I'm highly honored to do so,
and very perplexed at the same time, because I've preached a
lot of old nation services, and never felt I've been preaching
about as long as I have. So I'm going to approach this
a little differently than I normally would. If you'll be turning to
1 Timothy chapter 4, I'll catch up with you there. Our God, how we thank you for
your matchless free grace in Christ our Lord. Thank you for
these, our brothers, our fellow laborers in the cause of Christ
who are gathered here for this occasion, for our brothers and
sisters in these assemblies whose hearts are devoted to you by
your grace. And we ask that you'll be pleased
to meet with us today. I ask that you'll be pleased
to give me grace Power of your spirit to deliver the message
to the hearts of these, your people, that's needed on this
occasion for each of them. Speak by your word. Instruct
us, teach us, inspire us, govern us, reprove us. We ask that you
will order our steps, order our ways. Words can never express our gratitude
for the free forgiveness of sin through our redemption. for your grace, for your righteousness,
for life eternal, for Christ our Lord. And words can never
express our gratitude for the blessed privilege of being called
and gifted and sent of God to preach the gospel. What a grace, what a gift, what
an honor. A task more demanding than any
man can meet. But a task for which you can
and do make your service meet, day by day, hour by hour, year
by year, as you send them forth to proclaim your word. I ask
especially for your blessings upon our friends in Great Falls,
on Brother Peter as he assumes the ministry there. I ask that
you'll grant that he and Jill will find their lives profitable
in your kingdom, profitable with one another and with your people
there. Use them greatly for the cause
of our Savior. For each of us, I ask our God
make us faithful to you, faithful to your cause, faithful to your
gospel, and use us in this generation for the building of your kingdom,
the salvation of your elect, the comfort and edifying of your
saints, the presence of your gospel. I ask these things for
your glory through the name of your darling son. Amen. In the 40th chapter of Isaiah,
the Lord God gives specific instruction to preachers. And this is his
word. The chapter opens like this.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. That's the business
of preaching. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Some years ago I had a young
man come down and visit us fairly frequently from up in New York
City and he was attending a strict legalistic reform church and
he sat on my patio one day and he said, you know, it's such
a good ministry. Every Sunday I go and I feel
like I just had my hide ripped off and he kept talking about
just being beat and beat down. I said, why do you keep going?
I just I wouldn't go back, I don't understand that. That's not the
business of God's servants. Our business is to comfort God's
people with his word. He says again, speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem. The word might better be translated,
speak to the heart of Jerusalem. Speak to the heart of my people. That's my responsibility this
hour. to speak to the heart of each
one of you. Where you are in your circumstances,
with a message from God, that's an impossibility. I can't do
it. No man can do it. Oh, but if
God will speak by me, his word, given this hour, for this occasion,
he will speak to your heart, each of you, by his word. How
do you do that? Cry unto her that her warfare
is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. We come and proclaim
salvation finished by Jesus Christ. The warfare that you have set
up against God by sin and rebellion, it's finished. It's accomplished. Christ Jesus has won the day. He's reconciled his people to
God. By that, Our iniquity is pardoned
through his shed blood. I don't preach to you the possibility
of iniquity being pardoned. I declare to you, as surely as
you believe on the Son of God, all your iniquity, past, present,
and future, is forever pardoned by the blood of Christ. She had
received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins, not only Has
he pardoned your iniquity? He comes by his grace and makes
his people the very righteousness of God by omnipotent mercy. Righteousness performed by Christ. Righteousness bestowed by grace.
Righteousness received by faith. And when the prophet heard this,
he said, what shall I cry? How am I to do this? How do I
comfort God's people all the time? How do I proclaim salvation
all the time and proclaim his word? Tell them two things. All
flesh is grass. That's all you are. And that's
all I am. Dead, dried up, withering grass. Fit for nothing but the burning.
