And tonight I want to speak to
you on, the title is Energetic Students. That's a little awkward. It's really expository preparation. If we're to be expository preachers,
then this necessitates that we be men and study and dig down
into the Word of God so that we can be a mouthpiece for the
Word of God. And so 2 Timothy chapter 2 and
verse 15 is my text for tonight, and I want us to narrow our thoughts
on this very important verse. I'm reading out of the New American
Standard, and it reads, be diligent. Your translation may say, do
your best. To present yourself approved
to God. as a workman who does not need
to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of Truth. From this verse, we learn about
the commitment to study the Word of God that is required of Timothy
if he is to faithfully expound its truths. To this point, Paul
has always been at Timothy's side. being his teacher, his
instructor, his on-site theologian, and guiding Timothy into the
truth. There has been some separation
towards the end of Paul's life, but as Paul writes these words,
he is aware that he will no longer be in the room with Timothy.
Timothy will be on his own. Timothy will have to stand on
his own two feet. And Paul will not be there to
be an interpretive lens for Timothy. And so Paul instructs Timothy
here as Paul is stepping off the scene. It will be in a very
short time. He will be pulled out of this
Mamertine prison and tradition says taken to the ocean way and
his head severed. And Timothy will be left with
the Word of God. without the author of so many
of these epistles. And Timothy will have to dig
it out of the scripture on his own. Timothy will have to study
as he has never studied before. Timothy will have to pray as
he has never prayed before. And he will no longer have his
mentor, his instructor, his teacher to even provide correction for
when his interpretations might go astray. And so without Paul
at his side, Timothy is expected to diligently study as he has
never studied to this point before. This same responsibility is laid
on every one of, at every one of our feet, because we too are
without Paul in the room. We too are without Paul looking
over our shoulder. It is just us, and a Bible, and
the spirit of the living God, and we must read and we must
study as we never have before in our lives. John Piper has
said, at the heart of every pastor's work is book work. Call it reading, call it meditation,
call it reflection, cogitation, call it study, call it exegesis,
or whatever you will, a large and central part of our work
is to wrestle God's meaning from a book and to proclaim it in
the power of the Holy Spirit." In order for us to be expository
preachers, we must be engaged in expository study and expository
preparation. We must be ever deepening our
well in the fertile soil of the Word of God that rivers of living
water would burst forth. We must worry about the depth
of our study and let God worry about the breadth of our ministry. The deeper we take people into
God's Word, the higher they will rise up to worship God. Shallow preaching produces shallow
worship. It is deep theology that produces
high doxology. And there are too many preachers
today who are worried about filling the building, and they never
fill the pulpit. And what Paul has to say here
is a call to every one of us. to go down deep into the Word
of God and extract the precious pearls and bring them to the
surface and trust God for the result in our ministries. As
we look at verse 15 tonight, I want to walk through this one
verse virtually word by word. And I want to set before you
tonight five distinguishing marks. of every expository preacher
as he digs into the Word of God. And there is an inseparable connection
between our study and our proclamation. So, let's look at verse 15. I
want to read it one more time. Be diligent to present yourself
approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed. Accurately or rightly handling
the Word of Truth. Five distinguishing marks that
must be true of my life and must be true of your life as we would
exposit the Word of God. Distinguishing mark number one,
at the beginning of verse 15, is an eager spirit. An eager
spirit. Notice how Paul begins this verse,
he says, be diligent. Your translation may read in
the ESV, do your best. It's more than just do your best,
quite frankly. It is to be diligent. It is to
be eager. This is a Greek word, spoudazo,
which means to use speed. that you and I would be sprinting
to the Word of God, that we're not dragging our feet, that we're
not reluctant, that we're not procrastinating, but that we
use speed to get to the Word of God. That's literally at the
heart of the meaning of this verb. It means to be prompt.
