Well, I want you to turn with
me to the book of Ezra again, and the seventh chapter, Ezra
chapter seven. And I've entitled this message,
A Preacher Raised Up, A Preacher Raised Up. The book of God, the
Bible, is about the salvation of God's people. That's what
it's about. If you think it's about anything else, it may tell
you things about other things, but it's absolute central purpose
is it's God's book of salvation, where he tells his people, he
reveals the mystery of the gospel to his people, how God saves
his people. And you say, as so many do in
this world, save? What are you talking about, save?
Why does anybody need to be saved? What's the problem? Why are you
talking about needing to be saved? Saved from what? God is holy. That's what this book declares.
God is infinitely pure and perfect in a way that we can never understand
in this fallen flesh. And all of us are sinful in thought,
the things we think, in word, the things we say, in deed, the
things we do, by our very nature, in our flesh, fallen flesh, we're
sinful. We're utterly corrupt. You know
there's so many would want to preach and tell you how good
you basically are. This book doesn't tell you that.
This book tells you you're rotten to the core by nature, absolutely
fallen, absolutely dead in trespasses and sins. That's what it says,
dead in trespasses and sins. You're a valley full of dry bones,
not fresh dead, well and truly dead, dry dead. And God is a
God of justice. The God who is holy is just. And he judges all his creation,
all that he's created. And he finds us all guilty. And
he must condemn us. And Romans, the first three chapters,
show that all are guilty. It doesn't matter if you're a
Jew or a Gentile or you think you've done good or you think
you've done bad. It doesn't matter. You are all condemned before
the justice of the God of the universe. And He is the one who's
made us. And He is the one who upholds all things. This is His
universe. The court of divine justice is
His court. You can't go claiming that we
need to change the rules. It's his court and what he's
declared is true. And we're all guilty before God.
And you say, well I haven't got this word of God. And Paul tells
us in Romans 1 to 3, you've got the light of nature. That's enough.
The light of nature condemns you. You've got a knowledge within
yourself and your conscience of right and wrong, unless that
conscience is so seared, so cauterized, so having its nerve endings burnt
off that it doesn't feel things anymore, you've got that conscience
confirming that there's God. And then we've got God's law
explicitly. God gave the law through Moses
to make it explicit what his requirements were. And what's
the summary of the law? They asked Jesus, what's the
summary of the law? He said two commandments. The
first one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your
strength. And the second is like unto it, you shall love your
neighbor as yourself. Who's my neighbor? Everybody.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Again, we're told
by Paul in Romans 13 verse 10, love is the fulfilling of the
law. And if you don't love, as Jesus
said, the commandments demand that we do, if you don't love
perfectly, absolutely, selflessly, every minute of every day in
every respect, your thoughts are entirely for the good of
everybody else around you and to honor and praise God. If you
don't do that, you don't fulfill the law. This is why we're talking
about salvation. If you don't do that perfect
love, you don't fulfill the law. And what does the book say about
that? You're under the curse. Because in Deuteronomy, and then
it's quoted again in Galatians, it says this, cursed is everyone. God says this. Cursed is everyone
who does not continue in all things which are written in the
book of the law to do them. All things. When? Constantly. Any letter? Any excuse? No. Constantly. All things written in the book
of the law. And all are guilty. And all are unrighteous. And
none of us have got any defense or excuse, because as Romans
3.19 says, what the law says, it says to those who are under
the law, that every mouth might be stopped. But it was because
of... No, every mouth stopped before
the condemnation of God. And God's character and justice
must find us guilty. And His justice must exact a
penalty. There's a debt to be paid. A
debt because of sin to His justice that must be paid. And that debt
is a debt of death He says, in the day, he said to Adam and
Eve, in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.
And what is that death? It's not just physical death.
Oh yes, there was that. It was spiritual death. It's
separation from God and all that is good. And what's another way
for saying that? The word hell. Separation from
God. How can God, now we're talking
about salvation, you know, it's appointed to die. To all of us,
every one of us will die and then the judgment. Now we're
talking about salvation, aren't we? How can God remain just? And when I say remain, that's
important because what do we read about God? He is the same
yesterday, today, and forever. God is not the God of the Old
Testament who changed his mind and made the God of the New Testament,
no. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Unchanging. How can he remain just and yet
Justify, justify before his law the people who in grace he loved
before time began because it says in the scriptures there
was a people. How many? A multitude that no
man can number. Where from? Just Jews? No. Every
nation. Every tribe and kindred and language.
A multitude which no man can... He loved them. Not all people
that have ever lived. These people. He loved them.
