Baptist Distinctives: The Local Church

Jesus was the final sacrifice.

Amen.

If you want your Bibles tonight, turn to Timothy, the book of Timothy, and we'll continue our series on the Baptist distinctives tonight.

And we'll probably carry this out for a few weeks.

This particular Baptist distinctive on the subject of the church, this has been one of my hobby horses over the years, and we're going to continue to ride that horse because it's one of the most misunderstood doctrines among even among Baptists.

And historically it wasn't.

It's only been in the last, you know, 50 or so years in which there's been a significant shift in what many believe concerning the church.

And so I want to just again clarify and give you the biblical stance of what is a biblical church, what is a church and the word church in the Bible, what does it mean, and so forth.

So we'll take a few weeks and cover this subject.

First Timothy, first Timothy, chapter three.

And look with me in verse 14, these things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly.

But if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, we can spend some time there, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

I'm glad tonight I'm in the house of God.

But it's the house of God because our church is gathered, not because of the building.

And again, it's very important that we understand this.

And I'll give you some reasons why tonight too.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, again, we love you.

Pray that you'd bless, Lord, the reading of your word.

Bless the message tonight.

Help us again over the next few weeks to get a clear understanding of your church.

We love you and we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

If all the saved are quote, unquote, the church, then that's a very poor representation of the pillar and ground of the truth.

If the church is supposed to be the pillar and ground of truth, then if all the saved are the church, that would be a poor representation of the pillar and ground of the truth.

Because there are so many different beliefs out there.

There's so many varying beliefs among Christians.

How can we be the pillar of ground of truth if the church is all the saved, if there are so many various beliefs and way in which people believe?

So again, clarify.

Lutherans don't believe like Baptists in several areas.

Methodists don't believe like Baptists in several areas.

And I could Go on and on and on.

Especially Catholics don't believe like Protestants or like Baptists.

And so how can all the saved be the church and still be the pillar and ground of the truth with all the varying differences in beliefs?

Again, as we think about Baptist distinctives, we think about a collection of biblical truth unique to Baptists.

So we're not saying that other denominations or other non denominations and other whatever, varying titles on their churches or maybe no title on their churches that they don't believe some of these things.

What we're saying is if you take the collection of the beliefs, this is what Baptists historically have believed.

And it's unique to Baptists if you take them all together, collectively.

All right, so understand that I've already been some confusion in that.

And I'm not saying again, don't, you know, put into what I'm not saying.

I'm saying that this is the collection of all these truths together.

By the way, they're Bible truths.

If they're not, then we shouldn't be teaching them.

Again, if I didn't think Baptists were as close to what the Bible teaches as any other denomination or any other churches out there, I would be something else.

I would be whatever that is.

But I believe absolutely 100% that Baptists historically, and I'm talking about historic Baptist doctrine as as close to the Bible as any other group or any other entity.

And therefore I'm a Baptist.

I'm a Baptist from the sole of my feet to the top of my head.

I'm Baptist, born Baptist, bread when I die.

We're Baptist, dead Baptist, Baptist with a capital B.

You'll never see Heritage Baptist Church again.

Put Baptist in little letters at the bottom of our sign.

You'll never see us change our name as long as you, you allow me to pastor here, to change our name to Heritage Church.

No, no, no.

And sometimes we'll say we're going to Heritage whatever, but Baptist will always be on the name.

I'm thankful.

I am so thankful for our Baptist heritage.

I am so thankful for the price that was paid for our Baptist heritage, the millions upon millions who died for the collection of these beliefs that we hold dear today.

And literally millions died, especially during the Dark Ages, now called to be politically correct, you got to call them the Middle Ages.

And so there we are.

This series of messages is kind of based upon Brother Stewart's Sunday school lessons called Chain Link Christianity.

And I'll explain maybe that a little bit tonight.

I haven't really gone through that.

And our theme verse is 2nd Timothy 2:2 the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also the things that I have heard and among many witnesses, those are the same things that I'm to teach to others.