It means to hasten. to be zealous, if you will, to
be zealous for the Word of God, to be eager to get into the Word
of God. In other words, it's not mechanical
for us. It's not routine. It's not just
cranking out one more study. To be eager, to be diligent here,
it means to not be lagging behind. It means to be out ahead. It
means not to be dull or bored or stoic as we come to the Word
of God. It means not to be half-hearted
or to be dry or to be merely intellectual as if we are coming
to study science or arithmetic. No, it is for our whole heart
to be into our study of the Word of God, and we are to be zealous
and to be eager. Just to parse this verb for a
moment, it is in the active voice. Meaning, Timothy must take action
for this. The initiative must lie with Timothy as God acts
upon his heart. He cannot wait for just the pressure
of the moment to drag him into the study because Sunday morning
is coming. He is to be spring-loaded and
ready to leap into the Word of God. It's in the imperative mood. It is a command from the Apostle
Paul to young Timothy. Timothy, you must be zealous
in this. And it's in the second person
singular, meaning as if no one else is in the room, as if no
one else on planet earth exists, Timothy, you, young man, must
be zealous. It is this eagerness to be in
the Word of God that accompanies the call to preach. When God
calls a man to preach his word, God does something supernatural
down in his soul. And God gives him a passion and
a desire to know the truth and to study the truth. And if I
could just give you a word of personal testimony from my own
life, I am the last person in this room to be pouring himself
into books. I grew up in an academic home.
My father was a professor in medical school. He was a PhD. He was a brilliant scientist.
He grew up in abject poverty in the Great Depression of the
1920s in West Texas, where John Steinbeck wrote his novel, Grapes
of Wrath. My father lived during that depression. And he made something of himself
simply with education. as he went off to college and
ultimately a PhD. So I grew up in a home with a
father who was a professor in medical school who had reading
and study at the very top ladder. My mother was valedictorian of
every school she ever attended. She graduated number one always.
My brother is a professor in medical school. My brother is
a cardiologist at one of the top medical schools in the United
States, at Vanderbilt Medical School. My sister, a master teacher.
And then there was me. I didn't want to have anything
to do with study. I was a football player. basketball
player, baseball player, ran track, played golf. I went to college on a full football
scholarship. That's who I was. That was my
identity. I went to one of the top high
schools in the United States. I didn't pay any attention. I
got through college literally by reading every other page of
Cliff Notes. I could barely get through school. And then the day God called me
to preach. And it was like a switch was
turned on inside of me. And suddenly, for no reason known
to me other than the invisible hand of God was doing something
in my heart, I suddenly had an insatiable appetite to want to
know the truth, want to read books, and want to dive down
into what in my entire life I had run away from. I remember one
day when I was pastoring before my father passed away. He walked
into my office in the church that I was pastoring. I had three
offices filled with books from ceiling to floor, all four walls. And I remember my father walking
in and looking at all those books. And then he looked at me and
he said, surely there's a God in heaven. My son the student. My son the
reader. There is no explanation for me
to be reading and studying and to literally have a book in front
of my nose continually, now to be writing books, except God
puts a supernatural zeal in the heart of the one he calls into
the ministry, and you cross the line, and now you must know the
truth. You must dig it out of a book.
You must wrestle like Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord. to
wrestle through the night that you would own the truth and know
the truth. Has God done this in your heart
and in your soul? And I believe that He has, or
you would not be coming to a conference like the Banner of Truth Conference,
and every introduction is holding up 10 books that you need to
buy. But that's at the heart of expository
preaching. We must draw from an ever deepening
well of truth. So that's number one, a zealous
spirit, an eager spirit to dig into the word of God. And I will
go so far as to say, if that desire is not in your heart and
soul, you should question whether or not God has actually called
you into the ministry. And I'm of opinion, we may not
need more men in the ministry. We actually may need fewer men,
but better men and deeper men in the ministry. It begins with
an eager spirit. Now, second, as we continue to
walk through verse 15, a presented life. For Paul goes on to say
to young Timothy, Timothy, my son, Be diligent to present yourself
approved to God. Timothy, you need to be like
a priest and lay hold of the sacrifice of your life. and be
continually offering yourself to God and taking hands off of
your life and replacing your life daily into the hands of
the living God. This verb present is a compound
word. The main root word is to cause
to stand, to make, to stand, there's a prefix in front of
it, para, meaning beside or before. Timothy, you need to be presenting
your life before the Lord, to stand before the Lord in order
that you may be approved by God. Not by the elders, not by the
deacons, not by the congregation, But before him who is the one
who has enlisted you into his service, before him before whom
you will stand on the last day, and who will have the say in
your ministry, Timothy, you need to present yourself approved
to God. And this word approved means
to be tested and tried as a metal would be put into a furnace and
be tested with intense heat to show the purity of the metal
and the separation from the alloys so as to be approved and accepted
by God. Now let me tell you, if you please
God, it does not matter who you displease. And if you displease
God, it does not matter who you please. In this sense, ministry
is very simple. We answer to a committee of one.
