blessed name. Amen. Well, men, I cannot tell you
how much I have enjoyed being with you. And there is a sense
of loss I already feel about having to bring this conference
to a close tomorrow. You have enriched my life You
have encouraged me. You have strengthened me. The
fellowship that I have enjoyed with so many of you, as iron
sharpens iron, so one man another. And you have sharpened me. And
for this, I am deeply grateful. As I will go back to the United
States, I will carry you in my heart. And I hope that our paths
providentially will cross again. my thunder. There's none left
in the heavens. And so, I'm going to look at
this passage just in a normal sequential fashion moving through
this line upon line as Paul instructs young Timothy. My eye was originally
on verse 5 due to the work of an evangelist. And we'll talk
about that as we come to verse 5. But just to let you know where
we are headed, I want to look at this in a normal consecutive
fashion. So, I want to begin by reading
this passage, 2 Timothy chapter 4, beginning in verse 1. This is God's inspired, inerrant,
infallible, authoritative, all-sufficient, immutable Word. Paul writes, I solemnly charge
you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge
the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom,
preach the word. Be ready in season and out of
season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears
tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance
to their own desires. and will turn away their ears
from the truth, and will turn aside to miss. But you, and you
can just see Paul as he's almost pointing a finger. Timothy's
not there, but you, you young man, but you be sober in all
things. Endure hardship. Do the work
of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. This must be the signature text
in the entire Bible on the subject of expository preaching. And
if we are to understand any passage on exposition from the scripture,
it must be this text. For those of us who preach, this
text is our marching orders. This text is our job description. This text is our great commission. It is written by the Apostle
Paul to his young son in the faith, Timothy. The year is 67
A.D. And the veteran preacher has
come to the end of his life. He finds himself imprisoned in
Rome. He's held in confinement, in
a hole in the ground, in the Mamertine prison. This is his
second Roman imprisonment. He was released from his first
Roman imprisonment. It was merely house arrest. He
was there for two years. And he was released to preach
the gospel again. But he now knows there will be
no release. The end is now here. And as these
are the last words to come from the inspired pen of the Apostle
Paul. He has written 13 epistles. This
is the last of the 13 epistles. It is the last chapter of the
last letter that he will write. These are his last words. Last
words should be lasting words. This is no time to mince words.
This is no time to address secondary matters. This is a time to speak
to what is primary, not what is peripheral. As I told you
two nights ago, the main thing is to keep the main thing the
main thing. This is the main thing, for those
who are called by God to preach His Word. And so Paul zeroes
in on what is primary for the man of God. It is the preaching
of the Word of God. And what Paul will say to Timothy,
he says to every man in this room tonight directly as if there
is no other man in this room. If you are called of God to preach
His Word, this text has your name written all over it. Whether you are a young man,
Whether you were an old man, whether you've been preaching
for five weeks, whether you've been preaching for five decades,
you will never outgrow this. You will never mature beyond
what Paul says to Timothy here. This is God's charge from heaven. for every man whom He calls to
preach the Word, and it is His Word, God's Word to us tonight. And so as we look at this passage,
I want to set before you three headings. I want to give you
the overview of where we're headed. In verse 1, we see the seriousness
of this charge. At the beginning of verse 2,
we see the substance. of this charge. And then from
the middle of verse 2 on to verse 3, the specifics of this charge. So I want to begin in verse 1,
the sobriety of this charge, the seriousness of this charge. Paul could not be any more serious. He is as serious as a heart attack
as he writes this to his young son in the faith. I want you
to note the urgent tone with which he writes. It's not just
what he says, it's also how he says it. I want you to note how
forceful Paul is with Timothy and with us tonight. He begins
in verse 1, I solemnly charging. This is a verb, diamartiromai,
which is a military term of a commanding officer addressing a subordinate
as the Apostle Paul, who speaks with the authority of Jesus Christ
himself, addresses one of his foot soldiers in the army of
God's preachers, I solemnly charge you." This is an emphatic command. These are orders from headquarters. I solemnly charge you. Fully upon Timothy, he now adds,
in the presence of God and Christ Jesus. I mean, you cannot be
any more serious than this. He is invoking God the Father
and God the Son to bear witness with what He has to say. He is
appealing to the highest court in heaven and earth. It is as
though God the Father and God the Son are looking over His
shoulders, flanking Him on the right and on the left as two
witnesses to validate the authority with which He speaks. I solemnly
charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who, and
the who refers to Jesus Christ, for the Father has given all
judgment to the Son, John 5, 22, who is to judge the living and the dead. It is to remind
Timothy of his direct accountability to the head of the church, to
the one who has called him sovereignly into the ministry. Timothy, this
one who has called you, you will stand before him one day, and
he will scrutinize your ministry, he will examine your ministry,
he will test your ministry, and it will all come out on the last
day. who is to judge the living and
the dead. Timothy, whether you're alive
or dead, that day's coming. That day is marked out on God's
calendar. Timothy, you have an unbreakable
appointment with deity. as you will stand before the
Lord Jesus Christ, and if you're alive, when Christ returns, and
you will be caught up to stand before him, or whether you're
dead, you will be raised from the grave to stand before the
head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder James
said in James 3 verse 1, let not many of you become teachers,
my brethren, knowing as such we shall incur a stricter judgment,
even a stricter judgment than those who sit under our preaching,
unto whom much is given, the same shall be required, and we
have been entrusted with much, the mysteries of Christ, the
oracles of God, and much more is required of us." And then
to tie the knot even tighter, he adds at the end of verse 1,
and by his appearing, in other words, the judge is coming back.
