GYC 2018: To The End

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The Art of End Time Preaching

Taj Pacleb

1. The Power of the Tower: The Theology of Preaching

This message was presented at the GYC to the end in Houston, Texas.

For other resources like this, visit us online at GYCweb.org.

How many of you have been to Hawaii before?

How many of you wish you'd been to Hawaii before?

That's where my wife and I are from, and We're so glad to be here at GYC, to be here in Texas.

It's a little bit cold for us, but the warmth of Jesus' love makes up for it.

And I just want to thank you guys so much for coming to this seminar.

And I believe that what we're going to be discussing in this next 6 presentations, 2 today and 4 tomorrow, is something that really interests heaven.

Because what we're dealing with in this seminar, I'm sure others will be dealing with it as well, but in this seminar I know that what we're dealing with is eternal salvation of humanity.

And how God not only wants to save us, but He wants to use us to be a medium of salvation to others.

And as we reach out, God reaches in and gives to us a corresponding experience of revival.

And so I want to thank you guys so much for coming.

This is actually a shorter version of a 12-part series entitled, The Art of End Time Preaching.

And so we'll give you at least half of the seminar if you choose to come each time.

But if you're interested in the whole seminar, you can always go to our website, artofpreachingseminar.com, and we have the whole thing there as well.

In this first presentation we're going to lay a good solid foundation and discuss the theology of preaching.

And I've entitled it The Power of the Tower.

And it's going to be a very inspiring message.

It will lay a good, solid foundation as to the definition of preaching.

And then after that, we'll be talking about the nitty gritty and some of the details and the methods and the content and all of those things.

And so we hope that you'll continue to come, not only for this seminar, but others as the Holy Spirit leads.

You know, I think it's better to understand 1 thing very well, rather than a whole bunch of things not very well.

And so, but you know, you let the Holy Spirit lead and I'm sure He'll show you exactly where you need to be for the rest of the seminars.

Our time is limited, so we're going to pray, jump into God's Word.

All right, why don't we bow our heads as we begin with prayer.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for your great love and your mercy towards us, for waking us up this morning and giving us a new day to live, not only here in this world, but Lord, you've given us the promise of abundant life and eternal life when you come, and the opportunity of sharing this life with those who are dead in trespasses and sins.

And Lord, we pray that as we spend this time together fellowshipping in the Spirit, that your Holy Spirit would not only be with us, but you'd be in us, that you'd fill us with that power and that presence.

And I pray that we would be inspired, we would be challenged, we would be richly blessed, And you would make our minds like a sponge that we might soak up every promise and every principle that you have for us today.

May you be the teacher is our prayer in Christ's name.

Our message this morning is entitled, The Power of the Tower.

Our objective is simply this, what is preaching?

We want to outline the Theology of preaching and the biblical definition of what it is exactly and so if you take your Bible and turn with me to the book of 1st Corinthians chapter 2 Where the Apostle Paul says this concerning?

Preaching 1st Corinthians chapter 2 beginning with verse 1.

I hope you not only brought a Bible, but you brought a notebook.

I encourage you to write down the Scriptures, not only so that you can study, but that you can share with somebody else.

But notice what it says here, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1.

If you're there and if you're ready to study, would you please let me know by saying amen?

The Apostle says, and I brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God.

For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the what?

Here the apostle Paul testified that his preaching was a demonstration of power.

And if you look up that word power, in the Greek it's the word dunamis, by which we get the English word dynamite if you know something about dynamite it has the ability to change things very drastically and that was the proclamation of Paul's testimony of the Lord The proclamation of the testimony of God contains the power that will change the world and enlarge the kingdom of heaven.

And friend, God wants Paul's testimony to be the testimony of each and every 1 of us.

And I believe, friends, that 1 of the reasons why we have not entered into the promised land is because there are obstacles ahead of us.

Just like I shared the other night, it was only when all of Israel shouted that the walls of Jericho came crumbling down and they were able to enter into the promised land It wasn't just the priest blowing the trumpet when all of God's people shouted when all of them used their voices There was a loud cry that was heard And as I mentioned before The work of God in the last days is not going to get finished by simply adding members only by multiplying Messengers God wants to use every single voice and only when all of the voices of God's people are used with a loud cry message be heard in all the world?

And the walls of Babylon will come crumbling down, and finally we'll be able to enter into the heavenly promised land.

I mean, if he can use me, he can use anybody.

Let me tell you, friends, I'm the least likely candidate to preach.

