Turn with me to the book of 2
Timothy this evening. 2 Timothy. Chapter 4. Let's begin reading that in verse
number one. I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus
Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing
and his kingdom. Preach the word, be instant,
in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering
and doctrine. Of course, this is the Apostle
Paul's solemn charge to his son in the faith, Timothy, to be
ever faithful. And of course, Paul makes the
emphasis that much stronger by identifying this charge with
God. I charge you therefore before
God. Remember, you're under God in this matter. And the Lord
Jesus Christ, who's going to judge the quick and the dead,
so I want you, he said, now, remember that in light of the
fact that you're under God and he's the judge of all and faithfulness
and love to him is involved in this thing, so preach the word.
Don't be reluctant and look for something else to preach, but
preach the word. And he said, be instant in season,
and now it's that at all times, no season. There's no particular
season whereby we ought to give priority to the preaching of
the Word. The preaching of the Word of God is a thing for all
seasons, every day, every month, every year, all time, from the
time you're born until the time you die. And he said to reprove
and rebuke and exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine,
for this reason now, for the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall they
heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall
turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto
fables. But watch thou in all things,
endure afflictions, and do the work of an evangelist, and make
full proof of thy ministry." Now, in order for you and I to make
full proof of the ministry, that God has given us as individuals
and as a church, then we're going to have to be true to certain
things, certain areas of the Word of God, which will be very unpopular, if you could use that
word in our day. Of course, it's not too unpopular
to us because no one will hear us. I mean, we talk about the
Word of God being unpopular, and it is. That is, the truth
as in Christ and these things which so characterize the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace are unpopular when the world
hears it. But it seems like that we are
in the place that we do not have the privilege or the opportunity
that the world might see the unpopularity of the Word of God. It seems like that we're the
preaching of the Word somehow. I don't know why it is, but it's
confined to this building. Very few opportunities that I
have myself to talk to anybody about the Word of God. If the
conversation is directed towards the Bible, maybe from another
professing Christian or a religionist why immediately he turns it off. He doesn't want to hear it. So
there's very few opportunities that I have and I feel probably
what's true with me is true with you. Men don't want to hear it
and you don't have much of an opportunity so we're kind of
confined. We're kind of confined to preaching
it and to studying these truths in the confines of this particular
building. Well, if I know my heart, and I don't,
I know that, I don't know my heart, it's wicked and desperate
and no man can know his own heart, but there are certain areas that
you know your mind and your soul and your heart and your concerns
and so forth. And the concern of my heart is
that this generation or this area in which we live in might
experience a recovery in the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Now,
I've been talking about it with some of the brethren here this
morning and this evening, just little bits and snatches of conversation
that has led me to think about what I'm trying to say here this
evening. For instance, I read in this morning's paper there's
a paid advertisement that was admonishing men to listen to
their program or to do something, some response towards this advertisement,
which was a religious advertisement. One of the statements in that
advertisement was this. Let Jesus Christ into your heart
and make Him your Lord. That was the substance of what
they were saying. Let Christ into your heart. Make
Christ your Lord. Don't reject Him. He knocks at
the door. Let Him in. And things of that
nature. Which gives indication that those people are strangers
to the Gospel. They're strangers to the gospel
of grace. Another incident I heard on the
radio yesterday morning, a church was having a homecoming, 175
years old, and they were given a pumpkin to every child that
would come to church this morning. Well, you see that goes a long
way with me in regard to identifying them with what they believe.
When you got to give pumpkins is the proper word. I said pumpkins.
That's what we always called them, pumpkins. Give pumpkins away to get people
to come to church if you haven't got much. So my desire and my
concern this evening is that this area of this generation
might know something of the recovery of the gospel of the Son of God. Now there are six things that
I think, I'll give you some reasons why I believe that this apostasy
has set in. Six things. The problem today
is not only in the pew, but it's also in the pulpit. That is,
It's as much the preacher's fault as it is the parishioner's. Now,
first off, the first problem is apostasy. That is, that the
Word of God is being denied. That is, there is a rank departure
from the doctrine of the truth of the Holy Scripture. A rank
departure. Men are departing from the veracity
of the Word of God. That's apostasy. And secondly,
compromise. In the churches, beginning with
the pastor and winding up in the pews, there is a compromise. That is, in an effort to gain
popularity and numbers and win approval from their denomination
and from the community in which they live in, The pulpit has
compromised the terms of salvation and the standard of holiness
and the purpose of the Church. And thirdly, there is a lukewarmness. That is, there is no urgency
in the pulpit anymore. The sons of thunder no longer
thunder. They cry, peace, peace, when
there is no peace. And there is no prophet crying
as John the Baptist did, as a voice in the wilderness. So there's
compromise, there's apostasy, and there's lukewarmness. And
then there is deadness. Now the pastors won't deny that
a state of spiritual deadness exists in the churches, Instead
of crying, O Spirit of the Living God, breathe on these dead bones,
they try to resurrect the dead with fleshly activities, parties,
socials, and other things to bring about numbers and attendance
to church, such as I just called off to you. If you'll come to church, we'll
give you a pumpkin. Make a jack-o-lantern for Halloween.
