In 2 Timothy 4.7, Paul makes
this claim, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the
race, I have kept the faith. Now, we might consider it out
of place for any minister of the gospel to make such a boast.
Shouldn't every preacher have sufficient humility to confess
that he might not have been faithful? Well, the exact opposite is true.
In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul wrote, Let a man so account of us as
of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of
God. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful. Now, if a man has any doubt about
his faithfulness, he should not enter the ministry, or if he
has already entered the ministry, he should leave it. Now, by faithful,
we do not mean perfect. Paul's claim describes the sort
of faithfulness that is required. He said that he had fought the
good fight. Note that he does not say he
fought a good fight. He is not boasting about the
quality of his fighting. Rather, he was saying, I did
not waste my time in fights over lesser things. I restricted my
fighting to the good fight of the spiritual warfare of the
gospel. Second, Paul boasted that he
finished the race. He did not boast of being first,
second, or any other notable achievement. He simply says that
he made it to the finish line. He did not quit until his assigned
task was done. Third, Paul claims he kept the
faith. The very same message he was
given at the beginning is the message he preached to the very
end. He did not make it up, try to
improve on it, or alter it in any way. He kept it. Paul did not change his message
or even the focus of his ministry for all the years that he was
an apostle. Whatever Paul was preaching at
the beginning is what he was preaching at the end. And why
not? Had the God who sent him to preach
changed? Had the nature and need of man
changed? Had Christ and His work changed? Had the way of salvation changed? No, not at all. And until there
is some change in these things, the ministry of every preacher
is the same as that of Paul, who said, necessity is laid upon
me. Woe is to me if I do not preach
the gospel. Faithfulness in the ministry
requires first, knowing the gospel, and second, continually and faithfully
preaching that gospel. He who faithfully preaches the
gospel is a faithful preacher. He may not be very good at some
of the other aspects of what is called the ministry in our
day. He may not be a good administrator. His manner of speech may not
be captivating or inspiring. His personality may not be the
easiest to get along with. But if he faithfully sets forth
the gospel, what Paul calls the whole counsel of God, then he
has been a faithful preacher, and we should be thankful for
the grace of God which made him faithful for our sakes. Now let
us look at a portrait of a faithful preacher by noting what he is
supposed to be preaching. Any man who preaches these things
is a faithful preacher whatever else he may lack. Any man who
does not preach these things is an unfaithful man no matter
how good he may be in other things. First, a faithful preacher will
tell you the truth about God. All truth starts here. All wisdom
flows from this fountain. To whatever degree a person does
not know the truth about God, he does not know the truth about
anything. To whatever degree a preacher leaves his people
in ignorance about God, to that degree he is an unfaithful preacher. Now some preachers do not preach
the truth of God, for they do not know the truth of God themselves,
and others are simply liars. But whatever the reason, he who
does not tell the truth about God is not a faithful preacher. God is holy. Holy means set apart. When we say that God is holy,
we mean more than the fact that He always does what is right
and good, though that is included. When we say God is holy, We mean,
as the apostle wrote, that He dwells in a light to which no
man can approach. He is beyond our capacity to
understand, beyond our capacity to please, beyond our capacity
to change Him, beyond our capacity to appease Him. When we say that
God is holy, we mean exactly the opposite of what the Israelites
had come to think of God. In Psalm 50, God accused the
Israelites of thinking I am altogether such a one as you. Those who
thought that paid dearly for their error." God's holiness
is more than a singular attribute. Rather, holiness crowns all of
His attributes. His wrath is holy. His mercy
is holy. When He loves, it's a holy love,
and when He hates, it's a holy hatred. When He punishes, it
is a holy punishment. When he forgives, it is a holy
forgiveness. Paul exhorted us to behold the
goodness and severity of the Lord. In both his goodness and
severity, the Lord is holy. We are prone to think of God's
holiness in relationship to those who are notably sinful. But even
Isaiah the prophet is made to cry, woe is me, I am a man of
unclean lips. when he was confronted with a
vision of the holiness of God. The beloved disciple John is
stricken to his core at the sight of the Holy One of God, so much
so that he falls at his feet as a dead man. It was to professed
believers and not notable sinners that the book of Hebrews said,
Our God is a consuming fire. If men knew anything of the holiness
of God, they would not be so quick to use His name with such
content. Big-name preachers would quit
using God's name to trade on the souls of men in order to
get their money, if they had any inkling of the holiness of
God on whose name they trade. God is sovereign, decreeing all
that comes to pass and working to ensure that all He decrees
does indeed come to pass. He works all these things according
to the counsel of His own will. In Isaiah 46, God said, I am
God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like
Me. From the beginning I declare
the end, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying,
My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose. I would be an unfaithful preacher
if I did not tell you that all things are in the hand of God. All things happen as He has decreed
them to happen. I would be unfaithful to you
if I were to give you the impression that God has left your destiny
in your hand. No, your destiny is in the hand
of God. You are at His mercy. He will
do with you as He pleases. God is gracious, more gracious
than we can imagine. A faithful preacher will preach
a grace of God that's beyond natural belief. Once a person
has come to grips with the holiness and sovereignty of God, the news
of God's free and sovereign grace will be more than he can believe.
