Preaching the Gospel

Good afternoon, everyone. I say it's an honor and privilege to be here. And I ask that you'll pardon my voice. I normally don't sound quite like this. This is what happens after a week at summer camp. I don't know if it's from yelling at the kids too much. I like to say it's because of teaching outdoors. I can make a lot of excuses, but it seems to happen every year. So next time I'm back in a couple weeks, hopefully it'll sound much better. And one of the things I was going to say—it's funny, in Columbus, for months they've been asking us, Well, when are you leaving? Well, thanks a lot. So I don't know. I think Mr. Smith said that they've been asking down here, When are they coming? So that balances it out. But this month is somewhat of a transition month, and I'm sure a lot of you are aware of that. So I'm not going to give you my life story and spiritual lessons about that this time. But after Pine Crest and when we're moved and the Smiths are moved and things settle down, we'll talk about some of those things and we'll get to know each other much better. And I'm really looking forward to all of that. I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you, hopefully having all of you over at our house, not necessarily at the same time, and coming and meeting with you. So we're very excited about the opportunity. And of course, when I say we, I mean my wife Sue and our son Connor, who I think they've been here a little longer this afternoon than I have, and they're thrilled to be here as well. But I want to focus on a particular message today. And when I said it's a special privilege and honor for me to be here, and I want to remind us that being in God's church is a special privilege. You know, it's a calling. And we want to remember God the Father called each one of us. That's how we got here. And it's not, of course, because we're deserving. You know, we know 1 Corinthians tells us that not many wise men are called, not many knowable. You know, we're the weak and the common and the base. That's how we ended up here. So we're not better than those who aren't called. But because of that calling, we're better off. We enjoy many benefits. One of the Psalms that I really like, and I guess maybe it's because I like the Psalm version and the hymnals, Psalm 103 talks about, you know, praise the Lord, our eternal, my soul, and forget not His benefits. That He forgives our sins, by which we have an opportunity for eternal life. He heals our diseases. He provides us with the things we need. But it's important for us to remember that with all these benefits and privileges, there are responsibilities. There are things that we have to do. If you will, while we're getting going, let's turn to Luke 12. Luke 12 will read verses 47 and 48. Now we're coming in towards the end of a parable, but it's some of the concluding remarks that I really want to focus on for this particular message. So Luke 12 and verse 47, Christ says, So when I say we've been giving special blessings and benefits, then it comes naturally there are requirements and responsibilities. Now, there are many of those we could focus on. One of the things I like to say is the first responsibility we have can be found, and you might want to make note of this, in 2 Peter 1, verse 10. I'm not going to go there, but that's where it says, make your calling and election sure. So if the calling itself is a rare and special privilege, our first responsibility is to hang on to it. Make it sure. Don't let go of that for anything.

But then we have other responsibilities. We're to bear fruit, to mature spiritually. Christ said that, by this all men would know, as we sang, that you're my brother and if you love one another, we're responsible to love each other and care for each other. Now, many of these things we do individually, but there's one responsibility that we do more as a group than individually. And that's what I want to talk about today, our responsibility as a church to preach the gospel. That's something God gives us to do. We are to preach the gospel. Now, for many people in the world, well, maybe it would go without saying, but I want to look at it a little bit, because we could ask the question, well, what do you mean, what is the gospel? Or I might say, if it was one of those old booklets in white, it would say, just what do you mean, the gospel? Well, I expect it chuckles for that, but in this time, many of you know gospel is an old English word that simply means good news. So that's what we say when we mean gospel, there's good news. And when I say that, that means there's something more to it, because, you know, you might hear Christians out there or people that call themselves Christians saying, believe the gospel, listen to the gospel. That's like saying, believe the good news, listen to the good news, and then you say, well, good, what is the good news?

Well, professing Christians might say, well, the good news is Jesus Christ, and stop there. I would answer and say, well, the news about Jesus Christ is good news, and that, but I say that's only part of the gospel. We don't want to preach a gospel that says, Jesus Christ came and he did certain things. We want to find out what was the gospel that Jesus Christ preached, and we want to preach that same gospel. So let's read a summary of it that we can find in Mark 1. Mark 1, verses 14 and 15. You know the different gospel accounts have different perspectives, and they complement each other. Mark tends to be more abbreviated. So some of the things we find in the book of Mark are very precise and boiled down, and I like this account for that particular reason.