Get all the kids to come, you see. They're trying to resurrect
the dead that way. Trying to pad the church book
with dead souls. Then there's unconcern. David
summed it up. He said, No man careth for my
soul. If preachers cared for the souls
of men, honestly now, cared for them. If they loved the souls
of men. If they were true shepherds and
not hirelings. Now, there's a difference between
a shepherd and a hireling. A hireling serves for pay. A
shepherd does it out of love for the master and love for the
sheep. And he'll risk his life for the
sheep. The good shepherd loveth his
sheep and lays down his life for the sheep. But the hireling,
he doesn't love the sheep. He eats the fat and wears the
wool, but he does not feed the sheep. That's a hireling. Now,
they're unconcerned. David said, no man cares for
the souls of men, or no man cares for my soul. And preachers don't
care for the souls of men if they didn't tell the truth. If
they didn't know the truth, they'd quit. If they didn't know the
truth, they'd sit down and ask someone else, teach me the truth. They'd search the scriptures
like the noble Christians did of Berea, find out the truth
for themselves. And then, sixthly, there's utter
chaos and confusion, which leads to apostasy. Confusion does. It leads to rebellion. The religionist, the average
church goer, you talk to him about it, and the only thing
that he can conclude is, what's this all about? What's this guy
trying to say? I don't know what he's trying
to say. I can't see the difference between what he says and what
someone else says. Just utter confusion in their own hearts,
in the churches, in the pews, in the pulpits. The sad state
of affair is that most people don't know the truth. They don't
know the difference between truth and error. They just don't know
the difference. They swallow either one of them
because they don't know the difference. Happy is the man that knows the
difference between truth and error. If he knows the difference
between truth and error, he's blessed of God. He's been given
some eye salve of the Holy Spirit. His eyes might be open that he
might see. Most people don't know. So you
see, there are six things there. There is apostasy, compromise,
lukewarmness, deadness, unconcern, and confusion. That's six problems
that brings about this state that the churches are in and
the preachers are in in our day. My concern, and I believe your
concern, is that the gospel of God's grace, in a sense, might
be recovered in this area to this generation. Now, I want
myself a return to that message used of God in other days to
awaken sinners to their need. Now, first off, if we're going
to be a part in the recovery of the gospel to our generation,
we're going to have to be faithful in our presentation, our proclamation
of the truth of God concerning God's holy law. Of course, I know for the most
part, men have considered that the law of God is outdated. It's not needed in our day. But wherever the gospel has been
preached and will be preached, the first thing that is preached
is the law of God. Men need to have revealed to
them, to their minds, anyhow, because we must preach to men's
minds, we can't get to their hearts. Only God can get to a
man's heart, but he gets to his heart through his mind. That's
how he gets to his heart, through his mind. We can get to their
minds. So we've got to preach to their minds, if nothing else.
Preach to their understanding that God might reveal to their
heart the demands of His justice, the demands of His law. God's
law demands. Ever keep this before us. If
the gospel is ever recovered in our day to this generation,
will have to make the demands that God made, that He demands. Absolute perfection. Yes, sir. That's what God demands. That's
what God's holy law demands. Absolute perfection. Not one
deviation from the standard of holiness as pictured in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is perfect
God and perfect man. And the law is perfectly fulfilled
and represented in Him. He's the only one. that has ever
kept that law in its entirety. And if a man wants to see the
utter helplessness of himself as he lines up in light of perfection,
all he has to do is look at the Lord Jesus. If he'll look at
the Lord Jesus Christ and measure himself by the Christ of God,
He'll see how far short of the law of God he has fallen. So first off, if the gospel is
ever to be recovered, there must be the stating of the demands
of God's law. He demands that every man be
perfect. He demands that a man keep the Ten Commandments perfectly. Every jot and every kittle of
those Ten Commandments. God demands that. I don't know
about you fellas, but I'm awful hot. That's what God demands. That
you love Him with all of your heart, all of your soul, all
of your mind, every fiber of your being. That you love Him
supremely, over all and above all. Nothing comes between God's
love in you, you're to love Him. If you don't do that, if you
don't do that, then you're guilty. Then you're guilty before God.
And if you can see it, happy are you. If you can see that
you're guilty before God, that you're a lawbreaker, you haven't
fulfilled the law of God. If you can see that and are made
aware of it, it sounds to me like, in light of the experiences
that Most men have, and experiences of the people in the Bible, sounds
to me like you're taking a step in the right direction towards
salvation, which is in Christ Jesus, who satisfied this law
that demands absolute perfection. God, through the Lord Jesus Christ,
satisfied that. He was born under the law, lived
under the law, satisfied the law. Satisfied it. Satisfied
it. As a man, see, as a man. The
God-man. He was a man. As much man as
if he was never God, and as much God as if he was never man. Yet
finally joined there, fused together in one body, this God-man. And
this man, this man kept that law. He didn't have to keep it
for himself. He was the law. He didn't have
to keep it. He wasn't a sinner. But he kept
the law for poor sinners who couldn't keep it. for poor sinners
who are aware that they're poor sinners. You see? Who are aware
that they're poor sinners. If you ever become aware of the
fact that you're a poor sinner, you'll be a safe sinner before
long. If you ever become aware of it, that you're a poor, hopeless,
helpless sinner. Boy, the more I think of it,
The more I would desire, if I was in a state of uncertainty about
my soul's salvation, the more I think about the eternity that's
before me, the more I am compelled to believe that a man ought to
cry out, he ought to search, he ought to ask his neighbor,
he ought to ask his pastor, he ought to ask his Deacons, he
ought to ask anybody that has any idea of how he can get to
heaven, he ought to take advantage of all the means available to
him. Because as sure as I'm standing
here, as sure as I'm standing here, to die without the Lord
Jesus Christ is the worst thing that can happen to a man. And
I can't understand why a man would want to sell his soul for
a few short pleasures here, 20, 30, 40 years in this life, Sell
his soul and spend eternity in the devil's hell. Now why a guy
will do that, I don't know. I've often said, and will say
it again tonight, if you go to heaven tonight, it'll be God's
fault. If you go to hell, it'll be your
fault. If you go to hell, it'll be because you want to go there.
There's nothing stopping you from going to heaven except your
will. That's the only thing that stops you from going to heaven.
It's your will. You won't go. You won't come to Christ. You
will not come to me. You won't come. You don't want
to come. You'd rather enjoy certain independences for a few years
here in this life. You'd rather do that. You'd rather
enjoy a few so-called pleasures in this life for a few years.
You'd rather do that. All right, secondly, if the gospel
is ever recovered in our generation, then we're going to have to reveal
or we're going to have to preach. We can't reveal. God will have
to do that. We're going to have to preach the utter inability
and hopelessness of the poor sinner. We're going to have to
be honest with sinners and tell them how hopeless that their
case is. We're going to have to tell them
that there's nothing good in them. We're just going to have
to be honest with them and tell them, say, now listen, there's
nothing good in you. There's not one single solitary
virtue in you that would commend you to God. Not anything. The only thing you've got that
belongs to you is sin. That's the only thing you've
got that you could recommend is your sin. That's all you've
got. Everything else that you have,
God gives to you. You owe your existence to God.
That's how you got here, through God. God's the source of life. He's the prince of life. He gives
life. He causes life to come into existence
in the mother's womb. That's God that does that. He
gives life. He gives it. He gives it and
He takes it. Now all you've got, apart from
sin, is what God gives you. He gives you life. He gives you
body. He sustains you. You live here in His world. Everything
that you see belongs to Him. It's His. And God give it to
you to use for a while. And the only thing you've got
is sin. That's all you've got. That's all you can count on.
That's all you can brag about is your sin. You haven't got
anything. You're nothing. You're less than
nothing. You're vanity and vexation of
the Spirit. We've got to tell the truth about
men. That men might see their utter
helplessness and the desperateness of their condition and have a
desire to flee from it and flee to Christ, who is the answer
to their problems. We've got to be honest and tell
them the truth about their utter inability. And then we've got
to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice of Christ. We've got to tell men that, as
I've already reminded you, that the Lord Jesus is the answer.
