I'd ask Bill to read that portion
of Scripture out of Psalm 19, because in Psalm 19, the sweet
psalmist of Israel breaks open to us two great books that magnify
our God. The first book is the works of
God, the book of the works of God. They glorify Him. He begins
by saying, the heavens declare Thy glory. In fact, such is that magnificent
glory of God seen in creation that it leaves all men without
excuse. So it says in Romans chapter
1. But there's another book that
the psalmist of Israel speaks of and writes of there in Psalm
19. not only the books of the works
of God, but the book of the Word of God. The Word of God. From the works of God, you may
rightly conclude the power of God, something of the wisdom
of God, something of the greatness of God. From all of His works,
But that which you cannot know from the works of God in creation,
you cannot know how God can be just and justify the ungodly. You cannot know how you, a fallen
son or daughter of Adam, could ever be reconciled to a holy
God against whom you've sinned. You can't find that out in the
book of the works of God in creation. Creation preaches to us every
day. But it only speaks to us of those
things that we can, to a degree, believe in our minds But it doesn't
speak to us, the book of the works of God in creation don't
speak to us of that glorious gospel of God's free grace. Of
His honoring of justice in the death of His Son. You can't find
that out from creation. You can't find out how God can
be glorious and holy and mighty and just and yet embrace a filthy
sinner like you without tarnishing His impeccable holiness. You can't find that out. Not
from the book of the works of creation. You only find that
out from the book of the Word of God. For the book of the Word of God
is a book that speaks to us not only of God in His glory and
His holiness and His justice, but it speaks to us of our own
dilemma. And it doesn't paint a beautiful
picture of us. It doesn't flatter us at all.
In fact, I know of no book except the Word of God that puts man
on the level that he needs to be. We're beggars on the dunghill. We're worthless people as far
as our natural condition is concerned. And the Book of God is brutally
honest with us. And then the book of the Word
of God speaks to us of the only remedy by which the ungodly can
indeed stand before a holy God, pure and righteous and blameless. And that's through the very person
and the work that He finished on the cross, the person and
work of our Lord Jesus. Therefore, when we get to 2 Timothy
chapter 4 in verse 2, Timothy receives these instructions from
an aged apostle. And here are the words, and it's
all summarized here in these three words. Preach the word. Timothy is a young preacher.
He's a young preacher. He needs instruction. Young preachers
need instruction. They need to be taught. He has
had a worthy example of a true preacher of the gospel in the
Apostle Paul. And to some degree, he has even
walked in his footsteps. He has followed him from one
church to another. He has listened to the Apostle
preach. He knows the message of the Gospel. He has himself learned the Scriptures
which made him wise unto salvation as we shall see in just a couple
of minutes. And here is the aged apostle
Paul giving some needed very final instructions to this young
preacher. After all, Paul will soon lose
his life for the Gospel's sake. And he says to him, to this young
preacher, preach the Word. This is my counsel to you. Preach
the Word. Go back in chapter 3 and verse
13. In leading up to this admonition
to preach the gospel, he says to Timothy, but evil men and
seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,
but you continue in the things which thou has learned and has
been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them. You continue
in the word of God. He says evil men and seducers. Who are the evil men that Paul
warns Timothy about? Well, they're not the openly
wicked. They're not the openly profane. They're not drunkards. They're
not thieves. They're not robbers. They are
men who have a form of godliness who are full of wickedness and
full of hatred of the God of grace and the gospel of grace,
that blessed message of redeeming love through our Lord Jesus Christ,
the message of salvation altogether by grace, he warns Timothy of
those men. And he says to them, they're
evil. They're evil. Now they profess that they're
wise, they profess that they know God, they profess that they
speak for God. But he says they're evil men.
If you take the time to turn on your television or your radio,
you'll hear all manner of preachers on there. We happen to have a
satellite dish, and there are lots and lots of religious television
programs that are available for people to watch. And all of them
saying that they're speaking for God. But hear what Paul says,
they're evil men. The most evil men in this world. Hear me now. The most evil men
in this world are those who stand before men and women and boys
and girls and they lie on God. They're the most evil people
in the world. Because they usually carry a
Bible with them. But he says they're evil men
and they're seducers. The word is sorcerers. They have
a sorcery. They cast a spell over people. It's really the spell of Satan. It is the spell of false religion. And people are deceived. They're
seduced. They're sucked into. following
and supporting these religious con-men. That's what they are.