We ultimately answer to God himself. Yes, we are humble with our fellow
elders, humble as we serve the church and the congregation,
and we mutually serve one another. But we must be approved by God
Almighty in heaven. That is why James 3 verse 1 says,
Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing as such
we shall incur a stricter judgment. There will be a stricter judgment
for those who are called by God into the ministry, as we will
be searched from the inside out, and therefore, before God, we
must be continually presenting ourselves to Him. I think of
the great evangelist, George Whitefield, who took this so
to heart that in the early days of his ministry, when he was
afresh called by God to preach. that he would literally study
his Bible on his knees. He would not even sit at a desk.
He would not even be standing before his books. He would get
on the floor and on his knees with an open Bible before him,
studying the Word of God, humbling himself under the mighty hand
of God. Arnold Dallimore writes of Whitefield
in that amazing two-volume biography, We can visualize Whitefield at
five in the morning in his room over Harris's bookstore. He is
on his knees with his Bible, his Greek New Testament, and
a volume of Matthew Henry spread before him. Whitfield, by his
own admission, said, I began to read the holy scriptures upon
my knees in submission to the lordship of Christ, under the
authority of the word of God, recognizing the scripture as
the highest authority in his life, understanding that he has
been called by the head of the church, Jesus Christ, to preach
his word. And it is to him he will stand
our fall. This must be our spirit as well. And so, men, as we go into our
study, as we come before an open Bible, as we have a pad of paper
and a pen or a computer screen within our own heart, within
our own soul, there must be this posture of humility as we would
clothe ourselves with a lowly attitude as we come before the
Word of God. Speak, Lord, your servant listens. We come now to receive the instruction
of the Word of God." And this leads to now number three, the
third distinguishing mark, hard work. Notice what he says in
the middle of verse 15, be diligent To present yourself approved
to God, here it is, as a workman. Your translation may say as a
worker. It's all the same. Ergates. It means a laborer,
a day laborer in the field. one who is a toiler, one who
expends perspiration and labors to the point of exhaustion. That is the very meaning of this
word. I told you last night, it doesn't
take much of a man to be an expositor. It just takes all there is of
him. And whoever you are and whatever you are, it requires
the expenditure of everything that we have to give to the Lord
in this matter of studying the Word of God. It's not something
that we come to casually. It is something that we approach
with great effort. It necessitates long hours and
rising early and sitting at a desk many hours and reading, and studying,
and writing, and rewriting, and editing, and the mental stress,
and the self-discipline, and the self-denial, and saying no
to many other things. This is what is required of us. You know what Martin Luther said
the heaviest object in the world is? He said it's one of these. He said, it's heavier than the
blacksmith's anvil. He said, it's heavier than the
farmer's plowshare. He said, this is the heaviest
object in the world to sit at a desk for extended hours. He said, it's only three fingers
that hold it up, but it is the entire body that is engaged. as your mind is being stretched
and your mind is being drained, as your eyes become weary, as
your back is slumping, as your spirit becomes exhausted, as
you push yourself to the point of exhaustion, this is the heaviest
object in the world. And Luther said, I challenge
any blacksmith to pick up one of these and to hold it all day.
