Welcome to… Explain It All Away!
(A Message to the Members)
(Preached Wednesday Evening, July 1, 2020)
To those of you more solemnly committed to the truth being presented in a more fundamentally traditional manner, we justify what proceeds directly after the reading of the following two passages of Scripture with the very words contained within them.
Close your Bible then, for now… but return to it afterwards and always, ever searching and ever gaining strength to understand, to believe, and in faith, to do what God tells you to do on the pages of his living Word.
Now,
- Listen,
- Partake,
- Understand, and
- Do!
1 Corinthians 9:22: “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
Jude 1:2-3: “Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”
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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, near and far, young and old, friends and members of the S.A.L.T., the Savior’s Ambassadors Laboring Together, we welcome you to the very first, the pilot episode of a game show that has been a long time coming, although the idea of it was just revealed last night! Here today for your thinking pleasure, for the tending to your immortal soul, in further hope and longing for your eternal peace and safety we present…
*** EXPLAIN IT ALL WAY! ***
A game show where you, yes you dear listener, are the contestant. You are the player in this game… right now! This, in which the stakes are at their very highest as you play for either your eternal life or for that of those you love, or… for both!
Tonight, we will give you a chance… to
*** EXPLAIN IT ALL WAY! ***
But first – how to play the game:
- There are only two rounds to play in this game!
- Within each round we will present you with
- One popular statement that almost everyone one around you believes to be true.
- You will then be asked four simple questions.
- We will then provide you with the answers to each of these questions.
- You will then be presented with a fifth and final question that you must answer before we move on to the next round, and ultimately to the end of this show.
Simple enough, right?
- 2 STATEMENTS
- 4 QUESTIONS EACH WITH US GIVING THE ANSWERS, AND
- ONE 5TH & FINAL QUESTION… THAT YOU MUST ANSWER!
Okay, hold on then as we bring you into the greatest game show that you will ever play… in this world!
All right then: let us play…
*** EXPLAIN IT ALL WAY! ***
Statement #1: “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good.”
- Is that in the Bible? – No!
- Who first said that? – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
- Is that true? – Well, no. Not according to C. S. Lewis…
The famous theologian, who is popularly known for being the prolific author who wrote the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe series, C.S. Lewis said this in his life-changing book Mere Christianity,
“Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, Harper edition, 2001), pp. 134-135; https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/Living_in_Hope)
- What does the Bible say about that?
“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:2)
In fact, to give you what God’s says here, in its fuller context, consider these four statements given in Colossians, chapter 3, verses 1, 2, 3, and 4.
- Verse 1: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.”
- Verse 2: “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”
- Verse 3: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
- Verse 4: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
- Now that you know this – Will you change your life now, from this moment on
- To “seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God;”
- To “set your affection on things above, [and] not on things on the earth;”
- To live, to live with “your life … hid with Christ in God”; ever knowing, ever rejoicing that “when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory?”
- Will you? Will you commit to doing this: to this becoming your life’s purpose from here on; leaving from hearing this message utterly resolved to let no one and nothing stop you from rising every morning and living everyday in the victory of, as our Lord put it in the prayer that he taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven?” Will you? Will you do this for life? Forever!
- Take a moment to stop the world; to slow down your life; to halt… and think… and prayerfully decide for life, for joy, for peace, for power, for walking in unity with the Lord Jesus… forever!
- Or, as the title of the show says, you could instead Explain It All Away… like a fool throwing away a key, right as he was walking up to the door.
Statement #2: “God helps those who help themselves.”
- Is that in the Bible? – No!
- Who said this first? – Algernon Sidney (and later Benjamin Franklin)
- Is that true? – Not according to historically well-known well-preached and clearly established to be faithful ministers J.C. Ryle, and Charles H. Spurgeon; and not… according to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Savior of the World.
- J. C. Ryle said, “Whenever a man takes upon him to make additions to the Scriptures, he is likely to end with valuing his own additions above Scripture itself.”
- Charles Haden Spurgeon said, “The creature without Christ is an empty thing, a lamp without oil, a bone without marrow. But when Christ is present, our cup runs over, and we eat bread to the full.”
- What does the Bible say about that? Ah, more particularly, what does Jesus have to say about that as recorded in the Bible?
“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
- “Without [Jesus] ye can do nothing.”
- He said, “I am the vine.”
- He said, “Ye are the branches.”
- He said, “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.”
- Now that you know this – Will you?
- If you answered right to question number 5 in the last round – if you answered right to that final question then you really have decided to renew, yea to forever right your walk, your ways, your life, your days before the ever-onlooking eyes of our dear Lord Jesus.
- But now you know how. You know by first embarking on a life lived in true biblical heavenly-mindedness that you can live a life with your very being enraptured in the joys of Heaven on Earth and in the joys to come by..
- Allowing Christ Jesus to abide in you, and then
- Allowing yourself to rest, to abide, to live in Him; and
- He alone will therefore and thereby help you do what you could never help yourself to do…
- Live…
- In victory…
- In Christ only, and
- With Christ ever with you.
- Him – the vine!
- You – the branch!
- You – bringing “forth much fruit”…
- You… feeding… the World!
Will you then? Will you dear brother, dear sister who professes to know Christ and to want to have him in your life, yea to have your life in Him fully! Will you leave this place, this message – which was played as a game to wake you up to the realities of the Kingdom of God that comes, that is here, and that could be within you? As the Lord Jesus himself said,
“Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (John 17:21)
Will you live a life so heavenly, so biblically-minded, and will you so wonderfully trust Jesus as to walk away from here transformed? He has done this for others. Can he do this now… for you? Yes he can, and so…
Do it! Let Him do it! With an eye towards Heaven and a life lived in Jesus Christ your Lord, trust Him to both save you from sin and to keep you living a powerful surrendered transformed overcoming life in Christ. Do it! Begin… now!
OUTLINE:
*** EXPLAIN IT ALL AWAY ***
(Jude 1:2-3)
“God helps those who help themselves.”
“Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good.”
“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
WORSHIP: