The Kingdom Of God Has Come Near - The Most Important Thing We Need To Know

The Call of Jesus

Welcome to lesson 17 in this
video series "The Call of Jesus",

"The Kingdom of God is Near You".

We are now in Luke 10:9
where Jesus is saying:

"Heal the sick who are there and tell them,
'The kingdom of God has come near to you."

In the last video we looked at
the first part - heal the sick.

We looked at that we are called
to heal the sick / cast out demons.

Now we are going to start with looking at
the second part of what Jesus has called us to,

where He is saying that we should tell
people that the Kingdom of God has come near.

If there is an area Satan has been
very, very busy

and very effective,

than it has to do with how he has blinded
the church,

when it comes to the gospel.

And I will start with reading something from
this chapter in my book "The Call of Jesus":

"In the last few years, I have seen countless
Christians being born again

and experiencing a brand new life.

Yes, you are reading this correctly.

I have seen countless Christians
being born again and receive a new life,

and these Christians I'm talking about
are people who've been in church for years,

reading their Bible and hearing preaching,

without ever really understanding
what it means to be born again.

It is really frightening to think about
how many people in churches today

are not born again.

The truth is, we are living in a time where
preaching about sin, repentance and the cross

is being replaced with a feel-good message.

You can hear a feel-good message
and receive it without really being changed."

This is so correct.

I have seen countless Christians,

people who confess that they love Jesus,

who come to church,
who read the Bible,

even who sing in the worship band
and share the Word,

but they were not fully born again.

They have maybe repented
and they have maybe came to faith,

but they are still struggling with sin.
They were not born again.

They were not free.

But it should not be look like that.

It should not be like that,
that we today need to see Christians

get born again.

When it comes to the gospel,
we just need to admit we have come

so far, far away from the true gospel
we read in the Bible.

It's very frightening to think about
how many people in our churches are lost,

how many people in our churches
are not born again,

and how many people
outside our churches

are not born again.

There are sadly many today
that are preaching a half gospel,

an easy gospel,

a gospel that really doesn't have
the power to transform life

and set people free from sin.

But Jesus was also up against that
when He walked here on earth.

In Matthew 23:13 we can read
that Jesus says this:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

You shut the door of the kingdom
of heaven in people's faces.

You yourself do not enter, nor will you
let those enter who are trying to."

Try to think of these words
Jesus is saying.

That those religious people
at that time,

they actually shut the door for people who
wanted to enter into the Kingdom of God.

And they do not enter in themselves.

If you ask them if they will enter
into the Kingdom themselves,

they will, of course, say "yes".
Why? Because...

...they were teachers of the law.
They were Pharisees.

They tried to live according to the Word.

But they were blind.

They were teaching a wrong gospel.

Jesus continued (Matthew 23:25-27)
and said:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

You clean the outside of the cup
and dish,

but inside they are full of greed
and self-indulgence.

Blind Pharisees! Clean first the inside
of the cup and dish,

and then the outside will be clean.

Woe to you, teachers of the law
and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

You are like whitewashed tombs,
which look beautiful on the outside

but inside it's full of bones
and the dead and everything unclean."

This was what Jesus was saying
at that time and I'm quite sure

that this is what He would be saying
today,

if He would walked here today.
Why?

Because we are so busy with
cleaning the outside,

not understanding that the inside
is still rotten

and full of so many bad things,
full of sin,

full of uncleanness.

No, we need to have the true gospel.

The true gospel is power

that can transform a person
from inside and out.

And this is so, so important.

And therefore I'm going to use
not only this video,

but I'm going to use the next three
videos to go through the gospel with you.

Because when we look at the Luke 10
and everything we have been teaching

in this series, if you don't have
the gospel right...

everything else will fall down.

If you don't know how to get people
fully born again,

the rest doesn't matter.

Don't be like the Pharisees

who do so much to win somebody
for the gospel

and then make them...

... (?) as themselves.

or close the door in their face.

No, we need to really understand
the gospel.