The judge is ready to burst onto the scene. James 5 says the judge
is standing right at the door. Timothy, there's no time for
procrastination on this. As the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, the trumpet of God, the voice of
the archangels, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then
we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord
in the air. He says, behold, I am coming
quickly. It's in the present tense. I'm
on the way. So Timothy must give heed to
this, this very moment. Let's not go home and pray about
it and think about it. Right now, Timothy, Commander
Jesus is speaking through me to you. And not only by His appearing
and His kingdom, that He shall reign forever and ever, and He
will establish His eternal reign after His return. Timothy, see
your calling in light of eternity. Timothy, see your calling in
light of the judgment on the last day. It is looming on the
horizon. It is fast approaching. Timothy, the seriousness and
the sobriety of this calling and this charge that has been
laid upon you. Men, we must feel this eternal
weight of glory upon our shoulders. And I think of John Knox when
he was called into the ministry, that glorious trumpet of Scotland,
as he was the bodyguard for George Hwishart. And when Hwishart was
martyred in front of the St. Andrew's Castle, through various
circumstances, Knox finds himself a teacher of the Bible, the gospel
of John in that castle. And the other men in this Reformed
gathering of believers see the giftedness in John Knox, and
they say to him, you must be surely called of God into the
ministry for the way that you handle the Word of God and for
the way that you teach the Word of God to the younger men and
to the rest of us here in the castle in Knox. Oh, no, he would
not enter in lightly into such a responsibility. And so, there
they were on a Sunday morning in the Lord's day in the gathering
of God's people inside St. Andrew's castle, and the leading
elder is up preaching the Word of God. And in the middle of
the sermon, he stops and looks down at Knox in front of the
whole body of believers and says, John Knox, you are called of
God into the ministry. Knox was overwhelmed. He got
up and ran out. and ran to his room and locked
the door and was scared to come out. And it dropped him to his
knees, for he understood the seriousness of being called by
God into the ministry and the greater accountability and the
severity of the judgment on the last day for which he would be
held accountable for handling the Word of God. And it was under
the crushing weight of the reality of this, he came to grips with
the fact that, yes, he has been called of God. And he reappears
and presents himself to the elders. And from that moment on, it was
though God had launched him into an orbit that would leave its
impact upon England, the continent, as well as Scotland. He understood
the weightiness of this call. Men, I want to remind you again
of the sobriety and the seriousness of which you have been called
by God to preach His Word. And you and I will give an account
to Him on the last day. And I want to encourage you with
this as well. that the One who has called you
and enlisted you, the One who will examine you and test you
on the last day, is the very One who will give you the grace
to sustain you, to fulfill the mission for which He has called
you. And it will be in your weakness that He will make you stand. And you can do all things through
Christ who strengthens you. And apart from Him, you can do
nothing. And He will be everything to you in the ministry. And He
will uphold you, and He will strengthen you. And it says in
Revelation that He holds the seven stars in His right hand.
He's the one who has picked you up. Nobody can get to you except
they come through His hand. He will place you where He wants
you, and He will uphold you through time and eternity. The seriousness
of this charge. I want you to note second, the
substance. Because all of this has been
merely a prelude to come now to the very essence and to the
very heart of this charge. And we find it in verses 2 through
5, and what we find are nine consecutive imperative verbs. Nine consecutive imperative verbs. They come in rapid-fire succession. They come in staccato fashion.
And it is the first imperative verb that serves as the topic
sentence, if you will, for the whole paragraph. And the other
eight imperative verbs that follow the first one will specify how
Timothy is to fulfill the first verb. So the first verb is the
substance. The second through the ninth
verb are the specifics to carry out the first verb. Now, I want
to remind all of us of these nine verbs. This is not a multiple
choice. We don't get to pick three of
the nine. We don't get to look at this
and go, oh, OK, well, I'm just an instructor, and I do the work
of an evangelist, but I don't have to rebuke, and I don't have
to reprove. That's for my assistant, my associate. When I go on vacation, he does
the rebuking and the reproving. And then I come back and get
to fulfill my ministry. No, it doesn't work that way.
