You are a faithful God. Your mercies are enduring. Your
kindnesses. Are higher than the heavens.
Your faithfulness. Broader than the breadth of the
earth. Please, Lord, for the sake of
your dear son, whom you love. Help us to carry out his mission. Help us, give us grace that we
might be poured out. But poured out wisely. According
to your word. In Jesus name. Amen. The person that I have most on
my heart tonight is the. The person who is thinking about
becoming a missionary. Talking to you. And talking to
the pastors who may be involved in and sending someone to the
mission field. You need to understand something. It is all about sola scriptura. It is all about the power of
the Holy Spirit. It is all about prayer. Everything that we are called
to do, everything we're called to do is absolutely impossible. Every time we go out into the
mission field, every time we preach, we are Ezekiel. Can these bones live? I will
not doubt you, Lord, and say no. I will not presume upon you,
Lord, and say, yes, they most certainly will. But I will preach. I will preach. Whenever I'm talking about missions,
it's always, please do not trust in the arm of the flesh. Please
give yourself wholly to the study of Scripture and the practice
of Scripture and the proclamation of Scripture. Please, please
learn to pray. Learn to tarry in the night watches. Learn to grab ahold of the horns
of the altar and say, I will not let thee go. For Jericho was tightly shut
up. No one came out and no one came in. Only God can make walls
like that fall. And when I look around me today
and I see so many silly men, Developing so many impotent and
silly strategies of missions, I have to believe that all those
strategies together are not as powerful as one saint praying. As one saint preaching. The more you trust in the arm
of the flesh. The less you will see of the
power of almighty God. I want us to look, I'm going
to go all over tonight and I'm just going to answer certain
things that I see to be great problems. In missions. First of all, I want to talk
about Sola Scriptura and I want you to turn to Second Timothy. Verse 16. And you say, why there? We all know that text. Well,
have you read the book of James? It's one thing to know a text.
It's another thing to obey it. All scripture is inspired by
God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
for training and righteousness, so that the man of God may be
adequate, equipped for every good work. Now, I've got several
texts tonight, and I can't do an exposition on all of them
properly. I don't have the time, or we'd
be here for three days. This is what I want to point
out. When someone comes to me and says that they believe in
the inspiration and the inerrancy and the infallibility of the
Scriptures, this is what it means to me. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. if you're not going to take one
more step. And that is that the Scriptures are sufficient. They are sufficient for everything
the Christian, everything the man of God, everything the church
needs. They are sufficient. And if you
won't take that next step, if you won't take that next step,
All your words really don't matter. You're just speaking vanities
in the air. And some of you need to do this.
Some of you need to go home and really look at this text and
really ask yourself this question. Is my life, my practice, personal
life in the church, in missions, in evangelism, is it all conformed
to the scriptures? Can I find what I'm doing in
the scriptures without manipulating the text? Now, I want us to go back to
1 Timothy 3, verse 13. First Timothy, chapter three,
verse 13, for those who have served well as deacons obtained
for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith
that is in Christ Jesus. I am writing these things to
you, hoping to come to you before long. But in case I am delayed,
I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself
in the household of God, which is the church of the living God,
and the pillar and the support of the truth. Look at verse 14.
How can you know that you are conducting yourself With regard
to Christ's bride, how can you know that you are conducting
yourself properly? Only through what is written. Only through what is written. And there's something very important
in this text. I want you to look at how the church is described.
The household of God. If you came into my house and
you started commanding my wife and my children When you woke
up, this is what you would hear from me. My house, my rules. My house, my rules. And that's what God is saying
to us here. My house, not yours, Stuart. My house. My rules. And if you think I'm being a
little bit harsh with this, then go on to the next description.
The church of the living God. Now go back, even in English,
and look up the word living and see how many times in the Old
Testament it is placed before God. And when God says He's the
living God, it is usually because He's speaking in a quite serious
manner. and is demanding a response that
if he does not get, discipline will come to his people and judgment
to the nations. When we're sitting around, almost
every Tuesday, we have a staff-wide prayer meeting. And the men could
testify to the fact that one of the first petitions that always
comes out of my mouth is this, Lord, increase our fear of Thee. The more you know God, the more
you will fear God, and the more you fear God, the more you will
study His words so that you are absolutely sure that you are
taking care of His bride in a way that He desires. Now, I want you now And some
of you great expositors are almost going to die. I'm going to move
around so much. I want you to go to 2 Corinthians,
or 1 Corinthians, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And I want all of you who are
thinking about the ministry to look at this text. 1 Corinthians
3, 11 through 15. For no man can lay a foundation
other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if
any man builds on that foundation with gold, silver, and precious
stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident,
for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire.
and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's works.