Useful for nothing. All flesh is grass. Even you
and I who are born of God All about us that is of nature is
just grass, nothing else. Nothing to commend ourselves
to God, nothing to make ourselves accepted with God, nothing to
make us useful to God, nothing at all for God, just grass. I had to mow our grass before
I left home, and we'd mowed it just a couple of days earlier,
but we're gonna be gone for 10 days, so I topped it off, and I got
the yard to sweep her out, and we mow about three acres of grass,
that's a lot of grass to cover, and started sweeping it up. And
you know what you have to do when you start sweeping it up?
Got to find a place to put it. You don't want it. You can't
use it. Got to find a place to put it. Just get it out of sight.
That's what you are. That's what I am. So don't strut
too high or too mighty thinking yourself something. You're nothing.
All flesh is grass. So look out of yourself. Behold
your God. You here who do not know God,
I know the reason why. I know the reason why. You have
a tough time dealing with it. So I just can't believe I know
why. Because you keep looking for something in here. You keep
looking for a feeling or knowledge or an emotional thing or some
vision or something. You're looking for something
in here. Look away and behold your God. God, our Savior, sitting
on his throne, able to say to the uttermost, all who come to
God by him. That's the preacher's business.
Preaching at one of our Bible conferences many, many years
ago, Brother Scott Richardson, who's now with the Lord, made
this profound statement about preaching. He said, preaching
is getting a message from God's heart to my heart and delivering
it to your heart. Anything else is just filling
in time. What a profound statement. The
Lord God promised to give his church pastors after his own
heart. Pastors after God's heart are
pastors who feed his people with knowledge and understanding.
Knowledge of his word and understanding of his word. Knowledge of his
people and understanding of his people. Knowledge of the times
and understanding of the times. So that the pastor is a man who
is called of God and gifted of God with understanding in the
scriptures. That is, he understands the whole
of Scripture. He understands the whole of Scripture.
I don't understand everything, every word written in this book,
but I understand what it's all about. I understand the whole
of it. And he has a gift from God so
that he is apt to teach, able to teach. That is, he's able
to stand up before folks and communicate in a clear way what
God teaches in his Word. That's what preaching is. The
prophet Nehemiah describes it this way. They read the book
in the law of God distinctly and gave the sense and calls
them to understand the reading. Would to God that every man who
stands where I stand now would take the word of God, give us
the reading of the word clearly, give the sense of the word and
calls folks to understand it. Calls folks to understand it.
So I didn't understand that fella. Well, one of two things happened.
If you don't understand what I'm saying when I preach to you,
either I don't want you to understand or I don't understand. There's
no other, no, let's go to the saints. That lady sitting there,
that blonde hair, that beautiful lady, she makes, she's the best
cook in the world. And she makes a pound cake, oh
my, it'd be worth a trip to Damble to get this. Oh, it's good, good
stuff, good stuff. And I don't even know where the
buttons are on the stove. I don't know how to cook. But
I'm gonna tell you a little secret. If she wanted me to know how
to make it, she could tell me exactly how to do it, because
she understands. She understands. And if a man
preaches to you, and you don't understand what he's saying,
it's because either he doesn't know what he's talking about,
or he doesn't want you to know what he's talking about. God's
servants are gifted and apt to teach, able to communicate, the
message of God in his word with clarity. The Lord commands us
to speak as his ambassadors. A preacher, my friend Brother
Scott said this as well at another occasion, he said, a preacher
is a nobody who tells everybody about somebody who can save anybody. That's a pretty good description
of a preacher. He's nobody and he knows it. But if he's God's,
if that man sitting right there is sent of God to Great Falls,
Montana, he's nobody and he knows it, but he is the instrument
by whom God speaks to his people. The instrument by whom God calls
out and saves his elect. The instrument by whom God conveys
faith to sinners. The instrument by whom God edifies,
strengthens, comforts, guides, directs, reproves his saints
as they walk through this world. That's what a preacher is. God's
ambassador. I know people have the idea,
and somehow we've got these notions in our head, a preacher, let's
come to the, let's study now. What do you think this is? I'll
tell you what I think this is. I might change my mind next week.
