John Warwick Montgomery was a lawyer, Lutheran theologian, professor, and writer. Montgomery asks the congregation to write down two website addresses (0:00-2:19). He then begins his sermon by reading from Acts 26 (2:20-7:05). Using Paul’s defense against King Agrippa and Governor Festus as a guide, he focuses on how to preach the Word to a secular world (7:06-10:41). First, we must preach the Gospel for ourselves; the Gospel must be presented personally (10:42-12:28). Second, we must preach to all—the “small and the great” (12:29-14:58). Third, we must create common ground between us and non-believers (14:59-17:27). Montgomery speaks that we should begin with our testimonies, just as Paul did (17:28-21:37). However, the danger of testimonies is that non-believers have the tendency to focus on what the speaker experienced rather than connecting the experience to Jesus and His salvation (21:38-22:07). Testimonies should always lead someone from the subjective speaker to the objective Christ: this does not typically happen (22:08-22:57). A testimony is an overall good place to start when spreading the Gospel, but the message should be restricted to Scripture (22:58-24:42). The Gospel is the center of the message that liberals do not take seriously and that conservatives do not realize leads people to salvation (24:43-25:52). Jesus is the cornerstone that one must fall on to be saved, and the events in the Gospel occurred publicly for all (25:53-30:09). How the Gospel will be received is not certain, but we must remain faithful and always restrict the message to Scripture alone (30:10-31:02). A word of prayer concludes the sermon (31:03-31:33).