You see them on television, especially they love to talk about health
and wealth. God doesn't want you to be sick. God wants you to be well. He
wants you to be healthy. And if you are sick, it's because
you don't have enough faith. And if you'll believe God, He'll
heal you of all of your physical ailments. And if you'll send
in your 10% tithe to this ministry, this is what they say, things
like this, that God will reward you with an abundance of the
riches of this world. They're evil men and they're
sorcerers. Our Lord spoke of them. He said,
they rob widows' houses. And you listen to some of these
fellows on television, and it's kind of easy to get real negative
on these things, but they're always asking for money. They're
selling something. Oh, they'll give you this, they'll
give you a little holy water, and then they sucker you in,
they seduce you, into following them, and following and believing
their message, and they'll get the money out of you eventually.
They're money hungers. Hungers. They want more. They're already millionaires.
One preacher I was watching, somebody said to him, aren't
you a millionaire? He said, no, not me. He said,
I know you're a millionaire. And the preacher said, no, I'm
not a millionaire, I'm a multi-millionaire. And he said, God made me a multi-millionaire. That's who Paul's warning about.
Evil men and seducers. It is little wonder, therefore,
that false religion in the Word of God is portrayed as a harlot. That is, Babylon, which has always
been the enemy of God's people. Well, what does the harlot do?
Read, when you get home, read Proverbs chapter 7. She seduces
people. She's on the straight corner.
And she makes herself very alluring. That's the religion of today.
That's the religion of these evil men and seducers. And they
sucker people in. They present a picture of a group
of people who love families. Notice the emphasis on families
with these false religionists. They're off the family. Would
do good for your family. In fact, we have built a great
family life center. And we'll give you something
to do every night of the week. You can come shoot basketball.
You can come go bowling. You can do this. You can do that.
And that's how they draw people in. They sucker people in. But
our Lord called the false religion of His day, He called them a
generation of vipers. Here the apostle calls them evil
men and seducers. It's like they cast a spell over
people. In the book of Revelation, Babylon,
the harlot, she is pictured as one who has such a message that
is so attractive to the people. They drink of that elixir. They drink of the wine of her
fornication. They drink and drink till they're
in the stupor. And you try to talk to religious
people today, it's like talking to a drunk. It's talking to a
religious drunk. They are inebriated on man's
worth, and man's works, and man's will. They're drunk on those
things, and the only one who can sober them up is God. And
He'll have to do it. And here's what Paul says to
Timothy. He says, they'll wax worse and
worse. Just when you think things can't
get any worse, they do. They do more outlandish things. And they're always coming up
with new methods, a new type of ministry, different music. And it's always to draw people
in. They don't want to offend anybody.
It's like the preacher who pastors that huge church in Houston,
being interviewed, and they said, how come you don't ever speak
of people being a sinner? He said, well, I don't like to
use that word, sin. It's so offensive. He said, we
all make mistakes. Isn't it amazing that a holy
God in His Word often uses that word sin? That's what we are. That's our dilemma. We eat and
drink sinfulness. And we're sinners in the heart.
That's the reason only God can do something for us and He could
do it in a just way through the substitutionary death of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And these men on television,
these men on the radio, they talk about health, they talk
about wealth. You won't ever hear them talking
about the justice of God. You won't ever hear them really
preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason
they don't preach the Gospel, the good news of finished redemption,
of reconciliation accomplished by the Lord Jesus, by His sacrifice
upon the cross of Calvary, the reason they don't preach the
Gospel is because they don't know the Gospel. They have no
love of the Gospel. The gospel means nothing to them. That which they're all about
is advancing their ministry and their renown, making more followers
and getting more money. And the Apostle Paul marks them
well. He says they're evil men. They're
seducers. But as you say, a preacher down
the road from me, he's the nicest guy you ever want to meet. He's
an evil man if he doesn't preach the gospel. I'm telling you. He's an evil man. He's a seducer. And he'll try to seduce you.
Why don't you come visit our church, he'd say. We've got a
lot of programs. You know, we feed the hungry
during the week. Maybe you could help us make
soup. And we have a big box out where we put clothes out for
the needy? Maybe you could help us with
that. We're doing things to help the community. No, they're doing
things not to help the community, but to keep them in spiritual
darkness. That's what they're doing. You see, the only real help can
come from the Scriptures. Preach the Word. Preach the Gospel. Tell folks about the Lord Jesus.