I challenge any farmer in the field to come sit at my desk
and be able to hold this object all day long and use it. You know what Luther's talking
about. You know what this is to pick this up. After I graduated
from college, I went to law school. While I was in college, I played
major college football. All of that doesn't even begin
to compare. to study in Greek, in Hebrew,
in theology, in exegesis, in all of the disciplines that are
involved in being a true expositor of the Word of God. In fact, let me just take you
to a few verses while we're here. Turn back to 1 Timothy. This
is not the first time that Timothy has had this said to him. And in 1 Timothy chapter 5 and
verse 17, Paul has already told Timothy the demands that are
placed upon the man who would step into the office of preaching
the Word of God. And so in 1 Timothy 5 and verse
17, the elders who rule well are to be considered of of worthy
of double honor, especially." And now he singles out from among
the plurality of elders, from among the ruling elders, now
he isolates those who are in the office of a teaching elder
or a preaching elder, and he says, especially those who work
hard at preaching and teaching. And if you're not working hard,
you're not worthy of the honor. In fact, you're not worthy of
the office. Work hard in the original language is just one
word. It means to labor to the point
of exhaustion. It means to so push yourself
in the task that you have nothing left to give. I can remember
times when I used to play football and at the end of the game, the
game would come down to the last play. I'm talking about real
football, okay? Not where you wear little shorts,
okay? Where you wear pads and armor
like men, okay? You don't look like a cheerleader,
okay? You look like an athlete. and times on the last play of
the game, I would take the snap and toss it back to the running
back, and I would be blindsided by linebackers blitzing through,
and I would be face down in the dirt, and I'm just waiting to
hear which grandstand will cheer on the last play of the game
and to be so exhausted. that your teammates have to pull
you up off the ground and help carry you over their shoulder
off the field. There is no feeling like Sunday
night, is there? When you've come home from a
full day, you've preached the word of God with all your heart
in the morning. You may have even taught Sunday
school before then. You're the first one to be there
at church. You're the last one to leave after the Sunday service. You come back that night. You
go home in the afternoon and you reload and you re-prepare. It's like running two marathons
in one day. And you go back up on Sunday
night, you're the first one there again, and you preach the word
of God and you preach with all of your heart and soul and mind
and strength. And you're like that athlete
who just lays it all out on the field. And when the service is
over, you're in the lobby, and you're talking to people, and
you're hearing what they say, and you're reacting to their
comments, and you're counseling. And maybe you're even sharing
the gospel with someone. And then it's time to turn out
the lights. And you get in the car, and you drive home. And
you go into your den. And you just collapse. in your
chair, and your wife brings you a little glass of water, and you just take that and you
just pour it on your head. You've given everything you have
to give. You don't have anything more to give. That's what this
word means, to work hard at preaching and teaching. And I want to tell
you, there is no demand like preaching and teaching. They
have done studies where they've put electrodes on the cardiovascular
system of a preacher and told him, go preach for an hour. And
it is the stress on the cardio system of someone working a 10-hour
workday sitting at a desk with great responsibility. But you
do that twice, you do that three times in a day. That's what Paul
says to Timothy, especially those, double honor to those who labor
hard, work hard at preaching and teaching. Look across the
page at 1 Timothy 4 and verse 10. In fact, he began in verse
7. In the middle of verse 7 he says,
discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. And this word discipline
is a Greek word from which we derive the English word gymnasium. An athlete would go into a gymnasium
and he would strip down so that there would be no restrictions
on the movement of his body. And to discipline yourself for
the purpose of godliness is to shed all desires for the things
of this world, the lures of this world, and to be single-minded
in the pursuit of holiness. And so he is likening the pursuit
of God in the ministry to a world-class athlete. who disciplines his
body, who tells his body when to wake up, who tells his body
when to go to sleep, who tells his body what he will eat and
what he will drink. He doesn't let his body dictate
anything to him. He dictates to his body. And
then we come to verse 10 as he makes this parallel from the
discipline of an athlete who pushes himself at the highest
level. And now in verse 10, he says,
For it is for this, referring to the discipline for godliness,
that we labor. Here is the very same Greek word. It means to work hard, to toil,
the mental stress, the spiritual expenditure, the physical demands. And then when you join that with
the word strive, And it's also an athletic word of the athlete
striving to the finish and pumping his knees and moving his arms
that he would burst the finish line. All of this is required,
not just for a world-class athlete. but for a preacher who would