So we'll begin Mark 1 and verse 14. Now, after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. So that's the gospel he preached, not a gospel about Jesus Christ. He came and preached the gospel of the kingdom of God, and it's summarized in the next verse.

Where did it go? There it is. He said, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. It's worth us realizing we could break that down into four separate points. One is that the time is fulfilled. Christ was in a sense saying, You've been waiting for the Messiah to come. The time is up. The time for the Messiah to come. And then he says, The kingdom of God is at hand. That was true in that particular time because the king of that kingdom was there. And then the next part is, repent. We could give a whole sermon on what repent means, and we're not going into that now, but for another time.

And then last, believe the gospel. And believing the gospel and repentance tie in together because if you believe, you'll repent and you'll have real change. But let's back up a little bit. Those four items I want to come back to later, but it's worth mentioning that Jesus preached the gospel, and that gospel was about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God needs to be the center of our message.

We don't want to lose track of that. That's what we're looking forward to. We can be comfortable here and now and enjoy the blessings that God gives us, but we want to focus on the kingdom of God. Now, I asked a question earlier. What's the gospel? You might ask someone who's not familiar, might say, well, what is the kingdom of God? What exactly do you mean? Some other churches that you could attend on a Sunday might say, it's a feeling in our heart.

Or it's when you give your heart to Jesus, or some would say the kingdom of God is the church organization. But we believe when he says kingdom of God, he means a real literal kingdom, a government, a ruling body. Mr. Armstrong used to describe a kingdom as having four distinct elements. To review what those are, he said any kingdom has to have, number one, a king. Otherwise, it's just a dumb. Number two, it has to have subjects who are ruled over.

I didn't plan that one in advance, I promise. It just came out. So number one, a king, two subjects who are ruled. Three, a territory that the kingdom inhabits, and four laws, or a constitution, the fundamental law. Let's look at what the Apostle Paul writes about the making up of a kingdom if you'll turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15, now, we know that as the resurrection chapter, and it certainly is, because the resurrection is part of the gospel. But I'll also point out, we know if you read, if you studied the book of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul was dealing with a church that had a lot of good things going for it, but also had quite a few problems. He corrected the Corinthians and said, you need to stop doing that. You've got a problem over here.

You've got this guy doing this wrong. And after all that, finally, in verse 15, he gets back to basics. He said, after all that correction, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 15, Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which also you received and understand. So after all that, I'm going to preach to you the gospel. Now, here's a central part of it. I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

So the fact that Christ died for our sins and was resurrected is a very inherent part of the gospel. And it's not just because it's good news that he died for our sins, but he's tied into that kingdom of God. If you'll skip ahead to verse 24, it says, Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom of God to the Father, the kingdom to God the Father, when he puts it into all rule, all authority and power.

Now, the he here he's talking about is Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ has the kingdom and he delivers it up to the Father. For he must reign till he's put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, for he's put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it's evident that he who put all things under him is accepted.

Now, when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. So this clearly shows the king of this kingdom is Jesus Christ. The subjects in the territory can easily be encompassed.

When we say all things, that covers a lot. So everybody is going to be part of this kingdom. They're going to be subjects. So the subjects that are ruled, not much of a challenge to know who that is, and the territory also. Now, I'm going to just refer to Revelation 19, but if you look there, that's a very dramatic description of Jesus Christ returning to earth. You know, after the seven trumpets, after the last great plagues, everything, the heavens open, he comes on a great white horse, and he's got a name written that says, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and he's going to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

So once again, Jesus Christ is the king. He's ruling all nations. All the territory of earth is part of that kingdom, and all people will be in it. So we've covered all the four elements except for one, and that's the law. What's the constitution of this kingdom? Let's turn to Matthew 5. I don't think it's a mystery to those of us that have been part of the church very long, but it's worth reviewing Matthew 5 and verse 17.