A multitude. Why did he love them? Because
he's a God of grace. Wasn't it because there was something
good in them? Absolutely not. He's a God of grace. And he loved
them before time began. And how was he going to save
these ones that he loved? He loved them, they must be with
him, but they're sinners, and his justice which cannot change
must condemn them. How is he going to do it? In
the gospel of his grace. In the gospel, by God himself,
in the person of his son, becoming the substitute. Becoming the
surety. becoming the representative of
his people, taking away their sin. This is why Christ bore
the sins of his people on the cross of Calvary. He paid the
debt to the law in shedding his precious blood. He died that
that sin might be taken away. And in the process, he made his
people the righteousness of God in him. This is the gospel. This is what we're talking about.
This is salvation. All scripture is to teach this
to God's people. All of it. And we've seen, what
was the temple all about? Why was that glorious temple
of Solomon built? What was it there for? It was
to proclaim the gospel in picture. That's what it was for. It wasn't
a different way of doing religion. It was to proclaim this same
gospel of substitution, of surety, of blood sacrifice to pay the
debt of sin, it was to proclaim that to God's people. Notice,
it was to proclaim it to God's people. Israel at the time, which
was representative of that multitude which no man can number. Why
was that temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar? Because of Judah's
sin and idolatry. So then, why was it rebuilt when
they came back from the 70 years of captivity? Why was it rebuilt? To proclaim salvation. That's
what it's for. It must be preached. How was
it preached? In the temple worship was how
the gospel was preached. That's what it was for. It must
be preached. It has to be preached. It must
be declared. Surely God's sovereign over everything
and He'll do it His wayward. Yes, but His way is by the foolishness
of preaching. His message of how He saves His
people must be preached. Paul said, woe is me if I preach
not the gospel. Paul said it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching according to mankind, according to the
irreligious, according to the worldly, according to those that
think they're right in themselves. The foolishness of preaching
it pleased God to save those who believe. Now this book of
Ezra, these 10 chapters, span about 70 years of history, maybe
a bit more. As I've said, I'm no great historian,
so some may be able to trip me up on the precise interpretation
of the dates and which king was which. It has to be said, there's
a lot of confusion about it, it isn't absolutely clear. You
have to do a lot of piecing together, and historians down hundreds
of years have been trying to work out, well, was this Ahasuerus
the same as Artaxerxes and Darius and so on and so forth? It's
not very easy to unpick. But more or less, this is the
thing. Don't pick me up on the details.
Listen to the principles. Get this right. Let me just give
you a summary. And remember, we're talking B.C.,
before Christ. as we come forward, the numbers
get lower, you know? So, Cyrus was 539 to 530 BC. He was the one that God raised
up, who had said by Isaiah, 200 and odd years before he would
raise him up, tell my people, when he came and took the kingdom
away from the Babylonians, and it became the Medo-Persian Empire,
go back to Jerusalem and build a temple to the God of heaven.
That was in those, that time, 539 to 530. So they came, Zerubbabel
and Jeshua and a significant number of people. Even Ezra himself,
this same Ezra came in that first return. And they laid the foundation
stone. And then Cyrus died and was replaced
by Ahasuerus from 530 to 521. Now he wasn't too keen to look
at the things that Cyrus had said, and those that opposed
the building of the temple appealed to him, and effectively they
got the work ceased for about twenty years, it stopped. And
God raised up his prophets, Haggai and Zechariah. Preachers, prophets,
to preach the word of God. They came and they preached and
they stirred up the people. Not to live in their nice paneled
houses in comfort, but to go and get this temple completed.
It needed to be completed. Why? Because it must be preached. And how is it going to be preached?
In those days, in temple sacrifice, in priesthood in the priestly
service and all of those other things. Excuse me for a moment
just while I try and do something with this. So, where did we get to? Darius
then, so the temple was completed In the days of Darius, 521 to
486 BC, the work was finished. So we've got a temple that's
finished and working, and there's what looks like 40 to 50 years.
