John 3:30

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

preaching

Conversation with a HyperCalvinist?

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A couple weeks ago, I received an email from someone concerned about the gospel I proclaim and how I declare it.

My words are marked by the offset.

Mike,

I appreciate your lengthy reply. This is commendable. It shows me that this is something extremely important to you, since u invested valuable time to communicate it. This is not insincerity on my part.

Me: I do not doubt your sincerity, although you will see I think we have found some disagreement. Thank you for the time you took to love me from your heart and share what you think is good for me, even if I am not convinced.

Now let me say a few things about the first link (your gospel tract) and I hope you will read my email with interest as I did yours:

Me: I spent much time on it and took careful interest.

This excerpt is from my tract and was referenced by the writer: “What if I told you there is good news? That you can go to Heaven and live in paradise without any effort or commitment on your part. Like 2 minute abs, but better! Of course that is foolish. So what does it take to get to Heaven? It takes total commitment! ” You can read the entire tract by clicking here. It will open in a new tab.
1. Mike, the Bible (I think u will agree) is the only standard for faith and life. And the Bible clearly tells us that “there is none that seeketh after God”(Rom 3:11-12). Your question assumes that unconverted men are interested in heaven. But heaven is complete reconciliation to God. Sinners hate God and would much rather be in hell than heaven if it weren’t for the torment.

No, my question does not assume that anyone seeks after God. My question was partially rhetorical. Nevertheless, if I assume anything, it is that people generally would like to avoid punishment for their sins. In our modern vernacular, no one translates “go to Heaven” as “reconciliation with the God of the Bible who I hate.”

“Go to Heaven” means “not be judged for my unrighteousness” in 2014 or “go where I think I deserve to go because I’m already good or I’m a universalist.”

You actually contradict your own self when you say “if it weren’t for the torment,” and you prove my point. No one wants the torment. My tract analogy does not fail because it rings true that people who think it is good news to be able to go to Heaven (avoid punishment) without any commitment is analogous to people who want to sit on their couch, watch TV and lose weight.

Common sense tells us that we do not offer a man something he does not and cannot desire.

As you stated, the Bible is the only standard for faith and life. If the Bible commands that I offer a man something that I know he cannot practically desire, then I still do it – because God’s wisdom is above my own (and yours, Person’s name).

That is why I preach the gospel to all men, even though I am aware that they will not all be saved by God from His wrath through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. Common sense says “don’t obey God’s command to preach, because He will save His elect anyway!” Yet I still preach because I would rather obey God than the fallible logic of men like you and me.

Common sense says to stop preaching when folks pick up stones to kill you, yet Stephen did not have that type of sense. Common sense says to stop prophesying if it costs you everything, yet Jeremiah could not quench the fire in his bones.

And common sense says call down legions of angels to protect you from a mock trial where you will be killed even in your innocence – yet thanks be to GOD that Jesus was more concerned about obedience to the Father than common sense.

Here are some scriptures to support the public proclamation of the gospel:

Acts 10:42 And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. 43 To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.”

John 6
Matthew 5-7
Luke 18:18-23

Acts 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Genesis where Noah was a preacher of righteousness

I would be very concerned that your doctrine would disqualify all of God’s prophets and even our Lord Jesus Christ from being adequate preachers due to the fact that their message contradicts yours.

2. Secondly, there is nothing that a sinner can do either to reconcile himself to God or to participate in that reconciliation.

The gospel is a command to be believed. Mark 1:15 states ‘and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”’ Although it is God who must first regenerate a sinner, and that call is, in fact, effectual, there is still a required response by man to exercise faith, even the faith which was a gift of God. Absence of exercising saving faith keeps a man in condemnation. See John 3:14-36.

Ironically, it is common sense which would dictate: if faith is the instrument of salvation, preaching to people to exercise said faith would be the best and most loving thing we could do for them – despite their ability.

Not to mention, Person’s Name, you don’t know who the elect are, do you? You propose they are revealed to you by the preaching of the law. I do not see that as the pattern in scripture although I am aware you can cherry pick instances where it would appear to have occurred that way.

And our proclamation must reflect this fact. What good does it do to tell a man that it takes total commitment to get to heaven if total commitment is completely out of the question with respect to him?

