Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter
4. Second Timothy four, last week
we focused on verse two for our Bible study. But we spent all
of our time looking at the phrase preach the word. That was the
subject matter of the entire Bible study, preach the word. So I want to begin this by considering
the rest of what this verse is saying. 2nd Timothy 4 verse 1
says, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, the living and
the dead, at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Paul said, Timothy, I charge
you Before Christ, the judge of the earth, preach the word. Preach the word. That ought to
emphasize the importance of preaching to us. Let me make this very clear.
God is sovereign. There are no buts about it. God
is sovereign. And God's elect are secure. God elected a people to save. God is God. He's the all-wise
God, the all-knowing God, the all-doing God. He is not trying
to do anything. He's not trying to make anything
happen along the way. He's not trying to bring good
in the end. He has established good for his
people. He has saved his people. The blood price has been paid
for the sins of God's people on the cross of Calvary. He died
and saved. Period. His people can't be lost. Period. It is finished. Period. The Holy Spirit of God inspired
Paul to charge Timothy, to charge him. That means to earnestly
testify, to earnestly, deeply exhort. Paul said, Timothy, this
is of grave importance. This is of grave importance.
Verse two, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season,
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine,
for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But after their own lusts shall
they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned
unto fables. In reading that, I cannot help
but think of our children. I cannot help but think of our
children. We have such a small window of
time where we have the authority to say with Joshua, as for me
and my house, we're gonna worship the Lord. We're gonna worship
the Lord. We have such a brief, small window
of time for that. We don't have the ability to
save them. We don't have the ability to
save them. That is in God's hands. That
is in God's hands. But by his grace, we have the
ability for a brief moment in time to bring them to the place
where the Lord God has chosen to actually put His name there. And the place where He said He
would meet with His people and speak to His people through the
preaching of His truth. What Paul said right here, it
applies to the whole world. He's talking about the whole
world. While we're here listening to this instruction, let's especially
consider our children. The importance of this instruction
to us and to them. Preach the word. Preach the word. The responsibility of a pastor to his congregation is to preach
the word. The responsibility of a parent
to his or her child is preach the word. Preach the word. Tell them what God's word says. Tell them. Tell them. Tell them. This life cannot be
left up to our thoughts and our opinions on things. You know,
we grow up and we finally, our parents tell us stuff and tell
us stuff and we listen until we're not gonna listen anymore.
It's time I have my own thoughts and opinions on things. Well,
that's not good. That's not good. This life cannot
be left up to our own thoughts, our own opinions, what we think,
how we think, It doesn't matter what or how we think. All that
matters is what does God's Word say? If we're declaring God's
Word, it's not our opinion as parents. It's God's Word. Preach the Word, he said in verse
2. Be instant. I told you last week
that word instant translates assault with it. Assault with it. You say, well,
you can't cram it down their throats. No, but you can assault
them by constantly, constantly confronting them with the word
of God, by constantly reminding them of it, putting them in remembrance
of it. Like Peter said, like Peter wrote,
I'm going to constantly put you in remembrance of this. This
word is called a sword. Well, you know, you don't want
to make them tired of it. You don't want to turn them away
from it. Oh, they're tired and turned away from it naturally. But this word is called a sword. A sword that pierces. A sword that divides. And the slaying of this sword. I can't slay with it. You can't
slay with it. But God can. We don't know when,
where, or who he will slay with it, but God does. And the slaying of this sword
is the only thing that will bring life to a dead sinner. You are
dead. Wait a minute, you talking about
me? Yes, you're dead. I'm dead. in this flesh, by myself, if
God leaves me alone and I just go through this life on my own,
just living my life and doing my thing, I'm a dead man. Spiritually,
soon enough it's gonna be eternally dead, dead. But the slaying,
the killing with this sword, killing the flesh, killing the
life that we thought was so important to us and the mindset that we
thought was so important to us. The slaying of this sword will
bring life to dead sinners. Hear ye the word of the Lord. It's not a man saying that, it's
God saying that. When God says that, we hear. That's the means that God has
purposed and chosen to use. Therefore, by his grace, we need
to use it. We need to use it. We need to
have our children under the word. We need to preach the word sincerely. We need to preach the word fervently. I mean fervently, urgently. We need to preach this word clearly. Don't say it that way. That's
a little too clear. That may offend. We need to preach
the word clearly. We need to preach the word continually. Continually. Verse 2 says, preach
the word. Be instant. End season. That means when an opportunity
presents itself, When it's convenient, you know, sometimes the Lord
opens up an opportunity for us to say something. He said, preach the word, be
instant in season. Preach the word out of season.
That means when there is no opportunity, when there is no convenient hearing. What he's saying is preach the
word whether people are listening or not. That's what he's saying. Preach the word whether people
are listening or not. Turn with me over to Ezekiel
37. Ezekiel 37. Verse 1 says, the hand of the
Lord was upon me. and carried me out in the Spirit
of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which
was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about,
and behold, there were very many in the open valley, and lo, they
were very dry." That means very dead, very dead. They couldn't
be any more dead. It was just a pile of dead bones. There wasn't even full assembled
people there. I'm pretty sure that's the definition
of out of season. Out of season. Everything there
was dead. There was no life there at all.