That is, He offered Himself a voluntary sacrifice of His own person. He gave of Himself. Offered Himself. He's the Lamb
of God. He's the Bullock. He's the sweet-smelling
sacrifice. He offered Himself in the sinner's
stead. And God's pleased with what Jesus
did, and God raised him from the dead and gave him a name
which is above every name. And at the end of time, every
knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess to the glory of
God that Jesus Christ is Lord. We've got to tell people about
the cross of Christ. We've got to tell them about
the work of Christ, the benefits of Christ, the person of Christ,
the satisfaction of Christ. It's all in Christ. We've got to tell men that they
can never come to God except through repentance and faith
in the Lord Jesus. We've got to tell men that they've
got to repent. Men's got to repent. Every man's
got to repent. You see, the Holy Spirit doesn't
repent. You say, well, the Holy Spirit's
got to repent in me. No, no, you've got it wrong.
The Holy Spirit doesn't repent. I've got to repent, and you've
got to repent. Now, I know that repentance is
a gift of God, but yet I've got to repent. It's me that has to
repent. It's my repentance. It's my repentance,
although it's a gift of God, yet I've got to do it. Every
man's got to repent. To repent means he's got to make
a complete turnaround. Repentance means he's got to
change his designs, his actions, his thoughts. He's got to make
a reverse. He's got to turn from one direction
and go another direction. Repentance is summed up in these
words of the Apostle Paul there to the letter of the Corinthians
when he said, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new.
Things that I once hated, I now love. Love now I used to hate. Now that sums up repentance right
there. It's a change. It's a reverse
in directions and thinking and thoughts and so forth. So if
we're going to be true, if we're going to be true to this generation
and ever see any recovery of the gospel of free and sovereign
grace in our day, we're going to have to be true to these things
that I've mentioned such as We're going to have to tell the truth
about God's holy law. We're going to have to tell the
truth about the inability of the human being to do anything
about his condition, how hopeless and helpless he is. We're going
to have to tell the truth about Christ. We're going to have to
make sure that people understand that Christ is just not one of
the many ways, but He is the only way. My aunt told me one time, she
was here visiting with me years and years ago, And I was taking
her back over in Preston County to see some of her kinfolk over
there, and I was talking to her about the way of salvation that
was in Christ. And immediately she got mad at
me. And we were on the ridge over there, and you could look
over from the top of the ridge to another hill where they were
logging. And there was little trails coming up from the bottom
of the hill to the top, you know, a little trail here and a little
trail there and a little trail there. And she said, told me, said, now there's a
good picture of heaven right over there. She said, see all
those roads leading up to the top of the hill? And I said,
yeah. Well, she said, there's many roads, but they all go in
the same place. And I said, Auntie, that sounds
good. That sounds good, but there's
not a lick of truth in it. There's not a lick. There's only
one road, you see. Only one road. There's only one
way. And by the way, the scriptures say it's a narrow way. It's a
narrow way. Them four roads out there, five
roads out there, that's a broad way that leads to destruction. This narrow way leads to life
eternal. Few be it. Few be it therein
that find it. Few that ever find this way.
That's right. I believe that. In light of the
world's population at any given time, I believe that there's
few, just very few that's on the road. Very few. That's right. God help us, brethren, to be
useful in the service of the Master while we're here in the
recovery of the Gospel. Let not apostasy set in and lukewarmness. Let us not depart from the sacredness
of the Scripture. Let us not be unconcerned and
indifferent towards the souls of men. Let's not have chaos
and confusion reign in our ranks. Let's be united in this thing
with one purpose, one goal in mind, for the glory of God in
Christ Jesus. It might be that God will confine
you and I in our testimony to these four walls. I don't know.
He might confine us right here for the balance of our days.
I hope not. I pray that the Lord will make
use of us and we'll be We'll be available. We'll be in His
hands, and somehow we can be used. We can be used. I'm not aspiring to be used or
thinking in terms of worldwide evangelism or anything like that,
but I want this church to be used here in this area. We've
been here for twenty-some years. I'd like to see us be used a
little more than what we are. Reach out. Reach out. I'd like
to see people become interested. And the only way they'll ever
become interested is God will have to come down. We'll have
to unite together in sincerity, in prayer unto God that God will
open doors where we might be able to go through and effectually
preach the gospel of free grace. You can't run without being sent.
We can make a fool out of ourselves by running. I believe in waiting
on the Lord. I don't believe we ought to run
without having directions. I don't believe we ought to run
unless God sends us. But if God sends us, we ought
to go then, because I think if we do, we'll hit a home run every
time. Oh, let's pray that God will send us, that he'll knock
down these doors and give us entrance whereby we might preach
the gospel of free grace. There's bound to be some. There's
bound to be some here in our area that's interested. If we
just knew where they was. We don't know where they're at,
and it seems like we haven't got the privilege and the opportunity,
the place where we can preach it out for all might hear and
call them out. God help us. God help us.