In fact, it is my understanding that God uses the proclamation of His gospel to those who will deny it to bring further judgement on them.

As well, Romans 1:16 says it is the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation and Romans 10 states that it is faith that comes by hearing which God uses to save men. So again, you are contradicting yourself in a sense and God when you state this. Especially since you are nit-picking sentences of the tract out of context. Because the ability will only exist as the result of the hearing of the gospel, to withhold that until a person calls for it is to shut them out from it.

The tract clearly pointed out that it was Christ’s total commitment that saves. And then the tract attempts to fight the easy-believism, “sinner’s prayer salvation” epidemic in our culture by commanding total commitment to Christ which would encompass things like doing works bearing fruit of repentance. Look at Luke 3:7-8 Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

Here is God almighty (through JTB) commanding many who would later crucify Jesus to bear fruits worth of repentance – something he is aware they will not do.

Let me explain. Ez. 33 tells us that unless the servants of God warn the wicked, they will end up in hell with the wicked. And verse 8 tells us the content of this warning.

I’m glad you brought that up. Considering verses 9 and 10 completely contradict your stated position above See:
9 Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

Here is God Himself, commanding Ezekiel to warn people to turn who will not turn.

Many people refer to this passage but few point out the exact content of the warning. IOW, we must not only warn the wicked, but we must warn him with the warning the God gives him. Otherwise we are not warning him and again, we ourselves will end up in hell. This is extremely serious, as you know. So here is the content of the warning: “O wicked man, thou shalt surely die!” That’s it. Notice that the warning is not, “You will surely die unless you give your heart to Jesus,” or “You shall surely die unless you commit your life to Christ.” NO. “O sinner, thou shalt surely die!” And the reason this warning is so important is that it (when accompanied by the Spirit) drives the sinner to total despair of being able to do anything to reconcile himself to God. The orthodox divines of old used to say constantly, “The law and the gospel, the law and the gospel.” What did they mean by that? They meant that in evangelism we must use the 10 commandments. And we must use them with a view to “slaying” the sinner. IOW, with a view to causing the sinner to see that he is dead. He can do nothing. He is as sure for hell as if he were already there. Hell fits him. Heaven does not fit him whatsoever. And then after the proclamation of the law there is the word “But!” “But God has sent Christ to die on the cross for completely wicked and profligate sinners and to work out a perfect righteousness on their behalf. This is just exactly what you are–a completely and utterly wicked, profligate, and worthless sinner infinitely deserving of eternal hell torments. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your only hope for acceptance in the sight of an infinitely holy God! (Here is a key. We command the sinner to believe, as our Lord did Lazarus. And we command him to believe with no illusion that he is able to do so. But the true gospel which I communicated above is itself the power of God unto salvation and when accompanied with the HS regenerates him as was the lifeless body of Lazarus regenerated.)

Yes, ironically at this point you have spent an entire paragraph summing up exactly what I preach and my tract states. So we are either in agreement and you are sorely misunderstanding – or you are simply argumentative and quarreling about words. My tract points out several of the sins from the 10 commandments and points out that Jesus did not commit them and that we do and that the punishment we are owed is eternal. I then issue no less than 2 commands to repent and trust Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins. There is no room on the tract for self-reliance or easy believism to be the justifying force in the heart of a sinner.

But if your concern is that the tract itself is light on sin – then I’d maybe agree with you. Part of the problem with tracts is sufficient space. But I don’t think you can argue that there is not sufficient information on this tract for a person to be saved from God’s wrath – and if you think you did – then you did not as I proved above.

Mike, the above is the biblical gospel. It is the only gospel there is. It is an announcement that man is completely and utterly destitute. IOW, it is an announcement of Total Depravity. “Calvinists” in our day are redefining Total Depravity to say that it does not mean what the words say, i.e., that the sinner is as wicked as he can be. But this is exactly what it means.

Not exactly. Total Depravity refers to the utter inability for man to believe unto salvation without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit primarily. In the sense that you are arguing, total depravity refers to the fact that all our works are stained with sin and earn us no right standing with God.