I'm to take what I've been taught and I'm going to teach that to others.

And again, teaching biblical truth.

The first Baptist distinctive we covered and I believe review is the best teacher.

If everybody with me review is the best teacher.

Number one is the Bible is the final authority for our faith and practice.

This is our authority.

This is our authority for truth.

This is our authority for the practice of that truth.

By the way, we ought to be practicing the truth.

We ought to be practicing the Bible, not just learning the Bible.

I never want to be a Dead Sea Christian.

The Dead Sea has no outlet.

If you're a Dead Sea Christian, it just means you're taking in but you're not applying or you're not giving out what you have learned.

And so again we ought to do that again.

The Bible is the final authority for our faith and practice.

Number two, salvation is by grace, through faith only in the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It's by grace that we were saved through faith and that not of ourselves.

It's a gift of God, not a works lest any man should boast.

Amen.

And we believe that these two doctrines.

There's nobody in this room, there's not really any controversies about these two.

We would all amen and say absolutely, that's what it is.

Number three, eternal security of the believer.

Once saved, always saved again.

We got saved, we got everlasting life.

No man can pluck us out of the Father's hand Again, over and over again we covered Romans chapter four and five and we talked about how David was saved and how Abraham was saved and the righteousness that was imputed to our account.

And so if you believe you can lose your salvation, then you're doing something to keep it.

And therefore you are works for salvation.

That means you're not saved.

Everybody see that if you believe you can lose it, then you're doing something to gain it, you're doing something to continue it, you're doing something to keep it.

That's works based salvation.

And the Bible in no way teaches that.

It's by grace and grace alone.

And then number four, the soul, liberty and competency.

And this could be really mashed in with the other one, which is the separate and equal priesthood of all Believers, we covered them separately because Brother Stewart likes to be very detailed in his writing.

And so.

But if you go look up other Baptist distinctives, you'll notice that most of the time these two are put together.

But understanding that each of us are personally responsible and accountable to God, including the children we're raising, as we raise our children, they have to make their own decision whether to accept or reject the gospel.

We can't get them saved for them.

You could sprinkle them as a baby.

You could pour on them as a baby.

Doesn't get him any closer to heaven than they were.

Now, we believe and we know the Bible teaches the age of accountability, that is, that babies or those who are not to the age of understanding go to heaven.

Amen.

David said of the baby that he had with Bathsheba that he would see that baby again.

And so we know that, that Bible doctrine.

But again, each person has individual soul, liberty and a free will.

So each person decides and is accountable God and then separate and equal priesthood of all believers.

Understand that we have equal.

As believers, we have equal access to God.

The preacher doesn't have any better access than the person in the pew.

You don't need somebody sitting in a telephone booth with a call to turn around backwards to help you get a hold of God or to ask how to ask for forgiveness.

No, no, no, no.

We go directly to God.

Through Jesus Christ.

Through Jesus Christ.

And so you can pray and you can ask for forgiveness.

The Bible says if, again, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We can go to God on our own.

You don't have to come and confess it to the pastor.

Aren't you glad of that?

Amen.

Amen.

It also means that no one has a corner on God.

No one has a special liberty or whatever with God.

There's not like, I got something special that you don't have, or Brother Stone has something special that you don't have, or Brother John doesn't have something special that the rest of you guys don't have.

I mean, it's important to understand that I have been given just as much and you have been given just as much of the Holy Spirit as you'll ever have.

And it's the Holy Spirit that illuminates as you read the word of God.

He's the one that illuminates and helps you to understand God's Word.

He's the one who helps.

And we covered this.

He's the one who helps you when you pray.

In fact, it says, the Bible says if you don't know what to pray, he'll pray it for you.

Isn't that amazing?

So again, we are priests.

We are, the Bible says, a royal priesthood, and we go to God on our own.

Come boldly before the throne of grace.

I'm so thankful for that, aren't you?

That you might find help, grace in the time of need.

I'm thankful for individual so liberty and separate and equal priesthood of all believers.