As Jesus Christ Himself will address this. Matthew 5, verse 17, He tells the Pharisees, So we're talking about the kingdom of heaven. Now wait a minute. I thought you said it was the kingdom of God. Let's not be confused by that. It doesn't have to be. We know that Jesus Christ came to earth as a man was crucified, and then He returned to heaven. He's at the right hand of the Father. So when we say kingdom of heaven, it's because the King is currently in heaven, but He's going to come back to earth. So the kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven are synonymous. And if you want to make a note just to tie that together, Acts 3, verse 21, the Apostle Peter in his great Pentecost sermon referring to Jesus Christ said, The heavens must receive Him until the restitution of all things. So yeah, He's there, but only until a certain time, and then He's going to establish that kingdom. And all the kingdom of God is where the King is. He's in heaven now. He's going to return to earth. That's good news. No wonder they call it the gospel. It's great news. And we can add the further part that some churches tend to get and forget the others, that Jesus Christ did pay the penalty for our sin. Let's look at one of their favorite scriptures, John 3, verse 16. I refer sometimes to memory scriptures. I was saying at summer camp sometimes I had to stop and explain that, but the old timers in the church know there are certain scriptures we refer to a lot, so they're stuck in our memories, but 12-year-olds showing up at camp don't necessarily think of them that way. Although we started making them memorize scriptures, so that sort of cements that. John 3, 16... or 3, 17. God did not send... I don't know about that. 3, 16. Sorry, I knew I was doing something wrong.

Okay. That's good news. If you want to add another reference to go with that, you can look up later. Hebrews 9, 28 refers to the fact that Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. Because of Christ's sacrifice, all people are going to have the chance to live again. They're going to have a chance to have the penalty for their sin paid. They're going to have a chance to be in the kingdom of God. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 15.

I've been accused of using a lot of scriptures in my sermons, but I tell people... I was told when you're a new minister, you can't go wrong if you're preaching directly from the Word of God. Use more of his words than your own. And it's good exercise for the fingers. 1 Corinthians 15, we're going to begin in verse 19. Once again, we'll tie Christ's sacrifice and resurrection back into the kingdom of God. Begin in verse 19, And as become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead.

For as an Adam all die, even so in Christ, all shall be made alive, but each one in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, afterwards those who are Christ that is coming. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father. So once again, the resurrection happens... ...or Christ's sacrifice, resurrection is possible, and then the kingdom. So again, what good news? That's terrific! But that begs another question that I didn't answer. I sort of took it as an assumption. Earlier on I said we have certain responsibilities, and one of them is to preach the gospel.

You might ask, well, why is it our duty to preach the gospel? Do we really have to do that? Well, the short answer, and I borrowed this from my mother many years ago when I'd say, well, why do I have to do this?

She'd sometimes say, well, because I said so. Well, I'm not giving you this on my mom's authority, but if you'll turn to Mark 16, we'll go to a little higher authority than mom, and there aren't many of those. Mark 16, and we're going to read verse 15. Now, once again, remember, Mark gives a more brief account of a lot of the occurrences of Christ's life. He says simply here, and this is the last instruction he gave the apostles before he ascended to heaven, and they weren't going to see him again.

So he says, he said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That's short and sweet. Go to all the world and preach the gospel. Now, when he says every creature, I think he meant those who could understand, because the squirrels and the raccoons and such aren't as interested. We skip down to verse 20, And they went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked through them.

So he told them to do it, and they went and did it. Now, there's another important thing we want to tie a couple of things together. If you'll turn to Matthew 24, Matthew 24 and verse 14, this is another one of those memory scriptures. And Mr. Armstrong quoted this a lot, and for good reason.

Now, I'll make note here, though, that this is part of what we call the Olivet Prophecy. This wasn't a direct command of the apostles, but Christ was telling them about what was going to happen in the end time before he returned. And one of the things that would happen is, he says, And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. Well, I sometimes hesitate about that, because there are times when I was younger I wasn't so eager for the end, partly because there are fun things on this planet, and partly because it's going to be a scary time.