If any man's works which he has built on it remains, he will
receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up,
he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through
fire." If you truly believe this text, you will not be able to
sleep at night, even as a Christian. Unless in your conscience you
know by the grace of God you are studying God's word as though
your life depended on it, because it does, you are carrying out
his ministry according to his word. How can we know if we're
conducting ourselves properly? Only through his word. And that is why all these silly
little boys with their silly little prophecies are doing so
much damage to the church. Don't give me a man who mutters
and whispers. If he speaks not according to
this word, it's because he has no dawn. Those mutters and those
whispers will give me no consolation, no strength in the night watch
when I think about the fact that one day I will stand before God
and my entire ministry will be judged. And it will be. Oh, how a man needs to fear God
that that man might Cling to His Word. Cling to His Word. I want you to go jump over real
quick to the book of Hebrews. I want to show you something
particularly important for pastors and for missionaries, church
planters. Hebrews 8.5. Listen to what it says. who serve
a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned
by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle. See, he says,
that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown
you on the mountain. God is saying, Moses, you better
listen to me. I don't need your cleverness,
your wisdom, your pragmatism, your inventions. I didn't ask
you to draw up these plans with me. I did this apart from you
in my own eternal counsel with my son. You make sure you follow
the pattern precisely. Now, let me ask you a question.
What's more important in the economy of God? A cloth and fur tabernacle? or his church that he is building. If God would warn a man about
a building. How much more does God warn us
about caring for his bride? Imagine a king, he has a bride
that he loves with all his heart, all his heart. She's precious
to him. Oh, he makes her eloquent. Makes
her beautiful. Dresses her in the finest, purest,
whitest linen. He loves her. He spends his day
admiring her, but he has to go on a long, a long journey. So
he calls you in as a steward. He calls you in as a steward.
He grants you the privilege to care for his wife, and he carefully
constructs a document before you. This is what I want you
to do with my wife. This is what I want you to do
with my wife. This is what I want you to do with my wife. But then
what happens? The king goes on a long journey
and he stays gone for a while. And you notice that the people
are becoming disloyal to the king. You notice that they're no longer
really attracted to the queen, she's so I don't know. Well,
she's just not modern. She's not what the people want
today. So you get a great idea. You strip her of her white linens. You paint her face and dress
her like a prostitute. And you parade her before carnal
men in order to draw them back into loyalty with the king. When
the king returns, what will he do with you? He will kill you. And that's exactly what many
pastors are doing today. That's exactly what many church
planters are doing today. They're dressing up the church
so that she will be pleasing not to godly folk, but to carnal
folk in hopes of bringing them back into the kingdom. The king
never gave you such a decree. Never. She belongs to him. She's precious to him. And we
are to be jealous for her to the point of fighting. Jealous
for her. Sola Scriptura is more than a
doctrine. It is the very thing that may or may not save your
life. Depending on how you deal with
it, how you respond to it. My greatest prayer for us with
missions. Is that we learn to fear the
Lord. And you say, but Brother Paul, all you're doing is talking
about church precisely. That's what my point is. Missions
is this. One biblical church sending out
elder qualified men to plant another biblical church. And
those elders that send those men out do so with fear and trembling. And the one who goes out deals
with the bride of Christ with fear and trembling. If just this
one thing was believed in seminaries. And in missiology departments,
it would transform everything. Everything. Now, I want to switch
gears a bit, we all want to go to the mission field, we all
want to go to the mission field, we all talk about having an influence
upon the world. But let me ask you a question.
What part of everything you are? Should be exported. and what
part of everything you are should be quarantined? Let's ask ourselves
some questions. Your doctrine, is your doctrine
worth exporting or should it be quarantined? I want you to know, you can be a cup of blessing,
you can be a cup of hemlock. By and large, In the recent decades,
our doctrine has been like a cup of hemlock to the nations. Here's
some questions for you. Have you been diligent to present
yourself approved to God as workmen who do not need to be ashamed,
accurately handling the word of truth? Have you? Do you look at doctrine this
way? Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere
in these things, for as you do this, You will ensure invitations
to a very large conference on exposition. That's not what it
says. Look at this. You will ensure
salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. Do you
see this? Well, I don't want any of that
doctrine stuff. Well, then you have to go to hell. What we believe. Will determine. Our eternal destiny, the doctrine,
the teaching that we hold to. Why do we study doctrine? Our
life depends upon it. Why, as ministers, should we
devote ourselves to doctrine? The life of those who hear us
depend upon it. Depend upon it. Let's go on. Your personal godliness. Should
it be exported or quarantined? Before you head off to the mission
field to be light, are you light? Not many conferences on personal
godliness, holiness. Are you disciplining yourself
for the purpose of godliness? Now, just where you're seated
right now, ask yourself that question. Are you disciplining
yourself for the purpose of godliness? If you answer yes, then just
in your own mind, just repeat the regimen that you have. What
is your regimen? What do you do every day in order
to discipline yourself in godliness? You know, there's a reason why
Paul uses the Olympic athlete. That someone from the time they're
five years old until the time they would compete in the games,
maybe when they're a mature man or woman at 20, 22, their entire
life, the way they eat, their social relationships. Everything is geared towards
one thing, winning a gold medal that will perish and for the
most part isn't gold. And we are called to discipline
ourselves for the purpose of godliness. Give me a holy man
any day over an academic who's not holy. Now, I would prefer
to have both, but without holiness, No. Are you disciplining yourself
for the purpose of godliness? Here's another one. 2 Corinthians
7.1. Are you cleansing yourself from
all defilements of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in
the fear of the Lord? I had the privilege of sitting
under, many times, an old Methodist preacher by the name of Leonard
Ravenhill. Going up, asking questions. And one time, he sent me a tract. And it said this. Others can,
but you cannot. And what the tract was basically
saying is that, yes, within Christianity, there are certain liberties that
others can take. But those things can be very,
very dangerous. Do you want to be used of God?