Old Testament priests were put in a position where the Jews, the Israelites and those who came to Judaism had to come to Jerusalem in order to worship if you were going to talk to God.

And in that Old Testament economy, that Old Testament system, you came through the priests and through the tabernacle and through the temple.

And once the tabernacle, the Mosaic law was put in place, you were to come to the temple in order to make a sacrifice.

You couldn't make a sacrifice in your backyard versus the New Testament versus the New Testament.

I'm thankful again that I can bring my petitions before God on my own, in my room or in my office or in my car, and I can bring them straight to God.

I don't have to go to the temple and through a priest.

Then there's the temple versus the church.

In the Old Testament again, if you were going to worship, you had to go to the temple, you had to travel to Jerusalem.

Imagine if you lived in Galilee or you had to travel and you had to come down to the temple in order to worship.

Interesting.

How would you like to live in that economy, in that system, under that covenant, but in the New Testament, the New Testament contract, the New Testament covenant, we are the temple.

Know you not that your body's the temple of the Holy Spirit?

We make up a what?

We make up a spiritual tabernacle to the Lord as we gather together as a church.

And so as we gather together, we.

We are a temple.

And so we can worship God in spirit and truth anywhere you want.

Amen.

I don't have to look to the temple.

I don't have to bow to the East.

I don't have to do.

No, I can worship the Lord.

And then corporately, we come together to worship God together as we.

And that could be anywhere too.

It could be again in a park, anywhere we want to meet because the church is not the building.

The church is the people.

Tonight there is one kind of biblical church and that is local and visible.

One kind, a biblical church that is local and Visible.

There is no such thing as a universal, invisible church.

There's no such thing as a universal, visible church.

There is only the local vision, visible church.

Again, this has been one of my hobby horses.

But it does impact so many other doctrines and teachings of the Bible.

And so it is important that you understand the doctrine of the church biblically if you take in what others teach.

And most of those are Protestants and even people like John Phillips, who's one of my favorite commentators, he passed away just a few years ago.

I have all of his commentaries.

I think he's very intelligent.

He's a Baptist, good man, but he's universal church.

Warren Wiersbe, whom I think is a great commentator, universal church.

And I can go on and on and on, and not necessarily Baptist, but Protestant writers as well.

And there are so many in the last 40 or 50 years who have kind of varied.

And a lot of that influence is from the Scofield Bible.

And it's Scofield who, one of the first really major guys who put forth this universal invisible church idea.

And because the Scofield Bible was used by so many, by the way, it's a good.

It's still a great study Bible and I still recommend it.

Now, I recommend the old Scofield.

Be careful.

You'll go to a bookstore and you'll pick up a Scofield Bible.

You say, well, here's Scofield Bible.

And you find out it's not a king.

They say King James on the front, but it's not a King James Bible.

Be careful.

But it's still a great study Bible.

But again, some of these guys had influence and they were influenced by Protestants, by Protestant writers.

So if you, if you take in and believe that the church is a universal, invisible church and that all the saved are a part of that universal church that lends towards.

Again, as we're seeing this one world coming together, we see it politically, don't we?

We see it now that we see a little space of grace happening right now, maybe, but it's not going to thwart God's plan.

Remember I mentioned Sunday about one of the mega themes of the Bible is consummationism.

God has a plan, and the plan's already in place.

And we already know that one day all the world will come together.

There'll be a one world government and there'll be a one world religion.

Well, in order to have a one world religion, you're going to have to drop some beliefs by some others.

There's going to have to be a shift.

There's going to have to be a falling away, if you would.

And so one of the things that lends that way is because of this universal, invisible church concept that all the saved apart are the church or the body of Christ.

Well, if that's the case, then if we are all the saved are the church and all the saved are the body of Christ, then I'm going to have to make some concessions in order to get along with the Lutheran church and their beliefs or the Methodist church and their beliefs.

Everybody kind of see what I'm talking about.

I'm going to have to drop some of my biblical, foundational, even truths in the Bible.

And so it lends itself in order for there to eventually be this one world church, especially when it comes to Catholicism as well.