These are like links in a chain. When one breaks, the whole chain
breaks. So let's look now at this first
verb, preach the word. This is the engine that's driving
the car. This is the heart of the fillet. This is the epicenter of the
charge. Preach the word. And please note, he does not
say share. the Word. He doesn't say, chat
the Word. He doesn't say, talk the Word. He says, stand up there like
a man, Timothy, and preach the Word with all of the dynamics
of the public proclamation of the Word of God. Timothy, you're
going to have to raise your voice. Timothy, you're going to have
to speak with intensity, with urgency, and with fervency if
you're going to preach. Now, this verb, preach, caruso,
most of us in this room are very familiar with this verb. It's
drawn out of the culture of the day. Light bulbs are turned on
inside Timothy's mind when he hears this verb, caruso. Caesar
was in Rome. And Caesar, when he would issue
imperial decrees for the entire empire, He would summon his heralds,
and they would come into the palace, and Caesar would issue
to them his imperial decree, and he would dispatch them to
the perimeters of the empire, and they were to go into the
villages, and they were to go into the towns, and they were
to gather the people around them. And the herald was to represent
Caesar, and he was to cup his hand. He was to lift his voice
and he was to say something like this, hear ye, hear ye this day,
Rome has won a great victory and we have triumphed over the
surrounding kingdom and they are now annexed under the authority
of Caesar. Or the herald would say something
like this, Hear ye, hear ye this day. Caesar has a son. There is an heir to the throne
of Rome. He was not to enter into negotiation
with the people who gathered around. He was not at liberty
to withhold any part of the message that was entrusted to him He
was forbidden to add any of his own thoughts or opinions or perspective
to the message that was given, and he was to conduct himself
in such a manner that he was a proper representative of Caesar. After the message had been discharged
and given, he was to report immediately back to Rome, he was to go back
into the palace, he was to stand before Caesar, and he was to
give an account of himself to Caesar regarding the faithfulness
and the fullness of the message that he has given. This is exactly
what Paul says to Peter. You have been summoned before
the tribunal of heaven and earth. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the
head of the church, has entrusted to you the message of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. And you were to go into the highways
and the byways. And you were to stand on the
housetops. And you were to shout it far and wide. And you were
to proclaim the message of the kingdom of heaven. And to say,
repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And one day, Timothy,
you will be standing before the tribunal of heaven and the very
palace of God himself. and you will give an account
to the Lord Jesus Christ regarding the fidelity with which you have
discharged your duty." In the Theological Dictionary
of the New Testament, Augustus Frederick has written regarding
this verb charuso and the noun form for herald He has written
this in that large multi-volume dictionary of the New Testament.
He writes, it was demanded of heralds that they deliver their
message as it was given to them. The report which they give is
that which does not originate with themselves. Behind the message
they bring stands a higher power. The herald does not express his
own views. He is a spokesman for his master. Heralds adopt the mind of those
who commission them and act with the authority of their master.
It is not for a herald to act on his own initiative. And without
explicit instructions, the herald is bound by the precise instructions
of the one who commissions him. The good herald does not become
involved in lengthy negotiations, but returns at once when he has
delivered his message. He is simply an executive instrument. Being only the mouth of his master,
He must not falsify the message entrusted to him by additions
of his own. He must deliver it exactly as
it was given to him." That's the meaning of the word
preach. And that's the meaning of the word to be a herald. And
that is the meaning of what it is that God has called you and
me to do. We have nothing to say apart
from the Word of God. And look what he's to preach,
the Word. We know what the word is. He
tells us in chapter 3 and verse 16. It could not be any more
clear. Scripture, all scripture is inspired
by God. The word scripture means writings.
It's not some mystical experience that Timothy would have and he's
to be the interpreter of his own goosebumps. He is to stick to the written
text of Holy Writ. And in verse 15, right above
that, he says, you have known from childhood the sacred writings. Underscore that word, writings.
That is what Timothy is to preach. It is the word of God. Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone. Tota Scriptura. All of Scripture. You and I are
just like waiters at a restaurant. We're not the chef. We simply
deliver it to the table what has been cooked in the kitchen.
And we need to deliver it hot. If you catch my drift. When the
Bible speaks, God speaks, and that's what needs to come out
of our mouth. We read the text, we explain
the text, we apply the text, we exhort with the text, we teach
the doctrine of the text, we move on to the next text. That's
what we do. That's the substance of the charge. And I don't know where you are
in your ministry. I don't know what's going on.