Here we want to look at one of the biggest lies
we see when it comes to the gospel

and to the salvation.
One of the big lies is...

Ask Jesus into your heart
and you shall get saved.

Maybe you have heard, and I'm sure you've
heard about this verse in Romans 10:9.

"If you declare with your mouth,
'Jesus is Lord',

and believe in your heart that God
raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

For it is with your heart that you believe
and are justified,

and it is with your mouth that you confess
your faith and are saved."

These verses are the verses we have heard
many, many times.

What we need to understand that these
verses are the part of a letter

Paul wrote to the church in Rome,
to the believers in Rome,

to believers who were already
born again.

In the same letter he said in verse 6:

Don't you remember when you got
baptized how it was?

And then in verse 8 he talked about
how to walk by the Spirit

and to those people who were
already baptized,

who have already received the Holy Spirit,
he said what we just read.

And if you go in and look at the context,
it's actually saying:

If you go on believing and you go on
confessing, you shall one day be saved.

Why? We get saved, we get saved,
we get saved,

but the one who keeps on to the end
shall be saved.

So, it's not about just: pray this prayer
one time. No.

It's about us being born again,
repent, get baptized, receive the Holy Spirit

and keep confessing Jesus as Lord,
and then we shall be saved.

So, try to imagine, if you look at Jesus,
could you imagine Jesus,

He walked around there on earth,
and people say:

Jesus, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? And Jesus says:

Just close your eyes.

And then pray this prayer.

Pray after me: Jesus... Jesus...
I ask You to come into my heart...

Could you imagine Jesus does
the sinner's prayer? No, you couldn't.

Why? Because we don't find that
in the Bible.

We don't find the sinner's prayer
the way we do it in the gospels.

We don't find it with Jesus.
We don't find it with the early believers.

We don't find it in the Book of Acts.

You don't find anyone who was praying
a prayer like this in the Book of Acts.

No, the sinner's prayer is, actually,
something very, very new.

Let me read something from my book.

"As I have previously mentioned, the sinner's
prayer is only a few hundreds years old.

The idea of the sinner's prayer started
with Charles Finney (1772-1875)

and Dwight Moody (1837-1899).
Later, it became more known

through Billy Graham and
the Campus Crusades of Christ.

Now, almost everyone practices
the sinner's prayer.

I am not saying that God cannot use
a prayer like that,

and I am not saying it cannot be
a good beginning of a new life with God,

but it is wrong to say to people
who have just prayed that prayer,

'Congratulations, you are now born again'

because this is not biblical,

and it was not something they did
in the early church.

When you study the early church and
how they were preaching the Gospel of Christ,

you can see how Satan has brought
the church far away from the truth."

And I want to say that again:
yes, God can use a prayer.

There's nothing wrong with praying.
The problem is that we are saying:

"Congratulations! You are born again!" or
"This is what you need to do to get saved."

"You need to pray this prayer."

If we want to obey Jesus
we need to preach the right gospel.

And we need to understand the full picture.

We need to really understand
what the new birth is all about,

what Jesus was preaching,
why He died on the cross

and what people needed to do
to get saved.

Yes, maybe you started with praying
the sinner's prayer, but there is more.

There is more for you.

You need also so turn away
from your sins.

You need to bury the old life
in baptism.

You need the Holy Spirit.

We all need to put away our traditions

and take the time to look in the Word of God
- what does the Word say.

Some people will say that the gospel
is what we read here in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4:

"For what I received I passed on to you
as the first importance:

that Christ died for out sins
according to Scripture,

that he was buried, that he was raised
on the third day according to the Scriptures."

Yes, this is one very, very strong verse

and this is, somehow,
the center of the gospel

and what we need to preach today.

But, how do we preach this?

How do we preach that Jesus died
according to Scripture,

was buried and rose up again,
and how do people respond

when we preach it.

If we look at Jesus in Luke 9 and Luke 10,

we can see how He sent out the Twelve
and the Seventy.