Things are getting a little scary out there now, as we know. But we know at the end, when Christ returns and the kingdom is delivered up, the resurrection happens. That's good. We want that to come. So if the gospel has to be preached to all the world before it can get here, let's get busy and preach the gospel. Oh, there is a glass here. I'm working on keeping this voice going. But some would question that. Let's turn back a couple pages to Matthew 28.

Matthew 28 and verse 18. As I said, this is a different version of the same thing we read in Mark, but you'll notice the wording is a little bit different. Matthew 28 and verse 18. Once again, last instruction before it goes up to heaven. Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and I'll be with you to the end.

Now, does it seem like Christ commanded two separate things? On one hand it says, Go preach the gospel. On the other one it says, Go make disciples. And a disciple is another word for student. That's why he said, Teach them all things. Well, we should understand that the two are connected. You know, if you preach the gospel, this good news of the kingdom of God, the Father will begin to call some. And we know, John 6, 44, another memory scripture tells us, that none can come to Christ except the Father draw him.

Now, we might preach the gospel to as many as possible, and we certainly want to. He said, Preach the gospel to all the world, and then the Father will call some of them, and we need to make disciples of those who are called. Teach them the way, and they'll join us in that mission. We don't get to decide who is called. God will take care of that, so we preach to everyone. And that's why I was thinking of referring to this. It's up here behind me. The motto of the United Church of God is, Preaching the gospel and preparing the people.

One leads to the other. They're intertwined inextricably. You can't pull them apart. Let's turn to Romans chapter 10, and we'll see some of how this works. Romans 10 will begin in verse 13.

Romans 10 and verse 13, For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, but how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without a preacher? He's saying, you've got to call on the name of the Lord. Well, you've got to believe that there is one. How can you believe in God if nobody's told you about Him? So you've got to have that preacher. And how can they preach unless they are sent? And then he quotes from the Old Testament, As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace. The gospel of peace is the same thing as the gospel of the kingdom of God, because it's a kingdom of peace, who brings glad tidings of good things. So we see it's interconnected. To be sent, you're sent by the King, Jesus Christ, or by the body of Christ, which is the Church. And so we want to be part of those who are sent, preaching the gospel and allowing the Father to call those who He will for us to teach. Now, it's interesting, I wanted to share this because it's something I hadn't considered at summer camp last week. I got to spend a fair bit of time with Darris McNeely, who is a writer for the magazines and presenter on the World Tomorrow Beyond Today program. I'm living in the past here, I'm referring to so many things, but he brought up something interesting that I'd never thought of. And he said there are a lot of younger people in the Church that believe the Church has been built up by programs like summer camp and like ABC. And now, he's not against summer camp or ABC, he's been very much involved with both, but he said they're losing sight of the fact that God builds the Church no matter what device, but he said the principal device in the past by which God has built the Church has been by preaching the gospel. We preach the gospel, and God adds to the Church through that calling, as we see in Romans 10. They hear the message, and then they can believe, and they can be taught. So he said, we need to counter that. We don't want to focus so much on things like ABC and summer camp that we're not preaching the gospel. Now, we do want to have summer camp and ABC, and I'm a strong proponent of those. As I said, I just enjoyed a week of camp, and in another month I'm going to go do it again. And I'm going to try to talk less and less loudly, so I sound better when I come home. But I want to address another important issue that we could overlook. There are people in some Church groups who will say that the prophecy of Matthew 24, 14, which says this gospel will be preached to all the world and then the end will come, some say that that's been fulfilled. They say, Mr. Armstrong did that, and we don't have to anymore. Now, it's done. All we have to do now is just sit down, and we can fold our hands and say, well, Christ can return, now the work's done. And I want to tell you, I don't believe that's true. I don't believe it. The United Church of God does not teach that, and I hope that that's not what you believe. Now, I'll follow that up by saying I do believe that Mr. Armstrong preached the gospel and in many ways went to all the world. So in some ways he did fulfill that prophecy.

But you could say, even if he did, does that mean we're not to preach the gospel? I don't think so. Where we read in Mark 16 verse 15, I didn't see an expiration date. Rather, instead, we can... Yeah, let's turn to 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 16.