I'll share a little bit about my testimony later on, but growing up, you know, I was very introverted.

I'm still introverted, very shy, and I had a stuttering problem, and my English was very limited, because in Hawaii, you know, let me just say, my English is my second language.

And so I had so many obstacles, I burnt up a lot of my brain cells doing drugs, and I was the least likely candidate to preach.

And so let me tell you, friends, if God can use someone like me, he wants to use all of us, amen?

And friends, I believe that what Paul said, we can say as well.

Not long ago, somebody gave me a book entitled, Speeches that changed the world.

And this is a book that catalogs the speeches that have shaped the history of our world.

And amongst this extensive catalog was the address of President Lincoln, given on the battlefield that was saturated with the blood of those who had fought for freedom during the American Civil War there in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

It was a speech that was only 10 sentences long, lasting 2 minutes, but it will be remembered for all time.

And then there was the eloquent oration of Martin Luther King Jr.

Given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial there in Washington, D.C.

And in this discourse, King described a dream, his dream of a nation where children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but rather by the contents of their character.

Unfortunately, it's a dream that has yet to meet its full fulfillment.

In that book also listed the hair-raising rants of Adolf Hitler as he called for ethnic cleansing and the beginning of a third Reich of German world dominance during the Second World War.

And then there was the war cries of Winston Churchill as he challenged the citizens of the United Kingdom to brace themselves for battle, to boldly and bravely stand up against Nazi Germany in preparation for what would be known as Britain's finest hour.

Then there were the war cries, or not the war, excuse me, there was the impassionate pleas of Nelson Mandela as he appealed to the people of South Africa to forgive their oppressors so that the nation's wounds could finally be healed.

And friends, no doubt, no doubt these powerful speeches have shaped the history of our world.

But let me tell you, friends, there's another kind of speech that not only shapes our world, but shapes the world to come.

A heavenly utterance that brings change not only for time, but for all eternity.

And that, my friends, is the awesome assertions.

Proclaim from the sacred desk the ancient words of God.

The divine revelation proclaimed from that desk would change all of eternity.

And friends, I want God to use my voice to do just that.

It was in 1851 that the famous American writer Herman Meville wrote that book, Moby Dick.

This book would end up being called the greatest book of the sea that has ever been written.

Among literature buffs, it's a must-read, they say.

And in this famous book, there's a singular line that illustrates and explains and describes the power of biblical preaching.

2. The Foolishness of Preaching and Wisdom of God

This message was presented at the GYC To The End in Houston, Texas.

For other resources like this, visit us online at gycweb.org.

And I once again really appreciate you being here.

This seminar is entitled The Art of End Time Preaching.

And In our first presentation, we started off very broad.

It was more of an inspirational message, talking about the power of preaching, which is the Word of God, not our own ideas or speculations or opinions.

We talked about the purpose of preaching, which is giving people a reason to believe that they might be saved.

We talked about the possession of preaching, having a personal experience with the person behind the passage, that is the Lord Jesus.

In our next presentation, we're going to talk about the foolishness of preaching and the wisdom of God, it's going to be more practical.

And as we continue on in this seminar, the presentations will be more and more practical.

I'm giving half of the seminar in the 6 presentations we have here.

But if you are interested in the whole seminar, you can go to our website, artofpreachingseminar.com.

Artofpreachingseminar.com, and you'll find the rest of the presentations there as well.

I want to give you a little preview of tomorrow.

Tomorrow's really the best day of the seminar.

We're going to start with the first—we have 4 presentations.

The first 1 is entitled, The Matter of the Message, and we're going to deal with 8 things that Every sermon, every Bible study ought to be measured by in order for it to be a complete, powerful message.

Then after that, we're going to sit at the feet of Jesus, listening to and dissecting the greatest sermon that has ever been preached from the greatest preacher that has ever preached, Jesus himself.

We're going to look into the hermeneutics and homiletics of Christ in his sermon at the mount and learn how to preach just like Jesus did.

That's going to be an awesome presentation.

And then on our third presentation, we're going to look at 13 steps of how to prepare a sermon from beginning to end.

We're going to go through how to study the Bible and how to craft a sermon, how a sermon is developed in the womb of our mind and our heart, and the process of it being developed before it's being birthed or delivered to the world behind the pulpit.

And then our last presentation, 1 of my favorites, we're going to talk about creative tools of language and speech, and talk about the method of the delivery.

