If you'll open your Bibles to
the Book of John, the Gospel of John, Chapter 1, and having a blessed time, you probably wonder what us preachers
do when we get together and what kind of holy and mysterious conversations
we have. And don't worry, they're usually
kind of silly. I have a good time getting together
with these fellas and talking to them about all the conversations
we weave in and out of spiritual things and then on to nonsense
things. And it's been good, been good. As
I mentioned last night, these two brothers are both special
to me. And getting to know you all. Fellowship them with you afterwards,
and it's just been good. I suppose heaven is gonna be
a wonderful place, but the closest thing to heaven on earth is a
gathering of believers, hearing the word of God preached and
singing his praises. When John was given a vision
of heaven, All that those people were doing is what we're trying
to do here. They just do it better. They
just do it better. So heaven is simply church perfected. I've told folks, if you don't
like going to church, you won't enjoy going to heaven. That is,
if the church you're going to is a gospel preaching church
doing the thing it's supposed to do. So it's a blessing to
be here. Now, I want to preach a message.
I've entitled it The Preacher, The Preacher. And you know, we
feel like we have, we preachers feel like we have to give a title
to our message. And I guess that's so you'll
know one message from another. But really this message is not
about the preacher, though I'll talk some about him. It's about
the one who's being preached. I guess I'm issuing a disclaimer
here. is in and of himself not an important
matter. Really. A preacher is somebody
who has something to say. And we're gonna learn that in
the example of John the Baptist. And we'll start reading in verse
six of John chapter one. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John, The same came for a witness to bear witness
of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not
that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. Now, there are different kinds of
ministries among men. John was the last of the Old
Testament prophets. Now, a lot of people say, well,
Malachi was. Well, he was the last one to write anything down
and it become part of scripture. But there were other men whom
God called and they spoke. They declared the word of God.
But John was the last one of them before the old covenant
was abolished and the new covenant put in its place. Old Covenant,
Old Testament, that means the same thing. So he's the last
of the Old Testament or Old Covenant prophets. All of those Old Covenant
prophets, their general message was somebody's coming. Somebody's coming. And the message
of all the apostles was he came and he's going to come again.
John's message was, he's here, he's here, and that's him right
there. What a blessing it was for him. You can imagine, you know, for
at least 4,000, it had been at least 4,000 years since God first
made promise of one who would come, the seed of the woman,
and crush the head of the serpent. And for 4,000 years, the believing
world had waited. And you can imagine after 4,000
years and nobody showed up yet, and several disappointments along
the way when they thought that the Christ had showed up and
he turned out just to be another revolutionary of some sort, many were becoming disenchanted. Their faith was being tested.
Is he ever really going to come? Maybe everything we've heard
is just so much fairy tales. After all, you and I hear similar
things. In fact, within the lives of the apostles, there were those
who scoffed saying, where is the promise of his coming? For
things keep on going on just like they always did. And 2,000
years roughly has gone by since then, Since we were told the
Lord will come back and he hadn't come back yet. And things don't
look much different. I mean, you know, our civilization's
moved on and all that. What I'm saying is people are
still people and people are still awful. And the Lord hasn't showed
up. Well, these have been waiting
4,000 years. And finally the day came. Prophet
after prophet saying, he's coming, he's coming, he's coming. John
says, here he is and there he is. There he is. an end to the
wait. He was a prophet. Now, in our
day, we don't have prophets like that. Now, the word prophet really
is a very broad term and can be applied in many ways, but
we don't have any prophets of that sort anymore. We don't need
them. In the book of Hebrews, it says,
at various times and in various ways, God spoke to the fathers
through the prophets. And in these last days, he's
spoken to us by his son. And though he does not distinctly
say so in that particular passage of scripture, the tone of it's
obvious. When he spoke in his son, he
was done speaking. And the apostles went out, not
declaring new information, they declared the things that were
told to them by the son. And we look for no more. We look
for no more because there's no more to be said. We look for
no prophets of that sort because there's no new revelation to
be given. And so if a person comes to you and says, the Lord
said to me, you can say, no, he didn't, because he hadn't
said anything to anybody since he said everything that needed
to be said through the son. So there was these prophets,
and then there's fellows like me, preachers, pastors, And you know,
the ministry of a prophet was different than that of a pastor.
