Bethesda Shalom

Acts 11:26 This sermon is an urgent call to discipleship.  May God both challenge you and encourage you to go on with Jesus, NO TURNING BACK!

Brother Ryan preaches the Word of God passionately, touching on the social and moral issues of the day with great poignancy. May the Lord minister to you through this sermon. For more sermons from Ryan, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/@lastdayspulpitministry8796  

1 Corinthians 15:9-13 What kind of father fails ever to discipline his son? What kind of mother lets her children grow wild without ever pruning them? The world calls this love, but the Word of God says, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24).   In this fourteenth and last teaching part in the Church series, we turn our attention to the topic of Church discipline.  When the Church gives the green light to professing believers living in willful sin, it fails to convey the correct message from God. God is not okay with His people sinning, and His Church need to communicate the same for the purity of the Body and the restoration of the sinner.     

Acts 20:28 Mention the word leadership today, and you’re bound to be met with a mixture of varied responses ranging from the largely pessimistic to the nominally optimistic! Stick the word “Church” in front of “leadership” and any trace of optimism there was speedily vanishes away!!  Try as one may to dress things up and paint a positive picture, when many hear the words “Church leadership”, they are left with a bitter taste in their mouth!  I wish I could say that such ill feelings are misguided and misjudged, but I can’t.  It is with good reason that Church Leadership over the last few decades has received such a bad rap.  In this 13th sermon part, we turn our attention to see what God has to say in His Word about Church leadership.  It’s time to bring the standard back into leadership.  

Ephesians 4:11 There is a plague today that is infesting the Western Evangelical Church and greatly harming the Ekklesia.  It’s this notion of individualism — that I can be a dismembered member of Christ’s Body and still somehow function in ministry.  You’ll search the pages of the New Testament in vain to find such a pattern!  In every place you see ministry, you will see members connected to the Body!!   The gifts are given to the BODY — a local assembly of committed individuals/believers.  Different gifts are given to different members within that local assembly for the profit of the whole BODY.  This whole idea that one can be dismembered from a local assembly and yet be serving in “ministry” is a farce, and nowhere is this travesty more seen than in the field of evangelism!! 

John 4:28 May the Lord bless you through His servant Jason.  There is something for everyone in this timely sermon.

1 Corinthians 12:31 The Church of Jesus Christ is first and foremost a spiritual body of believers who have had a supernatural encounter with the Living God, and through the new birth have been grafted into Christ’s spiritual body.  Jesus Christ is the spiritual head, and from Him flows down to each member, every spiritual blessing and spiritual gift needed for the sound nourishment and spiritual growth of the entire body.  These spiritual gifts are not mere niceties that make for a cosy addition; instead, they are crucial components required for the spiritual building of Christ’s Church.  In this eleventh teaching part, we examine the proper attitude that is required to excel in these gifts for the blessing of the Body.

Acts 20:33-35 Does God bless His people financially?  ABSOLUTELY!!  But the immediate question that must arise following this answer is What for?  Why does God bless His people financially?  So that we might be a giving people!!  This attitude ought to be at the heart of our giving in the Church. 

Ephesians 5:19-21 So much of what is deemed as corporate worship today is so bereft of any substance!  Could it be that we lack so much zeal and passion in our worship because our theology is so meagre?  In other words, our view of God is so pathetically small?  Why worship God?  BECAUSE HE IS WORTHY!!!  Is that not a good place to start?  May God minister to you through this ninth sermon part in a series looking at the Church.

This sermon was preached at the West Midlands Messianic Testimony Rally 2025.  A look at the godly King Jehoshaphat with lessons applied.  https://www.messianictestimony.com/      

Acts 2:42 If one takes a cursory look through the first few chapters of the Book of Acts, one will see that prayer permeates its pages.  The Church of Jesus Christ was birthed in prayer and sustained in prayer!!  She was at her most radiant when she was found on bended knee.  She was never more clothed in grace than when she talked with her God!!!  That first Church of Pentecost Jerusalem knew something of the power of prayer that the Church today knows nothing of!!  This sermon is a call for the Church of Jesus Christ to return to the place of prayer and supplication. 