Don't do that. I don't bring ideas to the pulpit.
I don't bring questions to the pulpit. I study the word of God
and seek a message from God and declare what I know God has taught
me by his spirit and I've experienced by his grace and I never back
up on it. Speak the word with boldness,
with dogmatism, as with clarity. So the man preaches the word
of God, delivering a message from God to his people. This
work of preaching the gospel is the most blessed and most
delightful work in the world. I've said that many times and
every time I write it down or say it, I want to pause and be
sure I'm speaking honestly. This work of preaching the gospel
is the most blessed, most delightful work in the world. I make no
hesitancy in saying with the Apostle Paul, Unto me who am
less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. It's the most blessed work in
the world. And it's the most demanding work
in the world. You see, the ministry of the
gospel is not a career a man chooses, but a gift God bestows. It's not an occupation, but it's
a way of life. The work of the gospel ministry,
if you don't get anything else out of what I say today, I want
you to get this. I want every man, woman, and
child here, especially every preacher here to get this and
then ask God to burn it into your heart. The work of preaching
the gospel is an all-consuming work. It is an all-consuming
work. Preach the word, be it an end
season, out of season. Rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering
and doctrine. That is, just patiently keep
on at the work. Though men are turned to fables,
Paul says, you watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work
of an evangelist, make a full proof of your ministry. Now let's
look at verse 11 of 1 Timothy 4. These things command and teach,
that no man despise thy youth, that is, don't give him a reason
to. But be thou an example of believers, an example in word,
in conversation, that is, in the way you live, in charity,
in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attendance
to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. That is, Timothy, you
constantly give yourself to this business of reading the Word
of God, preaching the Word of God, studying and understanding
the doctrine of God. Neglect not the gift that is
in thee. And how do you do that? You don't
give attendance to reading, to exhortation and doctrine. You
find something else to do. Neglect not the gift which is
in thee, which was given thee by prophesy. laying on of the
hands of the Presbyterian. Meditate upon these things. Give
thyself wholly to them. Give thyself wholly to them. I wake up every day begging God
for certain things. I beg God every day to give me
grace to give myself wholly the business of preaching the gospel. Because I am every day distracted
from it. Every day. Every day. Never a
day when something didn't come up to distract. Never a day.
We must give ourselves wholly to this work. Rothbard used to
say, one of these days, I'm going to enter the ministry. I heard
him say that when he was an old man. He'd been preaching. as
long as I've been living. One of these days, I want to
enter the ministry." Well, Henry Mahan and I traveled together
at least once a month for 20 years, preaching somewhere, and
we'd be riding along in the car, and he'd say, one of these days,
I'm going to enter the ministry. And that may seem out of place
to folks, when you hear a man who spent literally all his adult
life studying reading and preaching, traveling to preach, writing,
communicating the gospel. One of these days I'm going to
enter the ministry. The fact is this is a concern
for every servant of our God. I'm not talking now about I'm
not talking about the we'll worship our minions, the hirelings, I'm
not talking about the papists, I'm not talking about the liberals,
the folks who practice religion and religious works to make themselves
comfortable. I'm talking now about preachers,
men who believe the gospel, not glory seekers, men who believe
the gospel of preaching. many. I know preachers all over
the world. I don't know many who've ever
really entered the ministry. I know preachers all over the
world. I don't know many that I'm confident I could pick up
the phone on Monday morning and find them in their office, or
on Monday evening, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, just
occasionally, just enough to get by. That's sad. That ought never to be. That
ought never to be. God's servants are men who are
to give themselves wholly to the ministry. When Elisha picked
up Elijah's mantle, when God called Elijah to follow his prophet,
that prophet Elijah burned his oxen in the yokes and went and
followed Elisha. And when he picked up his mantle,
Elijah had to lay down all other interests. This man Elisha gives
us an example. That man who truly enters the
ministry must leave every other occupation, every other care,
every other concern, every other project. The man who enlists
in the army, goes off to war, has one business. The business
of that man is the welfare of the nation he's defending in
war. Not his shop he left at home,
not his family left home, This one thing I've got to take care
of, Olympic athletes. Have you ever listened to any
of them describe their routine? You listen to them, you say,
all they do is train and run. All they do is train and run.