fulfill his calling and rise to the highest level of effectiveness. Turn back to 1 Corinthians chapter
15. Just very quickly, I'd like to just walk us through a couple
of these verses. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 10,
Paul says, you're gonna have to turn quicker, okay? For by the grace of God, I am
what I am. And His grace toward me did not
prove vain, but I... Here's the very same Greek word,
but I labored. There is no let go and let God
here. I labored even more than all
of them, yet not I, but the grace of God within me. Come, if you
would, to Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4 in verse
11, and this is a repeated anthem from the pen of the Apostle Paul. And in Galatians 4 in verse 11,
he says, I fear for you that perhaps I have labored over you
in vain. that the expenditure of all of
my energies and my labors has not yielded the fruit that it
should have labored. Now come to Philippians chapter
2. Philippians chapter 2 and verse 16 and we see Paul saying
the very same thing. He says, holding fast the word
of life so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to
glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. Listen, to be a minister, to
be a pastor, to be a preacher, to be a biblical preacher, to
be an expository preacher, requires hard work and an extraordinary
commitment. Look at Colossians 1 in verse
29, just very quickly. Colossians 1 in verse 28, he
says, we proclaim him. referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then these participles modifying
the main verb, admonishing every man and teaching every man with
all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. Now verse 29, for this purpose
also I labor, striving, agonizomai, agonizing, pushing myself to
the limit. Devotion in study, devotion in
prayer, devotion in the pulpit for the expositor. The ministry
is living in final exam week every week. Every week of your
life is final exam week. And there are deadlines. And
you give your papers publicly before the entire congregation.
we press on, knowing that Sunday's coming, knowing that midweek
is coming, whether we are ready or not, whether we are healthy
or not. And if we're ill, we don't call
in, we crawl in. It's hard work. That's required
of every man. As you look in the mirror, And
as you examine your ministry, as you examine your life, as
only you can do before the Lord, do you see that you are pushing
yourself to the finish? Are you striding to the finish
with greater resolve and greater determination? I loved watching
Ian Murray up here this morning, 87 years of age, as he's using
his notes up here and then calling from the back of his mind and
adding to what he was saying on the fly as he was ministering
and drawing from decades and decades of study and quoting
Whitfield here and quoting Bunyan here and pulling it all together. That was a world-class athlete.
who was running the race before us. And for those of us who observe,
that should inspire us to pick up our pace and not slow down,
but widen our stride and press on to the finish that God has
for us. And sir, we don't retire. We
just refire and we remount the work. I've met several of you
men here at this conference who said, I've retired. And then
I've said, I bet you're busier than you've ever been before
in your life. And they said, oh, yes. I'm preaching more,
counseling more, praying more than I ever have in my life.
Hard work. That's what Paul says to Timothy.
Young man, I'm not going to be in the room anymore. You're going
to be on your own with the Lord. And it's going to require blood,
sweat, toil, and tears. on your part. Fourth, come back
to, if you would, to 2 Timothy chapter 2. Not only an eager spirit and
a presented life and hard work, but as we continue to walk through
verse 15, fourth, a godly fear. for Paul goes on to say to Timothy
to heighten really the drama of what he is saying. Rather
than backing off, he cinches the knot a little bit tighter,
the knot of human responsibility on Timothy's part. And in the
middle of verse 15, he actually adds this as if nothing else
needed to be added, but now he throws this in. who does not
need to be ashamed. And this raises, by implication,
the possibility that if Timothy is a sluggard, if Timothy is
lazy, if Timothy is undisciplined, if Timothy does not have command
of his time, If Timothy does not pour himself into the Word
of God, if Timothy does not come to it with diligence and eagerness,
and if Timothy is not presenting himself for the Lord's approval,
there is the possibility that on the last day, when the Lord
examines our ministries, that Timothy could be ashamed. Now,
there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Our position before God is settled throughout all the ages. Those
whom he foreknew, he predestined, whom he predestined, he called,
whom he called, he justified, whom he justified, he glorified.
We now have full acceptance before the judge of heaven and earth.
But there will still be a final day of accountability. And we
will stand before the Lord and give an account as a servant
to his master who will examine our work, whether we built with
gold, silver, and precious stones, whether we built with God-centered
message, God-centered methods, God-centered motives, or whether
we built with wood, hay, and stubble. And the fire will be
set to our work. And the gold, the silver, and
the precious stone go through the fire. In fact, they're purified
by the fire. And they last, and they stand.