Number two, it lends itself to doctrinal shifts for the sake of unity in the church.

In other words, if we're going to have unity in the church, then we have to, we have to again, we have to drop some things that we hold dear.

And we've seen this over and over and over again here throughout the last, I don't know, forever, that shift.

Let's all hold hands, sing Kubaya.

Why can't we all get along?

And I'm not saying we shouldn't get along and we can't be kind.

We ought to be kind, but we ought not to compromise either.

We don't compromise biblical truth for the sake of unity.

And here's the key.

The church is local and visible only.

And when the Bible calls for unity in the church, it's not calling for unity in the church in some mystical, invisible church.

It's calling for unity in this local church, Heritage Baptist Church.

When the Bible calls for unity, it's calling for unity in Victory Baptist Church in Weatherford, Texas, it's calling for unity in that church.

When the Bible calls for unity, it's calling for unity in Worth Baptist Church.

I'm talking about some sister churches.

It's not talking about some invisible, universal, mystical church out there that nobody can see.

He's talking about the individual churches.

When he calls for unity.

And there ought to be unity in the church, there ought to be unity.

There should be no schisms.

And we as Christians, we as fellow believers, we as part of the body of Christ.

And that body of Christ is Heritage Baptist Church.

If you're a member here, then we ought to get along.

We ought to Work together.

We ought to put aside personal differences in order to accomplish the goal of reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I always use this illustration because it's funny and sad at the same time.

We shouldn't fight about the color of carpet.

Do you realize churches do that?

I don't go one year usually or even two years without hearing of another church fighting over the color of carpet or fighting over something silly.

I don't.

It just blows me away, really.

We decided to go with squares for carpet.

Do you understand why we decided to go with squares when we refreshed the auditorium.

So nice if one of those carpet squares gets stained so bad that we can't get it out with a rug.

Dr.

Dr.

Day was in here the other day, rug doctoring.

Guess what we can do?

We can pull up a square and put down another one.

It's an amazing, amazing, amazing thing.

And we have a stack of these about 10 foot high, extra ones.

There's no need to fight over little stuff.

No need to fight over little stuff.

And that's where again, there ought to be unity in the church because we ought to all line up together, working together, not allow the devil to get us sidetracked on stuff that really doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Don't you like that southern expression?

I do.

I like that one.

A hill of beans.

And keep our eyes on him.

Keep our eyes on reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so that's where we're at.

I wanted to give you some of the conclusion at the beginning of the message.

That was some of the conclusion.

Why is this doctrine important?

Define some words.

Most of you know this, but we do have new members.

And so just the word church comes from the Greek word what most of you know it, ekklesia, right?

We've taught this so many times.

The word ekklesia, the Greek word means an assembly.

And it was associated with the assembly of, you know, a city assembling together.

Then Jesus says, my ekklesia, so that he says my church.

And so the definition of the word ekklesia, plus Jesus defining it as my ecclesia, and that is this.

It's a called out assembly, all right?

A called out assembly of born again baptized believers fulfilling Christ's commands, fulfilling the great commission.

That is the definition of a church.

And we've gone over this so many times too, but it doesn't.

Review is the best teacher.

Just be reminded.

Just because an organization puts a sign out in front of their building that says such and such church does not necessarily make them a biblical church.

A biblical church by definition is one that is, number one, called out.

But number two, fulfilling Christ's commands, especially when it comes to the Great Commission.

Fulfilling the Great Commission, that is the ultimate purpose of the church is to win people to Jesus to baptize them and disciple them.

If a organization that has church as church sign out in front of the building, if their main goal is not reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ and baptizing them and discipling them, by Bible definition, they are not a church.

They may be a good organization.

They may be, you know, more like a, you know, an organization that feeds people or organization that helps clothe people.

An organization that provides, you know, fellowship and those type of things.

Well, a lot of that stuff you can get in other organizations too.

I used Camp Gladiator as an illustration years ago.

Some of y'all know that organization, they do like CrossFit kind of stuff in parking lots across the metroplex.