1 Chronicles 4:9-10 Dr Egerton shares from his heart on the prayer of Jabez.  

Acts 2:42 As well as the Lord’s Supper being a place of tremendous remembrance, it is also a place of immense self-examination.  In this teaching part, we rediscover the importance of the Lord’s Supper and refute in part the false doctrine of transubstantiation. 

Hebrews 10:23-25 So many of the New Testament exhortations calling the child of God to humility and love, forbearance and kindness, forgiveness and patience can only be carried out if one is found in fellowship as part of a local assembly. God has designed the Church and placed you as a member to perfect you in sanctification. As the saying goes, iron sharpens iron, and friction, when brought to the cross, begets holiness! 

Acts 2:42 The mindset of so many when coming to the house of God is WHAT AM I GOING TO GET OUT OF IT, when instead the mindset ought to be, WHAT ARE OTHERS GOING TO GET OUT OF ME!!  That’s a different proposition altogether, and these sentiments lie at the root of true Christian fellowship!!  The Greek word for “fellowship” is the Word KOINONIA.  Being translated, it means a common sharing together/communion.  Koinonia is not one-way traffic; it involves mutual participation between two or more parties.  One can think of Koinonia as a bring and share!!  I’ll bring the sandwiches and you bring the salad, I’ll bring the rice and you bring the meat; I’ll bring the drinks and you bring the cups!!  When we gather as the Body of Christ, it ought to resemble a picnic, and I don’t just mean food.  I mean a sharing of one's life!!  Let us then see what Koinonia looked like in the first Church. 

Acts 2:42 Mention the word doctrine today in the vast majority of congregations up and down the length of this nation, and you will be met with suspicion on the one hand and scorn on the other. From my observations, the appetite of so many within the professing Church towards doctrine is like that of children towards sprouts!  Mom and Dad know that they’re good for their little darlings, but their little darlings have no stomach for them!  Give us baked beans, fries, tomato ketchup and pizza, anything so long as it is not green!!  The Apostle Paul warned some 2000 years ago that this would become the heart’s attitude of God’s people towards sound doctrine. In this fourth sermon part, we examine the place of doctrine in the Church. 

Ephesians 4:1-6 Having laid the foundation for the unity of the Church in the previous sermon, we focus in this sermon on the functional unity of the Body.  Why so much division in the Body of Christ?  Why so much discord?  At the heart of the problem lies the root sin of pride.     

Part 10 In concluding this series on the Seventh-day Adventist Church, examination is given to some of the common heresies shared among the sister cults that emerged from the broader Adventist movement in the mid-nineteenth century, arising from the failed predictions of William Miller, including Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christadelphians.  In this teaching, these common doctrinal heresies shall be explored and briefly refuted.   To wrap up this series, consideration shall be given to the different positions within Adventism, namely the traditionalists vs. the progressives.  Which side of the fence does the Adventist Church fall on today, and in the final analysis, is Seventh-day Adventism a cult? Download teaching notes (pdf) https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/bethesdashalom/10_Common_Cult_Heresies.pdf  

John 10:16 In this second part of the series, we explore the riches of the mystery of the Church of Jesus Christ.  That Gentiles should come to the knowledge of the Saviour was foretold by the Prophets of old.  But how it would be possible for Jew and Gentile to be united in one body in Messiah was a mystery hidden from ages past, but has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.  Come with us as we explore this fascinating mystery!

Part 9 It has been well said that the only distinctive doctrine of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is the doctrine of the Investigative Judgment.  This doctrine lies at the heart of Adventism and is woven into the fabric of how the Adventist Church views atonement.  In short, the doctrine of the Investigative Judgment teaches that in 1844, Jesus Christ began a work of judgment, examining the records of all professing believers to determine their worthiness to obtain heaven.  When one asks what is the standard by which they shall be judged, the answer is returned, the law of God!  According to Ellen G. White:  “All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven; as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal life.”   The