Again, I said don't pick me up on the detail because I'm no
great historian. It seems like there was little
progress. Although the temple had been finished, Jerusalem
was still in ruins. There were still holes, breaches
in its walls. It was in a ruined situation. And during this time, there's
another king on the throne, Xerxes, from 486 to 465, 21 years. He is the Ahasuerus of the Book
of Esther. You know, these three books,
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, go together. They form the history of this
period. He's the Assyrius of Esther,
and Esther became his queen. And the planned destruction of
the Jews, it was intended by, I can't remember the man's name,
but Mordecai was the uncle of Esther who got it stopped. Haman,
that was it, Haman, and he ended up being hanged. The Jews were
saved. Esther was his queen. And I think
the next king, Artaxerxes, which is this one here, Artaxerxes
in verse 1 of chapter 7, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of
Persia, 464 to 423, I think this was Esther's son. And he was very well disposed
to the people of Israel, of Judah, in rebuilding the temple. And
he commissioned Ezra to go back. He supported him to go back because
there was something that needed to be done. You see, God had
stirred up Ezra. As yet unknown to Ezra, it would
appear, as yet unknown to him, There was a crucial matter of
gospel purity that had to be tackled. There was a fundamental
problem, a fundamental issue of gospel purity. God's Word
was the standard. It must be preached. He must
raise up a preacher. Who is he going to raise up as
a preacher to go and do this? Remember, this is critical. There
was a crucial matter of gospel purity to be tackled that even
Ezra didn't know about at this time. But he was raised up to
know God's word and to go and preach to God's people. So, who
does God raise up to preach? We're going to look at the sort
of person he raises up a student of scripture determined to seek
gospel truth and Then one with a heart that is prepared and
then one whose commission is fulfilled So first of all a student
of scripture Determined to seek gospel truth if you look in chapter
7 of Ezra and in verse 6 it says that This Ezra went up from Babylon,
and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord
God of Israel had given. And the king, this Artaxerxes,
granted him all his request, according to the hand of the
Lord his God upon him. And now look down at verse 10.
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord,
and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. The word that Ezra was a ready
scribe in, that means he was a skillful scribe, he was prepared,
he was trained, he was a ready scribe in it, was the word that
God had given. See that? The law of Moses, verse
6, which the Lord God of Israel had given. We know from the New
Testament, 1 Timothy, all scripture is God-breathed and profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, that the man of God
might be fully furnished for every good work. All scripture
is God-breathed. This book is God-breathed. It is so important that we have
the truth of God as near as we can get it in our language. This
is why This is why many people would say that we have taken
a very backward step because you remember a few years ago
we went back to the King James Version of the Scriptures. And
the reason is because I just believe that more and more the
accurate truth of God is as it's declared in these words. Those
translators of the 1600s were godly people who were especially
under the hand of God and with the knowledge of God and what
they have come up with, yes you say there's old-fashioned language
but the every word, every, you know, Jesus talked about every
jot and tittle of the law, and every little mark of the scriptures
is important. There are those who think you
can say, well, all right, I'll put it into modern language,
it says this sort of thing, but what you get is the opinion of
that person that did that. You don't get the declared truth
of God. I'll give you an example. If
you're reading the epistle to the Galatians, New Testament,
oh, all this Old Testament language has gone away, hasn't it? At
one point in his argument, Paul says this, he does not say, as
unto seeds, as of many, but as unto seed. You see, Paul is saying every
last little letter matters. It is so important to have it
right. It's the declaration of God as
to how he saves his people, effectually, from their sins. This is the
word that God has given, and he was a ready scribe in it,
he studied it, he dug in it, he prepared his heart to seek
it, to find it out. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy
chapter 2 verse 15, he says, study, oh man of God, study to
show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to
be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. How does God
prepare his preachers? Oh, there's this big flash of
light and all of a sudden they know everything and, you know,
the message is just dropped down from heaven on a plate in front
of them and it's so easy for them. No, it's not. The servants
of God dig. He's laid bare the mine of the
truth of the gospel of his grace. But you don't get it just by
casually breezing up to it. You dig. And Ezra was a ready
scribe. And God will call preachers who
are ready scribes to dig, to study. Studying deep. Digging deep. You know, this
is what I admire about preachers down the age whose writings I
thoroughly respect. And the more you compare what
they wrote, like the noble Bereans with the scripture, the more
you find, yes, they've got it, they're right. And it was the
fact that they studied. That's where they were. They
weren't out visiting their congregations having cups of tea with them.
They were in their studies. What's the best thing that a
pastor, a preacher of the gospel, can do for his old people? Be
in his study. Get a message from God. Get a
message from God for that people. Wrestle with God, like Jacob
did, till he's got a message from God for that people. What's
the best thing he can do for his wife's midweek meeting? Wrestle in the scriptures to
get messages. What's the best thing you can
do for the young people? What sort of a program should we have
for the young people? As Henry Mahan once said, asked
that question, what do you do for your young people? I preach
the gospel to them, like I do to everybody else. That's what
it is. Studying, digging deep, becoming familiar with it, finding
it easy to recall. Finding greater facility in scriptures
coming to mind. Comparing scripture with scripture.
