We may offer encouragement at any time to respond to the summons of Jesus, but the summons belongs to Him and not us.<\/p>\n
If a person expresses a desire to respond to the Savior’s summons, I do not wait till the end of services. For example, a family contacted me about 40 minutes before the beginning of the evening assembly one Sunday and stated that their teenage son had expressed an interest in responding to the Gospel. They lived about twenty minutes from the building. By the time, they got to the building and the young man got changed into the provided garments, there was only about ten minutes or less before assembly was to begin and around half of the members who were coming had arrived. I baptized him prior to the assembly.<\/p>\n
I have stated in my preaching that if a person comes forward five minutes after I have started preaching, I will stop my sermon and immediately baptize that person.<\/p>\n
The idea that we provide an opportunity is a bad thought to implant in the minds of the unlearned. I refer to the words that I speak at the close of a sermon as “the encouragement” and the song that is sung as “the encouragement song” because I believe that we are supposed to encourage people to respond to the Savior’s subpoena. I avoid the use of terms such as “the invitation song” because I believe that it is “an uncertain sound” (I Corinthians 14:8).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by James Shewmaker We may offer encouragement at any time to respond to the summons of Jesus, but the summons belongs to Him and not us. If a person expresses a desire to respond to the Savior’s summons, I do not wait till the end of services. For example, a family contacted me about 40…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[836,536],"class_list":["post-18391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-invitation","tag-preaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33980,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/david-a-man-after-gods-own-heart\/","url_meta":{"origin":18391,"position":0},"title":"David – A Man After God’s Own Heart","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by Ross Ward Text: I Samuel 13:14 The Story II Samuel 11:2-5 - sin with Bathsheba A time when Kings go to war Bathsheba was very beautiful David inquires about her David summons her Has a relationship with her A child is conceived Progression of sin Saw Dwelt on her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61083,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-is-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":18391,"position":1},"title":"Why Is It? (Norman)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Morris D. Norman via\u00a0Gospel Power, Vol. 16, No. 1, Jan. 4, 2009. We see so many in today's society that are doing so many things to destroy health and shorten life. There are many campaigns and many public advertisements to keep people from the evil of drugs, drink, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20258,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-hard-hearts-need-hard-words-of-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":18391,"position":2},"title":"When Hard Hearts Need Hard Words of Truth","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry W. Benton The preacher was all alone in his stand for truth and right because the assembly had become so worldly, and now he was the \"troubler in Israel\". He was so discouraged that he decided to quit preaching. He was miserable when preaching the truth because no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/HardHearted.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":69626,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/room-for-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":18391,"position":3},"title":"Room for All","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Allen Dvorak via Biblical Insights, Vol. 15, No. 1, January 2015 \"Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before\u00a0him and to loose the belts of kings,\u00a0to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: 2 \"I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30093,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-wrong-for-a-church-to-organize-meals\/","url_meta":{"origin":18391,"position":4},"title":"Is it wrong for a church to organize meals?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was reading through a couple of articles on your website when I ran into \"Using a Kitchen in a Rented Hall\" and I became a bit concerned. See, the church I attend has a potluck dinner every first Sunday of the month following morning services. We meet in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24723,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-temporary-meetings-such-as-at-a-remote-military-base-really-a-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":18391,"position":5},"title":"Are temporary meetings, such as at a remote military base, really a church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a question about a certain type of assembly that I am not sure is scriptural. During the invitation at the church building tonight, the speaker used Matthew 18:15-20 to distinguish between individual, group, and church. I agreed with the points he made. After the lesson, there was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}