We're going to deal with the content, we're also going to deal with delivery.

And so tomorrow, that's what you can expect.

It's going to be very, very good, very exciting, so we hope you'll come for that.

Our time is very limited, but if you do have questions, I'm more than happy to speak with any of you or all of you at the end.

We also have a booth, Revelation of Hope Ministries booth.

You can also visit us there during the booth times.

But this is part 3, the purpose of preaching, the foolishness of preaching, the wisdom of God.

Let's begin with a word of prayer, shall we?

Our Father in heaven, oh, we are so grateful that you're a God of mercy and a God of grace, a God of justice and a God of righteousness.

And Lord, you are the infinite 1, the 1 that has made such a profound difference in our hearts.

You're wanting to use us to make a difference in this broken world.

And Lord, we don't know how we recognize that we're inadequate, insufficient, so we pray that you'll teach us as we sit at your feet today that you would mold us and make us preachers of possession.

Once again, as we review briefly, the power of preaching is the word.

The purpose of preaching, It's the means of giving others a reason to believe so that they might be saved.

And we, as we mentioned, have to be preachers of possession, meaning that it's not just a profession, Something that we go to school and learn, it's more than that.

It has to be something that we possess within.

We have to come up with our own theology of preaching, based on the Word, of course, but we have to articulate it for our own lives.

For me, my definition of preaching is the personal illumination of divine revelation erupting in public proclamation.

It is the unlocking of the gates of glory by providing people the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

So we dealt with the power of preaching and the purpose of preaching, but in this presentation we want to look at the problems of preaching.

Because many times preaching can be very messy, very unmoving, and very unimpressive.

There are challenges and difficulties and even weaknesses that we face in preaching.

And so our objective in this presentation is basically to recognize the human weakness of preaching, and as we do so, it will save us from pride and self-sufficiency, which is a great trap of the devil when it comes to preaching.

But it also demonstrates God's wisdom in choosing what the Bible calls foolishness.

Probably the clearest text in the Bible that describes the purpose of preaching is The 1 that we read in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 21.

For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to what?

So again, friends, God's primary way, not his only way, but his primary way of reaching lost humanity is through the foolishness of preaching.

But when you think about that, it seems kind of strange that God would choose this method as his primary method.

I mean, there's an infinite amount of ways God could have chosen to reach lost humanity.

God could have easily written His message across the sky for all to see at the same time.

Or He could have given every single person the same vision or the same dream at the same time to communicate His message.

He could have performed a miracle to convince the world.

They are far more eloquent than we are, or even the dumb animals God could use.

And God could have easily come down himself and preach 1 sermon to the whole world and have the work finished just like that.

And many of these other options, it seems to be more easy and more effective than using broken sinful inadequate humanity to communicate the message, don't you think?

These methods seem to be easier and even more effective.

So my question is, why did God choose the foolishness of preaching as his primary means?

What is so wise about the foolishness of preaching?

For some reason, God in His infinite wisdom chose this.

It seems foolish that you can preach a sermon and someone's eternal destiny is changed forever.

But friends, I can testify that that has been my experience.

I'll never forget, friends, when I came to those meetings when I was 16 years old, and there was a lay evangelist.

He wasn't ordained, he didn't go to school to be a preacher, he was simply a layman.

He wasn't a priest or prophet, he was simply a layperson, a lay leader.

And he held evangelic meetings there in my hometown in Hawaii, and I was a 16-year-old druggie when someone invited me to those meetings, and I came to those meetings, And the presence of God was thick as the word of God was being proclaimed with power.

Burning up my brain cells, a stony boy, a pothead, a wannabe Rasta man, and I went to those meetings in that condition, and the power of God's Word penetrated my clouded mind.

It pierced my hardened heart, and in that moment I found my purpose and my calling in life because God found me in those meetings.

And as I sat there listening to the message, sometimes listening high, the conviction was so profound and powerful and potent, it was as if God was saying, Taj, 1 day you're going to stand where that man is standing.

3. The Matter of the Message: 8 Features Every Sermon Must Have

I want to thank you so much for being here, for choosing this seminar.

You had a lot of amazing options and I'm just very humbled and thankful that you chose to be with us at least in this session, hopefully all day.

Our seminar is entitled The Art of End Time Preaching.

So the rest of you are here for the first time.

Yesterday we basically laid a good solid foundation.

We talked about the theology of preaching, the definition of preaching, the challenges and the problems in preaching, and how God can take weaknesses and turn them into strengths, and how the Lord wants to use all of us.