Tell people about the grace of God. Tell people how bad they
are. And I tell you, when we tell
people, when I tell you, and I'm speaking to me too, when
I sit forth how bad off we are spiritually in our sinfulness,
why, I'm just scratching the surface of it. We have no real
idea of the depth of our depravity. Only God knows and only God knew
how to deal with that situation. The remedy being the death of
His Son. Our Lord Jesus, I tell you, He
ran up against these evil men and seducers when He is on this
earth. He said, you generation of vipers,
how can you escape the damnation of hell? In John chapter 8, he
said to the Pharisees, and they're the most religious, upstanding,
outstanding, moral people as far as the world was concerned,
onlookers were concerned, these are the most holy people in the
whole wide world. Our Lord Jesus said to those
fellows, you're of your father the devil. The works of your
father you will do. For he was a murderer from the
beginning. He led a rebellion against God
and one third of the angels fell with him. He tempted our mother
Eve and she gave in to the temptation. She gave to her husband the forbidden
fruit and he ate. We died. He murdered us. He's a murderer from the beginning. And those Jews in John 8 said,
well, Abraham's our father. Our Lord Jesus said to them,
your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and
was glad. When did he see? When did he
see Christ's day? when he had Isaac up on the mountain.
And Isaac said, Father, here's the wood, here's the knife, here's
the fire, where's the lamb? Where's the lamb? That's what
I want to... I'd like to ask these preachers
whenever I hear them, where's the lamb? Where's the lamb in
your preaching? Or they maybe try to squeeze
him in right there at the end. But He's not their message. Where's
the Lamb? And Abraham saw Christ's day
when he said to his son Isaac, My son, God will provide Himself
a Lamb. God will provide Himself. He's
the Lamb. He's the Lamb. And he saw Christ's
day when Abraham's ready to execute his son. And the Lord said, Stop! I see you believe God. There's
a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. You take that ram
and you kill that ram in the stead of Isaac. Substitution! And Abraham saw the substitutes
coming. The substitute. And he really
died in the place of his real people. People he chose under
grace before the foundation of the world. Abraham saw Christ's
day and was glad. And those Jews said, well, you're
not even 50 years old. Have you seen Abraham? I can
just hear them now with that attitude. I hate attitude, don't
you? Like that. And Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you. And something really vital is
going to come out of his mouth when he says, Verily, verily,
I say unto you. Amen, amen. Truly, truly, I say
unto you. And we put our hand behind our
ears. We cup our ears like that and
say, what you got to say, Lord? He said, before Abraham was,
I am. That's what he said. Before Abraham
was, I am. Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Saw it and was glad. Before Abraham
was, I am. You think they're happy about
that? You think they were happy about
him taking to himself the name that God gave to Moses in Exodus
chapter 3? They picked up stones to stone
him. We're going to put you out of
business right here, right now. But you're the holiest people
on earth. Well, you're a devil. That's
what they said of him. You're a devil. Everything you
do is by the power of the devil. They would have killed him right
then and there. Except it wasn't his time to
die and that's not the way he's going to die either. So he just
slipped through their midst, the Scripture says. He just passed
right by them. They didn't even see him. They were religious, but lost,
evil men, seducers. Like I say, they were religious.
They were religious con men, and we're surrounded with them
today. Look over to 2 Peter 3, if you would, 2 Peter 3. Look at verse 16, 2 Peter 3 and
verse 16. As also in all his epistles,
that is, he's speaking of the apostle Paul, it's obvious from
verse 15, speaking in them of these things, in which are some
things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned."
What does that mean? Untaught of God. Let me tell
you something. Our Lord Jesus said of His children,
of the Father's children in John chapter 6, they shall all be
taught of God. God's going to teach all of His
children how He saves. and he's going to make them rejoice
in salvation being all of grace, and all in the substitute Christ
Jesus. But these men, these evil men,
these seducers, they're unlearned. God hadn't taught them. Oh, they
went to seminary, they went to Bible college, and those Bible
colleges and seminaries, they turn out to assembly line preachers. They're all alike, all got the
same message, all even comb their hair the same way, and dress
the same way. And they got the same ungodly
message. They're untaught, they're unlearned.