I think they're still going somewhere.

And, you know, they would get together.

I know some other exercise groups that do this.

They all get together, they exercise together, they go fellowship together, they encourage each other, they call each other, they're there for each other.

So.

But they're not a church.

But that's what a lot of churches are doing.

They're just providing a place for people to be encouraged to fellowship and all those things the church does, but it's not its primary purpose.

Its primary purpose is to win people to Jesus, to baptize them and disciple them.

I've used this illustration.

I wish Kevin Davis was here.

I would say to him, if you went to Calzer Tire Monday, what is today?

Wednesday.

If you went to Kelser Tire in the morning, Thursday morning, and you walked into Calzer Tire and you needed some tires, but you went in and all they had inside of the building was hula hoops.

Because Kevin Davis is now hula hooping.

And you went in and there was no tires in there.

They still had cals or tire on the sign.

It said Goodyear, bf, Good, Ranch, whatever else.

Hankook.

It said all that on the sign.

But you walk in and all there is is hula hoops.

Well, they're no longer a tire store.

They're a hula hoop store.

You could put whatever you want to on the sign.

But what are you actually producing?

What are you actually selling?

What is your purpose?

Well, their purpose is selling hula hoops.

Now they need to change the sign.

And there are majority of churches have no problem saying this, using the word.

Majority of churches in America today that are no longer true genuine biblical churches and you have to say amen.

You do.

It's the truth.

And they have become nothing but a country club or whatever else you want to call it.

Their main goal is not winning people to Jesus.

Their main goal is to tickle the ears of their congregation and bring in the tithe and whatever else.

I'll move on.

But that is important that you understand the biblical definition.

The word ecclesia is found 115 times in the New Testament.

Again referring to a called out assembly fulfilling Christ's commands.

The word local, of course, that's easy to define.

Physically assembled in one location.

Right?

That's what we're here tonight.

We're physically assembled in one location.

By the way, this would kind of hurt some satellite churches, but I won't go into that tonight.

I don't get, I don't get it.

Can I say that why you would want to go to a church where the pastor preaches on the screen from another city 10 miles or 5 miles away?

I don't, I don't, I don't.

I'll move on.

A local assembly physically assembled together versus an unassembled number that can't meet in one place.

Alright, so it's those who are assembled together physically versus this mystical invisible church that nobody can see.

And then visible, of course, A physical gathering versus a spiritual, mystical invisible gathering.

So local church.

Only Baptists have historically believed this.

There are three views.

Again I've already mentioned these.

The local visible church.

Most Baptists believe that universal visible church.

That's the Catholic Church, by the way.

The Catholic, the word Catholic means basically all millennial, all Catholic, all visible churches are Catholic.

And then number three, universal invisible churches.

Historically that's been a Protestant belief.

And yes, I do believe Baptists are not Protestants.

We never protested anything.

We came through the Reformation, we did not have to reform.

I haven't said this in a while either.

Somebody has to be right and somebody has to be wrong.

We don't say that much.

As much as I probably should.

You should say it a lot.

But I was wanting tell you tonight somebody has to be right.

Somebody has to be wrong.

And this affects a lot of other Bible doctrines.

And when you have vastly different views, and that is a vastly different view, having the ideal that there's only one church that is visible, that's the Catholic belief that they are the only church, that's what they believe, is a vastly different view than what we believe.

So we believe in a visible church and that each individual assembly that has gathered together is a church independent of the other churches and still the body of Christ.

Each one is the body of Christ.

All right.

And so.

Well, you say, preacher, come on, you know, and I want to address this too, because this is happening a lot in churches now.

They'll say, well, preacher, we just want.

We want our missionaries just to believe in our core beliefs.

They use that word, core beliefs.

This is our core beliefs.

These are.

Even though might use the word essential beliefs.

And I get that, right?

I.

I believe in the fundamentals of the faith.

We all do.

There are fundamentals in the faith.

The internal combustion engine before the electric motor.

And some dodges still run on one, but they don't run very good on one.