Others can. You cannot. There are certain
things you cannot do if you want God's anointing resting upon
you. If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit and not
grieving the Holy Spirit. If you want to be a sharp instrument,
there are things others can do that you cannot. And you say,
well, that's rough. It's the same way with the Olympian.
It's the same way with the athlete. The reason why they're there?
Why? Because others can do things. that they cannot because of their
devotion to this one thing. Those of you who are called to
preach, should you devote yourself to learning Greek and Hebrew
and all church history and systematic theology and all these things?
Absolutely. But none of it will be mattering
anything if you're not guarding your heart, guarding your eyes,
separating yourself from the world and being a holy instrument
unto God. Another question, are you progressing
in sanctification without which no one will see the Lord? These
are all important questions. You see, there was a time when
missionaries came as candidates and these were the questions
that they were given. Your doctrine and appreciation
of the local church, should it be exported or quarantined? Here's
a question. Are you a faithful and committed
member of a specific local church that actually has a name? Boy, you better. Because if you're
not, then don't tell me you go to church because I'm going to
ask you the name and the pastor's name and everybody's name and
you're going to look like a fool. You spent a great deal of time
studying the scriptures to determine what a biblical church looks
like. The nature and authority of a local church. Have you studied
the nature and authority of an elder and the elder's qualifications?
Deacons and a deacon's qualification? The type of preaching that should
be in a biblical church? The type of prayer meetings? that should be in a biblical
church? Have you studied government, ordinances, ordination, discipline,
and so many other things? You say, no, no, no, I haven't
done that. Then please do not go to the mission field. Because
missions is about planting biblical churches. Here's another question. Will you go out with the latest
church growth fads to build a church that is tailor made to a culture?
Or will you go out in absolute dependence upon what is written,
the power of prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit? Those are
questions that we need to ask ourselves. Now, I want us to
talk a bit about defining terms. This is very important. I would
love to sit with you, just sit with you and go through each
one of the Great Commissions that are found in the Synoptic
Gospels, in John, in Acts, but we don't have time. So I'm going
to have to just say a few things, give you a brief statement and
then a brief introduction, then a brief definition and then explain
a few things. First of all, the Great Commission is primarily a theological, Doctrinal
and didactic endeavor. Didactic means teaching. Now,
you say, well, it's more than that. I would agree. But it's
not less than that. It's not less than that. If I
take you through the book of Acts, what are you going to see?
Preaching, teaching, preaching, teaching, preaching, teaching,
preaching, teaching, preaching, teaching. It is more than that, but it's
not less than that. Now, I'm going to give you just
a definition that I tried to put together for a working definition. It is going into all the world
in the power of the Holy Spirit, preaching or heralding the gospel
of Jesus Christ, calling upon men to repent and believe, and
instructing men in the full counsel of God, His character, works,
will, promises, that they may render true devotion to God through
Jesus Christ as individuals and as a local assembly. If I hear some young guy tell
me one more time, it's all about the gospel. And I realize he's
just saying that because he's wanting to communicate something
else. It's all about the gospel and it's not about anything else
in the scriptures. I'm so tired of hearing beautiful truths turned
into cliches. Oh, it's all about the gospel.
I don't have to worry about anything else. It's all about the gospel. I
love the gospel. I breathe the gospel. I dream
the gospel. I sleep the gospel. And one day,
hopefully, I'll die for the gospel. But it's all about the entire
book. It's all about the full counsel
of God because you can't understand the gospel apart from the rest.
It's teaching the Bible. Some of you have such wrong ideas
about what's really going on out there on the mission field.
There will be countless missionaries that will hear what I'm preaching,
and you know who you are, and you will scoff at it. You will
say I'm just a Bible-thumping fundamentalist who doesn't understand
all the cultural nuances that you understand that makes you
so effective. Well, you're wrong. You're just
wrong. Let's go to the book of Acts.