We pastors, we stay in the same place for quite a while. Most
of them do. And we live among the people
to whom we minister. The prophet, it's always seemed
the prophets were kind of isolated men. In fact, it seemed like
the prophets didn't do too well. in, you know, in civilized society. Many of them were very rough.
John seemed, he's kind of rough. He lived out in the desert and
he ate, it says locusts and wild honey and I remember reading,
well that didn't mean the bug, that was some kind of plant or
something, not meant to bug. He ate bugs and honey and he
was dressed in camel's hair and he had a strap of leather to
tie it up in the front. He was not seminary trained. Well, when I say I don't know
where he got his training, I know where. He got it from God. But
I mean, he wasn't trained by anybody but God. And he just
showed up and started preaching, and people started listening.
And he was calling people to a repentance. And his ministry was, in many
ways, hard and harsh, though it was a ministry to bring life. that all men might believe. But the thing that is the same
about the ministry of a pastor and the ministry of a prophet
is this. The primary work of both of them is to preach. Preach. To herald. That's an old-fashioned
way for the word. We're just telling a message. In our day and age, and I guess
it's gone on in other days and ages, but I only know about my
day and age, but in my day and age, you know, it seems like
those in the professional pastorate are doing everything along with
a little bit of preaching. They've become counselors, organizers,
promoters, entertainers. But what sinners need, so far
as a ministry is concerned, is preachers. I'm not trying to
exalt the preacher here. It's simply we need to hear about
the Savior. Faith comes by hearing. And if
faith comes by hearing, that means somebody's got to be talking.
Somebody's got to be communicating. And that's what preachers do
no matter what style of ministry God calls them to. And in this
text of scripture that we just read, I want to look at four
things about the preacher. First of all, his nature. Secondly,
his calling. Thirdly, I want to look at his
ministry. And then fourth, I want to look
at his message. There was a man sent from God. What's his nature? He's a man.
God did not send angels to preach, at least not often. I guess you
could say they were preachers on the morning or the night that
our Lord was born, and the angels came and preached to the shepherds
and said, behold, we bring you great good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all nations. And the word that is translated
good tidings is simply the word that nearly everywhere else is
translated gospel. We bring you the gospel of great joy. Unto you is born this day in
the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. So once in
a while angels preach, but generally speaking, this is the general
rule, that when God would deal with someone, he generally sends
a man to preach to them. Now when it says there was a
man sent from God, it does not mean man as opposed to woman. Now the scripture does deal with
that in other issues. And there's no such thing as
a woman that's been called to the public pulpit ministry. It
doesn't mean that women can't do it. It doesn't mean that they're,
you know, I've heard it preached, well, you know, Eve was deceived
and women are just more easily deceived than men. So God calls
on men and I say, I know a lot of deceived men. It has nothing
to do with that. But that's another issue. Here
the Greek word translated man simply means a human. And that's
important for us to understand it because he's not talking about
the gender of the speaker. He's talking about his nature.
He's a human being. And that's all he is. A human. We shouldn't be surprised
when God gave us his clearest revelation of himself. How was
that? the man, Christ Jesus. And so
he sends out humans to preach. Now, with the sole exception of Jesus
Christ, every man sent by God to preach has been a fallen,
sinful man. Now it's important that you understand
that. We're gonna kind of a catch 22, a bit of a catch 22 at this
point. Because we want our preachers to be beyond reproach. And there's nothing wrong with
wanting that. And every preacher ought to do the best he can to
meet that standard. Beyond reproach. But then we
also want those who can identify with us. in our brokenness, in
our failures, and in our weaknesses. We are in a catch-22 because
we want humans without fault, and yet it's their very faultiness
that enables them to identify with us. Well, what are we going
to do? Here's what we've got to do.
We've got to learn to accept the fact as much as we want them
to be beyond reproach, they aren't. They aren't. I told the fellows a story last
night. I was going up in Minnesota once a month to preach in a house
where several believers would meet. We'd go up there once a
month. We'd go on a Friday night. Bonnie would drive up. I'd drive
back. Because on the way up, I would be thinking and meditating
and napping. And I was about to slide into
one of those napping stages. And, you know, that zone somewhere
between awake and asleep. And it was as though I heard
an audible voice say, you are a fraud. And it startled me awake. And my heart started to race.