But it does not mean that men always do the worst possible thing all the time. If that were true, then you would never go out to eat at a restaurant because you would be poisoned by the food if the host did not slaughter and rape you first. You would not use yahoo email because certainly one of the unregenerate yahoo employees would steal all your information and use it against you after committing adultery with small children.

No Person’s Name, you do not believe in the total depravity as you’ve defined it. No one does. What you believe and what we all know and what the Bible declares it that man is utterly incapable of pleasing God and reconciling himself to God. We believe that man, by nature, is a sinner and God hater and that, by His mercy, men sometimes actually do things that are outwardly in line with His revealed righteousness through His law. The fact you are alive today indicates your own mother gave birth to you and did not eat you shortly thereafter.

The WCF says that man in sin is “Utterly indisposed to all good, utterly disabled to all good, made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.”

Irrelevant to me. Thought the Bible was your guide to faith and life? Either way, this statement does not mean what you want it to mean as explained above.

The above message says that since man is completely wicked and helpless God the Father loved some of them and determined to save them, Christ came and worked out a perfect righteousness in their behalf, and the Holy Spirit applies the work of the Son to all the Father gave him and they believe!

Amen. Praise God for that. Note you include the sinner’s required response that they believe – forget whether it is caused by God, it is essential.

And since salvation is of the Father’s Election, by the Son’s redemption, and through the Spirit’s regeneration it is and must be an everlasting salvation. Hallelujah.

Amen again.

I give you my full permission to use anything and everything above.

Thanks, I believe this will be a good learning tool for others.

Your tract is a fatal mistake, as it gives sinners the impression that they can do something that will benefit their souls.

Fatal mistake is a strong sounding phrase. It would imply that no one can come to know Jesus through this tract. I find you to be mistaken in this point. Maybe I misunderstood you.

If I did not misunderstand you, and if the gospel I preach and wrote on that tract is the true gospel, then you may be denying the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and making another gospel. In that case you would be considered anathema by Paul according to Galatians 1 and we could only hope that God would have mercy on your soul and cause you to repent.

I hope this is not the case and you were simply too harsh concerning my tract and have a teachable spirit. If you would like to use the excuse that I was not kind or loving enough in my response to justify your unbelief don’t bother letting me know; I’ve heard that one enough.

Nothing could be more loving than the time I took to address your objections and care for you enough to tell you the truth. I hope I do not become your enemy because I tell you the truth.

You also used the word “share.” The gospel cannot be shared.

Sharing is when you give something to someone. Proclaiming the gospel to people is sharing it with them.

It must be declared.

I agree. The tract clearly declares the gospel along with commands to believe it.

1 John 1:5 says, “This then is the message which we have heard of Him and declare unto you.”

Out of context. I am not convinced this is a universal command to all Christians that they cannot “share the gospel.”

Sincerely,

Person’s Name

Thanks, Person’s Name.

What do you think? Was I right? Am I unnecessarily harsh?

Outreach Report from the Ahhhnold

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The gospel was proclaimed loudly and often at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic in Columbus, OH on March 1, 2014. Here are some highlights:

We arrived later than hoped, about 11:40am. An interesting twist occurred when another man began preaching with a megaphone just 25 feet from where I set up to preach. I spoke to him briefly, confirmed he was preaching salvation by grace through faith alone and then wished him well.

He preached for an hour. Although we were happy about him, his preaching was … less than stellar. It wasn’t so much his presentation, but his theology. I also noticed that he rarely mentioned the resurrection of Jesus. You cannot consider yourself a gospel preacher if you do not speak of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:1-4).

During this time, Fred Triplett, Joe Conkle and I passed out the newly printed tracts my church, Berean Baptist Church, bought. The weather was great, about 14-15 degrees warmer than last year! Praise God for that. Joe, for the second year in a row, drove from over an hour away to help. What a lover of God!

Finally, at about 12:40, I saw Darius (the other preacher) taking a break. I asked him if I could preach, and he assented. I began by reading Psalm 47 and then proclaiming God’s goodness and grace in Christ. I didn’t stop preaching for 2 hours. I really had a fun time. After a short break I preached for another hour or hour and a half before we settled down and headed home around 5pm.

Click here for the best picture from the day. This is on Facebook, so you have to be friends with Rusty Beals to see it (Sorry!).