And it says they're unstable, they're tossed about by every
wind of doctrine. Whatever it takes to please people.
Whatever it takes to keep the crowds coming. They rest as do they also the
other Scriptures under their own destruction. What does rest
mean? They twist the Scriptures to
fit what they want to say. And I'll take it right out of
context. And you can teach virtually anything, anything you want to
teach if you want to rest the Scriptures, lift it out of its
context, and take it all alone. You can teach virtually anything.
Well, that's what the church of Christ has done with that
passage out of Acts chapter 2. Repent and be baptized, every
one of you, for the remission of sin. Be baptized, wash your
sins away. When you take Scripture out of
context, you can come up with just about anything. Just about
anything. He says they twist the Scriptures,
they distort the Scriptures. Watch this now. Unto their own
destruction. They're going to be destroyed
by what they preach one day. And everybody who follows them
and believes them, they're going to be destroyed too. Don't be
fooled. Don't be fooled. See, why is
it you're always preaching the Word of God? Why is it that Brother
Allen's always preaching the Word of God? Why is it that Ron,
when he speaks, is always preaching the Word of God? Because that's
what we're told to do and the Word of God is the very truth
of God. Our Lord said in His high priestly
prayer in John chapter 17, Thy Word is truth. Now watch it. It doesn't contain the truth. It is the truth. It is the truth. And it isn't, well, some of it
is true and then others maybe it's a little fictional. That's
not right. It's all true because it comes from God who's true.
It's His book. I tell you, the message of religion
today, the message is wrong. The methods are wrong. The music
is wrong. Everything is geared to appease
the flesh. And we're kind of, we're really
in the minority. Because we don't go in for the
contemporary music. Don't like it. Not going to sing
it here. Lots of so-called churches are
now, they want something that's got a peppy beat. And here's the theory of religion,
and it has been for several years. Make the church as much like
the world as you possibly can so that the man, the woman, the
boy or the girl of the world will feel comfortable in the
church. That's their philosophy. I know it is. And thus their
churches, many of them, have swelling numbers. And therefore
we have negative churches. And it takes a lot to keep those
things going. Because you always have to come
up with something new, exciting, and different. And so they have
men on on salary, whose job it is to keep the service lively
and funny and entertaining. Gotta have that. Years ago, Ron
came up and preached for me. I was preaching in a Wesleyan
church. The first man that got up, everybody
had a name tag on, at least all the various pastors did. And
his job was really to warm up the audience. And he told a funny story. And
then they had a second service. And in the second service, he
told the same funny story. Everything is very choreographed. That's the way it is in religion.
Oh, how different it is. among those who believe the gospel
of God's grace. Ours is a simple form of worship. We come in. We have a scripture
read or quoted. We sing the old songs. We read
out of the Word of God. Someone leads us in prayer. I
preach out of the scriptures. preaching the, as Jeremiah called
it, the old paths. The old paths. The old message. Tell me the old, old story of
Jesus and His love. See, that's outdated today in
many circles. I'll tell you what, it's not
outdated with God. And it's not outdated with God's
people. Go back to 2 Timothy 4. Let me
show you a couple of more things here. Preach the Word. That's
what he says. Preach the Word. Don't preach
your church. Don't preach your denomination.
Don't preach the catechism. Preach the Word. He says this, after talking about
warning of evil men and seducers, He said, but you, Timothy, you,
and now I'm talking to you, you continue in all things which
thou hast learned and been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast
learned them. Look at verse 15. And that from the child thou
hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. I draw
your attention to the word able because literally it has within
that the idea of power. There's a great power in the
Word of God. That is when the Spirit of grace
takes it to your heart. You know how much power is in
it? Resurrecting power. Because this is virtually the
same word used in Romans chapter 1 and verse 16. Paul said, for
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. Now you can read the Word of
God. I admonish you to read the Word of God every day. But there
are lots of people across our country and in many other countries
of this world who read the Bible every day, but to those people,
many of them, the Word never comes to them in power. It's
got to come that way. There is a hidden power A dunamis,
dynamite as it were, within the Word of God that can only be
released by the Spirit of grace. And when that happens, you don't
have to beg people, bribe them, anything like that. There's just
like a spiritual explosion in the heart. And God takes away
that heart of stone and gives you a new heart of flesh. And
you believe the glorious gospel of His grace. He says to Timothy here in verse
15, from a child you've known the Holy Scriptures. That's our
message is the Holy Scriptures. Why is it called the Holy Scriptures?