They tick a lot.

But the internal combustion engine.

Let's go down.

Let's scale it down to a lawn mower that has a carburetor on it.

The carburetor.

Sorry, Brother Clay.

Here we go.

The carburetor has a little floaty thingy in it.

A little needle.

A little needle.

A little needle thingy in it.

Some of them don't have the needle thingy.

It has like a injection thingy.

Bob.

Bob.

But let's go back old school.

They all used to have a float and a needle.

And in order for an internal combustion engine to run, it has to have three things, right?

I was taught that as a kid.

Has to have three things.

Has to have three things.

If you don't have those three, it won't run.

And it has to have what?

Has to have air in order to run, because you're going to have to ignite a fire.

You got to have oxygen to ignite a fire.

It has to have gas or some kind of volatile, you know, liquid to run.

Brother Clay likes this.

And then what does it have to have?

Number three?

Fire, right?

Has to have fire.

It has to have a spark to ignite the volatile liquid and to mix with the oxygen and create a combustion in order to move the piston and make that motor run, right?

How many of y'all's kids when you lawnmower wouldn't start and dad and mom weren't home.

Dad told you to mow the yard.

You go to the lawnmower, you try to start.

It wouldn't start.

Dad gets home, mind them yard mode.

I couldn't get the mower to start.

He goes over the lawn mower.

Boom, right?

Startup.

Just sad, isn't it?

What was the first thing you did?

Some of you know, some of you don't, but you can learn this.

What was the first thing you did if the mower wouldn't start?

Well, you check the gas has gas.

You take the little air filter off and make sure it's clean and.

And whatever the case is, put it back on.

And then the third thing you checked with the old spark plug, Take the little wire off the spark plug, tell your little brother to stick his finger in there.

Hey, stick your finger in there.

And then you pull the thing and watch your little brother light on fire, electrocute him, right?

No, no, no, you put a.

You put a, you know, you know, put a screwdriver or something in there and put the screwdriver up against the metal housing of the motor, and you get somebody to pull the rod and you see if there's any spark coming out, hitting the motor.

How many of y'all done that?

How many have no idea what I'm talking about?

Awesome.

I'm thankful I grew up in a time in which you actually had to do something anyway.

But, man, you wanted that motor to start.

Required.

The fundamentals of an internal combustion engine is those three.

You got to have those three or it's not going to start.

Of course, there's some other issues and other problems that could contribute to that, whether it's bad rings or whatever the case is.

But those three fundamentals, you're not going to get a start without that.

And there are absolutely fundamentals of the faith that we will never, ever, ever.

And you can never, never, never give on.

And that is the verbal inspiration of the scriptures.

The Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God.

Number two is the virgin birth.

Jesus Christ was born of a virgin.

If he wasn't, then we can't have salvation because that means he had a sinful nature.

And then number three, that is the vicarious death of Jesus Christ and that he suffered, bled, and died for me.

Number four is the victorious resurrection and that on the third day he rose from the dead.

We're going to celebrate that in a great way.

Sunday.

We ought to be.

We celebrate it every Sunday, by the way.

And then number five, the visible return of Jesus Christ.

These are the things we know.

These are the fundamentals.

These are going to happen.

This is what happens, and so forth.

But I want to encourage you when it comes to Bible beliefs, Bible truth, Bible doctrine, that all Bible doctrine is important and the interpretation of the Scripture and the interpretation of the truths of the Scripture, that all of it is important and that we shouldn't give way to any.

We shouldn't compromise on any Bible doctrine.

Amen.

And that's what happens in this universal church concept as time goes on.

And we've seen it in the last 50, 60, 70 years, we've seen this happening and people saying, well, you just need to drop your differences.

You know, we kind of believe the same on this and we kind of believe the same on this.

And we kind of seen and we see all this compromise carried about by every wind of doctrine.

No longer steadfast and unmovable, no longer striving for the faith, no longer keeping the faith, but compromise.

And I'm telling you, we should never compromise.

The church is to be what, the pillar and ground of truth.

