Proclaiming Truth: The Church's Essential Mission

I need to tell you that we are meeting in a day of great confusion. It's the Great characteristic of our modern world. There's confusion in every realm: political, social, moral, every realm you can think of. But this confusion is most regrettable and most tragic when you find it in the realm of the Christian church. [00:04:56]

The whole confusion arises today because people think that they are in a position to decide these matters, and they decide them as you know in terms of it's very nice. They say it'd be very nice to do this or to have that. The fallacy is, I say, that it's assumed that we today are in a position to decide what Christianity is. [00:07:07]

The primary task of the preacher is not even to fill his church, and we must be quite clear about this. I'm reminded of a story about one of my predecessors at Westminster Chapel. He had come down from Scotland and was there in the ministry in the 1920s, and unfortunately, the congregations were tending to go down. [00:11:14]

We are not here to entertain people. The world can perform drama very much better than the church can. If you want drama, go and get it as the world does it and does it well. If you want singing entertainment, don't come to church; go to the world. That's its function, that's its business, and it does it in a very good and interesting manner. [00:14:45]

The greatest need in the world at this moment is the preaching of this truth. The world is as it is because it doesn't know this truth, because it's ignorant of this truth. The primary task of the church and her Representatives is to bring people to a knowledge of the truth. [00:15:28]

The truth is experimental; it is living. Christ said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." But the church is not here primarily to give people experiences. Experiences do follow the acceptance of the truth, but the church is not hardly concerned to give people experiences. [00:18:08]

Man needs to be saved. He needs a mediator. What's this? Well, you see, the world is completely ignorant of this, and that's why to me it is such a travesty of Christianity and almost an unforgivable sin for men to go into Pits on Sundays or on weekdays and to be talking about a part in South Africa. [00:30:00]

Man is not an evolved animal; he's a creature made in the image and likeness of God, and he was made perfect and he lived in A Place Called Paradise. Well, why is he in trouble? Why is the world as it is tonight? The answer is because man in his folly rebelled against God. [00:30:32]

There is only one hope for this world tonight, and it is this: when the fullness of the times was come, God sent forth his own son from Heaven, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. The incarnation, if it isn't true, then the world is finally lost and damned and every one of us with it. [00:38:39]

This truth which we are commanded and ordained to preach is the only message that can tell a Man how he can face death without a quiver or a fear. He can say with AUST a stop lady, "The Terrors of Lord and of God with me can have nothing to do. My savior's obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from VI." [00:44:55]

The church tonight is the only hope for men. There's none other, and it's the highest privilege that a man can ever have to be called to be a preacher and a teacher and a proclaimer of this truth, this Everlasting gospel, this word of God to a world lost in sin. [00:48:59]

May he in his great power through the spirit enable our beloved friend the Reverend Gordon M to preach and to teach, to present and to enunciate this blessed truth here Sunday by Sunday and encourage all the members of the church and all others whoever hearing to do the same in this needy generation. [00:49:33]