What's the best commentary of all on the scriptures? The scriptures
themselves. Comparing one with another. Able
to give a reason, which is what Peter says. 1 Peter 3.15. Be
ready to give a reason to anyone who asks you a reason of the
hope that is in you. Always looking for Christ in
it. knowing that these are they which speak of him. Knowing that
it was him on that road to Emmaus who beginning at Moses and the
prophets expounded unto them in all the scriptures lessons
about morality. No he didn't. The things concerning
himself because that's what God has to say to his people. How
shall I be saved? How can a man be just with God?
In my substitute. in my promised one, in my savior
of my people. That's where, that's how, always
looking for Christ. And where do you get this? Where
do you get this readiness in the scriptures, this ready scribe?
Where does it come from? Does it come from a theological
college? Well, there might be some that help. There's nothing
wrong with setting yourself aside and being set aside to do some
study. but I venture to say that the vast majority of theological
colleges are breeding grounds for all sorts of off-the-wall
philosophical thinking rather than the truth of God. No, private
study. This is what God does, this in
individuals, private study. And, very important, hearing
the scriptures preached and explained by a pastor. who's skilled and
established in the word. You say to me, you know, people
would look at this church and they would say as they have done,
you don't have a proper minister. And the reason they say that
is that I have not been ordained in any sort of formal way. No
denomination has sort of laid its hands upon me. I haven't
been to the right theological college and got the Bachelor
of Divinity and the other degrees. I'll tell you what my theological
training was, what my theological college was. It started with
listening to tapes, in the days of cassette tapes, of Henry Mahan,
and Don Faulkner, and Scott Richardson, and Maurice Montgomery, and I've
run out of memory remembering. coming back to Welling and listening
to Bill Clark preach on a Sunday morning. That was my theological
training, listening to that, listening to the scriptures opened
and explained. And then the Internet, where
now we have such amazing resources available to us that were never
available, not without vast sums of money to build up a library.
Now you can just, it's there, it's ready for his people, for
his preachers to study, to dig in. finding reliable writers
to comment on this and seeking their help and their insight.
Who do you mean? I mean people like John Gill. John Gill. Robert
Hawker. Excellent. He's poor man's commentary.
What gems of truth. And how do I know they're gems
of truth? Because you do what the noble Bereans do and you
compare with the scriptures. They searched the scriptures
to see whether what Paul had preached to them was true. J.C. Philpott. Charles Spurgeon, John
Bunyan, you could go on and on and on. Those that knew the truth,
Don Faulkner in our day, comparing scripture with what they've said
and getting insight from them. These are all the things, study
to show thyself approved. The more we know this word, the
more his people know their God. And as it says in Daniel, the
people that do know their God by knowing his word shall be
strong and do exploits. What are the exploits that they'll
do? The great exploit is the calling in of the elect of God
under the sound of the gospel of his grace. And this Ezra was
not a novice. Paul says again to Timothy in
office bearing in the church, not a novice. Not one that might
be easily distracted. You see God won't commission
one who doesn't study his word. He won't do it. Nor one who doesn't
have the key to unlock it. God's preachers are those that
study, but also the Holy Spirit's given them the key to unlock
the Word. What's the key to unlock the Word of God? What's the key
to unlock it? It's Christ. It's Christ and
the salvation that is in Him and in Him alone. So he was a
man with a heart prepared, in verse 10, prepared to seek the
law of the Lord and to do it and to teach it. What is the
law that he sought? What is the law that he sought?
Are we just talking Ten Commandments, the Decalogue here? Are we talking
moral law? Is that what we're talking about?
He just wanted to know exactly what were the stipulations of
the Mosaic law. Is it that which is now called
the believer's rule of life? Is that what he was digging deeply
into? Well, yes, the latter, the believer's rule of life,
but not in the way that it's commonly understood. What is
the believer's rule of life? It's the gospel is the believer's
rule of life, the gospel of God's grace. It was that law of Moses
that specified temple worship, wasn't it? Leviticus is the gospel. Leviticus is the gospel according
to Moses. It's substitutionary atonement
for sin. It was the gospel. That was the
law that he dug into. It was that that pictured the
gospel. It was that that pictured how sinners, how these people
that God had said he'd loved above all other peoples of the
earth, how they could be reconciled to a holy God. It was the gospel. Look at Psalm 19. Let's see what
the Word of God says about the law of God. This is the law. You see, it talks about no one
being without excuse because the heavens, this is echoing
Romans, or Romans echoes this, the heavens declare the glory
of God. Nobody's got any excuse. There's nowhere in the world,
day unto day uttereth speech. There is no speech nor language
where their voice is not heard. Everywhere, people can see that
there is a God who has done marvelous things. They just in their own
sinful arrogance and stubbornness choose to refute it because they
don't like to retain God in their knowledge. Look, their line has
gone out through all the world. Verse seven, the law of the Lord
is perfect. Now look what it does. Telling
us how to live? No. Converting the soul. The
testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes
of the Lord are right, putting a heavy burden on people. No,
rejoicing the heart. You see, these are gospel statutes.