But I love asking the pastors here today, what are you preaching? It is music to my ears to hear
you say, Luke, Ecclesiastes, 1 John, that you are preaching
the word of the living God. God will honor the man who honors
his word. Now, how do we do this? We're
all in on this. We couldn't be out on this. We
have to be in on this, preach the word. So this leads us now
third to the specifics, because it matters to God how you preach.
It matters to God not just what you say, it matters to God how
you say it. And I told you two nights ago,
none of us here are free to redefine preaching in this generation.
God has already given to us, in essence, the regulative principle
for preaching on how we are to preach the word. And I would
remind you, sir, that these are imperative verbs. These are commanding
verbs. This is necessary for each and
every one of us, and to fail to do this, we have gone AWOL. We have broken rank. We have
dismissed ourselves from being under the authority of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This is non-negotiable. This
is binding upon our conscience and upon our life. So, Let's
look now at these eight consecutive verbs that just come in rapid
fire succession. And these eight verbs are numbers
two through nine in this flow that is coming out of the pen
of the Apostle Paul. And let me remind us all, this
is the last thing to ever come from his pen. In real estate,
we say there are three things that are important. Location,
location, location. And so it is right here. The
location of these verses should leap off the page and grab every
one of us by the lapel and draw us up close because this is how
God requires His Word to be preached. First, be ready. Be ready in
season and out of season. Do you see that? Be ready is
a verb that is also a military verb, and it means to be on the
alert. It means to be a soldier whose
sword is always drawn, and always manning your post, and always
ready to preach the Word of God with suddenness, with readiness,
as a soldier is ready for battle at a moment's notice. It means
that we are to be on constant vigil The finger is to be on
the trigger. The bullets of the gospel are
to be in the gun. The arrows are to be in the bow.
We are to be ready. And please note, in season and
out of season. That is a euphemistic expression
for all day, every day. There is no other season. It's
either in season or out of season. There is no other season. And
what this means You are to preach the Word in good times and in
bad times. You are to preach the Word when
it is convenient and when it is inconvenient. You are to preach
the Word when it is welcomed and when it is unwelcomed. You
are to preach the Word when the people want it and when the people
do not want it. You are to preach the Word always. good times and in bad times. If it's trouble in the church,
if it's peace in the church, if the church is growing, if
the church is shrinking, if the church is sailing through troubled
waters, if the church is anchored in a port of calm waters, in
season and out of season, the Word is to be in your mouth and
you are to be preaching the Word of God. that that's number one. And I'll just have to say, I
do not understand a God-called preacher who says, Oh, I don't know that
I can preach once a week. That's so much. Brother, you need to be ready.
in season and out of season. And we ought to be able to wake
you up at three o'clock in the morning in your bed and you're
on the second point of your sermon by the time your feet hit the
bedroom floor. So stop your whining. Be ready. Man up. Be ready. Second, reprove This word reprove
is a Greek verb that means to expose. To expose what is wrong. Just as light exposes what is
hidden in the darkness. Our preaching is to be a searchlight
that shines into the lives of people and brings to the light
wrong attitudes, wrong priorities. wrong actions, wrong reactions,
wrong words. This word reprove means to convict. You need to be a very convicting
preacher. You need to warn. You need to
show one his faults. And let me tell you why this
is so important. No one will ever be saved under your ministry
until they know they're lost. And no one giggles through the
narrow gate. And no one comes skipping into
the kingdom of heaven. We have all suffered a heart
wound. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are they who mourn. And as we preach the word of
God, it is incumbent, it is necessary, it is non-negotiable. that we
point out sin through the preaching of the Word of God. Preaching
today has been described as a mild-mannered man standing in front of a mild-mannered
congregation and urging them to be more mild-mannered. That's
what preaching has devolved to. today, and no wonder our churches
have become havens for unconverted people to join our social clubs. Martin Lloyd-Jones said, for
many years, I thought I was a Christian. Thank you. When in fact, he knows. Lloyd-Jones said, I thought I
was a Christian. when in fact I was not. It was
only later that I came to see that I had never been a Christian.
What I needed was preaching that would convict me of sin, but
I never heard this. The preaching we had always passed
on the assumption that we are all Christians. So Lloyd-Jones
is converted, Lloyd-Jones is called into the ministry, Lloyd-Jones
gets married, Lloyd-Jones goes to Wales, and guess who is one
of his first converts? His wife, Beth-Anne, was converted
under his preaching. And she said, it was for two
years under Martin's preaching before I really understood what
the gospel was. I thought you had to be a drunkard
or a prostitute to be converted. Men, if there is no conviction
of sin, there is no conversion to the Savior. You ought to tweet
that. If there is no conviction of
sin, there is no conversion to the
Savior. Be ready. Are you ready? Reprove. Are you reproving? Next, rebuke. And this word means
to charge sharply. It means to issue a threatening
command. It means to warn of negative consequences. It is
the call for repentance. It is the call for a change of
attitude and change of life. Listen, that's how Jesus preached.