Because some people would read, okay, in Mark 16 he was speaking to the 11 apostles, you know, 12 minus Judas Iscariot, and later they added the other ones. So some would say, well, if you want to read that very literally, you could say, well, only those 11 were responsible to preach the gospel. Well, we're going to see from what Paul writes that that can't be true. 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 16, Paul says, For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me. Yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. The apostle Paul saw it was his responsibility, even though he wasn't one of the 11, and he was joined by many others. Now, he said, woe is me, and he said, necessity is laid on me. It's no big deal, but if I want to earn some reward, he went out of his way to do it free of charge. You know, the Bible shows that the ministry can be paid by the income that comes, but Paul said, I'm going to work and earn my own money as much as possible to try to make up for persecuting the church, which I did later, or he did earlier. Let's look also at, I think, some of the principle involved in this in the book of John, chapter 17. John 17 and verse 20. Now, we know that there are several chapters here near the end of the book of John that are dealing with the last Passover that Christ spent on earth, and he gave a lot of instruction to the apostles. And then in chapter 17, John recorded a prayer that Jesus Christ made, and they all heard it. And it's one of the few that we have written down. We know Christ prayed a lot, but we don't always know what he said. But we see some inclination of what he was thinking of the work that would continue. Because here in verse 20, in praying to the Father, he prayed for the apostles that were there with him. But then he said, I do not pray for these alone, or for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. So that includes us. You know, the apostles taught people, and those people taught other people, and they taught other people, and it continued down through the generations, and eventually reached us. And we still have the blessing of having Christ prayed for those who would believe. And I believe the obligation of preaching the gospel is something that also carries through. Now, I'll admit, it doesn't specifically say that, but I hope you follow at least the intention. You know, we can join in with the Apostle Paul, where he said, woe is me if I don't preach the gospel. So, you know, whether or not Matthew 24, 14 had been fulfilled by Mr. Armstrong or not, I don't think it's relevant to our necessity to preach the gospel. And for that matter, Christ didn't return, and there have been a lot of young people that have been born and grown up since that time. I tend to overlook that. It's funny, when you reach adulthood, the world stops changing quite as fast. But there are young adults here that don't remember him or the World Tomorrow program that I referenced, or the Plain Truth magazine. And if there are people here that don't remember that, how many out in the world? So that witness hasn't gone to them, and we want to bring it to them.

So we could ask the question, then, how? So, okay, you know, don't go lie by this, we've got to preach the gospel. How are we going to do it? Well, and it's not that it's never been done before, so I'm not posing a new task. We do it primarily two different ways. There's one of overt proclamation. We proclaim the gospel.

That's getting up and telling people what it is. And the other way is by somewhat of an indirect witness. We lived God's way of life, and it shows that way of life in action and the blessings that come by it. Now, as a group, we do this. As the church, we proclaim the gospel through, largely by television. We print magazines and booklets, and we have various websites that reach all around the world. And that's very exciting.

As a group, we also do make a witness. We tend to think of that mostly as individuals, but imagine what the people living in this neighborhood think. This is my first time coming here, and I commented to Mr. Smith. I said, oh, Westport Smith is mostly residential. He said, yeah. And he said, when we first moved here, they kind of noticed. They said, but we don't cause any trouble. You know, things are getting along fine. But I'll bet you they do notice a group of people come here, and they're well-dressed and well-mannered, and some of them probably wonder what's going on.

Some of them might have saw a United Church of God and gone to the Internet and Googled it to find out. You know, we might have helped preaching the Gospel in ways that we don't know. But especially, think when the Feast of Tabernacles comes when hundreds of us gather in one place, or sometimes thousands, and the whole communities notice. Well, similar methods are available to us as individuals. Certainly, we want to set an example, like the Church does. Let's turn to 1 Peter. I'll tell you what.

Before that, let's... Yeah, 1 Peter 3. I'm moving my Scriptures out of order, but I'm going to stick with these ones. 1 Peter 3 and verse 1. Peter's addressing wives, but in particular addressing marriages where a maid is married. One member of a marriage is in the Church, and the other is not. He says, wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives.