Well, because it's given by the Holy Spirit. He's the author
of this book. God used holy men of old, 2 Peter
chapter 1 says this, to write the Scriptures just as the Spirit
of God breathed upon them. The message of this holy book
is of that holy thing that Gabriel said was formed in the womb of
Mary. The Son of God. It's all about
that holy thing. That Holy One. The Holy One of
Israel. The Holy One of God. And I'll
tell you what, this book, this book reveals to you how sinners
are made holy in the sight of God. You want to be holy in the
sight of God? I'm not talking about holy in
front of the eyes of men, because men really have no concept of
true holiness. They think holiness is what you
wear, where you go, what you do, what you eat, what you don't
eat, what you drink, what you don't drink. And they have this
criteria you've got to meet, and if you meet all of these
things, you're a holy person! He only is holy who is holy before
God in Jesus Christ who is our holiness. And you either are
holy or you're not holy. There is no growth in holiness. Either you got it or you don't
got it. And if you got it, it was given to you. You didn't
muster it up. Now holiness is not something
that you do to grow in it or to advance yourself in holiness. Listen, God chose us in Christ
Jesus to be a holy people before Him and to stand blameless before
Him. Now how can you be blameless
before God? You're a sinner. You know that.
I know that. It's what the Bible says. How
can I be holy? How can I be blameless? Oh, if
somebody preached the Word of God to folks, tell them, holiness
is found in Christ Jesus. At the same place, wisdom is
found. At the same place, righteousness is found. At the same place,
redemption is found. Sanctification is found in Christ
Jesus. He says this, It's able to make you wise unto
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Where is
salvation to be found? In faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well then, do you believe? That's a pretty simple question. Do you believe? Lean all the
weight of your soul upon Him? Well, I'll tell you what, if
this Word of God has been made to you, Dunamis, the very power
of God. You lean the full weight of your
soul on Christ Jesus. It's like He's the nail in a
sure place. And just like you'd hang your
coat up, take your coat off on a cold day like we've been having
here recently, you go inside and you put it up on that hook
and it holds up your coat. We hang our souls upon Christ
Jesus. Fully. I'm not trying to hold
my soul up. I'm not trying to do anything
to help the nail. The nail doesn't need any help! I fully rely on Him. Is that
your testimony? That's my testimony. And we'll
talk about this more next week, but all this Scripture is given
by God, by inspiration of God. No wonder we just preach the
Word. We don't have giveaways. We're
not rewarding people for coming to church. We're not having some
kind of gifts that we give to folks.
If you come to church, we give you a gift. We don't give away
flowers at Mother's Day. Those sorts of things. Hey, I'm
thankful there's a Mother's Day, but you can take care of that
out here. We're not in here to honor mothers. We're not in here
to honor daddies. We're not in here to honor the
children. I'm thankful for the moms. I'm
thankful for the dads. I'm thankful for those who are
not parents. I'm thankful for the children. But we're in here
to honor our God. That's why we follow the admonition
of the apostle. Preach the Word. And that will
get the job done. Let's preach the Word. Tell people
who God is. Tell people what they are. Tell people the remedy to our
disease is the Lord Jesus and His substitutionary sacrifice. Yeah, we still preach the blood
around here. You do too, don't you? Yeah.
We preach by His stripes we're healed. I'm going to show you
next Sunday night that this book is the Word of God. And I'm going
to give you several reasons why I believe, why I know, I'm very
confident this book is the very Word of God. So God speaks to
us through two books. The book of the works of God. And I'm thankful for that. Because
those of us who are the children of the Lord, we can go out here
and we see these beautiful daffodils. My father made that. That's evidence
of his wisdom and the beautiful things that he's made for us
to enjoy. But there's another book. This
book. The book of the Word of God.
It's our subject. That one who is the Word of God
Himself, and this book which is the Word
of God that He's given. And the Lord says, My Word, it
will not return to me void. Just preach it. That's all you've
got to do. Just preach it. Stand back and watch God work.
See what He does. But He's always working. Always
working. Let's get a song, we'll turn
to 77.