Just dead. Every bone there was dead. No living soul there to even
listen. The natural man would say, what's
the point? What's the point? You know what God says? Preach
the word. Preach the word. Verse one, the
hand of the Lord was upon me and carried me out in the spirit
of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley which
was full of bones and caused me to pass by them round about
and behold, there were very many in the open valley and lo, they
were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man,
can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest. Again he said unto me, prophesy. That means preach the word. Again
he said unto me, prophesy upon these bones and say unto them,
O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord
God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter
into you and you shall live. You are dead, you can't do anything. I'm gonna have to do it. I have
purposed to do it and I will do it. It's so amazing to me
how If something is dead, there's no life in it. It can't do anything. It can't move a muscle. It can't
take the first step. It can't respond to a question. It can't do anything. But the
word of the Lord comes through the spirit who we asked for. Lord, send your spirit. And by
His mighty power, it's amazing. You know, a dead soul who you
think, that's a dead soul and that's always gonna be a dead
soul. I can only imagine Ezekiel looked at these bones and said,
these are dead bones and they're always gonna be dead bones. But
when God moves, it's amazing. It is amazing to see life come
out of death. It's amazing to see. And our
Lord always does it to the deadest of bones, the deadest ones. Verse five, thus saith the Lord
God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter
you, you shall live. This is what God says. If any
of us went into a funeral home and walked up to a casket and
said, you're dead, that would do nothing. But when God walks
up to a casket, a casket, a dead soul in a dead housing, and says,
you're dead. What did you say? You're dead, and I'm going to
give you life. Verse six, he said, I will lay
sinews upon you and will bring up flesh upon you and cover you
with skin. I'm going to put breath in you
and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord. He said, I'm going to robe you
in a covering. I'm going to cover you. You are bare bones naked and
I'm gonna cover you. That's what every sinner before
God needs. We need a covering of the righteousness of Christ. He said, I'm gonna put breath
in you, you shall live. And he said, you're gonna know
who I am. The end of verse six, you shall know that I am the
Lord. You're gonna know who did this.
You're gonna know I'm God. Verse seven, Ezekiel said, so
I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was
a noise. That's a beautiful, that's a
beautiful sound. You can't hear it with the ear,
but that's the loudest sound a sinner will ever hear. There's a noise that goes on
inside the heart. There's a noise that goes on
inside the soul. When God speaks, no one says,
did God just speak to me? Ask Saul of Tarsus. Saul. Blinded him. It literally blinded him. That's how God talks. I wish he would talk to me like
that today. Verse seven, I prophesied as
I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold,
a shaking, that's the fear of God. All of a sudden, religion
goes out the window. Oh, I'm a good boy, and you're
a good girl, and we dress nice, and we go to church, and we're
gonna go to heaven, and that just goes out the window, and
the fear of God comes over us. Verse seven, I prophesied as
I was commanded and as I prophesied there was a noise and behold
a shaking and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And that does mean that the hip
bone was connected to the whatever bone is connected to the hip
bone. But all of a sudden in this speaking the bone becomes
connected to his bone. He said they are bone of my bone. Verse 8, and when I beheld, he's
just standing there preaching, thus saith the Lord, here's the
word of God. He just kept preaching and preaching
and preaching. Verse 8, and when I beheld, lo,
the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered
them above, but there was no breath in them. Life had to be given. You know, God's people are covered
in Christ, covered in the blood. He was a lamb slain from before
the foundation of the world. They were covered when he died
on that cross. God's people and his sheep are born into this
world covered with an atonement, but there comes a point when
breath has to come into them and life has to come into them.
Verse nine, and he said unto me, prophesy, just keep preaching.
The same thing, prophesy unto the wind, the spirit. Prophesy,
son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come
from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain
that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood
up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto
me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold,
They say, this is how you can know them. You wanna know who
Israel is, the whole house of God's Israel? This is what they
say. After they live, after breath
comes into them and life comes into them and they're standing
upright, this is what they say. The middle of verse 11. Our bones
are dried and our hope is lost. We're cut off for our parts.
No, you're not. That was you in your flesh. That
was you before God Almighty got ahold of you. Verse 12, therefore prophesy
and say unto them, just keep preaching, same word, prophesy
and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, behold, O my people,
I will open your graves and cause you to come out of your graves
and bring you into the land of Israel. and you shall know that
I am the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and
brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you,
and you shall live, and I shall place you in your own land, then
shall you know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed
it, saith the Lord. The Lord God said, all of that
shall come about just by preaching my word. That's all you got to
do. I would like to learn that it
is not my responsibility to put on a show for you. I'd like to
learn that. I would like to learn that it
is not my responsibility to have loud parts. Even though I have
them, I can't help it. There's a shaking going on inside
me sometimes. But I don't have to have loud
parts and quiet parts. I don't have to tell big stories
and illustrations. Our illustrations don't save
anybody. They are a blessing, but you know what saves people?