It's on my side. Let's go to the epistles. They're
on my side. Let's go to the gospels. They're
on my side. Now, listen to me very carefully,
especially you young men and women who are thinking about
the mission field. The Great Commission is a doctrinal
endeavor. To dumb down our doctrine, to
put doctrine aside so that we can carry out a doctrinal endeavor
is intellectual and spiritual suicide. But that's exactly what's
been done for years in evangelicalism. Let's build all our unity around
what? Missions. You can't do that. You cannot do that. You build
your unity around the truth of God's Word. And then you go out
and do missions. Now, I'm going to read to you
something. It's lengthy, but it's important. It's from a marvelous
book called Today's Gospel, Authentic or Synthetic by Walter Chantry. And I want you to listen. Listen
very, very carefully. Those who believe in God's Word
have been grasping at the same superficial solutions that liberalism
has adopted. Relevance, respectability, whether
intellectual or social, and especially unity have become the aims of
God's people with the hope that these will revitalize a weakened
church. If only all Bible-believing people
join together, the world will set up and listen, thinks the
church. Let's merge our mission boards
to pool our funds and our personnel. Let's join giant evangelistic
projects. If every evangelical joins in
a common organization, we can have greater depth of evangelism.
Thus, organizational unity becomes the aim of gospel churches. Having
accepted the theory that unity is all important for world evangelism,
both the church and the individual must lower their estimate of
the value of truth. In a large congress on evangelism,
we could not insist on a truth of God's Word that would offend
any brother evangelical. Thus, we must find the lowest
common denominator to which all born-again Christians hold. The
rest of the Bible will be labeled unessential for missions. After
all, unity is more essential than doctrinal preciseness. It
is just for this reason that mission societies have been unwilling
carefully to examine the root problem in preaching. Mission
boards are hesitant to answer the question, what is the gospel?
Thoroughly to answer that would condemn what many of their own
missionaries preach. It would destroy the mission
society, which is a federation of churches who have differing
answers to that question. To adopt the position of one
church would be to lose the support of five others. The whole system
built on unity and generality would crumble. The local church
may not get too specific about truth either. It may affect its
harmony with the denomination or association. to define the
gospel carefully will bring conflict with the organizations working
with teenagers. It will prompt irritating problems
with mission boards and embarrassing disagreement with missionaries
supported for years. It may condemn the whole Sunday
school program. Giving too much attention to
the content of the gospel will mean friction with other evangelicals
and unity is the key to success. Brothers, This could not be more
true. This could not be more true and
more necessary for our time. I want the entire world to hear
the gospel in my generation. I want every person on this planet
to be saved. I want this to work more than
anything else. but it will not work through
pragmatism, and some of you need to hear this, through politics.
We need men who won't just talk about the truth, but will say,
I'm going to live it, and my church is going to live it, and
we're going to actually do what this book says. Because until
then, you're just a little boy playing Reformation. Now, who or what is the epicenter
of the Great Commission? I mean, who's the. Who's the
big guy? Who is the go to, I mean, who
is I mean, you talk about world missions and the Great Commission,
who is that one outstanding entity? Well, here it is. It's the local
church. It's the local church. Now, before
you draw any wrong conclusions, I am not against churches working
together in cooperation, not at all. 2 Corinthians chapter
8. I am not against other groups
helping, aiding the church, but do not let the tail wag the dog. God has one, one entity, the
church. His bride and everybody else
exists to serve her. Everybody. Now, at the beginning
of his earthly ministry, Jesus appointed 12 to be with him and
to go out. And it is through this 12 that
he laid the foundation for the church. Ephesians 2. 20, and
it is through these 12 and their associates that he also gave
us the only inspired, infallible, inerrant revelation of his will. But there's something very, very
interesting that I don't have time to go through the whole
text. There's something very interesting in the book of Acts
as each page is turned on the book of Acts. And years pass
by, we begin to see something. At first, we see apostles, apostles,
apostles, apostles, then we see apostles, elders, apostles, apostles,
elders, elders, elders. Now, I believe with the greatest
conviction. That there are no apostles today.
Not in any shape, form or fashion. There are no people receiving
divine inspiration. So what does that leave us with?
The church and elders. I have spent the last two years
studying quite a bit about the church. Do you know why elders
have those qualifications? Why they must have those qualifications,
because they are so extremely important in everything that
has to do with the church and everything that has to do with
the Great Commission. I was so confused about what
to preach on here, why? Because I'm kind of a guy that
says, well, if I don't preach on this, but yeah, they won't
understand this unless they understand this, but they won't understand
this unless they understand this. So I didn't know what to preach
on because in order to plant a biblical church, you must have
a biblical church. And in order to have a biblical
church, you must have biblical elders. Biblical elders. You see, the
church is the epicenter of everything. Everything. Now, I want us to
look for just a moment at Acts chapter 15. One through four, some men came
down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, unless you are
circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be
saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had a great discussion and debate
with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some
of the others should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and
elders concerning this issue, therefore being sent on their
way by the church. They were passing
through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion
of the Gentiles and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. When they arrived at Jerusalem,
they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders,
and they reported. Now, here's an apostle reporting,
and he's reporting to a church about what God had done. Now
look at verse 6. The apostles and the elders came
together to look into this matter. Look at verse 13. After they
had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, Brethren, listen to me.