So he's saying, you can preach the Gospel, and you can have a big impact, even leading, perhaps, to conversion by your conduct. Now, he's talking to wives, but the same one is true for men. And I'll give the example in my family, well, not my direct family, but my wife's parents. It was back... now that she was here, I might say the date wrong, I believe it was 64, 65, your dad was called. 66. He came to the knowledge of the truth, started getting the magazines and booklets, and eventually came to his wife and said, I believe this is true, I need to do this.

I've got to keep the Sabbath. And, you know, eventually would start tithing, and she thought he was off his rocker. What is it with this guy? You know, and she would go and tell other people, you know, my husband's getting into this weird group, and they go to church on the wrong day, and all this... But eventually, you know, she says, okay, I'm married, he's my husband, and we've got two small children. If he wants to go to church, I should go with him and support him.

And she went, and she listened, and she followed along the Scripture. And she started reading the material, and God opened her mind. She eventually became, you know, started coming to church not just to support him, but because she became convinced it was the right thing. She was baptized, and eventually became a deaconess in the church. And that worked out really well for me, because they had another child later on.

But, you know, and many of you could probably tell similar stories.

But we also want to hear... there are other ways. The conduct is the one we do most often, but sometimes that leads to an opportunity for somewhat overt proclamation. Let's look in... I lost the Scripture I'm looking for. Oh, 1 Peter 3 and verse 15, same chapter a little further down.

So it shouldn't take you long to get there. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense, or the old King James says an answer, to everyone who asks you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. Now, we've heard this many times, and I hope we've thought of it, but always be ready to give an answer. Or the word defense is almost a better word. I was explaining this morning that when I was in graduate school, I had to write this long dissertation, and before I could get my degree, I had to sit down with a board of professors who were going to ask me questions about my research, and ask why I came to the conclusions I did, and I had to give a defense, or an explanation of my conclusions. I had to show them how I had researched and came to these conclusions. Well, that's something all of us should be able to do. If someone asked you, you know, why you do these weird things, you could answer, first of all, it's not that weird, but I can explain why we do things. You shouldn't, you don't want to say, well, if they ask you, why do you keep Sabbath, here, let me give you a booklet. Or don't say, call my minister, he can explain it to you. Now, ministers are glad to do that, and the booklets are there, and the website, for people to get more information, that's very good, but they want to know why you do things. So, if someone says, why do you go to church on Saturdays, sometimes a brief answer is enough. You might say, well, I believe the Bible teaches that's the day to go to church, and Jesus went on that day, and so did the apostles, and so I do it. They might say, no, good enough. They might ask more, or not. Why do you keep Christmas? Well, I don't think Christmas is in the Bible, and I think Jesus and the apostles kept other days that the Bible teaches we should. Sometimes that's plenty, but that's giving an answer of why you believe. That's preaching the gospel, in a very real sense. Now, sometimes they will ask more, it can be very useful. I had a fellow I shared an office with when I was in grad school. I went to graduate school at Texas A&M, and at one point I was sharing an office with two other people, and the office was about not as big as the stage, so it was cramped quarters. One of the fellows was very liberal politically and socially and not very religious, so he questioned my religion, and he thought, well, do you believe that me and all these other people are going to go to hell because we don't do what you do? I said, no, I don't believe that.

And I explained to him that judgment was not on the world now, and that some are called, and they're responsible for what they understand, and that there would be a resurrection, that everyone would have a chance, no one would be condemned without fully understanding. And I don't remember all the full... but it was only a few minute conversation, and he said... and when he heard about the resurrection and everyone having an opportunity, he said, that's very comforting. He said, I like that. He never asked me about it again, so he didn't ask me to come to church, but I thought, well, you know, only God can call someone, but I... and later on, I was patting myself on the back, well, Frank, you preach the gospel. I'm thankful I wasn't thinking that at the time, I might have froze up, but any one of you could be doing that easily. Let's turn to one other scripture that's worth keeping in mind in Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26, we're going to read verses 4 and 5.

