I hope you will open your Bible
this morning to the book of Malachi chapter 2. Malachi chapter 2. And while you're turning, let
me say this by way of introduction. Now, the true prophets of old,
those truly sent by God with the truth, those men were constantly
denouncing the false prophets of their day and warning the
people about them. That's what a faithful shepherd
does when he sees a wolf. He warns the flock. The Lord
Jesus Christ himself spoke much against false prophets and priests. In fact, nearly every scribe
and Pharisee he faced was a false one. And the Lord warned the
people about them, pronouncing woe upon these scribes, Pharisees,
and he called them hypocrite. The apostles themselves, in every
epistle they wrote, denounced most of what was going on in
religion in their day as false. In the words of the Apostle Paul
to the Philippians, in chapter 3, he says, Many walk, of whom
I have told you often, and even now weeping, that they are enemies
of the cross of Christ. Now, for all who listen, this
is what the Word of God has to say to and about most preachers. If you turn to Malachi chapter
2 with me, listen to verse 1 and 2. It says, And now, O ye priests,
this commandment is for you. If you will not hear, and if
you will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith
the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I
will curse your blessings. Yea, I have cursed them already,
because you do not lay it to heart." He says, this is for
you, priest. Give glory to my name. But yet,
he says, you do not lay it to heart. That is my word. You're
not listening. The word of God, the word of
the Lord to preachers is this. In 1 Timothy 4.2, The Apostle
Paul tells a young preacher named Timothy, preach the Word, Timothy. Preach the Word. Don't do anything
but preach the Word. Preach the Word. In season. Out of season, he said. Preach
the Word. He doesn't tell Timothy to form
this group or make this program come up with this gimmick, or
this tactic, or entertain, or sing, or what have you. He says,
preach the word. Be instant, that is consistent,
in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. But after their own lust, they
shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto
fables. Make believe. Preach the word,
Timothy, he said. Not a dream, not a vision, not
a sign, not a miracle, not a revelation, not a program, not a pageant. preached the Word in
the words of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah chapter 23, verse
28, he says, He that hath my Word, let him speak my Word faithfully,
consistently, constantly, only. In verses 29 and 30, he says, Jeremiah is not my word like
as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the
rock in pieces. He said, I'm against the prophets,
saith the Lord, that steal my words. Everyone from his neighbor. They steal my words. That is,
withhold God's word in place of visions and signs and and
experiences and programs and this and that and the other.
I have mentioned before, you've heard me mention before, various
church signs. All of the signs you see out
in front of so-called church houses advertising, advertising
their church and their program and what they're doing. Their
bulletin boards are their signs. You've heard me mention them.
And if you will look carefully at them, look at all of them,
seldom, if ever, do you see a verse of Scripture on them. God's Word,
listen to me people, God's Word is His power. God's Word is His
voice. You hear me speaking right now?
I am speaking words. This is my voice. Well, the Bible
is God's voice, not our comments on it. God doesn't use our comments
on it. God never saved anybody by a
sermon. Only God's Word is His power. He calls His own Word, He uses
these things to describe His Word. He calls it a fire that
will burn in the hearts of men if He sees fit, a hammer that
will break the hardest of hearts. He says it is quick, that is
life. Christ Himself. My Word is spirit
and life. My Word. He said His Word is
quick, powerful, that is, full of power. One word of God's Word
and the power of the Holy Spirit is able to break the hardest
heart, to give life to a dead sinner. He says it's a two-edged
sword. able to pierce, he calls it the
incorruptible seed, which will accomplish what he sends it to.
In Isaiah 55, he said, My word shall not return void, but it
shall accomplish that whereunto I send it. Every time, God's
Word is his power and only his Word. not our programs, not our gimmicks,
our tactics, our methods, our means. It's God's Word is His power.
