What is Your Witness?
The Apostles were the conscience of their nation. They were the conscience of their generation. I'm telling you that in the same way the church, the modern-day disciples of Jesus Christ serve society and the generation we live in exactly the same way. We're not only witnesses for the resurrection of Jesus Christ with our preaching and our teaching, we also serve as the moral conscience of the society that we live in. We are the salt. We are the light. And we do this in several ways. First of all, we declare Christ. The world will have no excuse at judgment because we have declared that Jesus is the son of God. We have said, from the rooftops and from television sets and from radios and from the pulpit and from books and from articles and from tracks and from coffee discussions over coffee and from home Bible studies, and you name it, we've done it in every way possible, We have declared to our generation that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ, the Lord, the Savior.
And we proclaim this not only to save souls, but also to serve as witness on judgment day for those who don't believe and for those who fall away and for those who choose to believe something else. In II Thessalonians 1:10, Paul says that the church will be there on judgment day to say, I told you so. I told you so. You should have believed. You should have stuck it out. You should have followed Jesus and no other. We declare Christ to the world.
Another way we witness is this, we provide a moral compass to our society. Christians are the moral compass to the world. Paul says that the church is the pillar and the ground for truth. The truth, the plumb line, the center for what is right and what is good and what is of God is contained in God's Word. And the church has been given the responsibility to reveal and to teach God's world to the church, excuse me, to reveal God's Word to the world. This responsibility does not belong to schools. It doesn't belong to Christian colleges. It doesn't belong to religious groups. It doesn't belong to publishers and magazine writers. It belongs only to the church because it was God-given only to the church.
It is not self-righteous, therefore, to denounce evil or immorality. Whenever we stand up and we say homosexuality is wrong, it's evil. We're not being self-righteous. We have a right to stand up in the world and say, "This is right and this is wrong," because that's our job. And God has given us that job to do. And woe be to us if we don't do that job because it's the essential work of the church. This is why we must guard the purity and the accuracy of the Word. And we must also guard the purity and the accuracy of those who teach God's Word.
The church must not only teach the Word, it must also pass the Word along intact to the next generation. And we must train the next generation to understand the Word accurately, and we must train the next generation to teach the Word accurately. In II Timothy 2:1-2, listen carefully. Paul says to Timothy, a young teacher, "You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things which you have heard. All of the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."
What is he saying? Everything I taught you, you must teach accurately to the next generation. And you must accurately teach them that they must accurately teach it to the next generation and the next generation and the generation after that. That's your job. And you must not fail because this job has been given to no one else except those in the church. That's our job. And I'm telling you right now, that's what's at the heart of this matter. Right here. And you know what I'm talking about.
It's not about anything else. It's about this. And finally, we offer an alternative. There are a lot of lifestyles offered in the world promoted by a lot of groups. You know what? They all end up the same way, in death and destruction. Solomon says in Proverbs 14:12, "There is a way that seems right unto a man, but its end is the way of death."
The church offers an alternative to death. We offer Christ. We offer eternal life through Him. The life that we lead, the message that we preach, the doctrine that we maintain impurity, the witness that we provide to the world is a model that we offer to a dying world, saying to them, there is a better life and a better hope than what exists here. And it begins with faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to His Word. That's where it starts and that's where it ends. And we must not compromise that for anything or anyone. What kind of witness are you?
Are you a witness for disbelief? Do people look at you and say, "I don't know about him. I don't think he really believes." Or, "I don't know about her. She don't look like much of a believer to me." Are you a witness for disobedience? In other words, are you somebody we can use as a bad example. Are you a witness for rebellion? Are you a witness for weakness? Are you a witness for immorality? Is that the witness you're giving? Or are you a witness for love? Are you a witness for perseverance? Are you a witness for faithfulness to God's Word?
If you need to confess Christ and be baptized, if that's the witness you need to make tonight, water's ready, nothing's changed. We're still about the Lord's business. I'll tell you something, you want to see the Holy Spirit working. He's working whenever somebody confesses Jesus Christ and is baptized in His name. That's the Holy Spirit working right there.
If you need to be restored, if that's the witness you need to make, if you need to say, "I want a witness that I've not been a good witness and I'm ready to be restored," we're ready to hear your witness tonight. And if you need the prayers of the church to help you because you are struggling, because you are sick, because you are lonely, for whatever reason, we encourage you to make your wishes known as well.
We have a way on prayer and praise night where we say, "Hey, unless you want to come forward to be baptized or restored, if you need prayer for some kind of thing that you need to do, write that down." And during the invitation song, I'll go up and down the aisle and I'll pick up the cards. Or Bobby will go up and down and he'll pick up the cards. And we'll read those and we'll pray for you and we'll minister to you. That's what prayer and praise is all about, praising God and ministering to the saints. So if you need ministry, please do that tonight. We encourage you to make a witness for Christ if you need to tonight, as we stand. And as we sing our song of invitation.