This is my third message on Preach
the Word. I take my text from the three
words of chapter 4 and verse 2, Preach the Word. And then
he says, Be instant, end season, out of season, reprove, rebuke,
exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. Before we get into the fourth
chapter, I want to make a few remarks about verse 15 of chapter
3, where here is the apostle writing his second letter to
a young preacher, and he's speaking of the Holy Scriptures, and he
says that you've learned them from a child. He says that that
from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus." Our Lord was pleased to use the Word of God for the
instruction of Timothy. We read earlier in this letter
that Timothy's mother, she taught
him the Word of God. And Timothy's grandmother taught
him the Word of God. How blessed it is to be instructed
in the Word of God by your mother and your grandmother. And what
an honor and what a great responsibility it is to those of us who are
moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas, to teach our little
ones the Word of God. Read to them. Instruct them in the things of
the Lord. I'm thankful that my mother,
when I was young, five years old or so, She, as best she could,
instructed us in the Bible. Taught us a good familiarity
with the Word of God so that we knew where the portions of
Scripture were. And she would set my brother
and my sister and myself down. And she would go through the
Word of God teaching us where the books of the Bible are located. That's a wonderful thing, teaching
us what she considered to be key verses that we ought to know
and indeed memorize. And I remember her saying, you
know, the psalmist said, thy word have I hid in my heart that
I might not sin against thee. And she said, oh, that God would
hide the word of God in the hearts of my children. And this is what
happened to young Timothy. His mother and his grandmother
read the scriptures to him. Not that they had any kind of
authority or power to give a revelation of the truth of God's word to
young Timothy, but they read to him, and as best they could,
they instructed him in the things of God. It was certainly customary with
the Jewish people to read the Word of God, and of course all
the Word of God that they had back in these days was the Old
Testament. They would read out of perhaps
the Pentateuch, that is the law books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, or the historical books from Joshua
through to the end of Chronicles. Poetic books from Ezra through
Ecclesiastes. The prophets being from Isaiah
through Malachi. They would read the Scriptures
to their children. That's a wonderful thing to do. If we haven't become acquainted
with the Word of God as of yet, May we give diligence to study
the Scriptures, to read the Scriptures. And I know some of you use electronic
Bibles, and that's okay. That's okay. And I know some
preachers who actually use like an iPad, is that what you call
them? Or something of that nature when they're preaching. I would
be fearful of doing that because I always hit the wrong key. And
I would just lose everything that's before me. But I love
having the written Word, this book right in front of me. And
I know my way around. in the Scriptures. Teach your
children, teach your grandchildren. A good many of us in here tonight
are grandmothers and grandfathers and some great-grandparents. Teach the little ones the Word
of God. You never know what God might
be pleased to do. I'm sure that Timothy's mother
Eunice and his grandmother Lois. I'm sure as they read to this
young man, young boy, bringing him up in the Scriptures, they
did so, and this was always their prayer. Oh God, teach him the
truth. Lord, we can read the Word of
God into his ears, but you have to make the Word of God effectual
to the heart. And only God can do that. Only
God can take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. Only God can reveal the Lord
Jesus to our children, to our grandchildren, even to us. He alone has to make known the
mysteries of the kingdom of God. He alone has to take the veil
off our faces, the scales off of our eyes, as it were, the
wax out of our ears so that we may hear and see. the Gospel
of the grace of God and come to appreciate and believe and
rest in, love the Lord Jesus and His great work of redemption.
Only God can do that. We know that. We know that. It isn't a work that any man
can perform. It wasn't a work that Eunice
could perform or Lois could perform in the heart of young Timothy.
Only God could do that. But we do what we are able to
do. And we're able to read the Scriptures
to them. We're able to sit down and pray
with them. We're able to go over the great
truths of the Word of God with them. And we always do that with
this great desire. Lord, you have to do the work
in the heart. And if you ever reveal the Lord
Jesus to them, they'll see this One that I love, this One that
I believe, and they'll understand why salvation has to be altogether
of grace and altogether by the very power of God. He says that
these Scriptures, they're able to make thee wise unto salvation. Well, if they're able to make
us wise unto salvation, we must be ignorant of salvation. Right? If the Scriptures are able to
give us wisdom, the wisdom which is from above, wisdom, our Lord
Jesus is that wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1, who of God is made unto us,
wisdom, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. If the Lord has to give us wisdom,
then let us ask Him to give us this wisdom which is from above. Let me see the reason for the
Scriptures. Let me see the very theme of
the Scriptures. Let me understand the very heart
of the Word of God, which is that salvation by grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now remember, as I've
already said, all of the Word of God that these people had,
all that Eunice and Lois had, all that Timothy had, even all
that the Apostle Paul had, was the Old Testament Scriptures.
