Dear Reader,
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REVELATION
I have spoken of the gospel of the grace of God on every continent in the world except one... Antarctica. I’ve just never been there.
I have preached throughout the United States. I preached on the streets of Nashville for years. I am a businessman, not a “professional” seminary-trained preacher. But the word of God’s grace is in my DNA by new birth. The word “preaching” can be misleading. It is often just you and one or two others.
I used to go into downtown Nashville every Monday and speak to a lunch meeting called “Pass the Salt.” There could be a few dozen or a couple of hundred people any given week. Then I would leave that meeting and go sit at a restaurant called “Flying Saucer.” I would eat a bite, drink a beer, puff on a cigar and work on my business with my laptop.
Nearly every week I would end up sharing the gospel with one or more of the servers there. Sometimes half a dozen would come and sit in the chairs around me and talk for an hour or two. I led several to Christ there in these afternoon hangs.
The first time I spoke to CEO Fellowship, as invited by the late Joe Greene in Brentwood, I started my message with, “I’m really more comfortable in a bar sharing the gospel than speaking in a church setting.” Many of the people there perked up at that and I had their rapt attention the remainder of the time.
When I finished my message an older white-haired gentleman I did not know walked up and put his arm around me in front of the whole group. He said, “Tod doesn’t know me but I have seen him at a place called ‘Flying Saucer’ in Nashville. What he just told you is true. Whenever I have seen him there, usually a few people are sitting around him with him sharing the love of Jesus with them.”
I was stunned but encouraged to have that affirmation. CEO Fellowship kept inviting me back and I would end up speaking there many times to some wonderful business leaders of Mid-Tennessee.
BUT HERE’S THE CLINCHER: Never in all of the encounters around the world have I ever come across any religion, philosophy, or teaching that has the gospel of the grace of God in it. That includes the Christian religion, what I often call churchianity. Man cannot get to God’s grace in his own mind. It only comes by revelation from the Spirit of God.
“There is a continual need to return to the great fundamental of the faith. As long as the age lasts the Gospel of God's grace must be preached. The need arises out of the natural state of the human heart, which is essentially legalistic. The cardinal error against which the Gospel has to contend is the inveterate tendency of men to rely on their own performances. The great antagonist to the truth is the pride of man, which causes him to imagine that he can be, in part at least, his own savior. This error is the prolific mother of a multitude of heresies. It is by this falsehood that the pure stream of God's truth, passing through human channels, has been polluted.” (A.W. Pink, emphasis mine)
Man's basic heart is legalistic and self-righteous. In the world it is the birth-mother of finger-pointing and cancel culture. Every religion is built on the premise that you, dear person, have some part to play in earning your salvation.
The world can admire traits of honesty, self-sacrifice, generosity, and many other “fruits” of cultural religion, but it cannot make a single Christian. Christ alone can do that, and it is by revelation of the poverty of spirit we have and the richness of God’s grace toward us.
Christianity the world can abide; Christ Himself it will always oppose, because everything revealed by Him is the complete repudiation of the world’s system. All religion starts with the premise of “what you must do.” God’s message starts with “what He has done.”
The truth of this statement is proved by this fact, that wherever the Bible has not yet gone there has been an absence of any concept of God’s grace. Many translators have struggled to find words when translating scripture into new languages by which to communicate this concept.
This is the only message that sets us free, that fosters praise and gratitude toward God rather than a slavish fear. This is the great need in the world, to hear, know and keep returning to the Gospel of the grace of God.
TAVERN TALKS ON TUESDAY MORNINGS!
If you are in the Mid-TN area and want a morning charge-up and fellowship, come join us at Tavern Talks this Tuesday mornings at 7am at The Mission Cigar & Social.
We've been having 20+ guys each week for the last several weeks...you are welcome even if you don't like cigars! Tavern Talks is guys telling their story of God intervening in their lives. Tavern Talks is praying for each other. Tavern Talks is opening scripture together.
Bring your Bible, a friend, purchase a cigar (not required, we have non-cigar smokers who join us too!), your Febreze if you have to go to the office after, and be ready to participate with honesty, humor, open conversation, challenging looks at truth, all in an accepting atmosphere.
Looking up (Luke 21:28),
Tod Bell
Chief Tavern Host
P.S. “Guard your heart above all else,
for it determines the course of your life.” (Proverbs 4:23).
And it’s our kids who need our help on this, too!