And though some of our brethren of the past may have done so in a mean way, and we ought to again preach the truth in love and be kind and gracious, but that does not equate to compromise, does not equal giving up biblical truth.

Because we are the caretakers of truth.

The church is the caretaker of truth, biblical truth.

And we're to pass that on to the next generation.

And we are not to give it up.

We're not to be beholden to these other belief systems and these other denominations who are compromised and who do compromise.

But we're to stay by the stuff.

Stay by the stuff.

Stay by the stuff.

We know the Bible refers to Satan as being the author of confusion because God is not the author of confusion.

That would equate to that.

Satan is the author of confusion.

He counterfeits everything.

He alters everything.

He just takes, you know, he takes the scripture and he twists it.

He takes the prophets and he twists them.

He takes the gospel.

He has a gospel too.

He just took the gospel and twisted it.

He takes baptism and he twists it.

Understand, Understand that as he has distorted many other Bible truths, Satan has distorted the concept of the church to the confusion the believer, and especially to the lost people.

Can you imagine the difference between our church and some of the churches you see on tv?

Can you imagine somebody who's been exposed to.

I know I pick on him all the time, but he is definitely worthy to be picked on somebody.

Watch Kenneth Copeland and then come to our church.

Somebody who thinks that our tbn, the old tbn.

Oh, my goodness.

And they think that's what Christianity is.

You see what I mean?

We have to understand that Satan, Second Corinthians, chapter 11.

Most of you know this.

The Bible says, for Satan himself is transformed as an angel of light.

Again, he likes to counterfeit all biblical truth.

Our Job as a church.

Our definition, our purpose as a church is to fulfill Christ's commands, to spread the gospel, to baptize and disciple converts and believers, to realize that in the Old Testament, the Jew was chosen, Abraham was chosen by God to be the lighthouse, to be the conveyor of the gospel and biblical truth.

The Jews, as time went on, dropped that.

They dropped the ball.

And God said, okay, if you're going to drop the ball, then I'll raise up another instrument and to be a light and to be the one who spread the gospel.

And he started.

Jesus Christ started the church to be that.

Now, we don't believe in replacement theology.

That is a farce.

That means that we believe that the Jews are still God's chosen people because the Bible teaches that and that God is going to use them again in a great way.

And by the way, that might start anytime.

Once the rapture happens, once we're called out of here, the Jews are going to be used in a great way.

The 144,000 that's mentioned in the Tribulation, those are Jewish evangelists.

And the Jews again will be the caretakers and the ones in which will spread the gospel.

During the Great Tribulation.

There will be millions of people saved during the tribulation time.

There'll be a lot of awful things happen too, but there's going to be a lot saved.

I'm so thankful for that.

Aren't you?

We as a church are called and commissioned to be separated and to be instruments used of God in this for the New Testament ministry.

And again, the church is the visible local church only.

Almost all the New Testament books are written to a church.

Visible church or visible churches.

The churches of Galatia, the offices of a church, officers, pastor and deacons.

Kind of hard to be an invisible pastor, deacon.

We should strive to keep the church as close to the biblical design as we can.

We're going to see God's desire and purpose for his church carried out.

We must keep it as close to the biblical design that God entails in His Word.

The local visible church is the biblical nature of a church.

Each assembly is the church.

Each assembly is the body of Christ.

Carrying out the Great Commission.

Carrying out the Great Commission.

We'll cover this some more, but let's all stand.

We have a verse invitation.

We are commissioned.

We are commanded as a church to be the caretakers of God's truth, to spread the gospel and to baptize converts.

It was so wonderful to see four baptized Sunday morning.

God's been so good to us last year and even so far this year to see people saved and baptized.

You know, we take it for granted there's churches who have cobwebs in their baptistry.

God's so good to us.

And then disciple, may we continue to fulfill the Great commission.

Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you.

Thank you for your word and Lord, may we seek to never, never give up biblical truth.

May we stand.

May we quit you like men.

We thank you again in Jesus name.

Amen.

Let's.