And the labor that we have done for the Lord has had eternal
impact and eternal value, and it goes on throughout all of
the ages to come. But if we build with wood, hay
and stubble, it will be consumed. And it says, we shall be saved,
yet so as through fire. And an entire life of ministry
will just go up in flames. And we will have labored in vain. And as the head of the church
looks at us, as we stand at the behemoth, the judgment seat,
There will be a sense of disappointment. The word ashamed means painful
emotion caused by consciousness of failure. And on that last day, we want
to hear from him. Well done. good and faithful
servant. When I was a young man, I've
mentioned, excuse me for continuing to remind you that I played football. It becomes greater in my mind
the more I think about it. I played high school football
on Friday night. I played college football on Saturday afternoon
or Saturday night. But it always ended up on Monday
afternoon. Because Monday afternoon I'd
go into the coach's office and he had the game film. And I would
sit down with the coach in his office and he would replay the
entire game. I had the thrill of the excitement
of seeing touchdowns and scores and good plays and the exhilaration. But there were also my fumbles
and my interceptions. And he would walk me through
play by play by play, and there would be a grade. As we run the race that the Lord
has set before us, he says in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 10,
let us hear it again. For we, referring to all believers,
for we must all appear. And the word appear doesn't mean
just to show up. It means to be made manifest.
We shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that
each one, referring to each and every believer, may be recompensed,
meaning paid back, for his deeds in the body, saved by grace,
judged by works, according to what he has done, according to
what you have done, according to what I have done, whether
good or bad. And the word bad here does not
mean evil or sinful. It's a Greek word, kakos, meaning
worthless, of no eternal value. And so on the last day, the Lord
is going to sort it all out. And there's going to be a pile
over here of everything of gold, silver and precious stones of
eternal value. And behold, I come quickly and
my reward is with me to give to every man according to his
works. And then there'll be another
pile over here. Just worthless, it didn't amount
to anything. And he says. who does not need to be ashamed. Man, I want you to know that
last day is a part of the motive that is driving me. The glory
of God is driving me. The love of Christ constrains
me. Souls that are perishing drive me. The sense of fulfilling
my calling drives me. A sense of indebtedness to the
grace of God that can never be repaid But there is also this
layer of motivation as well that I shall stand before the Lord
and he will evaluate my preaching and I'll see those sermons again. I will have them replayed again
like the coach on the team replaying the game film. He will review each man's work. How will it be for you? on that
last day when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ and
He evaluates and He separates your work. Finally, the last
thing that I want you to see at the end of verse 15, it says, accurately handling
the word of truth. Your translation may say rightly
handling the word of truth. This fifth and final component
is precise exegesis. Precise exegesis, a skilled interpretation
of our handling of the Word of God. Notice when he says accurately
handling or rightly handling, it's one Greek word which means
to make a straight cut. It means to cut it straight.
