This is such a great conference. They treat you like royalty and give you so much stuff. They already gave us 23 books each plus a $50 gift certificate to their bookstore. I already will have to try and pack home 29 books and I still need to buy one more. The food is also great. All I can compare it to is a cruise ship. Plenty of food and drinks available all hours of the day. They even throw in a free gourmet coffee, free haircuts, and free shoe shines. Crazy.
Session 1 Thursday
Back to the conference. Rick Holland opened up this Thursday morning with a phenomenal exposition on Luke 12:1-12. I again can only give some highlights because it was so in depth and over an hour long.
Here are the 4 main points:
1. Don't fear hypocrites, fear hypocrisy. V. 1-3. Hypocrisy is hiding your sins from the faithful or your faith from the sinful.
Every time we sin we become practical atheists - Tozer
Desiring to please others will always lead into hypocrisy and we all fall into it HOURLY!
2. Don't fear the threat of men, fear the threat of God. V. 4-7.
Hell is truth learned to late - I can't remember who this quote was from.
Holland went on for 20 minutes or longer about the reality of Hell and what it is like and that millions are going there daily. It gave us such a burden for the lost.
3. Don't fear confessing Christ, fear denying Him. V. 8-9
4. Don't fear momentary weakness, fear permanent rejection. V. 10
Evening Session - Al Mohler
To start off the evening we had some crazy protesters outside the church with a Nazi sign saying that MacArthur said we should follow Hitler. There were cops everywhere. I talked to one of the protesters for a while and they claimed to be Christians concerned for us following MacArthur.
I'm sitting here right now in the church listing to the signing, which is so powerful. It is something else to hear over 3000 men of God singing in unison some of the greatest hymns of all time.
Mohler steps up to speak to standing room only and praises God for the opportunity and privilege to preach. He gives John credit for preaching in the same church for 4 decades. Al talked about the absence of physical pulpits in many churches is because there is an absence of preaching in many churches.
There are no little people and there are no little places.
Al reads John 9 and asks how anyone can preach a small sermon.
All evil in the world can be traced back to the fall of man in Genesis 3. Why was the man born blind? So that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works that God has given us when He gives them to us because there will be a time when no man can work. Again, he is getting so deep into it that I can't put it all down so I will hit a few points.
Al continued to expound the text verse by verse in a very engaging way keeping everyone at full attention.
The hinge of the passage is in verse 3: So the works of God can be done in him.
Spiritually the blind man was among blind men even though physically he was blind and the men could see.
There are no little people. How many people do we pass by on the street that need the gospel. There are also no little servants.
God's glory is going to be displayed at the Judgement in either peoples salvation or damnation.
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