Here's James, an elder in the church of Jerusalem, and he's
telling the apostles, listen to me. We go on. Verse 22, then it seemed good to the apostles
and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among
them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, Judas called
Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brethren. Do you see what's going on? Where
are all the decisions being made? Who's determining what's going
to happen in the Great Commission? The church. The elders. Now, I know I will be anathematized
for this. So be it. I mean, I died. What more can you do to me? I love missions. And I really
respect many missiologists and mission professors. But if I
had my way. The seminary would have a department
of ecclesiology and missions would go underneath that. And
if you say to me, which has already been said to me, if you do that,
you'll lose missions in ecclesiology. And I say, you mean the way we've
lost ecclesiology and missions? Do you see that, brethren? A lot of things being taught
in missiology are very, very good, but we've got to bring
it back under the local church. Look at Acts 13. Just for a moment. Verse one through four. Well, let's just go to verse
2. I'm running out of time. Who did this? The church in Antioch.
Now, I want you to realize something. This is a historic moment in
world missions. I mean, a historic moment. And the Holy Spirit, who initiates
this and directs it, does it in the context of what? A local
church. And then what else do we see?
We see these men, the great Apostle Paul, being approved of whom? A local church. And then, as
has already been pointed out, if you go to Acts 14, 26 and
27, look what happens after Paul and Barnabas return from their
missionary journey. From there they sailed to Antioch,
from which they had been commended to the grace of God for the work
that they had accomplished. When they had arrived and gathered
the church together, that's what a church is, and it's assembly,
assembly of believers. They gathered together that local
church. They began to report all things
that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith
to the Gentiles. They were not, as one brother
pointed out the other day, they were not sitting at Starbucks
drinking a latte and talking about, hey, how'd things go?
It was a report. It was the asking of questions.
It was a debriefing. It was a extremely serious matter. And the Apostle Paul himself
has to give a report. I want to read something here.
The purpose in making all these statements is not to deny the
viability of churches working together in cooperation or through
entities that assist in their cooperation. Our purpose is to
show that the responsibility of the Great Commission belongs
to each local assembly or congregation and its elders, and they cannot,
except in disobedience, neglect their duty. Now, quickly, I want
us to run over for just a second to Second Timothy. This is an
extremely important text, Second Timothy, chapter two, verse two,
the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many
witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach
others also. In the 1970s, the multiplication
of disciples became all the rage in the church. And that's wonderful. I applaud that. And I don't want
to take anything away from that where one more mature believer
disciples another. That's fine. But I believe the
reason why it became such a rage is because the pulpit, because
of liberalism, had become so weak that people were not being
fed from the pulpit. And so they needed this addition. Now, again, I am all for. members,
discipling members, and things such as that. Please don't get
me wrong. But that's not what this text is teaching. This text
is talking about elder qualified men, spiritual men, praying for
and investing their lives into other men who are aspiring to
the office of overseer or some office, pouring their lives into
them that they might become elder qualified and be useful in the
ministry. It is about... Listen to me.
I believe this with all my heart. Pastors are the highest office. They are the most important person. Now, when I say that, realize
that I'm saying this. Pastoring is more than expository
preaching. It is not less than expository
preaching. But it is more. It's shepherding,
pastoring, guarding, visiting hospitals. It's taking care of
the flock. But there's one part of pastoring
that has been totally eliminated from the vocabulary of most pastors
or elders. And what is it? The training
of men. The training of men. Now, let
me say something else. I love what I hear from a lot
of the seminaries. I so appreciate that ministry.
I think, you know, I want young men. I want people to know Greek
and Hebrew, and I want them to have that experience of being
challenged academically and to learn to think in a non-contradictory
manner with systematic theology and systematic ethics. I most
definitely want them studying hermeneutics and most definitely
church history. I really do. But pastor, you don't turn your
sons in the ministry over to a seminary. My son is 17. He's going to be going to college. Well, he's already finished a
year and a half at master's, but from home, and sooner or
later, he's going to go probably there. When he goes there, they
will always be his teachers. I'm his father. I'm going to
be calling him probably almost every night. When I go there
to visit, out to California, I'm going to be talking to his
teachers. I'm going to be finding out what he's studying, why.
He is my son. He's their student. He's my son.
But here's what happens. A young man feels called into
the ministry and immediately the pastor relinquishes hold
on him and sends him off somewhere. And many times doesn't even know
if he's gone to a biblical church. Doesn't know what he's being
taught. And then after three years sometimes
of not even hardly being in a church, He'll go to some organization. All of that is it's so wrong,
there's nowhere to even it's wrong on every level. If you're a pastor. I want you
to know this, this is my view of seminaries, and please, again.
