application

Salvation By Works Gives No Hope

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

20140730-070159-25319356.jpg

“And next I think it will be admitted by all, that the way of salvation by good works would be self-evidently unsuitable to a considerable number. I will take a case. I am sent for in an emergency, and it is the dead of night. A man is dying, smitten suddenly by the death-blast. I go to his bedside, as requested. Consciousness remains, but he is evidently in mortal agony. He has lived an ungodly life—and he is about to die. I am asked by his wife and friends to speak to him a word that may bless him. Shall I tell him that he can only be saved by good works? Where is the time for works? Where is the possibility of them? While I am speaking, his life is struggling to escape him! He looks at me in the agony of his soul, and he stammers out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Shall I read to him the Moral Law? Shall I expound to him the Ten Commandments and tell him that he must keep all these? He would shake his head and say, ‘I have broken them all; I am condemned by them all!’ If salvation is of works, what more have I to say? I am of no use here. What can I say? The man is utterly lost! There is no remedy for him. How can I tell him the cruel dogma of ‘modern thought’ that his own personal character is everything? How can I tell him that there is no value in belief, no help for the soul in looking to Another—even to Jesus, the Substitute? There is no whisper of hope for a dying man in the hard and stony doctrine of salvation by works!”

—CH Spurgeon

Help For New Expositors: Applying the Bible to Your Hearers

/ Richard Bargas / 4 Comments

Preaching

In some circles, there is a question whether the preacher needs to apply the Word of God or whether that is strictly the domain of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think there needs to be an either/or question about application. When John the Baptist preached about repentance, those who heard him asked what exactly they were to do to prove they had truly repented (Lk 3:10-14). John gladly gave specifics for each  group of people present. The fact remains that you are to bring the Word of God to bear upon the hearts and lives of your hearers. This is assumed in the preaching act.

  1. Find the universal principle(s) given in the biblical text. Some passages have clear applications while others you will need to find the timeless, universal principle that can be applied to your hearers.
  2. Meditate on how you will respond to the text.
    • Does this text impact your life?
    • What will you now do, believe, be thankful for or repent of?
    • If you can’t answer, neither will your listener know what to do, either.
  3. Think about your listeners.
    • Who are they? (What are their careers, education, marital status, children, etc.?)
    • What are they going through right now? (joys, trials, spiritual life)
    • How will this text impact them when they hear it?
    • Will it help them? How?
  4. Be pointed and specific.
    • Don’t fall into the trap of just telling people to “pray more” or “read your Bible more” or “have more faith.” Tell them how.
    • Be specific enough that they have a few ideas about how they can apply the text—this is helpful for the newer believer.
    • Be generic enough that the more mature believers can see other application in their own life outside of your suggestions.
    • Use “You” in your application. Don’t shy away from being the messenger of God. He is speaking to them through his Word.
  5. Point people to the Cross and the Holy Spirit
    • You don’t want to err into moralism, where your sermon application simply tells the listener to “be better” or “do more.” Unbelievers and believers alike need to know that the imperatives can only be accomplished because of Christ’s atoning work on the cross through the power of the Holy Spirit.
    • Preach the need for Christ to unbelievers who are unable to obey without salvation. If you do not, at best you will frustrate your hearers; at worst you will lull them into a self-righteousness that only condemns.
    • Preach the necessary power of the Holy Spirit for the believer to change.
    • Preach the Gospel! As Spurgeon said, “Make a bee-line to the cross.”

 

Find help for other sermon preparation skills here:

Sermon Preparation Checklist

Help With Introductions

Help With Illustrations

Not Half as Good as a Dog!

/ Richard Bargas / 1 Comment

dog friends

“You all remember, therefore I need not tell you again, the story that we had about the doctor at one of our hospitals, a year or two ago. He healed a dog’s broken leg and the grateful animal brought other dogs to have their broken legs healed. That was a good dog. Some of you are not half as good as that dog! You believe that Christ is blessing you, yet you never try to bring others to Him to be saved! That must not be the case any longer. We must excel that dog in our love for our species and it must be our intense desire that if Christ has healed us, He should heal our wife, our children, our friends, our neighbors; and we should never rest until others are brought to Him!”

–Charles Spurgeon

Brothers and sisters, may it never be said of us that we are not half as good as that dog!

What Are the Reasons that You Don’t Evangelize?

/ Richard Bargas / 3 Comments

20140721-104312-38592589.jpg
According to a 2013 Barna report, 73% of Born Again Christians believe that they have a personal responsibility to share their faith with others, but only 52% of those polled said they had actually shared their faith with someone else in the past year. (Link)

Do you share Christ with others? What encouragement can you give to those who don’t?

If you are among those who rarely evangelize, why not? What is the biggest reason that you don’t share Christ?

Our Enemy’s Great Deception

/ Richard Bargas / Leave a comment

20140718-223820-81500686.jpg

“We are told that men no longer believe in Satan; that for our generation the invisible house of bondage, with its fallen monarch, no longer exists! If this be so, a great deal more is or will be presently disbelieved in as well; but a Christian who submits to and accepts the teaching of the New Testament cannot but be struck with this fresh proof of the finished ingenuity of our great spiritual enemy. Like those masters of the art of earthly war who conquer less frequently by an ostentatious display of force on the battle field than by carefully concealed surprises which turn the position of an antagonist, so Satan, it seems, has persuaded a frivolous and shallow generation that he no longer exists but as a discredited phantom of the past, as an extinct terror, as a popular joke! Ah! he has not been at work upon the human heart for nothing during these many thousands of years; he knows how to lull us to sleep to the best advantage, that he may take our thoughts and affections, and, above all, our passions, well into his keeping.”

—H.P. Lidden