The day was filled with encouragement. Christians were constantly approaching us to thank us and encourage us. One little girl even approached me while I preached and put a dollar in my tract box as a gift. There was another woman, clearly listening to the preaching whose family sorta dragged her across the street. I noticed this because she was really focused and listening, and then you could see her husband sorta get her attention.

A few minutes later I looked down and she and her son were standing in front of me. She said she just wanted to shake my hand and thank me and then said other kind things about me that I don’t deserve to hear as only the grace of Christ allows me to live, let alone serve him. Her son introduced himself and they each told me they were Christians and were glad I was doing what I was doing. This is very encouraging to a preacher and to anyone else out handing out tracts. Praise be to the most high God who died for me while I was yet a sinner.

I read the Bible in the open air frequently, pausing to explain passages periodically. By the end of the day I had read the following chapters publicly: Genesis 1, Psalm 47, Psalm 19, 1 John 1, John 10, selected parts of Matthew 5, portions of Isaiah 1, portions of Genesis 2, and portions of 1 John 2.

Dear Christian, I do not mean to be offensive, but will you consider if this is even too much for your own daily reading? Consider your own state of affairs if the Spirit brings conviction.

Rusty Beals also came and helped us most of the day. Praise God for Rusty who drove 8 hours round trip to be a part of our humble team. We also met up with several men from New Life Community Church, home of the 2014 Ohio Fire! Finally, thanks to Bill Adams who publicized our little outreach, we had 2 new friends appear, Steve and Daisy Rohr. What a blessing they were as they listened to the preaching and handed out tracts with us.

Throughout the day, homosexuality and a description of homosexuality as an abomination was only mentioned twice. Interestingly enough, I was not the person who shouted that. Two (I assume) gay men, on separate occasions, found it necessary to shout something concerning homosexuality. The first man stopped and yelled, “Isn’t homosexuality an abomination?” I don’t recall what he may have been responding to in my OA. But I replied, “All our sin is an abomination to a holy God and we are all hopeless without Christ.” He wasn’t happy with my response, but he didn’t stay to discuss it further.

Shortly after that a man walked by and shouted in his best “gay voice”:

Don’t forget to call homosexuality an abomination!

I supposed I didn’t need to, as he had just drawn enough attention to the topic himself. Not that I’m particularly shy about speaking concerning any certain sin, but I have never really focused on one sin. My preaching style, if I have one, is more of a proclamation of the goodness and grandeur of God and what He did for sinners in Christ. I make it my goal to constantly refer to the resurrection, the trinity, the deity of Christ and the grace and humility of Christ while reminding the hearers frequently of their pathetic and hopeless state in their sin and flesh. For more information on how to speak to homosexuals, click here for three short talks, all of which can be downloaded as pdf.

About a decade ago a friend gave me some advice. He said, “When someone shows you their true colors, thank them.” I’ve never forgotten this and I found it applicable to this next circumstance. As I was preaching, there was a man holding a young child. You know the scene, he’s about 10 feet in front of me, and the child is rear-facing over the man’s shoulder. Now what happened next was enough to shock me. What is important to understand is the actions of the next man I’m about to describe are a to-the-letter description of the old me.

A pretty large man walked by with a group of his friends. Tired of my preaching, he turned and shouted obscenities I will not type. But in the process, he effectively yelled the ‘f’ word about 3 feet from this little child. I was seriously disgusted. I reacted, not in the flesh but in the Spirit (I hope!) and called him a vile, wicked man and told him that he should shut his profane mouth. He followed that up with more cursing. I did not let up. I commanded him to repent of his wickedness and turn to Christ to be forgiven. But in the spirit of the earlier quote, I thank this man and God for him as he became my object lesson as I used him to describe for the remaining hearers a bit about the sorry state of man. I was not angry with him personally, but there were other hearers who had words for him. I was glad about that.