The Word. The Word. I don't have to do
anything. Oh, I did a bad job. What'd you
do? I just told them what the Bible said. Good enough. That's it. Preach the word. Just preach the word. God will take care of the rest.
God will take care of everything. Just preach the word. All right,
now go back with me to 2 Timothy 4. Verse 2 says, preach the word,
be instant, in season, out of season, reprove. Back in chapter 3, verse 16 says,
all scripture is given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof. That word right there, reproof,
means proof, proving. Prove the truth. Don't just say
it. Now you know the Bible says,
prove it by the word. Prove the gospel by the word.
Prove what you're saying is so by the word. Even though that
sounds similar, it's a different word than chapter 4 verse 2.
Back in chapter four, verse two, reprove means convict. That's what it means, convict.
It means expose the shame, expose the fault, expose sin. That's what it's saying. Verse
two, preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove,
rebuke. That means, Establish the penalty
for the exposed sin. Expose the sin, expose the penalty
for that sin. All right, now watch this. Verse
two says, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season,
reprove, rebuke, exhort. That means console. Call to one's side. Comfort,
encourage, strengthen. I absolutely love that. I absolutely
love that. Expose the sin, expose the punishment,
expose the comfort. That's what you do. He said, verse two, do it with
all long-suffering in doctrine. Long-suffering means patience.
Doctrine means teaching for the purpose of teaching. Paul said,
Timothy, do all of these things with a patient, loving heart
for the purpose of teaching, instructing, nurturing, causing
to grow. Do all this with love in your
heart for the purpose of the maturity and growth of God's
people. Verse three says, for the time
will come. That is such a sad statement
to me. That's a fearful statement. It's a statement of warning.
And what makes it so sad to me is it doesn't say it might happen. It says it will happen. Thank
God not for every soul on this earth, but for some. Honestly,
for most, verse three says, the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine. That means pure teaching, the
pure teaching of God's word. It goes on to say, but after
their own lusts, their own desires, what they feel feeds their flesh
more. After their own lusts shall they
heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. That means they
are the ones who have the itching ears and they'll go find themselves
some teachers who will scratch that itch for them. Verse four,
and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall
be turned unto fables. They will prefer lies. There's a lot of lies being told
this morning in churches all over the world. Some people prefer
it. Some people do. You either have one of two things
being told, the truth or a lie. And you have people on this earth
that prefer each one. Some prefer truth, and I want
to be included in that category. Some prefer lies. They just rather
hear lies. So they'll go find themselves
teachers who will teach them lies. That's what we want. We
want a lying teacher. And they'll be turned away from
the truth. To be turned away from the truth is to be turned
away from Christ. He is the truth. It's to turn
away from his way. Man has his own way. It's not
God's way. It's to turn away from Christ's
way and Christ's truth and Christ's life. It's to turn away from
his salvation. Man wants his own salvation. His redeeming blood, His light,
His glory, His everything is to turn away from Christ. And again, I'll close. We need
to warn the entire world of this. But what has hit me this morning
really is we need to warn our children of this. I just have
been especially burdened by this. We need to
really remember and consider our children. Our Lord said,
there's one thing needful. There's one thing needful. We
need to preach him to our children. One thing needful. There's only
honey. There's only one thing needful. There's a little kid
that Hannah and I know. And the subject of going to church
came up. I was not there. It was relayed
to me. But this little one said, I don't like going to church. And the one that this little
one said that to went, what? And seeing that reaction, this
little one said, but it's the most important thing in this
life. How'd that little one learn that? Preaching the word. Preaching
the word. I hope it sticks. How'd that
little one learn that? I hope it sticks. But a true saving knowledge of
that fact right there, that's the most important thing in this
life. It comes from preaching the word. Preaching the word. I'm just
going to close. I was going to close with Ecclesiastes
12. You read that sometime. But it
says, let me just tell you this and then I'll stop. Ecclesiastes
12. Says, remember now thy creator
in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the
years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
Remember it right now, before that time comes, where you say,
I just don't have time for that anymore. I don't enjoy it, I
don't have any pleasure in that. And it goes on to say, before
all these terrible things come to this world, because terrible
things are going to come to this world. Vanity of vanity, saith
the preacher, all is vanity. Moreover, because the preacher
was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yea, he gave
good heed and sought out and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out
acceptable words, and that which was written in upright, even
words of truth. The words of the wise are as
goads and nails fastened by the masters of assemblies which are
given from one shepherd. And further, by these my son
be admonished, of the making of many books there's no end,
and much study is a weariness of the flesh." What he's saying
is there's only one book needed. Let us hear the conclusion of
the whole matter. Fear God, keep his commandments. This is the
whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work
into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or
evil. Lord, teach us, instruct us,
save us, give us your truth. Give us your truth for Christ's
sake. Amen. You dismissed.