But they're able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith
which is in Christ Jesus. Which means that in the Old Testament
Scriptures, we read of Christ Jesus. He's hidden from the natural
man as all spiritual things are. But it's the Spirit of God who
reveals to us the very Savior from even portions of Scripture
in the Old Testament that you never dreamed that you would
see Christ in. And we have been blessed. You
have been blessed to sit under. Many of you have been here for
years and years. You've been blessed to sit under
the preaching of the Gospel that comes right out of the Old Testament
as well. And you've heard that this is
the book all about the Son of God and who He is in His glory,
in His grandeur, in His honor. He is God, a very God, who was
made to be flesh for us. He who is the highest of the
high. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. And that's why God's exalted
Him. We've heard of Christ and Him crucified. We've been instructed
in Him out of the Old Testament. Almost any of you, if I asked
you if we were in a private conversation together, you could go back through
the Old Testament and you could give me all of these Old Testament
blessed stories that illustrate the Gospel. Because God has instructed
you. God has taught you. But there
are multitudes of people who go to the Old Testament and for
the life of them, they can't see the Gospel. They can't see
our Lord Jesus. Why is it that you have understanding
and they don't? Well, it's because you have a
wisdom that came from above. Whereas they don't. And we ask
God to give that wisdom. We need wisdom because we're
ignorant. Now, you must understand that as the Apostle Paul writes
this to Timothy, he's not saying that just by reading the Word
of God only that you get wisdom from above. No, you read the
Word of God and there is within the Word of God the very power
of God unto salvation as the Holy Spirit puts it in your heart. That's what's necessary. You
see, there are lots of people who read the Bible every day
and they say, this is a wonderful piece of literature. It's magnificent
writing. And it has great moral lessons
for us to learn. And so they read the Word of
God, not understanding and not looking for that One who is the
Incarnate Word, about Whom all of the written Word is. It's all about Him. And as someone
reads the Word of God, the Scriptures, without any understanding of
our Lord Jesus Christ, The spiritual value that they will receive
is nothing. It's nothing. There are a lot
of people that go to the Old Testament and say, I'm going
to study the Ten Commandments. And they study the Ten Commandments.
My, what good moral lessons. Oh, if we could just, if our
country would just go by the Ten Commandments, what a better
country we would be. That's not why the law of God
was given. The law of God was these statutes
were given to expose our guilt. And to show us our need of this
one and only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. But people read
the Old Testament as a historical narrative. And if that's the reason people
read, and if that's all they get out of it, they might as
well be reading Pharma's almanac. Or Reader's Digest. You get a
lot of moral lessons out of Reader's Digest. That which is necessary is that
very power of God. You see here, he uses this word
in verse 15, that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures
which are able. That's a key word, able. And
the root word of able is power. It's virtually that same word
that's used in Romans 1 in verse 16. Paul says, for I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. And the word power presents the idea, and you've heard this
before, of spiritual dynamite. It's when the Holy Spirit He
takes the Word of God and puts it in you. It's like a great
explosion. Something happens. Something
happens. And all of a sudden, the one
who is dead in sins is made alive. And so James says, of His own
will hath You quickened who were dead. He begat people who were
dead. And he begats people with the
word of truth. That's the power Paul is talking
about. And this might, the ability of
God, the power of God, it makes us wise. It doesn't ask you,
do you want to be wise? It makes you wise. And you're
not looking for this wisdom and all of a sudden you discover
this. You find out who God is. You
find out what you are. What you're made out of. You're
nothing. You're no good. And God shows
you by His Spirit the necessity of the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ and His resurrection. He makes you wise to see how
God can be just and holy and justify a poor old sinner like
you. He makes you wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Here's what God does for
us by His power. He gives to us faith. You don't have it. You don't
have it. It's not within you by nature.
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him. Neither can he even discern them. They're spiritually discerned.
