Gospel Light Minute X with Daniel Whyte III

GLMX #111: The Difficulty That You Are Going through Can Bring You New Life

The Tragedy of Making Excuses (Part 2)

100 Days of Preaching the Gospel #6 Some people are always making excuses for not doing their duty, and especially for not coming to Christ. If I asked some people to come to Christ, they would be ready to give some excuse for not accepting the invitation. When people are presented with the Gospel they automatically have an excuse for not receiving Christ, and if they don't have one ready, Satan will be right by them to help them make up one. He is good at it. That has been his occupation the last six thousand years -- helping men to make excuses. Keep in mind, that the men in our passage were invited to a feast -- not a funeral. They were not invited to go to prison. They were not invited to a hospital. They were invited to feast. Now, when a man prepares a feast, there is a great rush to see who will get the best seats; but when God prepares His feast, the chairs would all be empty, if His disciples did not go out to compel people to come in. No sooner did the King send out His invitations than the excuses began to rain in. I want to share with you three excuses that people often give for rejecting salvation and the Biblical answers to each of these excuses. I. Some people say, 'I have tried, but it is just too hard to be a Christian.' II. Another excuse people give is "I can't understand the Bible." III. A third excuse that people make is 'Well, there are hypocrites in the church.'

The Tragedy of Making Excuses (Part 1)

TEXT: I Peter 3:18-20: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water." Many people have heard about this thing called salvation through Jesus Christ. Perhaps you heard of it when you attended church as a child. Perhaps you were walking down the street one day and ran into a street preacher who was talking about salvation. Or maybe someone came to your door to give you a Gospel tract about this thing called salvation. But you never took the time to find out what salvation through Jesus Christ really means. Well, today, I want to share with you what salvation really means from the Word of God.

What Salvation Really Means

TEXT: Isaiah 55:5-6: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Today, I want to talk briefly about the most important thing you can do in life and how you should not put it off until tomorrow. What is the most important thing you can do in life? It is seeking the Lord -- getting to know the Almighty God who is your Creator and Sustainer. You would not exist without God. Don't you think it is wise to get to know Him?

Don't Wait Until It's Too Late

TEXT: Galatians 2:16 he Bible says that "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." This verse simply means that one day you will die, and that after death, you will face God. Have you ever wondered what that face-to-face meeting with God will be like? Well, the Bible calls it a judgment. So, let's use our sanctified imaginations to imagine ourselves in God's courtroom with God as the judge. No doubt, after you die, you will want to go to Heaven. God wants you to go to Heaven as well but after you die the Bible tells us that you will face God. What would that meeting be like? Perhaps, one of God's angels will open a book which will have your name in it and a list of your sins underneath. The Bible tells us that "all have sinned", so many names and many sins will be listed in the book. Your sins are named out to you -- every lie, every lustful glance, every hateful word. Even the things you thought were small and insignificant will loom large in God's courtroom. You begin to feel hopeless because you know that with your sins, you could not be allowed into Heaven. What do you do?

In God's Courtroom

TEXT: Psalm 42:1-2 In this psalm, David writes as a sad and downhearted person. In fact, in verses 5 and 6, David says his "soul is cast down." We do not know exactly why David is downhearted, but he is probably going through some kind of difficulty or suffering. It is almost as though he feels that God is not there with him. He gives us the picture of a deer longingly looking for streams of water, panting, breathless and thirsty but not finding any water. Oftentimes, we find ourselves with the same types of feelings. When we face disappointments, struggles or obstacles in life, we often become sad and downhearted. And like a deer looking for water, we find ourselves looking for some kind of solution to our problem -- something that will make the situation better. It is during these desperate moments, when we realize that we need God and we long for Him. We search for Him because we know that He can satisfy our need. From these two verses, today, I would like to share with you three points from our passage today.

Are You Thirsty?

TEXT: Hebrews 11:13-16 At various times in our lives, we find ourselves looking for a better place. In a way, this searching can also depict a spiritual journey that many of us are on. We are searching for a place that is better than this world. We search for a better place because the condition of our current home is in such a bad state. If the world that we live in is so terrible, what is it that we long for deep down in our hearts? Is it not to find a better place than what we have now? This yearning is one of the strongest feelings in the human heart. It is not the foolish syndrome of looking for greener grass on the other side; rather, it is a God-given inclination to find a place where we can be at perfect peace. Just like America was a "better place" for the first European settlers in America, we also are searching for a better place called Heaven. Our passage today talks about a group of people who "desire a better country, that is, an heavenly (country)." That is what we are searching for as well. We are looking for Heaven. Unlike our broken earth, Heaven is a place of calm and tranquility. There is no sickness, no death, no suffering, and no pain in Heaven. In Heaven, all of our needs will be supplied and all of our desires will be satisfied. Frankly, my friend, Heaven cannot be compared with anything we know on earth.

Looking for a City

Sunday Evening Evangelistic Message #71 Scripture: Hosea 10:9-13 Based on a list of sins which the great evangelist Charles G. Finney gave in his classic sermon titled "Break Up Your Fallow Ground: It is Time to Seek the Lord", we began pinpointing some of the sins which we as the church need to confess and repent of. This week, we are continuing this series by addressing the next three sins on our list. I. The first sin we will address today is robbing God. The Bible says in Malachi 3:8, "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation." II. The second sin we will address today is the sin of cheating. Paul writes in I Thessalonians 4: "For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus...That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified." III. The third sin we will address today is the sin of selfish anger and having a bad temper. The Bible says in Proverbs 29:22: "An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression." + Plus, listen to Kurt Carr singing "In the Sanctuary" and Deitrick Haddon and Voices of Unity singing "Glad I'm Saved".