You remember in the Sermon on the Mount? You have heard that
it was said that you should not commit adultery. But I say unto
you that if your right eye makes you stumble, Pluck it from your
head. It would be better for you to
have your right eye removed than for your whole body to go into
the fiery hell. And that's where you're going.
You're going to hell forever if you do not repent. Men, that
is rebuking and preaching. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees. When the woman at the well said,
Sir, give me this water. We would have prayed a prayer,
baptized her, and stuck her in the church. Yeah, you would have. Jesus said, so how many husbands
do you have? Because we're going to talk about
sin, and you're going to have to repent, and you're going to
have to turn away from your sin if you're going to turn to me.
Jesus called for repentance. Be ready, reprove, rebuke. Before I move on, I just have
to tell you this. I remember when I was in seminary, I went
to study at Reformed Theological Seminary so I could study under
R.C. Sproul. And the class before R.C., I
remember the professor saying this, men, I'm going to come
hear you preach one day. And I'm going to sit on the front
row. And halfway through your sermon, I'm going to hold up
a placard. I'm going to hold up this. And
no one else can see it but you, because I'm going to be seated
right there. And it's just going to have two words on it. So what? For all your doctrine, for all
your teaching, for all your instruction, so what? So what do you want
me to do with this? How am I supposed to respond?
And what Jesus, what Paul is calling for here is the so what. We have to be ready, reprove,
rebuke, look at the next word, exhort. That means to come alongside
in order to call someone to a course of action. We have to urge. We have to plead. You know what
I think, honestly? I think a lot of us are too proud
to beg. We need to persuade. We need
to call for the verdict. We need to summon. We need to
urge our listeners to respond to the message of the gospel.
Listen, when I asked my wife to marry me, I had to do more
than do a word study on agapeo. I had to be very persuasive.
That was a tough sell. Selling me to her. But if we're
going to preach the gospel, we've got to do more than word studies,
more than exegesis, more than historical background, more than
grammar, more than syntax, more than networking with the rest
of Scripture. We have to call people to come
to faith in Christ. The very word that should be
on the tip of your tongue is the word that Jesus used so often,
come. Come unto me, all you who are
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If any man thirst,
let him come to me and drink. Enter through the narrow gate. We need to be calling people
to come to the Savior. We need to swing open the gates
of paradise. and urge men and women with the
free offer of the gospel, as well as preaching to those who
are already converted to pursue holiness, to resist temptation,
to mortify the flesh, to set their mind on things above and
not on things of the earth. And notice how we are to exhort.
He says, with great patience. Why? Because they don't always
immediately respond to the preaching of the word. You've got to keep
on keeping on. In this word, patience, macrothymia
means to abide under. And the idea is to abide under
resistance. There needs to be forbearance
and longsuffering and perseverance as we exhort, not just with patience,
with great patience. And then he adds an instruction.
You just keep on preaching the word of God. And this word instruction,
didache, means doctrine, teaching, expanding who God is, who we
are, what sin is, who Christ is, what he accomplished, what
God requires of us. What did the doctor say? What
is preaching? It is theology on fire. The fire is the exhortation,
the theology is the instruction. It's all bound up in here. And
I love what the Puritans used to say, there needs to be a fire
in the pulpit. And a fire gives off two elements.
A fire gives off light, and a fire gives off heat. And it needs
to give off both, and it does give off both. And in our preaching,
there needs to be the light of illumination, the light of instruction,
the light of truth, and it is to come with red-hot passion. And I would remind us of what
John Murray said, that great Scott preacher, theologian, if
there is no passion, there is no preaching. In other words,
you're just out there talking. Preach the word. So now as we come to verse 3,
the next verb is not until verse 5. in this imperative lineup. There are verbs in verses 3 and
4, but they are not the imperative that is in this staccato fashion. And so, verses 3 and 4 set up
the next imperative verb. So, before we can get to the
next imperative verb at the beginning of verse 5, be sober, he must
tell us why we must be sober. And so beginning in verse three,
Paul says to Timothy, for the time will come when they, who's
the they? And I want to point out, I think
that, I believe that it is unconverted church members in the church
who do not want doctrinal preaching that's on fire. For the time
will come, and the time is not the end of the age, the time
came in Timothy's own lifetime. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. They're not going to put up with
it. They don't want your theology, they don't want your instruction,
they want something else. And he tells us what that is
at the end of verse 3, but wanting to have their ears tickled. They don't want their minds renewed,
they want their ears tickled. They want their back slapped.