And it bothered me because it was true. It was true. I'm a fraud. I stand up and preach. And if you listen to what I say,
you would think I'm a far better man than I really am. And I said that it troubled me
to hear that. Made me wonder, how am I gonna
preach tonight? And then later, and it was not, I mean, just
a few minutes later, not in a voice that sounded so loud because
I was fully awake by then, but the thought was put in my mind
and I'm sure it was put there by the Lord. But Christ is no
fraud. Go preach Him. So we must understand that anyone
that's going to come preach to us is a fallen man, as it was
said of Elijah, a man of like passions, subject to all the
failures that we who listen to them have. And not only subject
to those failures, likely to demonstrate those failures. One thing I can assure you about
any preacher of the gospel, if you know them long enough and
know them closely enough, somewhere along the line, they're gonna
disappoint you. It's just the way it is. They're gonna offend you. It's
just how it is. It's unfortunate, if that's the
right word for it, We don't like it, but that's the way it is.
Because God sends fallen men to us because they can identify
with us and speak to our hearts because they're speaking from
their own heart and they know what we are because we are what
they are and they are what we are. Fallen men, sinners in need
of a Savior. Now, when some preacher disappoints
us, as they most certainly will if we know them long enough and
closely enough, when they disappoint us, if that bowls us over, if
it knocks us down, you know what that proves? It proves we're
putting too much confidence in the flesh of a man. There's only
one man who will never disappoint you, and that's the man Christ
Jesus. You put your confidence there,
and you look at your preacher through him. I remember this was in December
of 86, and I was at a Bible conference. I had preached only one time
to the people up in Iowa, where I'm now pastor. I preached to
them the first weekend of that December, and this was like the
last weekend of that December. And some of them had come to
this conference. And I'm sitting there just as a listener. And
Brother Henry Mahan's preaching, and he says, open your Bibles
to Hebrews 12. And he reads, looking unto Jesus, and he said,
now shut your Bible, which is an odd thing for Henry to say.
He said, I want to talk to you about looking to Jesus. And he
talked about all these things that we do, and he says, if you'll
do them, looking to Jesus, the outcome will be better. And one
of the statements he made, he said, if we would look at people,
or when we would look at people, we would look at them through
Christ, look at them as we look unto Jesus, we would be far more
encouraged and far less disappointed. And then he looked right at me
and he said, Joe, you don't disappoint me. I don't expect much. But see, that's the problem.
We expect too much. And when we expect that and count
on that, and they don't meet the standard that we've laid
on them, it's a disappointment. And we're blown away and don't
know what to do. Brethren, every man that God ever sent to preach
is a fallen man. He's a son of Adam, and he is
afflicted with everything that comes with that. I assure you
that I do not speak to you as one who is above sin, strong
in the face of trial. Rather, I am encompassed with
weakness, shot full of corruption, guilty of great sin, and amazed
that God would send me to preach, and amazed that you'd sit there
and listen to me. He told you I've been there for
31 years. I'm amazed they keep coming. I tell people I have
a symbiotic relationship with my church. They're always afraid
I'm gonna quit and I'm always afraid they're gonna fire me.
So that keeps both of us honest, treating each other right. No,
that's amazing to me. Why would they listen to me all
these years? And believe me, I've done plenty
of boneheaded things while I'm there. I do not preach to you the message
of a righteous man, but the message of a sinful man. I do not preach
to you the message of a strong man, but the message of a weak
man. I've told the folks in Iowa,
do you know why I preach the gospel to you all the time? One time a fellow came to Martin
Luther's, one of Martin Luther's church members, you know, and
he said, how come you preach the gospel to us every week.
And Martin Luther says, because every week you come here looking
like you need it. And another reason, though, that I preach
the gospel every week is because, brethren, every week I need it. When I preach to people, I'm
not preaching to them what I think they need to hear. I'm preaching
to them what I need to hear. I'm not like that doctor who
prescribes a medicine, and it may be the right medicine, but
it's a medicine he never used because he never had that disease.
