The following sermon is by John MacArthur, pastor, author, and Bible teacher with Grace to you.

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God's truth one verse at a time. Here is Grace to you Bible Teacher John MacArthur.

As some of you know, I've done a number of recent interviews and people have asked me all kinds

of questions.

Some of them that you, no doubt, have seen some of those interviews.

I've been focusing on the fact that what Paul said in 1st Corinthians 2-2, I am determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and

him crucified, it is a very clear statement for Christians as to their purpose in the world. It is a statement that

narrows everything down. I am determined he says that indicates to us he has to fight to maintain this focus I am

determined to know nothing among you but Christ and him crucified.

It's him saying, I don't want to get off message. It's always about Christ and Him crucified. This is our

calling as a church in the world. The church has always struggled to stay on message. Its

history is ample evidence of that. You could just go a hundred years ago and you would arrive at a time in the church life

in the United States of America, when the mainline denominations of this nation,

many of them very wealthy and powerful with thousands and thousands of churches and all kinds of institutions had basically abandoned Christ and

him crucified.

They had been sucked into all kinds of social issues and Christianity was almost synonymous with what was called

the social gospel. They were concerned about social things rather than spiritual things. There was an attack on the

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