Sister Jasmine. Sister Jasmine's dad confronted me in the most gentle, loving, but truthful way. Because I believed all you had to do was believe and you receive. I believe that he died, that he was buried, that he rose again. And he just contested me with the scriptures. He just kept showing me the scriptures. What do the scriptures say? And by the time it was done, I said, Brother, I can't argue with you. Because if I was arguing with you, then I'd be arguing with the scriptures, and that I do not want. And so I said, but I gotta go and study it for myself. I literally told him that I gotta go and study it for myself. And then I left Georgia, went back to Florida, and that's what I did. I just immersed myself and I got into all of the questions that I had in my mind. But what if you get repent? What if you don't get to be baptized? Or what if you didn't receive the Holy Ghost? Or is it good enough to receive the Holy Ghost and repent and yet you haven't been baptized yet? Or what if you repent and you got baptized, but you haven't received the Holy Ghost? And I had to go through all of that. And I found no way to justify taking one piece and ignoring the rest, or taking this piece and ignoring the rest. They were all together. Repent, be baptized in Jesus, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. They never separated it. So if the apostles of the first century never separated, who am I to separate it from others? I'm gonna keep people from salvation if I separate it. I've not been given the divine authority. So what do I do? What was taught to me by Sister Jasmine's dad? Be a parent. Just be a parent, just repeat what they said. You can't go wrong if you repeat what the word says. It doesn't matter whether they don't understand it, it doesn't matter whether they don't want to argue with you about it, it doesn't matter. Just tell them the truth and tell them the truth in love. Because that's how I that that's how it was opened unto me, and then I realized that all of the experiences after my mom died and how I came into the kingdom, I wasn't baptized in the name of Jesus the same time I received the gift of the Holy Spirit, it was in two different times. But again, doesn't matter where I came from, doesn't matter where I started. What one thing matters is when I heard the gospel, did I obey it? That's all that matters. Because if when you come into covenant with God through the born-again experience of the water and of the spirit, the rest of your life is you learning how to surrender, how to yield, how to how to uh be led of the spirit of God. Because Romans says those that are led of the Spirit of God are the sons of God. And that's what He's called all of us to be: the sons of God, the children of God, the daughters of God. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul said, because it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. When? When they obey the gospel, that's when they get saved. That's when you got saved, that's when I got saved. That's why when Sister Lori Lemons, who went to this uh uh uh women's fellowship, got convicted, I'm assuming, heard something, something burst in her heart and said, I've got to get baptized, and it's got to be tonight. And at 11:30 p.m., she was baptized in the waters. Amen. That's right, amen. And we have got to be a people that is not afraid to tell the truth in love. You need to be baptized in the name of Jesus, you need to receive the Holy Ghost, the promises for you and for your children, and for all those that are afar off, that are ready to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus as my Savior. And that's why we had our other sister who went to the same conference, and she had to learn to yield and let go and get rid of the control, control, control. And when she did, she got the Holy Ghost. How do we know she was speaking in tongues? Glory, glory, hallelujah, amen. See, we got testimonies today of what was happening 2,000 years ago. We don't need to change nothing, we just need to walk in the word. Just walk in the word. It says in 1 John 5:8, and I'm gonna end tonight. There are three that bear record in the earth: the spirit, the water, and the blood. And these three agree in one. You can't separate them, you can't divide them because you don't understand it. You just need to hear

Personal Turning Point And Closing Call

Speaker 54:50

and obey. These are the baby steps that will start our walk with the Lord in this new covenant age that we live in. It doesn't matter where you started. I just keep saying it, it doesn't matter where you started. Don't tell me about all of you good and bad and ugly moments. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Jesus can take care of it all, Jesus can heal it all, Jesus can forgive it all, but you gotta repent. You gotta obey. You gotta be baptized in his name. The one thing that matters is what you did when you heard the gospel of the kingdom preached to you. And you've heard it tonight. And did you continually faith then you could continue faithfully in that gospel of the kingdom, enduring unto the end. Because it's just a baby step. You gotta take heed to the doctrine that you believe in, because it'll not only save you, it'll save those that you are ministering at. So don't shrink back when you speak to someone and you start telling them about this, and they look at you with like a deer in the headlights. What? What? And they have no idea what you're talking about.

unknown 56:07

That's okay.

Speaker 56:10

You may need to repeat it again. You may need to just keep sowing. Maybe it won't be you, maybe it'll be somebody else. Maybe they just need to hey. I can show you. Do you want to hear? Because they gotta want to hear. The parable of the sower says there's a wayside, there's a stony ground, there's a thorny ground, and then there's good soil. And it's that good soil that receives the word with joy and allows that seed to grow in their heart and the roots to spring out. You know, I've talked about roots and foundation, and it lets it just grow and grow wide and grow far, and in due time they will produce fruit 30, 60, and 100fold. So I want to leave you with that message tonight. Don't be afraid to share the gospel with somebody. Don't be afraid to repeat the word to them. It's there for a reason. Let it be the testimony, let it be what convicts them in their heart. Because it won't be that they disagree with you, and don't be that they're offended with you. They're offended with the word. And then if they're offended with the word, well, what does the word tell us? Well, that's because that's the thorny heart. Or that's the stony heart, because when the persecutions arise because of the word, they don't have enough root, they don't have enough death, and they shrink back. That's okay. It's not over for them either. Just keep praying. God is a miracle-working God that can change the heart of man from stony, thorny, wayside to that good heart.

How To Support The Podcast

Speaker 57:40

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