They devote themselves to it. Sadly, parents try to force their
kids in that way. And they start from there. I've
known parents from their youth up, just set that child in that
direction so they become famous for a day. But that's exactly
what God's servants must do. The man who enters the ministry,
who really enters the ministry, has just that kind of all-consuming
determination and commitment. Just that kind. I don't have
a large family. I just have one child. Actually,
I have four now. I've got a daughter, and her
husband, my son, and our two grandchildren, and my wife. So
the front family got increased. And when we were raising Faith,
there were lots of things she couldn't do. Not because it was
wrong. Lots of things she couldn't engage
in. For one reason, there's something more important. My grandson is
quite an athlete. I went one Monday night, a few
months ago, a couple months ago, Shelby and I did see him play
a ball game. First time I'd seen him play ball since he was 11
years old. How come? because they play on
Friday and Saturday. Friday and Saturday, I have to
study. And I can't give the time. And I hope he understands. I
pray God will cause him, by his grace, to understand in time
if he doesn't. This is more important? More important than anything.
More important than anything. Shelby travels with me now. But
until our daughter was out of college, she stayed home, took
care of the house, took care of her daughter. And I spent
more time sleeping under somebody else's roof than I did under
her roof. How come? Don't you love your wife? Oh,
yes, I love her. But there's somebody and something
more important than her and her needs and her pleasure. And that's
Christ and his gospel and his church. That's what I'm talking
about. I'm talking about entering the
ministry. You must day by day, day by day, push aside the world,
the cares of the world, the riches of the world, the influence of
the world, and give ourselves to the business of preaching
the gospel. That's what a pastor does. I
am not like the seminary-taught pastor. I was taught, but I just
didn't pay any attention. Pastors are basically, in the
States, I presume here, too, just ambulance-take chasers.
They sit with folks and visit, and they'll visit the sick study. That's the reason we have
deacons in churches, is so that pastors can study. And I can't
recommend that any man go to a seminary, not to anyone in
the world, not to any Bible college in the world, if I'm mistaken,
please tell me, but I don't know of a Bible college or seminary
in the world that believes and preaches and insists upon the
gospel of God's free grace. And I wouldn't think of that
same fellow to learn how to preach from somebody who doesn't know
anything about it. But preachers, have a trip they must take. I'm
gonna give you five trips every preacher must take. Five trips,
each one must take now, and each one must take day by day. Not many are willing to, but
these trips we must take. First, the man who enters the
ministry must go to Calvary. Spend your life around the cross. Spend your life around the cross. and all the creeds and confessions
and debates and nonsense that goes on in church pulpits and
church affairs are meaningless. Be absorbed with the glory of
God's grace flowing to sinners through the blood and righteousness
of God's Son. Let your soul be absorbed with
the indescribable love of God for sinners He sent you to proclaim
to men in the name of His Son. And every preacher, he who would
enter the ministry must go to the cemetery. Not now and then,
every day. Go now and keep going. A man
cannot enter the ministry until he's buried his mother, his father,
his wife, his children, and his own life also. So that where
the calling, the service, the truth, and the glory of Christ
are concerned, God's servant has no natural ties, no natural
cares, none, none. I don't have any question at
all. Either by deception or by truth,
God will prove it in time. I'd go anywhere in the world
under any circumstances to preach the gospel of God's grace if
I simply know this word God sent me. regardless of whether she
approved or not, regardless of whether it cost me never seeing
my children again or not. I've been praying with my grandsons
since before he was born that God would be pleased to make
of him a believer and make of him a preacher. I'll make him
a preacher. Oh, but I deal. If God would send him to the
farthest corner of the earth and I never saw his face again,
forget the message of God's must go to the cemetery and bury
everything. And that man who enters the ministry