I am one who has the same disease you got and who calls upon you
to take the same medicine I've taken and found to be good medicine. All whom God has sent to preach,
they are fallen men, but all whom God has sent to preach,
rescued men. Now I use the word rescued rather
than saved because I wanted to, well it's good to change up our
words once in a while because we take these words that we hear
over and over before long they get encrusted with so much theology
we forget what they mean. And the word save simply means
to rescue. Somebody's in trouble and somebody
goes and gets them out of trouble. That's what salvation is. And
everyone God has sent to preach has been rescued. And he goes
out and talks about that rescue. I read a book, it's my first
year of Bible school, and we were given the book by, we had
to read the book by Martin Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers. And
I remember as I was reading this, now I was in free will fundamentalism
at the time and pretty wet behind the ears about everything, you
know, I'm 18. But I read in there, you know,
it said that the preacher must be a saved man. And I'm thinking
to myself, well, who would ever think of anybody that wasn't
saved trying to be a preacher? Well, in a lot of your established
churches, men look at preaching just as a possible vocation.
They think, you know, it won't make you rich, but it's a steady
income. And they'll go to seminary, and
they'll get their degree, and the state church will put them
in a place, in some parish somewhere, and they go about their duties
for the next 40 years or whatever it is, and get their retirement. Well, all whom God has sent to
preach have experienced the grace that they declare. God sends humans, and what that
means is that there is nothing about your humanity that prevents
you from preaching. Now, you may never be a pulpiteer,
if that's the right way to put it. I mean, God may never put
you behind a pulpit, but if God has saved you, he has sent you
to declare that to somebody. Peter said that he has made us
a people to declare his praises. We gotta be careful that our
worship doesn't become a spectator sport. That you come here week
by week and you sit there in the pulpit and the only real
involvement you have is when you sing the songs, but for the
most part, you're watching someone else worship and calling that
worship. The only reason I'm standing
up here slightly elevated, is because I'm the one doing the
talking, but I'm not the object of the worship here. I'm really
not even supposed to be the object of the attention. I'm speaking
words, but as Spurgeon said, if mine is the only voice you
hear, you're in a mess. And you, you can declare He said,
well, I've not been trained. Well, maybe that's good. How long do you have to know
the Lord to be qualified to preach the gospel? Well, the Lord cast
legion demons out of one man. The man said, I want to follow
you. And I'm sure he wanted to follow him to learn things, you
know. I want to be a disciple of yours. You know what the Lord
told him? You go home. and you tell your neighbors and
your family and your friends what great things the Lord has
done for you. This man has been, and we'll use the word saved,
he's been saved five minutes, and the Lord sent him on a mission
to preach the gospel. You say, well, but he doesn't
know Greek and Hebrew yet. Well, he probably did, but living
in the times that he did, but you know what I mean. He hasn't
been to Bible school. Why, just 10 minutes ago, he
was a raven maniac. It doesn't matter, the Lord has
saved him. He has given him a sound mind. He knows more than the
most well-trained unsaved man. The merest babe in Christ can
declare the gospel. Secondly, the preacher's calling.
There was a man sent from God. Now I know that we say churches
send out preachers, and in some sense they do. But understand
this, if and when a church sends out a preacher, they are simply
acknowledging what they see that God has already done. Churches don't make preachers,
they just recognize them. And they're sent by God. When
most churches begin to look for a pastor, they want to know his
credentials, his education, his experience, his success in former
pastorates. Well, I'm not going to discount
any of these except to say that none of them mean a thing if
God hasn't sent the man. that the lack of any of those
things doesn't mean a thing if God has sent him. I don't want
to deny the usefulness of having been trained in the scriptures
and things like this. I'm not saying that those are
useless, but they don't mean anything apart from God sending
them. You say, how can you know if
a man's been sent? When I preached this message
to our church, I said, God sent me here. Now, how do I know that
God sent me here? And I said, well, because I am
here for one thing, and I have been here for 31 years, and I
preach to you the same message that other men who were sent
by God preached, and you keep listening. You keep listening. In the preacher's class that
Henry had back in the 80s, he told us young preachers, he said,
here's how, you know, if a man is called from God, They were
called by God to preach. Two things will be true. God
will give him the message to preach. And somebody's gonna
believe him. Somebody's gonna listen and believe.
And that's true. And God sent you. You, who believe,
are a human sent by God. You may, your congregation may
be your children. It may be your next door neighbor.