Okay, this is a principle to keep in mind, and this is one that raises other questions, but Proverbs 26 in verse 4 says, do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. And then in verse 5 it says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. And putting these back to back, I think, was Solomon's way of saying, whether or not you answer someone depends on the attitude they have and what will be the result. In some cases you've got to put someone in their place, lest they think they're something. Other times, just don't get into it, because you're going to get down in the gutter with him. Jesus said, don't throw your pearls before swine. So you want to judge when and how to give an answer, but you have the wisdom to do that, and you can ask God for it. Now, one of my reasons for wanting to discuss this, besides the fact that I think preaching the gospel is a fundamental thing we want to focus on... Yep, that's my boy. One of the deacons in Columbus said, I think he's going to be a minister when he grows up, because he likes to speak during services. And he's got a stronger voice than I do today. But what we have coming up this late summer is the kingdom of God Bible seminars. And I know how many of you got the latest good news in the mail. And I was thrilled, and the latest issue, and I found that big two-page spread. I wanted to give the sermon also as a chance to introduce these. We did this as a pilot program in Columbus a couple of years ago, so I've had the chance to have a little bit of involvement, and I'm looking forward to a lot more. This is going to give us a chance, as a church and as a congregation, to preach the gospel a little more directly. Just this last week, I went on the church's website and set up what they call a landing page for Portsmouth.

So I plugged in the address of the hall here. They got my picture up there. It took a while to find one that was worth putting up. And a little bio, and I made sure I wasn't stepping on Mr. Smith's toes. He's doing the same thing for Houston, setting that up. So we're making this known out in the public that there's going to be a meeting here that will be on the Sabbath of September 10th.

And they're invited to come, and we're going to address...we're going to preach the gospel. Although I won't necessarily say that, but you notice, Kingdom of God. What's the gospel about? The gospel of the Kingdom of God. Now, it's set up to do these in a series. September 10th will be the first of four. And that's why I wanted to go to Mark 1, verse 16.

And you don't have to turn back there. We read it. But those four themes, the time is fulfilled. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. In September, the subject matter is going to be that the time is fulfilled. And we can look at world events and show that the time is coming to an end where this world can't go on this way anymore.

And we'll explain that the Bible has the answers to the crises that are arising and the questions we have. Now, there is room for variation. The plan for that Sabbath is that there will be two brief meetings, each one about 45 minutes. That's the way I'm planning. The public will be given the address, and they'll come here. And hopefully all of you will be here. They won't know if you're a member of the church or not. For all they know, you're good news subscribers like they are. But they'll see that real people get this magazine, not weirdos and nuts, and they'll have a chance to interact.

And I'm taking this on faith because I haven't been here. I'm assuming you're not weirdos and nuts. That's a whole other story. I trust the Smiths on that. Not to mention God's calling and His Spirit. So I'm being a little humorous, but this is an exciting opportunity. As I said, when we did it in Columbus, there was a PowerPoint presentation, and the ministry is going to take care of the preaching.

That'll be me. But it'll be important for you to be out there for people to rub shoulders with and maybe ask questions that they have. We want to have a break in between where there'll be some light refreshments. You know, finger foods, perhaps sandwiches, some coffee and punch and such. And then come back for the second half, and we talk some more, and they'll know that we're here. Hopefully God will reach out to some people.

As I said, we did a pilot of this in Columbus and Cambridge, and we did have some people start attending regularly as a result. We're very hopeful and excited in the Church that God might start calling dozens of people. As Mr. McNeely said, the Church is built by our children growing up and learning the truth, but over the years God has built the Church by preaching the Gospel, and we want to do that.

Hmm, I've got a whole bunch of stuff on my notes that I've already said. I began the sermon reminding us what a privilege and a blessing it is for us to be called. But with that privilege comes responsibilities. God called us to be in His Church not only for our own sakes. And for those of you that have been around a while, remember Mr. Armstrong used to say that you weren't called just to be saved. You were called to do a job.

And I was called to do a job. I'm not pointing fingers at you, I'm pointing fingers at us. We're called not only to build character and prepare to be in God's family, but to help preach the Gospel to others. Christ said, preach the Gospel and make disciples. We've got opportunities to do that in our everyday lives and in these seminars coming up. So I want to encourage all of you to join me and all of us to join together as a Church and let's preach the Gospel.