must go to the garbage dump, real regular, dispose of all
his property, his heritage, his learning, his natural wisdom,
his self-righteousness, his self-worth, his fleshly zeal. At the garbage
dump, he throws everything away as useless dung. That's what it all is. That's
all it is. All this world's good and all
our great learning and wisdom and knowledge and all our righteous
deeds is just horse manure. That's all it is. If I could
find a lesser term, I would use it. It's just dumb. Read Philippians
chapter three. Even in preacher, all these things,
folks, Labor for it, work for it, just done. That worse, that
worse, just done. Number four, that man who enters
the ministry must go down to the bank of faith, open an account,
and live on it. Shortly after I moved to Danville,
a friend of mine I had gone to high school with, matter of fact,
I wouldn't really call him a friend. We used to be. We got in a fight
over a girl last time I saw him. I knocked him down on a football
field. He looked me up. He'd gone into business and was
making a lot of money. And he came by the office one day and
asked me if I would like to work for him a couple days a week.
I said, no, I've got other things to do. He said, but Don, I can
guarantee you, this was back in 1980, I can guarantee you
it's $50,000 a year. Man, $50,000 a year. I'd never heard of such a thing. And I said,
Steve, I'm not interested. But you don't have to work two
days a week, Steve. I'm not gonna do it. Why? I've got better things to do.
It's called study and preach. Study and preach. Study and preach. But look what you could do for
your wife. Study and preach. Soldiers in the army of King
Jesus do not have to pay their own way, ever. They just don't
have to. They have to pay for things they
want. They don't have to pay their way. They don't have to
pay their way. Christ takes care of his servants. I have a checking
account in the bank of faith, open for me by Christ himself
in his name. And thus far, I'm gonna tell
you something, thus far, I've never found the account empty,
and I've never had to ask anybody for anything. And before I'll
ask somebody, to make a way for me to do what God had me to do,
I'll go somewhere else and do something else. I presume God
didn't call me to that. Churches are to take care of
their pastors and take care of other pastors and missionaries.
And the pastor must himself give himself to this work and free
himself from the entanglements of the world. That man who enters
the ministry must go to his study. Study it, and seek a word from
God. Study it, seek God's message. Study it, seek the message that's
needed for this hour. Study it, study it, study it.
I made this promise to our folks a long time ago, and I make the
promise publicly to you. I've come here, somebody says,
I've heard you preach that sermon three times. I might smile at
you, be polite. I really want to knock you in
the chin, because it just didn't happen. I don't bring rehashed
messages. I don't do it. I prepare freshly
to preach the word for your soul's needs this hour. It's too important
to take it lightly. The servant of God ought to spend
his days laboring in the word, laboring in the gospel, finding
ways to proclaim the gospel, finding means that God has, therefore,
as God opens the door, whatever it is, by whatever means, to
make known the riches of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ in his generation. It is my responsibility. Leave
it to other fellows to decide for themselves. It is your responsibility. It is the responsibility of every
man and woman in this assembly who knows God. While we live
in this world, to do everything in our power, with our ability,
with the opportunity God gives us for the furtherance of the
gospel and the increase of his kingdom in the generation in
which we live. That's what he put us here for,
Peter. That's all. That's all. I pray for the Lord
to raise up men to preach the word, raise up young men, and
oh, they give their lives to it. I've been preaching the gospel
for 50 years, 67 years old. I wouldn't swap places with anybody
for anything, never. And I'll tell you what I've observed.
I've seen men start about the ministry with their older men.
Tell you what I've observed. The most useful, the most used
men in the world through history have been men God called and
put in ministry. He's too young, not at God's
enemy age, This person was 19 years old when he came to London,
I think. John Gill, John Rittman, Benjamin
Keech, all of them young men, all of them young men. Just,
just, oh, how God used to shame. So, so many would go through.