And the Lord, what He does, He gives us faith to believe, to
embrace, to receive. In John chapter 1, our Lord Jesus
came to His own, His own received Him not, but as many as did receive
Him, to them gave He the power or the authority to become the
children of God, the sons of God, even to them that believe
on His name, which were born. Lots of times preachers, not
anybody we have any respect for, but preachers will kind of put
an end period to the sentence there at John chapter 1 and verse
12, but that's not where it ends. What is the reason that people
receive Christ? We receive Him as our prophet
and priest and king. Our prophet to teach us. Our
priest to stand between us and a holy God. To minister to God
on our behalf. Just like Aaron went into the
Holy of Holies to minister on the behalf of the children of
Israel on the Day of Atonement. And I said this morning that
in Aaron, all the children of Israel were there before God.
And in Christ Jesus, our great high priest, we stand in Him
and He is the one who is our mediator between us and God. He's the one in whom we're accepted. He's our prophet. He's our priest. He's our king. And we receive
Him as such. We worship Him as such. But the
reason we do that is because we're born. Not of the flesh,
not of the will of man, but born of God. And you see, we have to trace
every aspect of salvation. back to the source. And that's
God. Jonah said salvation is of the
Lord. David said in the Psalms, but
the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. It's of Him in
its purpose. He ordained salvation. He chose
a people unto salvation. It's of Him in redemption. God
the Son paid the price. It's of Him in His great resurrecting
power as He comes to us in His quickening grace. It's of Him
in His preservation. And salvation is of the Lord
in His perfection. It's the Lord who makes us wise
unto salvation. We find out who God is. We find
out what we are. We find out who Christ is. We
find out why He came to this world. He didn't come to set
before us an example of how we ought to live, although He is
the perfect example. The reason He came was to save. That's why He came. And He did
just that. So these Scriptures, in the hands
of the Holy Spirit, they're dynamite. And you know what we do? We just
preach the Word. I can't set the dynamite. I can't
make it explode within you. There's nothing I can do to give
you life. I can certainly rehearse for you over and over again the
grand and glorious Good News, the Gospel of redeeming grace,
but you'll only be wise in the salvation if God makes you wise. We can speak to the ears. Only
God can speak to the heart. When our Lord Jesus stood before
the tomb of Lazarus, He told His companions, He said, roll
the stone away. That's all they could do. And I say, roll the stone away.
Do what you can do. Give to your relatives. Give
to your friends. Give them a bulletin. The message
especially blessed you, give them a CD or a DVD. Do what you can. That's rolling
away the stone. But after you've rolled away
the stone, there's nothing more you can do. God has to work. And we ask Him to do that. And
God the Son stood in front of that sepulcher of Lazarus, and
He said, Lazarus, come forth. Well, what do you know? Here
he comes. I'm sure that Mary and Martha,
Lazarus don't die, Lazarus don't die, and then he died. Oh, they
even said to the Savior, if you'd been here, you wouldn't have
died. But the Savior, when He speaks,
there is absolute authority in His voice. He speaks with a voice
that wakes the dead. And here's what He says, My sheep
hear My voice in My heart. And I know them. I love them. I'm affectionate toward them. I know them and they follow Me. When will we follow? When the
voice of our Savior. What is the voice of our Savior?
The Gospel. When the Gospel comes home to
the heart by the power of the Spirit. That's when we come forth from
the dead. And then it gets down here to
verse 16. It says, Now all Scripture Remember, he's still talking
to Timothy. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. That is, it's God-breathed. God-breathed. Divine, well, we'll call it dictation. Divine dictation. God-breathing. Matt read to us from 2 Peter
1. Holy men of God, they spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost, as they were borne along, carried
along in their minds and in their hearts that God gave them the
very Word of Truth. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable For, and he gives several things,
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness. And here's the purpose, that
the man of God, the believer, and you can interpret this one
of two ways. He's speaking to a preacher,
so you can say this pertains to the preachers. But more than
that, this applies to all of the people of God. That we might
be perfect or complete mature, throughly furnished unto all
good works. Now, perhaps you're asking, Jim, how can you be so certain
this is the Word of God? I mean, there are other books
that claim to be The Authority for Faith and Practice,
the writings of Joseph Smith, for instance, with the Latter-day
Saints. And there are other books as
well, like The Originator of the Seventh-day Adventist Church,
and several others. They claim, well, you know, what
our founder wrote, that's what we go by. Well, our founder is
God Himself. This is what He's written. But
you say, Jim, how do you know? How can you be so certain this