God is and was very good to me that day. One of the most remarkable and unpredictable ways was that I felt like reading Matthew 5. I like to believe it was the work of the Holy Spirit. I was reminded of the following verse as I proudly read God’s Word:

Matthew 5:11-12 ESV
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

As I spent the day primarily being encouraged and feeling safe, surrounded by good brothers and righteous policemen, I still endured the reproach. People spat toward me (never on me), yelled cruel things and generally mocked and scoffed. No amount of ridicule or ‘suffering’ I could endure would ever compare to my Savior’s, but I do feel I get a little chance to identify with Him more fully through these circumstances. Praise God the most High!

Psalms 47:1-2 ESV
1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! 2 For the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.

Real Friendship Includes the Gospel

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Real friendship includes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Many will disagree with me for this nit-picky point, but it is a point to be made, however tangential to the primary argument it is. I discovered an article via Twitter this week.

Overall, the article made good points. Mostly the same rational points made by every reasonable article concerning the “gay marriage” and “photographers, bakers and florists” situation. The point of the article was to explain that refusal to do a gay wedding is not the same as refusal to provide services to homosexuals in general…and that general service refusal is not actually going on. This point was well made.

But read the following excerpt from this article At DennyBurk.com (emphasis my own):

Consider the case of Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Washington State who is being sued by the attorney general of the state for refusing to involve her business in a gay wedding. You can watch her in her own words in the video above, but here’s what happened. Stutzman had been serving a gay couple in her flower shop for over ten years. She considered the men to be her friends, and they considered her to be their friend. The two gay men said that throughout their decade long friendship, they did not know that Stutzman believed homosexuality to be a sin. She didn’t treat them any differently than anyone else. She was a friend to them and served them while knowing full well that they were gay.

Do you notice anything strange here? The two gay men said “they did not know that Stutzman believed homosexuality to be a sin” which followed a sentence about a decade long friendship.

Does that sound like friendship to you? Because it sure does not sound like friendship to me. The idea of calling yourself a friend to someone without having ever reached out to tell them how to be forgiven by God and reconciled through Jesus Christ would be laughable if it wasn’t so despicable.

Correction added 03/13/2015: I do not know for certain whether Stutzman shared the gospel with these men. What we may infer is that she didn’t confront their homosexual sin. It was wrong of me to assume she had not done so simply because they didn’t know her stance concerning sexual sin.

Friends love each other. Those who love others care more about others than themselves. When you love people, you tell them the gospel because you fear for his or her soul. (Romans 10:17)

I’m not talking about someone who claims to casually know a gay man, or has an acquaintance who is gay whom he barely saw. Remember, according to the story – the florist and these homosexual men were friends for a long time.

Friends don’t let friends go to hell without warning them. Friends care more about what is best for the other than their own feelings or fears or hurts. (Proverbs 18:24)

Real friendship includes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Look, my goal is not to bash this woman or her lack of evangelism. It is entirely possible that the “friendship” being described in the article is an exaggeration. My point is that IF you consider yourself to be a friend to someone, and you’ve never gotten deep enough in a relationship for them to know you believe the Bible then you are not really a friend. This applies equally to me. Street preaching and passing out tracts is no excuse. And those acts, although noble, are no help to your friend when he meets the Lord. We must reach out to people we know, including our neighbors and those we call friends.

If someone doesn’t know that Jesus is #1 in your life, then you aren’t really a good friend.

I get it. I have a LOT of casual acquaintances. People who know me, and I know them and I haven’t shared the gospel with them or handed them a tract…yet.

I’m not talking about those folks: like the person who calls you his friend even though you just walk by him daily in Starbucks because you go at the same time – or you’ve seen him 10 times at the gym and barely said a few words to each other.
I’m referring to the people in your life to whom you actually consider yourself a friend: the people who would act shocked tomorrow if you told them the truth about your faith. (2 Cor 6:14-18)

This is the ultimate problem with the method of evangelism called friendship evangelism about which Tony Miano has written and spoken extensively already.

Real friendship includes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today is the day. Repent of your selfishness and your desire to be loved by men, and being making sure that people know what you believe. It would be better to simply be honest and forthright with them about it than to have them find out when you have to refuse them some service like what happened to the woman in the article. Worse, when all your “friends” find out you’re a Christian because people on Facebook start spamming your page to criticize your beliefs.