I have the greatest respect for seminaries, and I think most
seminary professors, at least a lot of them would agree with
me here. A seminary is the place where
you not necessarily go to be prepared. A seminary is where
you go to learn all the tools you need to spend the rest of
your life preparing, and a seminary was never called by God. To be so much an incubator. And a guardian of young preachers,
that is the church's job. That is the pastor's job. And you don't let go of that
boy. There used to be a thing in Baptist
life that doesn't really exist anymore, it was called watch
care. If a young man went to seminary
far away from his church, that pastor of that church went on
a big investigation to find a biblical church and develop a relationship
with those elders at that church. And that young man was put under
watch care in the sense that those other elders watched over
that young man. The church is the incubator. The church is the nurturer. The
church is the judge. The church is the ordainer. The
church is the sender. The church is the support. And
the church can even be the discipliner of the missionary. The church. Let's go on. What is a missionary? You know,
you put 10 mission experts in a room and ask them all what
a missionary is, and a lot of people get 10 different answers.
I remember when I was in systematic theology, I was sitting there
one day, I was in class, and the professor walked in and he
goes, now, students, all I want you to do is just give me attributes
of God, divine attributes, I'm gonna write them on the board.
So people are sitting there and they're giving him divine attributes
of God. There was holiness, righteousness,
this, that, omnipotence. And I was kind of sitting there
and just thinking about something just didn't seem right. And so
after a while, he put up about 15 or 20 attributes and he goes,
Washer, you're being pretty quiet. I said, yes, sir. He said, what's
going on? I said, well, we've said nothing
about God. Nothing. And he said, He knew,
he got a twinkle in his eye. He goes, what do you mean we've
said nothing about God? I said, we've said nothing about
God, sir. Because that word holiness there, there's about 25 students. They could have 25 different
definitions of what holiness is. We haven't said anything
about God until we define every one of those terms biblically.
And that's the way it is. You know, everyone talks about
the love of God. No one wants the biblical definition. Now I want you to think about
something for a moment. We have the word pastor in the Old Testament,
shepherd in the New Testament. We have that word. And yet, if
you looked at evangelicalism, and even those who consider themselves
reformed, you would have almost an endless variety of people
doing completely different things and yet calling themselves pastor.
The word missionary is not in the Bible. Now do you see the
difficulty? How we define that term, a lot's
going to depend on that. And I want to give you three
reasons why we need to be specific. First of all, we cannot have
confidence in any ministry unless it is specifically, specifically
prescribed by the Scriptures. No matter how noble that ministry
may be, if it's not prescribed by the Scriptures, we're in trouble.
Secondly, we need to recognize Throughout biblical history and
church history, if there is one thing that God's people as a
whole and individuals are prone to do, it is this. And everyone
did what was right in their own eyes. In the absence of inspired,
inerrant, infallible authority, Man will invent. Finally, why should we define
what a missionary is? I want to read this, something
I wrote down so that I would be very clear. The state of modern
missions proves that our great need is to return to the Scriptures. Contemporary mission work is
afloat in a labyrinth of contradictory opinions regarding the nature
of the Great Commission, the definition and duty of a missionary,
and the methods or strategies that are employed. Never in the
history of the church have there been so many widely divergent
views and such radically incompatible strategies, such confusion, is
irrefutable evidence that we are once again guilty of doing
what is right in our own eyes. What is a missionary? The word missionary comes from
the Latin noun, missionarios, and the Latin verb, mitera. Misionarios
was probably first used in the 16th century by the Jesuit priests
who were sent out to proselytize in foreign lands and to thwart
the growth of the Reformation and the church. Here's something that you need
to understand. The verb mitera is the Latin translation of the
Greek verb apostelo. The word missionarius is the
Latin translation of the Greek noun apostolos or apostle. So every time you call someone
a missionary, you're calling them an apostle. Now, again, I want to affirm,
I want to be very, very clear on this. The office of apostle
has ceased. But I just want you to understand
the meaning of the term. Now, most of the time when we
think of the word apostolos, we think of it in Greco-Roman
terms. You know, how was it used in
the Greek world, in the Roman world? And it's very, very accurate.
It refers to someone who's been sent out with the authority of
the sender. But I want to read you something
from one of my favorite people on the planet, Sam Waldron, in
his book To Be Continued. And he's going to quote Ritterbosch
here, and it's an excellent, excellent thing to hear. An apostle
is a sent one, both in Hebrew and Greek. The word for apostle
is derived from the verb that means to send. Among the Jews,
however, shaliak. or sent one, had attained a very
specific meaning. Ritterbos notes, recent research
has shown that the formal structure of the apostolate is derived
from the Jewish legal system in which a person may be given
the legal power to represent another. The one who has such
power of attorney is called shaliach. Apostle. The uniqueness of this
relationship is pregnantly expressed by the notion, and this comes
from many rabbinic sources, that the shaliach of a man, the apostle
of a man, is as the man himself. Now, In the New Testament, the
Greek word apostle also possesses a similar technical meaning.