is the Word of God? That this is the only book that
we should study and believe? Well, I'll give you several reasons. Number one, the book says it's
the Word of God. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. Listen, either this is God's
Word, or it's a work of fiction. It's one or the other. Either
this is the very foundation of faith and practice, or there
is no sure foundation for faith and practice. The Lord used men to write the
Holy Scriptures. And this book says it's the Word
of God. Says it's the Word of God. See,
if you want to talk about spiritual things with me, be glad to talk to you. But if
you are in doubt as to whether this is the very Word of God,
we have no common basis upon which to meet. If there is no foundation, then
it doesn't make any difference what you believe. We can't talk about the things
of God unless we both are in agreement on this. This is the
full and final revelation of God. This is the authority right
here, this book. What does God say in its context
now? Don't just lift a statement here
and a statement there and a statement from somewhere else. A whole
denomination has been built on Acts 2.37. Repent and be baptized
for the remission of sins. And so that denomination called
the church of Christ. Their message is be dipped or
be damned. There it is. Be dipped or be
damped. Be baptized and wash your sins
away. Just like those people did at
Pentecost. Well now, wait a minute. You're
lifting that out of context. And you're setting that against
all the other very clear statements of Scripture. By grace are you
saved and works don't have anything to do with it. You see, if you
start pulling out a Scripture here, a Scripture there, a Scripture
somewhere else, you can prove just about anything. And that's
how false denominations get started. I well remember a professor in
college. He was talking about this very
point. In fact, one of our viewers emailed me a little bit of this
statement, at least two-thirds of it. And then I gave him the
rest of it. But you know, the Scripture says
Judas went out and hanged himself. There's another verse that says,
Go do thou likewise. And another verse says, And what
thou doest, do quickly. Wow! You can make the Bible say
anything if you lift out a statement here, lift out a statement there,
lift out a statement over here, put it all together and say,
there! That's what the Bible says. That's why it's very important
to take the Scripture in context. Take it in its setting. In its
setting. If you want to talk to me about
spiritual things or anybody else, You've got to first of all agree,
is this the sole basis for what we believe? If it isn't, there's
no use talking. You're wasting your breath with
somebody. Somebody denies creation. You
ask, do you think the Bible is the Word of God? Well, yeah.
Okay, well, all right, let's talk then. I'll just take you
to the Scriptures. Exodus 20.11, in six days the
Lord made the heavens and the earth and all that in them is.
Take you to Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning God created.
It all starts with God and ends with God. But if you put a big
question mark upon this book, we got no basis upon which to
talk. I'd be wasting my breath, you'd
be wasting your time. Not only do I know this is the
Word of God because the Bible says it is, but secondly, there
were different writers of this book. You know, this book was
written, God used at least 40 different men who wrote over
a period of 1,500 years. Most of them were not contemporaries
of one another. Their lives didn't overlap. They
didn't know one another. And yet, this book has one central
message, which is our Lord Jesus and His work of redemption. They're
all telling the same story. Though they lived over a broad
course of history, 1,500 years, and yet they all tell the same
story. How can you account for that?
Divine inspiration. It's God's book. God's book. And there's a unity about the
Bible. That's another evidence that
it's the Word of God. There aren't any contradictions.
And if you read a portion of Scripture and in your mind you
think, there's a passage that contradicts this, that contradiction
is not in the Word of God, but in your lack of understanding
those Scriptures. Because there's a blessed unity
to the Book of God. And it's message. I know it's
the Word of God because of its message. Our Lord Jesus told
the Jews of His day, He said, search the Scriptures. For in
them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are they which
testify of Me. He's talking to the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, the scribes, the priests, the chief rulers, And
the only Bible they had, I remind you, was Genesis to Malachi. He says, search the Scriptures.
And literally, he was saying, you do daily search the Scriptures. And you think in reading and
studying the Scriptures you have eternal life, but here's what
you miss. These are they that testify of
me. They all tell the same story.
It doesn't matter whether you're reading Moses, reading David,
Jeremiah, name any of the other writers of the Word of God in
the Old Testament. They all told the same story. The Jews said, we have Moses!
Our Lord said, if you believe Moses, you'd believe me, because
he wrote of me. Boy, they couldn't see that. But we see it, don't we? We see
that Moses wrote a hymn. He said, Abraham rejoiced to
see my day and he was glad. When did Abraham see his day?