In Luke 9:1-2 we read this:
"When Jesus called the Twelve together,

He gave them power and authority
to drive out demons and to cure diseases,

and He sent them out to proclaim the Gospel
of the Kingdom and to heal the sick.

And to the Seventy He said:
"Heal the sick and say,

'the Kingdom of God has come near to you."

What were the Twelve and the Seventy
preaching?

At that time were they preaching:
Hey, Jesus died on the cross,

He got buried and He rose again?

No, they did not preach that
at that time.

Why? It had not yet happened.

And the apostles did not believe
it was going to happen,

when they were out preaching
the gospel of the Kingdom.

Even when they came
to the garden of Gethsemane,

when Jesus was going to be captured
and crucified,

Peter and the rest tried to stop Him.
Why?

Because they did not understand

that Jesus needed to die on the cross.

At that time they were not preaching:

Jesus died on the cross, He was buried
and He rose up again.

They were preaching something else.

They were preaching
that the Kingdom of God was near.

Now we are standing
on the other side of the cross.

So we don't need to preach
that the Kingdom of God has come near,

because now the Kingdom of God is here.

Today is the day of salvation.

We are now living after the cross,
after Jesus died,

after He got buried,
after He rose again,

ascended to Heaven
and sent His Holy Spirit down here.

So therefore, if we want to see how
the early church was preaching the gospel,

we also need to go after the cross,
to find how they were preaching

and how we should preach today.

And after the cross,
I'm thinking of the Book of Acts.

What do we see there?
Do we see the sinner's prayer?

No, we don't.

Do we see they say: Hey, just believe?

No, we don't.

Do we see: Just repent?

No, we don't.

Do we see: Just believe and repent?

No, we don't.

We see, some places, focus is much more
on repentance,

some places we read more about the faith,

some places we read about the baptism,

but we need to see it all come together.

And those places in the Bible,
in Book of Acts,

where we see more details,
what do we see?

We do not see only faith,
or repentance, or baptism in water,

or baptism in the Holy Spirit.
We see it all.

One of those places is Acts 2:38.
When they asked Peter: What shall we do?

Peter did not ask people to bow their heads
and ask Jesus into their hearts. No.

The "sinner's prayer" they were doing
at that time,

what they were doing at that time
was this. Acts 2:38:

"Repent and be baptized, every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ

for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit."

This was what they were preaching.

And this is what we should preach today.

And we need to preach the full gospel.

We need to continue and preach this.

Peter continued, after saying this,
in Acts 2:39:

"This promise is for you and your children
and for all who are far off -

for all whom the Lord our God will call."

So this promise, that if we repent
and get baptized,

He will wash away our sins.
He will forgive our sins.

And we will receive the Holy Spirit.

This is a promise for us today.

And this is the cross.

What do we see there? We see Jesus died,
He got buried and He rose up again.

He died.
We need to repent, turn away from our sins.

He got buried.
We need to get buried in baptism.

And He rose up again. We need
to rise up in the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is the cross.
This is what we need to preach:

Repentance, baptism in water, baptism
with the Holy Spirit, with faith in Christ.

So, this is what we are going to look at
and it is so, so important

that you out there understand
what the gospel is.

It's not just to get people
to ask Jesus into their heart.

It's about getting people to see
their sins

and understand what sin is
and how they have sinned,

and how to turn away from the sin.

And after they turned away, how we bury
the old life in the baptism in water

and how, when they rise up, we lay hands
on them and they receive the Holy Spirit.

And they are now a new creation,
born again in Jesus Christ.

When we talk about Luke 10
and obeying the call of Jesus,

we've looked at how the harvest is great,
the workers are few,

we should pray the Lord of the harvest
to send out workers,

and we should go ourselves
as lambs among wolves,

and we should go out and find
a person of peace,

and when we come to that person of peace

we should sit there,
eat and drink what they serve,

and we there, in their homes,
where we meet them,

we should heal the sick,
we looked at that last time,

we should heal the sick
and we should cast out demons.

And then we should preach the gospel.