It means to handle a right, that we must handle the Word of God
a right and properly, where there is no sloppy handling of the
word of God. This word was used of a craftsman
cutting a straight line with a board to put it exactly into
place. The measurements are just right,
and the board fits into the wall perfectly. It was used of a farmer
plowing a straight furrow. He's not weaving all through
the field, but he has at the end of the field an object in
sight and he plows up an exactly straight line that is in parallel
with the other furrows. The word was used of a mason
setting a straight line of bricks where he would take a string
and attach it so that it is horizontal and he puts the bricks perfectly
into place. Each brick in its perfect place
with the mortar in between stacked up upon the previous bricks so
that it fits perfect. The word was used of a workman
who was building a straight road through the wilderness. He's
not weaving all over through the wilderness, but he is cutting
it straight and when necessary, lifting up low places and lowering
high places to make a straight road. And the word was used of
a tent maker who would take hides of animals. And Paul was a tent
maker. Acts 18 verse 3. And to lay the
tanned hide down and then to take a pattern and to lay it
over the tanned hide and to cut around the pattern so that now
the hide perfectly fits the profile and the parameters of the pattern,
and he would have different patterns, cut them out perfectly, and now
he can sew them together where they fit in perfect precision. That's how we have to handle
the Word of God. We have to be able to sew together
the Old and the New Testaments. to piece together the person
and work of Christ, to piece together all the component parts
so that the Bible speaks with one voice, with one way of salvation,
with one diagnosis of the human dilemma, with one plan for the
family, with one plan for the end of the age, so that the whole
Bible speaks with one voice. You pull a thread here in Genesis,
and it crinkles over here in Revelation. It's just all wired
together like a perfect tapestry, every thread in its perfect place. And we know how to rightly handle
the word of God. It requires more than just sincerity. It requires skill to take into account the immediate
context, the literary unit, the central theme of the book, the
authorial intent, the grammar and the syntax, the parsing of
the verbs, the historical background, the cultural context, the geographical
setting, the literary genre, the figures of speech, the progressive
revelation, the cross-references, the analogia scriptura, the analogy
of scripture, the word studies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. that we come to this book rightly
handling the Word of God. Notice he calls it the word of
truth. I love that word truth. You like that word truth? I love
that word truth. You know what the word truth
means? Reality. It's the way things really are. Sin is whatever God says sin
is. That's reality. Salvation and
grace is whatever God says salvation and grace is. Heaven and hell
is whatever the word of truth says it is. Eternity, God, Christ,
everything is exactly as God says that it is, and it is the
truth. And throughout this book of 2
Timothy, there is this repeated emphasis upon the truth. And please just give me a couple
seconds, and I just want to walk you through this. Look in chapter
one, verse 13, and then we're finished. Chapter one, that's
when the preacher says, give me 15 more minutes. All right,
chapter 1, verse 15, retain the standard of sound words. The
word of truth is the standard by which everything else is measured. The word sound means healthy,
like healthy hygiene. Any other teaching brings disease
spiritually, but this is the message of truth that brings
spiritual health. In chapter 2, verse 2, the things
which you have heard from me. In chapter 2, verse 5, it is
referred to as the rules. If anyone competes as an athlete,
he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the
rules. Yes, God has rules. The moral law of God are the
rules by which we compete. Every imperative in the New Testament
is a lasting rule for us that is incumbent upon us as those
in the race, and we must preach it as such. In chapter 2, verse
9, it is the Word of God. In chapter 2, verse 25, it is
the truth. In chapter 3 and verse 8, it
is the faith. There is subjective faith, which
is saving faith. There is objective faith, which
is the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. It is
that body of divinity, that body of truth. In chapter 3 and verse
15, it is the sacred writings. And Paul's not saying to Timothy
to rightly handle your dreams, your supposed visions, or whatever
God you thought God said to you. No, it is the sacred writings.
It is black print on white paper in a scroll. In chapter 3, verse
16, it is the scripture, and the word scripture means writings.
In chapter 4, verse 2, it is the word. In chapter 4, verse
3, it is sound doctrine. In chapter 4, verse 4, it is
the truth. In chapter 4, verse 15, it is
our teaching. Do you see the dominant emphasis? that Paul is making to Timothy,
son, you plant yourself in the Bible and grow there, and you
become a mouthpiece for this book, and you preach this book
far and wide. This is what's required of being
an expositor, precise exegesis. And at the end of the day, substance
trumps style every time. I close with this. Someone has
written about the commitment that the preacher must make to
the word of God. Fling him into his office. Take
the office sign from the door and nail on the door, study. Take him off the mailing list.