Jesus Christ was his father's apostle, Hebrews 3, 1 through
2. Thus what Jesus said, his father
said, John 14, 6 through 10. In a similar way, the 12 are
his apostles, John 20, 21, to receive Christ's apostle is to receive him, Matthew 10,
40, John 13, 20. Therefore, an apostle was one's
legal representative having power of attorney. Now, when the word is used in its
strict and most proper sense, it refers to the 12, to Matthias,
and then to the apostle Paul. This ministry has ceased. Let me put it this way. It has
ceased. Get that in your head. This is
very, very important, especially today. It's ceased. Now, the apostles' teaching laid
the foundation of the church, Ephesians 2.20, which can only
be laid once. No man outside the sphere of
the original apostles meets the requirements of a genuine apostle
as set forth in the scriptures, 2nd Corinthians 12, 12. And the
apostle Paul saw himself as the last to be called 1st Corinthians
15, 8. You say, well, why bring all
this up? Well, you call a missionaries. So what does it mean? Now, I
want you to look at something else in a broader sense. The term apostle is also used
in the New Testament to describe those men who were sent out by
the churches as their official representatives, messengers,
envoys, emissaries, delegates, or laborers for the expansion
and edification of the churches on the mission field. They are
called, for example, in the New American Standard Bible, messengers
of the churches. In 2 Corinthians 8, verse 23,
Paul refers to certain brethren as messengers, apostoloi, of
the churches who had been sent out under the authority of the
churches to collect the offering for the saints in Jerusalem.
In Philippians 2.25, Paul refers to Epaphroditus as the messenger,
Apostolos, of the church in Philippi, who was sent by the church to
minister to Paul's needs. Now, let me give you, I'm going
to read you these two definitions. The apostles of Christ, the 12. The apostles of Christ were appointed
and sent out under the direct authority of Christ himself to
take the inspired revelation that was given to them to the
ends of the earth. The messengers of the churches
were appointed and sent out under the authority of a local church
or a collection of churches to carry out a specific task delegated
by the church. In the context of the Great Commission,
it would denote one who is sent out by the church to take the
faith, which was once for all handed down to the saints to
the ends of the earth. Now, Are you starting to see that
using the terminology missionary without it directly involving
the local assembly is just not biblical? Because that's my point. That's my point. That's my point. I'm running out of time. I'm
not even going to get through half of my notes. But that's my point.
Now, I want to give you Just three things here. Should we
use the term apostle? Or should we say messengers of
the churches or apostles of the churches? We should use messengers. Messengers of the churches, emissaries
of the churches. Why? The word apostle is so identified
with the twelve and their unique ministry That our use of the
term would result in misunderstanding and the need to constantly explain
ourselves. Also, it is not necessary because
the word apostolos not only referred to that type of ministry. But to a delicate and envoy,
an emissary. We should secondly, we should
take the greatest precaution with our use of the term apostle
so as not to affirm in any way the claims of the many false
apostles who are wrecking havoc on the contemporary church. And
if something isn't done, they're going to be wrecking even more
havoc. I will continue to use the word
missionary, but I have to admit, I prefer messenger or emissary
of the church. Why? Because it communicates
this biblical relationship between a local assembly of believers
and the man that has been nurtured, trained, ordained and sent out
by them. That's why. Now, a closer look. Let's go to 2 Corinthians for
a moment. I'm about ready to think if I
can cram all of you in my hotel room tonight at about midnight,
we'll just go through the rest of this until my plane leaves. I want you to look at 2 Corinthians. Chapter eight, and you're going
to find something very important in verse 16. If you look in verse 23, well,
let's look in verse 23 first. Let's read the whole thing. But
thanks be to God who puts the same earnestness on your behalf
in the heart of Titus. For he not only accepted our
appeal, but being himself very earnest, he has gone to you of
his own accord. We have sent along with him the
brother whose fame in the things of the gospel is spread through
all the churches. And not only this, but he has
also been appointed by the churches to travel with us in this gracious
work which is being administered by us for the glory of the Lord
Himself and to show our readiness, taking precaution so that no
one will discredit us in our administration of this generous
gift. For we have regard for what is honorable not only in
the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men. We have
sent with them our brother, whom we have often tested and found
diligent in many things, but now even more diligent because
of his great confidence in you. As for Titus, he is my partner
and fellow worker among you. As for our brethren, they are
messengers. And the word there is apostolos,
apostoloi. They are messengers of the churches,
a glory to Christ. Therefore, openly before the
churches, show them the proof of your love and of our reason
for boasting about you." Now, I want you to look at something
that's very important. First, look at verse 16, and
you will find an inward call of God that the Apostle Paul
refers to as an earnestness. He says, but thanks be to God
who put the same earnestness on your behalf in the heart of
Titus. Now think about this, because in a moment we're going
to talk about the Greek verb dokimazo, which is also found in 1 Corinthians
3 with regard to elders and deacons. He has an earnestness in his
heart. He's heard about Corinth. He's
heard about the need in Jerusalem. He's heard about these things.