Oh, God be pleased to raise up men and send them forth with
the word. But you and I, he's raised up
and sent us forth. Let us be faithful, faithful
in the work he's given us. Man doesn't want to study, doesn't
like to study, I said, it's more than one. Get yourself another
job. Go do something else. It's not
for you. Preaching involves labor. Not so far from here, 300 years
ago, there was a fellow by the name of John Gill, not quite
300 years ago, who lived over close to wherever Horsley Down
is. And back in those days, London
was a big city, but wasn't big like it is now. And there was
a save all around that part of London. As surely as John Gill
is in his study, such and such will happen. Would to God, that's
the way Don Fortner was known. Would to God, that's the way
every preacher of the gospel is known. Men might not know
him, his name might not be known in the world, but his name will
be known in heaven, and his name will be known in hell, and I
don't care if my name not known anywhere else. Oh, let my name
be known in heaven at the throne of God, and known in hell as
a voice of thunder speaking for God, for to me, whom less than
the least of all saints is this grace given, that I, of all human
beings, should preach to this dark, dark, Pray for me. Pray for Brother
Meaney as he goes to Montana. Pray for these brethren who preach
the word, your own pastors. Pray that God will raise up such
men and send them forth in the power of his spirit. I keep wondering
what God might do. We're just one more. Amen. Brother Peter, if you will
come up here, we'll pray for you. We've talked about this
before for you who are sitting out there. I personally don't
care for ceremonies and laying on of hands and such as that
physically, but it spoke of something. It spoke of men being recognized
by their peers. By peers, I mean other men who
preach the gospel as called and gifted and sent forth of God.
And Brother Peter certainly is. I thank God for you. Thank God
for bringing you into my life. You men come and we'll pray together,
Brother Peter. You are pastors. John, will you pray for us, please?
Pray for your brother. Heavenly Father, having heard
what we've heard, one wonders what we're doing standing here.
So unworthy are we. But Father, in thy wisdom and
in thy knowledge thou has set aside those you've entrusted
to preach the gospel. Father, we pray those who have
done it for some time will cry out to you that we've struggled
and you've seen that we've sought to be faithful. And as we remember
our dear brother now entering into this realm, Father, it's
almost as though we cross a line. because our brother now is now
strictly and totally accountable to you. He has to give an account
to those sheep that you've put into his pen. And Father, I want
you to bless him, to encourage him, to excite his heart and
to strengthen him in those valleys that he will walk through and
that he will take heed to what he's heard this afternoon and
that, Lord, he will be assured. Christians make promises, Lord,
and they seem to be superficial, but we want this man to know
that those folk here today, including the fellowship that I enjoy,
will be remembering him every Lord's Day until the Lord should
call him home. So bless him, Lord, we pray,
anoint him with thy Holy Spirit, with unction, with power and
authority, and that indeed on those times when he's ministering
thy word, It is truly thus, saith the Lord. Amen. Oh, Father, bless
him, we pray, and thank you for what he's contributed to our
lives already. Just enhance him, mature him,
strengthen him, and we would also remember his dear wife.
Father, often we forget how faithful they are, how loyal, how kind,
and how we oft times neglect them. So we pray for Jill. We
pray that you'll bless her too and encourage her heart in the
days that lie ahead. Please hear our prayer, Lord,
hear our cry. For thy name's sake and for thy
glory. Amen. Amen. You've got to wait just
a second. In light of what John said when
he first began to pray, I want to read you something I had written
down. It's worth reading. William Grimshaw made this statement.
When I die, I shall then have my greatest grief and my greatest
joy. My greatest grief that I've done
so little for Jesus, and my greatest joy that he's done so much for
me. That's enough inspiration. God
bless you, my brother. Thank you. All right, the American's clumsiness
is over.