Just in case you are confused here’s a list of things I did NOT say nor imply:

  • You cannot be a friend to a nonbeliever or have a nonbelieving friend.
  • It is OK to refuse to help people because they are gay.
  • You must share the gospel with every person you meet or you are a bad Christian like the florist in the article.

In summary, here are things which I DID say or imply:

  • True friendship includes making known the gospel of Jesus Christ.
  • If people around you are shocked that you are a Christian, you’re doing it wrong.
  • You and I are the problem. Not gays. Not the florist from the linked article. It is the failure of people like you and me to consistently share the gospel that is the problem.

So join me and let’s begin fixing the problem. Let’s herald the name of Christ and not be ashamed of the gospel for it is the power unto salvation. (Romans 1:16;10:13-14)

Because real friendship, real love, and actual Christlikeness include the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Added 03/13/2015: Although it is possible to “share the gospel” with someone and not confront their specific sin of homosexuality, I continue to maintain the position that to be considered friends with a person and for that person to have no idea that you consider homosexuality to be sin is problematic.

Many thanks to sister Kim Arnold for lovingly pointing out the fact that we truly do not know from the article whether Baronelle had share the gospel.

From the Mail Bag

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Today, I received the following email. I offer the original content and my response (minus the person’s name).

What do you think? Would you have handled it differently?

Howdy,

I got your email about evangelizing at the Arnold Classic. I’m just curious. Do you distinguish between Calvinistic doctrine and Arminian doctrine, or do you just preach Jesus?

Thanks, Person’s Name

Hi Person’s Name. Thanks for dropping me a line. Did I email you or did you receive my email from another person? Just wondering because your name is unfamiliar to me.

Either way, I have to admit I feel as if your question created a false dilemma whereby I either had to say I distinguish between Cavinistic/Arminian doctrine OR preach Jesus. Maybe you believe these things are exclusive. I am not sure that I can separate my theology from my preaching about Jesus.

Nevertheless, regardless of where you stand on that divide, I would encourage you to evaluate my preaching and my writing based on its content: whether it is biblical or not, rather than based on a label which could be a broader brush than I’d wish to paint about myself.

For example, did you read the tract I wrote to distribute at this event? You can read it at this link. I’m not sure if it is too Calvinistic or too Arminian for your tastes. Let me know, I’m honestly interested. Click Here.

Secondly, I offer you three examples of my preaching for you to judge for yourself if you think I preach in a way that you’d like to be around.


I am really glad that you are interested in participating and making sure that the people you would encounter are biblical. In fact, if you want to come, I’ll have a few questions for you as well.

Hope to meet you sometime. Lord bless you.

BTW – If you couldn’t tell and didn’t delve deep enough into my website or sermons to determine where I stand – I am essentially a 5 point Calvinist. I am a CredoBaptist and a cessationist. I’m premillennial, and I believe in a pretribulational rapture. I’ve also preached with and ministered with dozens of men and women who would not agree with me on all these issues, and will likely do so again.

Love for the brethren is a distinguishing characteristic of a Christian. I’d prefer to exhibit that and share the gospel with the lost rather than miss out on a chance to preach Christ because I’m concerned about a secondary issue argument. I haven’t always done that perfectly, but I’m improving.

Michael Coughlin

Prayer, God’s Sovereignty & Praying in the Name of Jesus

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Listen to the conclusion of the teaching on witchcraft in regard to “the prayer of Jabez.”

Some questions to consider when reviewing the disciple’s prayer:

1. Is it okay to repeat yourself in your prayers?

2. Is it okay to pray in public? Can we pray with others?

3. Why pray if God is sovereign?

4. What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? Is a prayer not a prayer if I forget to say “in Jesus’ name?”

Listen for biblical answers to these good questions which genuine Christians can have!

Scripture references includes Isaiah 46:6-10; Daniel 9; Matthew 6:5-10; 1 Chronicles 4:10; John 14:13

Sylvia Browne, Witchcraft, Prayer & Duck Dynasty

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I recommend you check out my teaching on witchcraft at sermon audio. This teaching is from 2011, but the timeless truths are applicable today.

Additionally, I plan to begin contributing to the Cross Encounters blog. I hope you will check out the store and consider downloading a Classic Sermon.

But I hope you’ll read my first article “Three Typical Responses to Sinners Sinning.“