Well, he saw it in the very promise that God gave him. That in Thy
seed, all nations will be blessed. That seed, Paul says in Galatians,
not seeds, but in Thy seed, one, as in Christ Jesus. People from
all nations are going to be blessed. But the Jews couldn't grasp that. They couldn't grasp it. The message
of the Scriptures is Our Lord Jesus and Him crucified. And
we can preach it out of the Old Testament all day long. Somebody
took the New Testament Scriptures away from us, we'd say, well,
we'd have to stop preaching. Most preachers would have to
stop preaching and that'd be a great day. But not God's preachers. Because
God's preachers preach out of the New Testament and the Old
Testament. I love preaching out of the Old
Testament. Like when the children of Israel, they sinned. Moses
threw down those tablets of stone and we've talked about that before. God's wrath was waxed very hot. And Moses told the children of
Israel, I'm going to go up a mountain and I'm going to make an atonement
for you. You mean you can't see Christ
there? He is Himself the One who offered the atonement, the
sacrifice to God, and the sacrifice He offered was the sacrifice
of Himself. Man, you preach redemption and
salvation by substitution and satisfaction from now on. Jews couldn't see that. How do you know? How do you know
this is the Word of God. Because prophecies come to pass. Somebody said there are over
300 different prophecies in the Old Testament concerning our
Lord Jesus, His birth, His ministry, His death, His resurrection,
His rule. Prophesied He'd be born of a
virgin. Fulfilled. New Testament. prophesied to be born in Bethlehem? Micah 5? Where was he born? Bethlehem. That's hundreds of
years before he was ever born. In fact, all the different prophecies
about our Lord Jesus, some mathematician, he said that it would be absolutely
impossible for one man to have fulfilled every single prophecy
concerning Messiah that's found in the Old Testament if it were
not for the fact Jesus of Nazareth came. And he fulfilled them all. He said it would be mathematically
impossible. Not a bone of him be broken,
cast lots for his garment, hands and feet pierced, be despised
and rejected of men. be lifted up to die on a tree? I mean, we can go on and on and
on, starting with Genesis 3.15. The seed of the woman is coming
to crush the head of the serpent. Well, that's exactly what happened.
And our Lord said, now is the prince of this world cast out.
You just go all the way through the Old Testament. All these
prophecies fulfilled. The Lord said to Abraham, your
people are going to be in another land 400 years and then I'm going
to bring them out. Well, how's that going to happen? Well, we're
studying right now in Genesis, Joseph winds up in Egypt and
then his family, Jacob's going to bring the rest of the family
and 70 of them. That's how they wound up in Egypt.
And then a ruthless Pharaoh took over And he showed no mercy,
very cruel, full of hatred. God said, I'm going to bring
you out by my outstretched arm. Prophecy fulfilled. Everything this book predicts
is coming to pass. And there's an honesty about
it. How do you know this is the Word of God? There's an honesty
about it. Abraham! A friend of God. Well, surely
the Bible wouldn't say anything negative about Abraham. Oh, but
it's honest. And so he and his wife were going
into Egypt and he says, honey, you're a good looking woman.
She said, thank you for that compliment. He said, now, them
Egyptians, they know you're good looking and if you tell them that you're
my wife, Well, they'll probably kill me to take you. Just tell
them you're my sister, would you? Abraham did that? Yeah. The Bible recorded that? Oh yeah. Because it's honest. It gives an honest biography
of these men. Samson and Delilah. David, heart filled with lust
toward Bathsheba. tried to cover up his affair
by sending her husband out. Her husband Uriah dies. She's
with child. David says, I got it all covered. You mean that's a man after God's
own heart? Yeah. But look how honest the
Scriptures are. Doesn't hold anything back. It's honest about you. It sure
is. Honest about you. And the influence
of this book. In the nations where the Word
of God is to some degree respected, it has a tremendous effect upon
civilization. As opposed to nations where the
Word of God has not been, they've not been exposed to the Word
of God like we have? They're stooped in voodoo, and
superstition, and devil worship? I know that our Founding Fathers,
very few of them, believed and understood the Gospel of Grace.
Our very first Supreme Court Justice did. but a good many
of the others of our founding fathers, they didn't understand
the Gospel, but they gave some sort of lip service to the Word
of God. And the Word of God has dwelt
in this nation ever since it was founded. It's had a very positive effect
upon society in general. The respect for the Word of God
is waning. Not near what it was. And you
can see the result. It's pretty evident to anybody.
Hey, there are more denominations now, more churches than there
ever have been. And our society is as rotten
as it's ever been and growing worse and worse. But the Word
of God, the presence of the Word of God has a positive effect.