And God, God has put an earnestness in this man's heart, if any man
aspires to the work of an overseer. You see, there's a desire in
his heart. There is a desire. Look at verse
17. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself
very earnest, he has gone out to you of his own accord. The
church made an appeal. There's a need here. God put
an earnestness in Titus' heart and he voluntarily accepted the
challenge. They did not have to manipulate
him or force him. They would have had to hold him
back. All right. Now, look at verse
18. He's going to talk about another
man who is unnamed, but he's given a title that all of us
should long for. Verse 18, we have sent along
with him the brother whose fame and the things of the gospel
has spread through all the churches. Look at this man. I mean, not
just in his local assembly, but in sister assemblies, in sister
churches. This man's fame is he knows the
gospel. He loves the gospel. He can communicate
the gospel. This guy is all about the gospel. That's the kind of man we need
to send to the field. All about the gospel. Now look at verse
22. We have sent with them our brother, whom we have often tested
and found diligent in many things, but now even more diligent because
of his great confidence in you." He had an earnestness put in
his heart by God, and these men were tested. Dokimazo. That word is used with regard
to deacons, but the adverb also means that the elders also were
tested. Talk about not testing missionaries.
Most people don't even test elders today. They listen to a preaching
tape and then invite him to come be their pastor. How are you
going to determine if this man has the characteristics of an
elder according to 1 Timothy 3, verses 1-7 and Titus 1, 5-9? You see, let me give you an example.
I was in Mia Flores in Lima, Peru, preaching. doing things
at night, one night, when the biggest bomb in the history of
that war blew up about a block and a half away, 2,000 pounds
of TNT. We were all running for our lives,
buildings are falling on our head, there's blood everywhere,
and I thought to myself, I need to run, I need to run, I need
to run. I need to get to those people, get to those people.
They're gonna die, they're gonna die, they're gonna die. I get
there, and I'm running full speed, and I slip on the blood that's
everywhere. I grab somebody, and I haul him
out. I go in, I grab somebody, I haul him out. I could do that. But I couldn't fix them. I was
never trained as a doctor. Held a man dying in my arms years
before who'd been shot six times through the heart. I grabbed
a towel, pulled him against me, and we hit the floor. I could
do my best, but I wasn't a doctor. Most guys who are sent to the
mission field, they're really not missionaries. They've got
to be able to open this book and not just say, I want to do
something, I want to do something. They've got to actually be able
to do something, open their mouth and proclaim the Word of God
and order the church according to the laws of our God, not suggestions,
laws. I had a young man come to me
one time. Let me finish the story or you're
going to think I'm very cruel. He calls me up on the phone.
He says, I want to come to Peru. I just want to come to Peru.
I said, alright. He says, I want to come to Peru. I just want to give my life away.
I just want to give my life away. I said, how are you in your study
of Scripture? Well, you know, that's kind of
a weak spot with me. I really struggle. Sometimes I don't even
read my Bible. But I just want to give my life away. How are
you in intercessory prayer? In the night watch? Well, you know, I really struggle
in that. OK. Evangelism, street evangelism,
street preaching. Well, look, Paul, look, Mr. Washer,
I just I just want to give my life away. I said, young man,
there's nobody here in Peru who needs your life. They need God
and someone who can open up his mouth and tell them about God.
One of the greatest missionaries alive today is a friend of The
elders of my church, Anthony, friends of myself, he's one of
the most, never met a man like him. He's been beat up more times. He told his wife a while back,
honey, you're going to have to stop getting me in fights that
my body can't win anymore. He's out in a place I can't even
mention. And this is what he always says. If one more floppy
top teenager with really cool hiking shoes and a keen backpack
Comes walking through my mountain range one more time, dropping
tracks out of his backpack and riding home in code so that all
the people go, oh, and he says, I think I'm a throw up. We need
men. who know their God, men who know
the Word of God, men who love the church, not some little cloud
of thing called the church, not something you can't see and touch,
men who love the church and are willing to die for the church. My friend David Zadok is here
from Hagefen, from Tel Aviv, and his ministry is out there.
I wish you'd go visit it. I was talking to him yesterday
about shaliach, ha-shaliach. And I said, David, am I right
on this in Hebrew? He said, yes, you are. He said,
but, you know, about one sent out with the authority of another.
And then he said this to me. He said, you know, the Israeli
government still uses that term. I said, really, how? The shaliach are a group of men
who are sent out of Israel to go around the world to gather
Jews and call them back to the promised land. It's a Hebrew word for apostle,
messenger, and that's what we're called to do. And I can tell
you this, I can tell you this, if you believe in the sovereignty
of God, If you believe in the power of the Word of God, if
you believe in the power of the Holy Spirit and intercessory
prayer, you can go into the deepest hell hole in the world and you
can have the confidence that if you will stand there and preach
long enough, strong enough, and persevere, everything they throw
at you, somebody's coming out of there saved. Somebody's coming
out of there saved. That's what missions is about. Good day.