If what you are preaching
is not the true gospel...

everything else won't matter.

Not as it supposed to.

Why? Because you will not see people
truly born again.

And we need to take time.
If this is our call,

if our call is to walk like Christ,
our call is to obey Christ,

our call is to preach the gospel,
for example, as it is,

then we need to prepare.

Then we will not just stand there
and wait for some day

we will suddenly know how to do it.
No, we need to practice.

We need to prepare and
we need to learn it.

When we have our
"Pioneer Training Schools",

we train people in practical
sharing of the gospel.

We let people hear the gospel,
and then we let people sit down two and two

and preach the gospel to each other.

I started like that myself,
in the beginning.

I set down over a coffee table and imagined
somebody was sitting on the other side,

and then I practiced to share the gospel.

And I tried, and tried, and tried.

And I became better, and better,
and better, and better, and better,

when it came to sharing the gospel.

And now I am so much more bold in it.
Why?

Because I have got it under my skin.

I know how to do it now.

I know how to do it now.

If people ask you:
What shall I do to get saved?

What would you then answer them?

Um, I don't know.
Come to my priest.

If that is your answer,
then you are not obeying the call of Jesus.

You are not the disciple. Are you?

That is a wrong answer.

If people ask you the most important
question in this world:

What shall I do to get saved?

And you don't know what to answer,

then you have a problem.

But I want to encourage you, I also
did not know what to answer many years ago.

But now I know.

Now I'm good in it.
I'm countable in it. I know what to do.

If I get that question,
I don't start to sweat,

I don't start to be nervous,
as I was in the beginning.

Why? Because I know what to do now.

Why? Because I've been practicing.

I've been preparing.

I've taken time to find out
what do I do, how do I share the gospel.

And now, it's so much easier.

And I want to say the same to you.

All the beginnings are difficult.

Yes, you just natural share the gospel.

You need to get it under the skin.
You need to have it in your blood.

You need to learn it.

But every one can learn to share
the gospel.

And we want to use the next three videos
where I will go much deeper into the gospel

with you, but I also recommend you
to get the book "The Call of Jesus",

where I have a lot more scriptures,
and go much, much more deeper into it.

But together with this video,
we will also put some link in,

to different videos. We have a video,
we call it "The Cups and Cookies",

where I share the gospel
over a coffee table, with cups.

And that is a good way to learn
to share the gospel, illustrating with cups.

I also have another link I will put together
with the text under this video,

where you can see the gospel cards
we use.

These are cards we use
to share the gospel with.

All of those resources are there
to help you.

Don't just sit back and think:
Oh, I don't know how to share the gospel.

I don't know how.
And then do nothing about it.

It's okay to recognize
you are not an expert now.

But then you need, as a disciple,
to do something about it.

Otherwise Jesus will look at you and say:
Why do you call me Lord, Lord,

if you don't do what I say?

We need to be serious
with the call Jesus has given us.

So I really encourage you to, first,
stop doing the sinner's prayer.

Stop giving a half gospel.

Take the time, together with this video
and other videos, the links,

and take the time to practice
how to share the gospel,

to get it under the skin.

Why? Because we don't want to be
like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law

that Jesus rebuked. No, we want to preach
a full gospel.

We want to see people enter into
the Kingdom of God, be born again.

So, I really encourage you,
until next time we meet,

see some of the links, and then,
practice,

take the time to sit and share the gospel.

And then, in the next three videos,
we will go deeper, and deeper, and deeper,

when it comes to the gospel,
so when we are finished with this period,

you will have the gospel so much more
under your skin,

so when you meet a person of peace,
when you meet somebody

who needs Jesus, you will not start
to sweat, be nervous, and say:

Come to the church. No.
You will be able to sit down with that person

and share the gospel.

And after we will look at the gospel
the next three times,

I will then start with putting it
all together,

with sharing testimonies
from Luke 10,

how it looks today,
when we do all of it.

God bless you!
See you next time! Bye-bye!

The Call of Jesus