Why don't men use it? Why would men rather use clever
clichés and clever sayings and cute little antidotes when there
are literally hundreds of thousands of powerful words from the Word
of God? Infinite wisdom. One word of which placed upon
a sign, if you will, if you're going to put something on a sign
out in front of your church, put this, Behold your God. That's what Isaiah cried in chapter
40. All men reveal that they really
don't know and believe God's Word to be His power and haven't
experienced it themselves. By using their own clever clichés
and words and not God's Word, they reveal they don't believe
God's Word. Listen to Malachi again. Listen
to Malachi, verse 2. He says, Give glory unto my name. He says, No, they're not listening,
these false preachers. Well, the true preacher, listen
to me. The true preacher, and maybe there's a preacher listening
to this right now. I hope so. Well, whoever's listening,
John said, try the spirit, try the preachers, 1 John 4, 1. Try
them, test them, put them to the test. How? By the Word of
God. That's the litmus test. That's the acid test. The true
preacher is interested in primarily one thing, the glory of God.
The glory of His Word, the glory of His person, the glory of His
character, the glory of His work, the glory of His wisdom, the
glory of His love, the glory of His salvation, the glory of
His Son, the glory of His blood, the glory of His righteousness,
the glory of His truth. He won't tear one word down.
He won't cut off one sharp edge. He won't withhold one word because
anybody doesn't like it. He doesn't form his message according
to the people who are listening. No, he has one word. It's the
glory of God. He's not interested in big churches,
numbers, programs, but the glory of God, the glory of his person,
his character. Men see in the glory of God. As a one old evangelist from
North Carolina years ago said, I'm not interested in entertaining
sinners on the road to hell. That same old evangelist, an
old man named Ralph Barnard from Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
years ago, died back in 1969. That same old evangelist one
time said, I'm not trying to get people saved. I'm trying
to get them lost. You've got to be lost before
you're saved. Now every preacher and his brother
and his mother are going around telling everybody how much God
loves them. and not that they're lost and in danger of the judgment.
Listen to me, people. Listen. Here's the fact of the
matter. The truth, the truth of who God
is, what man is, and who Jesus Christ is, and what He did and
where He is now, the truth has always been in the minority.
Always. And those who declared it and
those who believed it were hated and maligned by the rest of the
world. God destroyed a whole world of people by water one
time, out of which eight souls, only eight souls, heard and believed
the truth. The Lord Jesus Christ said, many
are called, but few are chosen. Our Lord Himself said that the
way, the broad way that leads to destruction, He said, many
there be that go therein, but that straight and narrow way,
few there be that find it. Yes, later at Pentecost, several
thousands were converted, and thousands more later. But these were later dispersed
abroad all over the world, and comparatively few the world over
believed the truth. Yet many over the last 2,000
years have heard and believed the truth. That's over a 2,000
year period. Yet at any given time, The number
of believers compared to the general population are few. And now in these last days, though
there are more churches than Kellogg's has cornflakes, and
more preachers than even lawyers, now that's a lot of them, yet
there are few who believe and preach the truth. In the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and I quote, He said, When the
Son of Man cometh, Will he find faith on the earth? In other
words, that's how scarce it's going to be. True faith. Believers
of the truth. Listen to Malachi again with
me. Would you listen? Verse 17 of chapter 2, he says,
You've wearied the Lord with your words. I'm talking to these
preachers. You've wearied the Lord with
your words. And yet they say, Wherein? Or how have we wearied
Him? And Jeremiah answers, When you
say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord,
and he delighteth in them. Oh, where is the God of judgment? A lot of words. He said, you've
wearied the Lord with your words. A lot of words. Very little of
God's Word. And what wearies God the most
is this. When men say, God loves you. To everyone indiscriminately,
God loves you. Malachi said, where is the God
of judgment? God is weary with all the false
preachers who go about telling everyone indiscriminately, God
loves you, and have Jesus loves you on their bulletin board.
Where do they get this? Jeremiah said that in chapter
23, verse 18. Where did they hear this? None of the prophets
said it. None of the apostles ever stood
up before a crowd and said, God loves you and Jesus loves you.
The Lord Jesus Christ never stood before a crowd of people and
said, God loves you and I do too. Never. Malachi said, and
I say right now, where is the God of judgment? Where is the
holy, just, and righteous God who will by no means clear the
guilty? and one who destroyed a God-hating, sinful world by
water once, and will soon destroy the same world completely by
fire once and for all, with the exception of a few who find grace,
yea, sovereign grace, at his hands, like Noah of old, who
believed the truth by God's grace, the truth of a God of judgment."
Where is the God of judgment? I ask, where is the God of Judgment? Would you answer that for me?
Well, you'd better find your preacher who's declaring Him
and go hear Him. Thank you. Okay.