Lock him up with his Bible. Slam him down on his knees before
scripture. Force him to be the one man in
town who knows about God. Throw him into the ring to box
with God until he learns how short his arms are. Engage him
to wrestle with God all through the night. Stop his tongue forever
from tripping lightly over every non-essential matter. Require
him to have something eternal to say from the Bible. Burn his
eyes with weary study. Make him spend and be spent for
the glory of God. Rip out his telephone. Put water
in his gas tank. Give him a Bible. Tie him to
the pulpit. Make him preach the word of the
living God. Test him. Quiz him. Examine him. Humiliate him of
his ignorance of divine things. Shame him for his comprehension
of finances and sports and political infightings. Laugh at his frustrated
effort to play psychiatrist. form a choir, raise a chant,
and sing to him, Sir, We Would See Jesus. When at long last
he dares mount the pulpit, ask him if he knows the word of God. And if he does not, dismiss him. Tell him you can read the newspaper
for yourself. Tell him you can digest the television
commentaries for yourself. And you can manage the community's
business better than he can. Command him not to come back
into that pulpit until he has read and re-read, written and
re-written, until he can stand up and say, thus says the Lord. Corner him with questions about
God. Cover him with demands for divine
wisdom. Give him no escape until his
back is against the wall of the Word of God. And sit down before
him and listen to the Word of God. Let him be totally ignorant
of the downstreet gossip. Give him a chapter and order
him to walk around it, camp on it, sup with it, and come at
last to speak what this chapter in the Bible says. And when he's
burned out by the flaming word, and he has translated the truth
of God to man, finally release him from this earth to heaven. And then bear him away gently,
and blow a muted trumpet, and lay him down softly. Place a
two-edged sword in his coffin, and raise the tomb triumphantly. For he was a good soldier of
the word. And when he died, he had at last
become a man of God. with the Word of God for the
people of God. May you be that man. May I be
that man. May we stop our preoccupation
with the silliness of the world, and may we preach the profundity
and the power to save that is in the Word of God. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, what a calling has come upon
us. You have not only called us out
of darkness and into light, but you have called us now to step
forward and to take your word and to be a preacher of the word. You've called us to shepherd
the flock and to feed the sheep and the lambs. And they need
to be fed living words that alone can satisfy
and sanctify and strengthen and sustain. I pray that you would
renew and replenish the work of your grace in our lives. Multiply
grace upon grace. Give us strength in our weakness. Give us direction in our confusion. And give us insight into your
word. And stir up within us, kindle afresh within us the gift
to preach your word. Bless these men. These are among
your most choice servants on planet earth in this room. These are the true influencers
in this nation and the nations represented. And may their preaching
of the word of God bring about eternal change in the souls of
men. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. On your behalf, I'd like to thank
Stephen very much for bringing to us the word of God this evening. I think his prayer has been the
finest finishing prayer for the night. I'd like us in a moment
to sing a few verses as our dedication of ourselves to God. We've all
heard him say this evening what we need to hear. And you young
men, He's calling you on how to spend your lives. And you
middle-aged men, he's asking you to look at your lives and
how you're living. And some of us have been thinking,
I wish I could go back 50 years and start all this again. And
God said to me, Ted, you can't but live for the rest of your
life as if you could and as if you were a young man starting
again, and we can all start again, can't we? And bring great glory
as a result of this message this evening to God. I'd like us to
sing from Psalm 119. It's the second Psalm that Stephen
mentioned to me when we were in contact, and I'm thinking
of pages 251 and 252, the second
part of the psalm, verses 9 to 16. And let these words be our
holy, longing dedication of ourselves to God as we think of ourselves
as his appointed preacher of the word. By what means shall
a young man learn his way to purify if he according to thy
word thereto attentive be. Unfeignedly, thee have I sought
with all my soul and heart. Oh, let me not from the right
path of thy commands depart. Verses 9 to 16, and that concludes
our meeting this evening. Let us stand to praise God together. Have we got, sorry, the page?
It's a different page in some of the editions. It says it's
266 in some of the editions. By what means shall a young man
learn his way to purify, if he according to thy word there to
attentive be? you ♪ Unveiled be the hour I sought
♪ ♪ With all my soul and heart ♪ ♪ O let me walk from the right
path of thy command ♪ ♪ And depart ♪ Why would I, if my heart hath
him, that I offend not thee? O Lord, thou ever-blessed art,
Thy statutes speak the week. of thy mouth each one my lips
declare and have. For joy thy testimonies wave
and riches hold. Thy holy precepts I will make,
my meditation still, and have respect unto thy ways. Most carefully I will. ♪ That youth's mighty light ♪ ♪ Shall constantly be set ♪ ♪ And
by thy grace I never will ♪ ♪ My holy work forget ♪ you