I know it's the Word of God. And here's what happens. This
Word of God, it is profitable, verse 16, for doctrine. It teaches us the doctrine of
God. And I've said this before, generally
in the Bible, generally, whenever you see the word doctrines, It's
used in a negative way. It's used regarding error. The
doctrines of devils. That's false. False doctrines. False gospel. But the doctrine
of the Word of God is one doctrine. It's the doctrine of God our
Savior. That's the reason when somebody asked me, he said, do
you believe the doctrines of grace? Well, and I don't want
to I don't want to jump on somebody with both feet, but I believe
the doctrine of grace. Because it is one great big doctrine
of our God. The doctrine of His salvation.
The doctrine of the way He saves salvation. It's all part of one
great doctrine. And so the Word of God, it'll
do you good. It will teach you doctrine. It's
good for reproof. It will correct errors and heresies. It will expose them. It will do you good for correction.
It will correct your spirit, correct your attitude, correct
your conduct. And it will instruct you in righteousness
that you don't have any. and that the only righteousness
to be had is the righteousness of God our Savior, who established
righteousness by His obedience unto death, even the death of
the cross. That's the righteousness you
need. You need Him who is the Lord, our righteousness. So the
Word of God instructs us in righteousness. In order that the man of God
may be perfect, mature, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, I'm going to go a little bit
long tonight, forgive me. But what is a good work anyway? The Word of God, it furnishes
us to all good works. What is a good work? Did you
know this? In all of the New Testament, only one work is ever
clearly said to be a good work. Just one. It was shortly before our Lord's
death, And a woman came up with an alabaster box full of precious
ointment. And she put that ointment on
His head. And the fragrance filled the
room. And the disciples, they went berserk. She could have
sold that! That's such an expensive thing!
She could have sold it for a lot of money to feed the poor! Oh,
that sounds good, doesn't it? Our Lord said, leave her alone.
She's wrought a good work unto Me. He said, Preacher, I'd like
to do a good work. You render honor, praise, and
glory to Christ Jesus. I'll guarantee you that's a good
work and don't tell anybody about it. You seek to honor Him. And you
do good for His people. Our Lord said, You do it to such
a one as one of my children, you've done it unto me." That's
what he said. You feed one of my children,
you clothe one of my children, you visit one of my children,
he said, it's like you've done it to me. So he says to Timothy, this is
my charge. And it's based upon the fact
that our Lord Jesus is going to judge the quick and the dead,
he says in verse 1 of chapter 4. He says, now you preach the
Word. What are we supposed to do? Preach
the Word. Very clear. Not complicated. Preach the Word. Don't water
it down. Don't try to take off the sharp
edge as well, preacher. You know, that message you brought
such and such a time, I tell you, you kind of had a sharp
edge on that. Well, we're not going to blunt
the edge. The sword has got to be sharp to cut. And it cuts
going and coming. It's got two edges on it. So
we just preach the Word of God. Preach the Word. We give it out.
That's what we're supposed to do. Well, when we're supposed
to preach the Word, in season and out of season, When people want to hear and
when they don't want to hear, they're not going to change the
message. I was talking years ago with Brother
Scott Richardson. He told me he was preaching a
funeral. And he said the funeral director got weary of hearing
him preach Christ and Him crucified. He said the funeral director's
sitting at the back went like this. It's time to end it. I said, what did you do? He said,
I ignored him and kept on preaching. We preach the Word. When it's
in season, when it's out of season. You see, in every season, we
preach the Word of God. And we don't water it down like
I say. We're instant in season, out
of season. We reprove, rebuke, we exhort
with all longsuffering and doctrine. Because the time is coming, and
I'll tell you that's here for sure. When they will not endure
sound, doctrine, sound is that which is wholesome and healthy. We just preach the pure gospel
of grace because that's wholesome to you and it's healthy for you.
But after their own lusts, they shall heap to themselves teachers
having itching ears, and they'll turn away their ears from the
truth, shall be turned to fables. I don't want to hear that anymore.
I don't want to hear that message anymore. Well, goodbye. Goodbye. I'm not going to apologize. I'm not going to change the message
to suit you. If you don't like it, so long. Face God with that kind
of attitude. says how we're preaching His
Word, and the only message it glorifies. See, there's just
one message glorifies God, does the sinner good, feeds the sheep
of the Lord. That's the glorious gospel of
redeeming grace. That just answers every desire
of the hearts of the people of God. So we preach the Word. And I hope and I believe you're
glad to hear it. and rejoice in the message. Get
your black folders out again, turn number 16, complete in the