They want their palms greased. They want their ears tickled.
And what a metaphor that is. They want honey poured into their
ear. They want to be told how great
they are. They want to be told good feeling kind of messages. But wanting to have their ears
tickled, the fact is they need to have their ears boxed. wanting
to have their ears tickled, they, referring to these lost church
members inside the church who are sitting under your preaching,
they will accumulate for themselves. They're going to stockpile one
preacher after another, and they're going to run off the Bible preacher,
and they're going to call and hire the communicator. They will accumulate for themselves.
They're just going to stack them up one right after another. They're
going to just blow through preachers. They will accumulate for themselves
teachers in accordance to their own desire. They don't want preaching
that holds them accountable. They don't want preaching where
there are imperative verbs. They don't want preaching where
they are called to follow and pursue holiness. They want teachers
in accordance to their own desire. I'm reminded again of Martin
Lloyd-Jones. When he went to Westminster Chapel, he heard
the same thing in Wales. You remember he got down there
to Wales and they had like a drama ministry on Saturday night to
try to attract people into the church so that they would come
back on the weekend. Of course, that doesn't work.
So the first thing Lloyd-Jones does as he goes to Wales is he
nails the pulpit to the floor so it can't be moved out for
their little dramas. You got to love that, don't you?
He's making a statement, the Word of God will be preached,
and now we're not going to resort to the entertainment of this
world to beguile people. And fact of the matter is, you
keep them the same way you get them. So, if you get them with
vaudeville, you're going to have to keep them with vaudeville.
You know what vaudeville is. That's theater in America. So,
he goes to Westminster Chapel, and he hears more of the same.
You know, it's World War II. We're dying as a church. The
population is moving out to the suburbs. I mean, we got to do
something to get people in here. And Lloyd-Jones said, as you
know, he was previously a doctor. He said, when I was a physician,
I never let the patient write the prescription. Sea law. Pause and meditate on
that. I never let the patient write
the prescription. And the point was obvious. And
neither will the congregation dictate to the preacher what
God has commanded the preacher to do. So it is in this setting they
will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their
own desire and will turn their ears away from the truth. And when it says turn their ears
away, that verb turn away means to throw a bone at a joint. They will turn their head so
quickly away from the straightforward instruction and doctrinal preaching
with exhortation that it's like they throw their neck at a joint
so they don't have to hear this kind of preaching. I want to
tell you, this is an unconverted man. This is a man who has a
heart of stone. There has never been a heart
transplant. That heart of stone has never
been taken out. He has never received a heart
of flesh. The Word of the Law has never
been written upon the tablet of his heart. The Spirit of God
has never been put within him. There has never been a God-given
desire to hunger for the Word of God. The Spirit of God is
not at work in this life. So all this now leads up to the
next verb. This is serious stuff. But you,
and the idea is don't be like every other preacher, but you,
be sober in all things. And the all things especially
refers to this ministry and this charge of the preaching of the
Word of God. But you be sober. He's not talking about being
physically sober. That would go without saying.
The word sober here means to be un-intoxicated. And in this
context, it means to be un-intoxicated and unswayed and unaffected by
what these people clamor for. you do not be sucked into their
requirements and their demands, because you're not going to stand
before them on the last day, and you're not preaching their
word. You are preaching the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not become intoxicated with
the spirit of this age. Do not become intoxicated with
the demands of lost church members and cave in and capitulate to
them. Young man, you be sober. You
stay the course. You hear the voice of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You hear my instruction to you.
You preach the word. You be ready. Reprove, rebuke,
exhort with great patience and instruction regardless of what
they want. And then he adds this, endure
hardship. Why would he say that? Because
Timothy is under hardship. They're looking down on his youth.
He's got unqualified elders. He has unqualified deacons. There
is the rumblings in the congregation. Paul speaks to Timothy again
like a commanding general to a soldier. You endure hardship. You undergo difficulty in the
face of trials in this preaching ministry. You persevere in your
preaching. You remain strong in the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You be willing to hang
in there during this time of the storms and the opposition. When I used to play football,
in practice, my coach used to say this, Lawson, I want to see
some blood on your jersey. And I'd get my nose bashed in,
I'd get an elbow and an arm hit and the blood would begin to
flow and the coach would come over and he would put his hand
on my open wound. and get blood all over his hands,
and he would just smear it all over my jersey. And he goes,
Lawson, you now get a game jersey. You're going to get to play in
the game because you're willing to get a bloody nose in practice. Man, I want to say to you, you
don't get a game jersey in the ministry until there's some blood
on your practice jersey. And there are tough times. We heard about that earlier this
morning in that beautiful exposition from Numbers and those stories,
which our brother could have gone on at length in describing
the challenges, the opposition, the resistance that he faced
at times. And all who desire to live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. That's right here
in 2 Timothy 3 verse 12. And I know what this is like.
