Brad St. Clair with Repent and Turn Ministries and Greg Marlin and I with Born of Him Ministries recently witnessed at the Weird Al Concert at the Gillioz Theater in Springfield, MO. Someone called the police and a police officer showed up when I was on the box. The officer talked to Greg and Brad while I was preaching. He said that we could legally preach there with amplification.
After we finished, a young man who was at the bar next to the Gillioz Theater came running over to us. He asked us, “What gives you the right to do this?” “What gives your the right to preach down at people?” We talked to him for a while and found out that he was a veteran. He should have realized that he fought for our freedom. He fought for our right to speak in public.
We have the right to lift up the glorious Gospel in public because of our first amendment right – freedom of speech. By the way, we don’t preach down to people like the young man accused us of doing. We are lifting up the name of Jesus Christ in the open-air. We are warning unrepentant sinners to flee from the wrath to come.
More importantly, we are doing what Jesus commanded us to do. In Mark 16:15, Jesus commanded Christians to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” In Matthew 10:27, Jesus said, “what you hear in the ear, proclaim from the roof top.” That’s the main reason why we have the right and duty to preach the Gospel because Jesus told us to!
But why do people need to hear the Gospel? Because many people are lost and most of those don’t even know it. We need the Gospel because we are all sinners. God made us and God loves us, but we’ve all sinned. Our sin separates us from God and He cannot tolerate sin (Habakkuk 1:13). There’s nothing that we can do to undo our sins. We can’t hide them or cover them up. We can’t do good works to make up for our sins. We can’t be good enough to take our sins away.
If you die in your sins as an unrepentant, unbeliever then your punishment will be eternity in Hell.Acts 17:30-31 says “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent: Because he has appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness.” After we die, we will all stand before God on Judgment Day. Revelation 21:8 says that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire. Hell is everlasting punishment (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).
The Good News is that you don’t have to suffer for all of eternity. God sent Jesus to walk this earth a little over 2,000 years ago. Jesus never sinned at all. He never lied, He never stole anything and He never lusted or coveted. He perfectly did the will of God the Father. He willingly went to the cross and carried our sins upon Himself. He died there, was buried and rose from the grave on the third day.
Jesus defeated sin, Hell and death. God offers eternal life to those who repent by turning away from their sins and put their faith in Jesus. Don’t foolishly represent yourself on Judgment Day. If Jesus is not your Lord and Savior during your life on earth, then it will be too late. You will be found guilty on Judgment Day and God will sentence you to Hell, because He is a good judge. He cannot be bought off. You can only be saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Your sins must be paid for and they will: either by you for eternity in Hell or if you surrender your life to Jesus while you have breath in this life, then Jesus will represent you on that great and terrible day. Jesus paid your sin debt (1 John 2:2); He paid your fine with His precious blood, but you must receive this gift. You receive the gift of salvation by turning away from your sins and putting your trust in Him. Submit to His authority. Surrender your life fully to Him. Jesus said that we are to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him on a daily basis. Please repent and believe the Gospel. Do this today.