Grace to You

http---www.gty.org-Resources-Sermons-42-284----We return to the study of the gospel of Luke and I ask you to turn in your Bible, if you will, or there's one in the pew for you to use, to Luke 23...Luke 23. The New Testament begins with four historical accounts of the life of Christ...Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first three, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are strictly speaking history's of our Lord's life and ministry, right through to His death and resurrection. John focuses more on specific miracles of Christ and the sayings of Christ. All four of the gospels are intended, however, to give us the most complete understanding of the Savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ.----We have had a wonderful journey through Luke's history which when compared with Matthew and Mark and John, gives us the complete revealed account of Christ. As we come to the cross of Christ, we will be mingling all four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to understand the events and the elements and the components of His dying and of His resurrection...

http---www.gty.org-Resources-Sermons-GTY133----PHIL JOHNSON- John, this is a great privilege for me. When I was in my twenties, before you even had a radio ministry, I used to listen to your tapes. I subscribed to every tape that came from Grace Community Church. I used to think, -What would it be like to spend an hour with John MacArthur and just ask him questions. And the Lord has, over the years, done exceedingly, abundantly, beyond what I ever dreamed and I've had many opportunities to question you and I never run out of questions.----JOHN MACARTHUR- No.----PHIL- But...no, I know it. But it's a privilege to do this and sort of share it with people of Grace Church.----JOHN- Yeah, I just need to add something. The first time I met you...----PHIL- Right.----JOHN- You invited me over for dinner at your house in Chicago because you were editing a book, it happened to be the book on worship...I think.----PHIL- That's right.----JOHN- And you were working for ...

http---www.gty.org-Resources-Sermons-90-408----In the seventeenth chapter of Acts, the Apostle Paul comes to the religious focal point of the ancient world of his day. He comes to Athens. And it is in Athens that there are many philosophers and many religions, and many gods. In fact, in verse 16 of Acts 17 it says that, -He observed the city of Athens and that it was full of idols.- There were in Athens, along with all the idols, there were the priests and priestesses that were associated with those idols and their various religions. And on top of that, there were all kinds of philosophers, as verse 18 indicates. There were Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well as many others.----Now Paul walks into this milieu of religions and what he says to them is very, very important. Verse 18, -And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, -What would this idol babbler which to say-' Others, -He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities.' Why- -Because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.' And they took him and brought him into the Areopagus saying, -May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming-'- What he was proclaiming was resurrection. For them with all their myriad religions and philosophies, this was new teaching. In fact, they go on to say, -You're bringing some strange things to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean.-

http---www.gty.org-Resources-Sermons-90-408----In the seventeenth chapter of Acts, the Apostle Paul comes to the religious focal point of the ancient world of his day. He comes to Athens. And it is in Athens that there are many philosophers and many religions, and many gods. In fact, in verse 16 of Acts 17 it says that, -He observed the city of Athens and that it was full of idols.- There were in Athens, along with all the idols, there were the priests and priestesses that were associated with those idols and their various religions. And on top of that, there were all kinds of philosophers, as verse 18 indicates. There were Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well as many others.----Now Paul walks into this milieu of religions and what he says to them is very, very important. Verse 18, -And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, -What would this idol babbler which to say-' Others, -He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities.' Why- -Because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.' And they took him and brought him into the Areopagus saying, -May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming-'- What he was proclaiming was resurrection. For them with all their myriad religions and philosophies, this was new teaching. In fact, they go on to say, -You're bringing some strange things to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean.-

I want to use as a text tonight in talking about the biblical view of work, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 . . . 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. Now I will warn you, we-re not going to get there for a while. We-re going to be all over the place here for a few minutes. But I will eventually arrive at that text so you can kind of identify that as the main text for our message.----I think all of us who have been around at all, any of us who are mature adults, are pretty much aware of the fact that one of the virtues in our nation for years has been our work ethic from those original immigrants who came here from Europe on through our history. We have been a nation marked by a very strong work ethic. . . .----http---www.gty.org-resources-sermons-80-362

Download MP3---http---www.gty.org-resources-sermons-90-445----Let's open the Word of God to Zechariah chapter 12, Zechariah chapter 12. While you're turning to Zechariah, he is quite a remarkable prophet, Zechariah. Prophesied in about 520 to 518. Prophesies after the Babylonian captivity is over and the people of Israel have been released from Babylon by Cyrus. They've come back to the land. He's what we call a postexilic prophet. He's prophesying to the people in the newly constituted nation of Israel. They've gotten their life back. They're in their country, and he encourages them to restore their love for God, their worship of God, and to build the temple. And he encourages them in that by prophesying the Word of the Lord to them--that the Messiah will come, the Messiah will come.----The theme of the coming Messiah runs all the way through Zechariah. The opening nine chapters or so focus a lot on the first coming of Messiah--features of the first coming of Messiah. But chapters 12 to 14 focus on the Second Coming of Messiah. So he gives them this amazing vision of the wonderful future that Israel has in the plan of God, a future of national salvation when the Messiah comes to establish His Kingdom and fulfill all the promises given to the patriarchs and to David and all the prophets in the past...

Well, I am greatly challenged on some occasions, in all honesty, as you well know, to get through one verse. This morning I made it through a whole chapter, and tonight we'll take a whole book. That's the book of Esther. You want to open your Bible, if you will, to the book of Esther, and this is in our continuing series on -Twelve Unlikely Heroes,- from the Bible, the Old and the New Testament.----Through the years, we have looked at the book of Esther here at Grace Community Church and found it to be a marvelous, marvelous book. It is one of two books in the Bible in which the name of God is not mentioned. The ruler who is featured in the book, is mentioned 175 times- God is never mentioned. And yet to any reader of the book who reads with understanding, God is the main character in the book. God is putting Himself on display in amazing ways, even though He is unnamed....

A couple of weeks ago I had the wonderful joy of being at the high school camp, Regeneration camp down in New Mexico with 900 high school kids. Just a delight, just a wonderful time, and I think there were four or five hundred from Grace Church and then others from other churches around the southwest. And I put together a message just for them, just going through some things in my reading in the New Testament, and the Lord kind of laid on my heart a message, and I presented it to them. And they responded very well. And as a result of that, Austin Duncan, who wields a lot of power around here--our high school...our college pastor now...former high school pastor--came to me and said, -You have to preach that at Grace, because you all need to know what your children heard at camp.-----So I said, -Well if you think I should do that, I'll be glad to. So I'm going to do that this morning. Open your Bible to Matthew chapter 26, Matthew chapter 26....

As John mentions in the video, all the Strange Fire conference audio is now available at http---www.gty.org-resources-sermon-series-325 to stream or download for free. The videos of those same sessions are coming soon, as are the sermon transcripts-free to you for viewing and sharing with others. Order your copy of Strange Fire at http---www.gty.org-products-books-451178 through our website, weeks before you can get it anywhere else.----Our goal with all those resources is to deepen your love for Scripture, to help you understand the true work of the Holy Spirit, and to expose the false teachers who twist God's Word and abuse His people. We hope you'll be encouraged and uplifted by the teaching from Strange Fire, and that both the teaching and the book will bear much spiritual fruit for years to come. . . .----http---www.gty.org-Blog-B131025

http---www.gty.org-video-television-T8270-34