It may be your coworker. But he has sent you and he did
not send you to keep your mouth shut. He sent you to open your
mouth and declare the glory and praises of the God who saved
you by his son. Now I'm not talking about that
continual pestering, buttonholing, witnessing, that some churches
try to do in order to build up their members. I'm just saying
this, what Peter say, always be ready to give an answer for
the hope that lies in you. And you won't get, nobody's gonna
ask you to give an answer for the hope that lies in you if
you never tell them about that hope that lies within you. So be a preacher. God sent you. In fact, look at
verse 44 here in John chapter one. I thought this was kind
of neat. Verse 44 of John chapter 1. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of
Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael and
saith to him, we have found him of whom Moses and the law and
the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
And Nathanael said unto him, Can there be any good thing come
out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, come and
see. And so you're out there and you
say, I'm really not much of a preacher. I get tongue tied. You know,
I want to be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies
in me. It's not as though I don't know the answer. It's just somebody
asked me something like that. I just, all at once I get mind
blocked. Here's what you do. I don't know
what time you all meet on Sunday mornings. When's regular service? 10, 15? 10, 30. OK. So somebody wants to ask you
a reason for the hope that lies in you. And you say, look, 10,
30 AM, so-and-so, come and see. You can say that. And another
man sent from God, who doesn't get so tongue-tied, will stand
up here and tell them what you wished you could have told them.
But brethren, be a preacher. Be one who declares the truth
of God wherever and whenever God gives you opportunity to
do so. Come and see. Sent from God. The preacher's ministry is this,
and it's very, very simple, verse seven. The same came for a witness. Now you know what a witness is.
When there's an issue in a court of law, somebody's been accused
of something, and you got the prosecution and you got the defense,
and they're in a battle with one another, one trying to prove
guilt, the other trying to prove innocence, and so what they do
is call witnesses. Now, a witness, at least in our
legal system, a witness is not allowed to give hearsay evidence.
They can't call a witness who says, well, John told me that
he saw such and such. Not hearsay. If you're going
to be a witness in a court of law, all you can testify to is
that which you have yourselves seen or experienced. And therefore, John was called
to be a witness to that light, which means he had to himself
personally experience and see that light. And when they kept asking him
who he was, he kept pointing them to Christ. And at one point
he said, and I would not have known who he was, were it not
that the one who sent me said, the one on whom you see the spirit
descended as a dove, that's him. And John could say, and I saw
that, I witnessed that, and I tell you of a truth, this is the Christ. This is him. I've witnessed it. A witness, to be a witness, there
has to be a past of experience and then a present of telling
that experience. You're not a witness until you
tell it. And what's the job of a witness? In our courts, they're
made to affirm, or swear, or whatever word you want to use
there, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth. And that's what every preacher is called on to do.
Tell the truth, the whole truth, or at least as much of it as
you know, and don't tell anything but the truth. Problem is, even with some otherwise
faithful preachers, it's that nothing but the truth, because
or they may be saying true things, but they get off on issues that
aren't involved with the truth that we've been sent to testify
about. Like I said, we're all fallen
men, and there's dross, quite a lot of it, in there among the
gold. Must witness it, must tell it. John said this in his first epistle,
that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you. Peter said, we didn't tell you
cleverly devised fables, but we were eyewitnesses of his glory. And you and I, if we have been
saved, spiritually speaking, we have been eyewitnesses of
his glory. And all we're doing when we're
preaching is tell people what we saw. Now, if you didn't see anything,
don't say anything. But if you saw something, say
something. You're a witness. And then the preacher's message.
Look at verse 15. John, bear witness of him. Right there is the ministry,
the message, of any man, any human, called to preach, to bear
witness of Christ. Do you know why preachers in
modern-day Christendom need to have four years of a bachelor's
degree and then three years of postgraduate work? Because they gotta come up with
something besides Christ to preach, because they've never witnessed
Him. and they can't bear witness to him, and the people that are
listening aren't gonna be satisfied with a simple message of him.