Each voice is to be utilized to share the good news message of the soon coming of Christ.

And the work of God is not going to be finished by just a few loud voices speaking at the top, but when all of us use our voice, that's when the loud cry message will go to the whole world, the walls of Babylon will come crumbling down, and we're going to enter into the promised land for all eternity.

And so I'm so glad that you decided to come here.

I believe that what we're discussing in this seminar is something that all of heaven is interested in, how to be effective communicators, competent communicators for Christ in the context of the last days of this world's history.

Before we get into our presentation, which is entitled, The Matter of the Message, 8 Features Every Sermon Must Have.

Before we get into that, I want to ask if you have an empty seat next to you, that you just move to the outside walls in case there are others who are going to come to look for seats.

And So if you'd please do that, that would be a blessing.

Just move all the way to the walls and really appreciate that.

Now I wanted you to know or to remind, especially for those who are here for the first time with us, that this seminar is actually a shortened version of a fuller seminar.

It's about 10 to 11 or 12 part series that we have written And we're giving just a fraction of it in this time that we have, the 6 opportunities we have together.

And so if you'd like to get the whole version with the notes and the audio, you can go to our website, artofpreaching.com, artofpreaching.com, or you can come visit us at our booth, Revelation of Hope Ministries booth this evening, and we'd be glad to share with you some DVDs and whatnot.

We don't have this seminar recorded yet, but hopefully in the next couple months we will.

We want to make it available to everybody.

We want to spread it far and wide, hopefully to every single minister as well as lay person so that we can get some practical tools of how we can reach people for Jesus.

As I mentioned the other night, in the word preach are 2 other words, reach and each.

So we want to preach in such a way to reach each, but not each is reach the same way.

And so we want to learn how to contextualize our methods without compromising the message.

We'll deal with that in this presentation as well as others.

We have 4 of them today, 2 before lunch and 2 after lunch.

So we hope you'll stick around for all of them.

If you needed to miss a seminar, it should have been yesterday's seminar, but not today.

But you let the Holy Spirit lead, He'll lead you to the right seminar where you need to be.

But why don't we pray and jump into our message entitled, The Matter of the Message.

Please bow your heads with me as we begin.

Thank you so much dear God for waking us up this morning, for giving us life today, and for the time that we have to fellowship together in your spirit.

Lord we recognize that our minds are weak, Our hearts are so prone to wander.

And so we pray, Lord, that you would please fill this room in our hearts with your Holy Spirit.

Give us a mind that is like a sponge, that we might soak up every principle and promise that you want to communicate to us today.

And please lead us in God's, be the teacher, Lord.

Usually this presentation is about an hour and a half.

There's lots of good information, but I'm going to skip the introduction and just let you know that every single sermon has to have at least 8 features in order to be complete and well-rounded.

Every Bible study, every sermon ought to be measured by these 8 things.

I want to give them to you right now and then we'll go through them together.

Our message must have number 1, a foundation.

We'll do a quiz at the end, see if you can remember.

It's easy to remember, they all start with the letter F.

And so today in this presentation, we wanna ask the question, what shall we preach?

We don't have to guess because God has told us.

So in this lecture, we wanna deal with the matter of the message, the substance of the sermon, the content of our communication, the premise of our proclamation and the details of the discourse and each well-rounded, complete message will be measured by these 8 characteristics.

So let's go through them together, shall we?

Series

The Art of End Time Preaching

6. Tools of Creative Language and Speech

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Morning Devotional

The First and Final Forerunners

1h 3m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Conversion - My Own, Around Me and On the Go

Sensitive Seekers

58m

The Art of End Time Preaching

4. The Message of the Master

1h 13m

Breakout Session C

Reflecting Christ to Your Community as a Healthcare Provider

1h 7m

The Art of End Time Preaching

2. The Foolishness of Preaching and Wisdom of God

1h 11m

Breakouts

God’s Call to the Jungle

1h 2m

Acts: First Generation Lessons for Last Generation Believers

2. Discipline

1h

Knees, Keys, and Please!

5. Victory in the Final Conflict

1h 4m

Knees, Keys, and Please!

2. Encountering God

1h 5m

Ignite Your Local Church for Mission

Q and A and Final Charge

1h

Sanctuary Under Siege

6. The Omega Apostasy

1h

Why Am I a SDA?

1. Does the Truth Really Matter?

35m

Sound Doctrine