I remember my first pastorate, I was 30 years old. I walked
into an elders meeting, I've never even been in an elders
meeting in my life. I walked in, every elder in that
room was more than twice my age. And the attitude was, this was
our church before you came, it's gonna be our church while you're
here, and it's gonna be our church after you leave. I could just
see it written right across their forehead. And it was their wife
that wrote it right there. Yeah, he's the head of the house,
but she's the neck that turns the head. And I faced war after war after
war. It was an Arminian church. It
was a dysfunctional church. And I remember the day I got
the phone call from the chairman of the elders. from his secretary,
saying, I just want you to know, young man, that I overhear every
phone conversation that my boss makes. And you need to know he
has one agenda for your life, and it is to run you out of town.
And it is to run you out of this church. And he was the head of
a very visible ministry in that area. And I had to make a choice. Either I'm going to bolt and
run like a wild horse, or I'm going to drop anchor. And sir,
you don't know perseverance, but I'm going to show you." And
by the grace of God, God eventually removed that man. But you have
to endure hardship. I remember another time I was
pastoring a huge church. The sanctuary held 4,000 people.
It was a gigantic church. And I was preaching through Romans.
It was a very Arminian church. Don't ask me how I got there,
but I was there. And I had just preached Romans
8, verse 28. And the very next verse, you know it, those whom
he foreknew, he predestined, and he predestined, he called,
and he called, he justified, and he justified, he glorified. And
the chairman of the deacons, which was the man in the church,
one of the most powerful men in town, he calls me into his
office, one of those huge offices, got like three desks in it. He
has me sit down and he said, young man, do not preach the
next verse. I said, sir, you have just guaranteed
I will preach the next verse. Yeah, return serve. And that's
the last time I ever saw him. I went to a wedding not long
ago. I haven't seen him in 15 years. You've got to make a decision. Are you going to be his boy or
are you going to be God's servant? I remember another time I got
a phone call. It was on a Wednesday night.
I would normally preach to, let's say, 300 people on a Wednesday
night. I got a phone call, Pastor, the
whole church is going to be here tonight, and while you're preaching,
they're going to take over the pulpit, and they're going to
call for the vote, and they're going to vote you out of the
church. So I called for a parliamentarian. for there to be some kind of
civil order in this meeting. I got a babysitter to keep my
children at home. I show up that Wednesday night.
There's over a thousand people there. They've called their children
in from college. They're stacking the vote. They're
getting everyone there. And so you get up to preach.
And it's like Winston Churchill said, there's nothing more exhilarating
in life than being shot at and be missed. And let me tell you, they were
a bunch of gutless wonders. They were Mr. Big Talk at the
coffee shop and their wives were Miss Big Talk in the beauty parlors.
But when they come to church and they get in front of everyone
else, they're cowards on the inside. And you endure hardship. And you just keep on preaching.
And when the sermon is over, you're still standing to preach
another day. And worse things could happen than you be run
out of the church. Now, look at the next verb. Endure
hardship. Can you relate to that tonight? The next verb. do the work of
an evangelist. It's in this context with unconverted
church members, tares among the wheat, bad fish caught in the
same net with the good fish, foolish virgins along with wise
virgins, Judas's among the twelve. It's in this context you need
to do the work of an evangelist, and it's amazing how many of
your church problems are going to clear up with a few conversions. When some of those troublemakers
are subdued by the Spirit of God and captured by the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ and brought to the foot of the cross
and they are regenerated from the top of their head to the
bottom of their feet, you do the work of an evangelist. You
preach the gospel. And let me just tell you, not
everyone in your church is converted. Jesus had only 12, and one of
them was a devil. And when I'm in many Reformed
churches, I will give the free offer of the gospel at the end
of the service. And after the service is over, I will have
certain elders and deacons and back row pew sitters come up
to me. And you would think I've done a wild thing in their church. to say, come to faith in Jesus
Christ, you may be lost. We're not hyper-Calvinists in
doctrine, but a lot of us are hyper-Calvinists in methodology. We're almost hiding the gospel
in a barrage of word studies. without calling them to faith
in Jesus Christ. Do the work of an evangelist
with these who want to accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance
with their own desires, these who are turning their ear away
to miss, these who are not wanting sound doctrine. It's because
they don't have an appetite for the Word of God. All of this is built up to fulfill
your ministry, which is a summation of everything that has preceded. And fulfill your ministry literally
means, in the original language, to bring full, to make full,
to fill full, to fill to the full. In other words, leave nothing
unsaid. Leave no doctrine untaught. Leave
no duty uncharged. Leave no sin unexposed. Leave no promise offered. Fulfill your duty. So, Pastor, this is our charge. It has come down through the
centuries. Paul passed the torch to Timothy. And as he passed
it to Timothy, it has come down century by century, and it has
now been placed into our hand. And there's the blood of the
martyrs on this torch. There is the sweat of those who
have gone before us. There have been valiant men like
John Knox who roared like a lion and who thundered the Word of
God in the very face of the Queen of Scotland. They're the giants
of the faith. This torch has come down to us,
often on a sea of blood of the martyrs. I keep in the front
of my Bible here an etching of John Rogers, the first Marian
martyr, burned at the stake, February the 4th, 1555. Every
time I go to London, I go to Smithfield, I want to stand where
John Rogers was burned at the stake. We can't go AWOL now. We can't
go into a seeker-sensitive ministry now. We can't resort to skits
and drama now. We've got to preach as we've
never preached before. And in this room alone, if all
of us rose up as one man with one voice, there would be a great
awakening. If we would preach as the Apostle
Paul has charged young Timothy, And oh, how we need the power
of the Spirit of God to do this in us. When Spurgeon moved the church
into the Metropolitan Tabernacle, it held some 6,500 people. There
was a bottom platform. There was a higher platform.
