Preaching Election in your open-air sermons will be hated by the proponents of a man-centered free-will

About four years ago I had to unfriend an Elder that I personally knew. He wasn’t just any Elder, he was an Elder from a former church that I attended back in the early 1990’s.

He was (and still is) a semi-universalist, and a free-willer. He demonstrates a slope agape, and a greasy grace, and wrongfully teaches that “God loves” the non-saved, the same as He loves those that He saves. And he frequently quoted John 3:16 out of context in comment on my Facebook page. Needless to say, he was unfriended.

However this week I observed ‘that same quarrelsome Elder’ arguing on another Facebook friends wall, again inserting the same old false teachings, along with John 3:16 out of context. Therefore this morning while heralding the Gospel at two different locations, I decided to preach from John chapter 3 (and John 3:16 in a better context), all the while inserting the Doctrines of “election” and “predestination” into my sermons. After the above mini-sermon, this man in line was angry that I mentioned “election” in my message. His man-centered inability to hear the truth, reminded me of my former Elder.

The moral of this story is don’t be afraid to preach and teach Doctrine in your open-air sermons. Because not only are we preaching to the lost, we are also preaching (or teaching) to those that profess to be found. Essential Doctrines are worth dividing over.

“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

2 Timothy 4:1-5