I love preaching to God's people. You may think that we preachers
have a hard job, and I'm not saying there aren't difficulties
associated with it, but we who've been called to a pulpit ministry
like this get to do the most wonderful thing in the world,
and it's a relatively easy thing to do. declare Christ, to tell
people what we've seen. That's all. Not to be fancy, not to show off any education
we might have, but simply to declare Him. We're not sent here
to start a movement. We've not been sent here to save
anybody. We've not been sent here to keep anybody. We've been
sent to declare Him. We've not been sent here to engage
in intricate theological debate. And I know how tempting that
is, because it can be fun. It's an awful thing to say, but
that's just what it comes to. It can be fun. For those of us that
aren't athletic, you know, that's our battlefield. Get into some
kind of debate over this or that. And theology is one of the areas
where you can really get into some debates, and you get champions. There are no champions in the
ministry. There's only one champion in the kingdom of God, and he's
already won his battle and won his contest, and all we're doing
is talking about his victory. Our message is him. We declare
him as a person. John bear witness of him. We
declare him in his eternity. The very opening verse of this
Book in the beginning was the Word. And what that means is
in the beginning, the Word was already there. Before time started,
the Word was there. And the Word was with God and
the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. So we speak of Christ's eternity
when we set him forth. We speak of his incarnation.
Verse 14. And the Word was made flesh and
dwelt among us. That is a mysterious scripture. Great is the mystery of Godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. The Word was made flesh. He didn't
just inhabit flesh. The Greek word here, translated
made, means to be born or created. That's its most basic meaning.
And so the word is not, it's not like the spirit word simply
came and inhabited a human body. The word became flesh. He became a man. And you know
what? He still is a man. And as near
as I can tell from the scriptures, he will forever remain a man,
the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
We declare him. And you say, well, that sounds
like silliness. Well, I don't know whether it sounds like silliness,
but it sure sounds like Bible. And it sure sounds like what
you and me need. We need a flesh and blood Savior. And we need
a divine Savior. And we get it all in one person,
Jesus Christ. We preach. The Christ of authority. Look in John chapter one, verse
10, he was in the world and the world was made by him and the
world knew him not. He came unto his own and his
own received him not, but as many as received him, to them
he gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that
believe on his name. Now that word power, we in modern
English, we normally associate that with strength and ability.
That's not what the word means. The word means authority. Now, Jesus Christ has authority
to give authority to people to become the children of God. You
say, I'm gonna become a child of God. Under whose authority
are you gonna do that? You can't do that under your
own authority. You can't do that unless you're given authority
to do that. And Christ is the one who has
that authority. And he gives it to those that
receive him. And these were born not of blood, that means it's
not because anything your mom or dad did or didn't do. It's
not of the will of the flesh, that knocks free willism right
in the head, nor of the will of man, they're born of God. and the God by which they are
born is the God-man, Christ Jesus. The Christ of glory and power,
the Christ of sacrifice, John chapter one, verse 29. The next
day, John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith, behold, the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Oh, brethren, there's enough
in that to preach your whole life. He pointed and he said, there
he is. Behold, this is the lamb of God. The one who will be the,
the lamb that God provided as a sacrifice for sin. This is
the seed of the woman that's going to crush the head of the
serpent. This is the ark of Noah who will bring us safely through
the judgment of God. This is our great high priest.
This is our temple. This is the lamb, slain from
the foundation of the world as a sacrifice, a substitute. He laid down his life. Nobody
took it. He laid it down. As both priest
and sacrifice, he offered himself without spot to God. You take away sacrifice, there's
nothing to preach. You take away substitution, there's
nothing left to preach, except condemnation. I guess you'd go
out and preach that if you wanted to. It's the Lamb of God that takes
away the sin of the world. Nobody else does. And we preach
the Christ of approval, favor, and sonship. John said, I baptized
him and the heavens opened up. And the spirit of God came on
him like a dove and a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. You know, God never said that
about anybody else except as he put them in that son. And
I want you to think on this for a minute. It's scary to say because
it's so bold. But everyone in Christ is as
beloved as Christ, is as much a son as Christ, and is as pleasing
to God as Christ is. Because all their sonship, all
their approval is Christ. Now, the man, the human that
preaches that is a human sent from God. And they're just humans. And if you look to them and trust
in them, you're gonna get disappointed. But if you listen to what they
say, and look to the one they point you to, you'll never be
disappointed. May the Lord add his blessing
to his message.