He, in essence, led the singing from the bottom platform, and
when it was time to preach, he literally mounted up to the top
platform. There was a double spiral staircase
that led up both sides, 15 steps. And as he would ascend up to
that writing desk of a pulpit, every word that he would say
would be taken down and would be put back on his desk the next
day. He would edit it. It would be printed, sold on
the street corners throughout England, the penny pulpit. It
would be cabled across the Atlantic. Fathers would go to buy a copy
of Spurgeon's Sermon. It would be their family devotions
for the week, waiting, realizing the weightiness of this. As he
mounted up to the pulpit with each step, he said this, I believe
in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit.
I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit.
If the most gifted man who ever uttered the English language
was desperately clinging to the power of the Holy Spirit, how
much more so do mere pedestrians like you and me who are still
trying to learn how to preach? How much more do we need the
power of the Holy Spirit every time we step into the pulpit
of God? It is only the Spirit of God
that can enable us to preach the Word like this. And without
the Spirit of God, we're like a man jumping out of an airplane
without a parachute. There is no chance. Let us preach the Word. When the Reformation was started, England was...I mean, Europe
was shaken. The monarchy was tottering. Rome
was feeling the reverberation of the spiritual earthquake that
was emanating out of Wittenberg. And some men came to Luther and
he said, explain what's going on, explain how this is happening. And Luther said this, I simply
taught, preached, wrote God's Word, otherwise I did nothing. And then I slept. And the Word
so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince and never
an emperor ever inflicted so much damage upon it. I did nothing. The Word did it all. May it be
said of our ministries that we did nothing. We just simply preached
the Word and went to sleep. And while we slept, the Word
did it all. Father in heaven, I pray that
you would stir our soul, awaken us, and arouse us. We are mild-mannered
men standing before a congregation of mild-mannered people. And
Lord, at times, we're urging them to be more mild-mannered.
Make us dangerous men with the word. Make us like men of old. Raise up McShane's and Knox's,
Spurgeon's, Lloyd-Jones's out of this room. And may you so
energize us with the power of the Holy Spirit that our preaching
will never be the same again. Father, thank you for the banner
of truth. Thank you for the stewardship that has been entrusted to us
through the teaching that has come from this glorious ministry. And may even here tonight, may
you ignite a flame and a fire upon our hearts. In Jesus' name,
amen. We'll close by singing hymn number
seven. Please stand. The piano will
lead us. Amen. O Lord, however dark it be, lead
me by thine own hand. Choose thou the path for me. Smooth let it be, or rough. ♪ It will be still the best ♪
♪ Winding o'er straitened knees ♪ ♪ Stride onward to thy rest
♪ ♪ I dare not choose my lot ♪ I would not if I might. Jews have for me my God, so shall
I walk aright. ♪ Take thou my commanding ♪ ♪ With
joy or sorrow fill ♪ ♪ As best to thee may seem ♪ ♪ Choose thou
my good or ill ♪ ♪ Choose thou for me my friends ♪ ♪ My sickness
or my health ♪ ♪ Choose how I care for me ♪ ♪ My poverty or wealth
♪ ♪ Of mine, of mine, the choice ♪ ♪ In things or great or small
♪ Be thou my guide, my strength, my wisdom, and my hope. Dear Lord, dismiss us in your
peace. We bow beneath your sovereign
care over us and our churches. Give us rest this evening. Invigorate
us that we might serve you faithfully, even as we listen to the word
of the apostle this evening. We ask in Christ Jesus' name.
Amen.