But the faithful preacher will not soften the truth of God's
grace any more than he would soften the truth of God's judgment.
A faithful preacher will tell you the truth about man. We live
in a day of excusing sin or making little of Sin is now called a
mistake. Preachers name certain sins and
give folks the impression that if they stop doing those sins,
they will be righteous in God's sight. Unfaithful preachers divide
the works of men into good and bad and tell folks that God will
be pleased if they stop doing the bad stuff. But faithful preachers
tell their listeners that not only have they done some bad
things, they have never in all their lives done anything good. Faithful preachers will be faithful
to the scriptures and to their hearers by telling them the truth
that there is none righteous, not even one, no one who does
good, none who understand, none who seek God. Faithful preachers
will be honest with the souls of men and declare there is no
difference among men in the sight of God looks down on earth and
He sees the faithful husband of one wife and the perverse
man married to another man and He sees no difference. He looks
on the abortion protester and the abortion provider and sees
no difference. He looks on you and He looks
on me and He sees no difference. One of the most offensive statements
in Scripture is found in Romans 3 verse 22, There is no difference. But a faithful preacher
will tell you that. Faithful preachers will tell
you the truth about Christ. They will tell you that He is
God manifested in human flesh. That babe born in Bethlehem is
not some sweet, helpless thing who needs us. He is the wonderful
Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince
of Peace. He is God over all, blessed forever,
Faithful preachers will tell you that Jesus did no sin, knew
no sin, and in Him is no sin. They will tell you that He went
to Calvary's cross bearing the sins of a chosen multitude, and
there He suffered in their place, and by that suffering He exhausted
the wrath of God due to their sins, and He put those sins away. Those for whom Christ died will
never be called into account for any of their sins. Faithful
preachers will tell you that the will of Jehovah prospered
in the hands of Christ, and that he shall lose none whom the Father
gave him, but shall raise every last one of them in the last
day. A faithful preacher will tell
you that Jesus Christ is the one and only way into the blessed
presence of God, and he will not apologize for declaring that
all other ways to God are false. A faithful preacher will not
present to you a take-it-or-leave-it Jesus, a welcome mat to be trod
upon. A faithful preacher will present
to you a Christ to whom you must bow. No, more than that, a Christ
to whom you will bow in reverence and declare Him to be Lord. A
faithful preacher will tell you the truth about salvation. He
will tell you that it is all of Christ. He will not place
any of the work of salvation in the hands of preachers, priests,
parents, or church. He will plainly declare that
there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby
we must be saved. He that has the Son has life,
but he that does not have the Son shall not see life, but the
wrath of God is upon him. A faithful preacher will never
direct your attention anywhere other than to Christ. A faithful
preacher will tell you that salvation is all of grace freely given
to those who have no right to claim it. Salvation is of grace
and not of works is the faithful preacher's common theme, and
he will not waver from it. A faithful preacher will tell
you that salvation is received by nothing more or less than
God-given faith. For by grace you have been saved
through faith. and that is not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God. Every believer has the promise
of God that he shall be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved, says the scriptures, and so says every
faithful preacher. I tell you this day on the authority
of the scriptures that God is holy, sovereign, and gracious,
that you and I are hopelessly and helplessly lost in our sin,
that Jesus Christ is God's Son and has borne the wrath of God
as the substitute for a chosen multitude, and that any and every
sinner who looks to Jesus Christ and trusts Him alone for salvation
shall experience that salvation to the full, no exceptions. God grant us grace to understand
and believe that message to the saving of our souls.