This is what it's about. For the sake of time, we haven't
got time to stay there much longer. It's not the Decalogue, the Ten
Commandments, that constrains the believer's behavior. Why
do those of you that are married And the believers, why do you
not commit adultery? Oh, because I'm scared stiff
of the seventh commandment, which God says, thou shalt not commit
adultery, and I'm terrified of the punishment that comes from
it. Is it that that restrains? No, it's the love of Christ,
it's the love for your wife, the love for your husband. It's
not a law which threatens punishment, it's the love that constrains,
and so it is with the believer. So this was Ezra, prepared, He
had this deep... commitment to studying the Word
of God, the Scriptures, to being ready. In other words, they're
at his fingertips. You read, what I love about reading
Robert Hawker and ones like that, and J.C. Philpott, and Spurgeon,
is the facility that they have. They're commenting on a passage
of Scripture, and other verses are coming to mind, and they're
saying, it's like this, and compare that. Just so rich. It's so rich because they've
been ready scribes. And this is what God uses. This
is what God uses to proclaim His truth to His people. But
not only that, look at verse 10. He had a prepared heart. This is not just academic. This
isn't just head knowledge. It's a heart prepared by God's
Spirit. Think of Paul, the Apostle Paul,
when he was Saul of Tarsus. He was a student of Gamaliel. He'd been taught in the Jews'
top university of studying the law of Moses and the scriptures.
No doubt Paul had a deep knowledge of the scriptures. He understood
the words on the page. He could compare one with another.
but he hadn't got that knowledge, that key which unlocks the scriptures
which is Christ until the Damascus Road. There the spirit of God
came upon him and the risen Christ appeared to him and all of that
knowledge which had done him absolutely no good as it was,
the Holy Spirit came and gave him the key to unlock it and
to understand it. And so he became a preacher of
Christ. Let me give you an illustration.
What is it that makes a good doctor? Well, you'd say a good
doctor is one who knows human physiology really well, really
does understand the way the body works. A good doctor is one who
is very skilled in understanding how disease occurs, and its progression,
and the things that you can do, the interventions that you can
do to treat it, and how infections arise, and all this sort of thing.
Yeah, he's really skilled in all this sort of thing, but is
that alone what makes a good doctor? No, the best doctors
are the ones who have a heart that is motivated with compassion
for those who are sick, who has human feeling for those who are
sick. They use their knowledge and
their skill in a tender way, and so it is with the preacher
of the Word. There's this knowledge of the
Scriptures, there's digging in it to get to the root of it,
to get a facility in using it, but it's useless without that
empowering of the Holy Spirit to come and give this compassion
Compassion for those who are lost. The preacher who knows
scripture, but more, who knows the power of salvation. Knows
the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. Not only
knows it, but has experienced it, and has felt it. Has felt
what it is. to be such a sinner, so completely
devoid of any of the goodness of God, so dependent on the grace
of God, so delighted to discover the gospel of grace, so full
of that knowledge and feeling of that burden of sin being lifted
from his back. This is what God uses to make
a preacher, one with compassion for the lost, because he thinks
out there will be the elect of God. How are they going to know?
You see, this is true. If you're not amongst the elect,
you're not going to be saved. Terrible thing to say. It's true.
It's what the scriptures say. But this is also true. Not one
of the elect will be saved unless they hear a gospel preacher preach
the gospel to them. And they believe it. Not one
of them. The elect won't be saved unless
they hear. Sovereign grace doesn't permit
fatalistic complacency. So Jesus said to his disciples
before he ascended, Go! Go into all the world, go to
all nations, and preach the gospel, baptizing them. Go to all nations,
because my sheep are there, scattered amongst all that great mass of
fallen humanity he has. He's elect, there. How is he
going to call them? You go, you his disciples, with
this word, with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, and go and
preach that gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believes. So this was the preparation of
the man. Now let's just briefly look, turn over to, no, sorry,
before we get there, let me just say one or two more things about
the book of Ezra. Chapter eight is the account
of all who went up with him. Then turn over to chapters nine
and 10. Now chapters nine and 10 seem
very odd at first reading. because what they're about is
what happened in that forty or fifty years when I said nothing
much had happened what had happened was this, look at chapter nine
and verse two this is talking about the people that had stayed
there for they have taken of their daughters, these are the
people all around them, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites
the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and
the Amorites, they've taken of their daughters for themselves
and for their sons, so that the holy seed have mingled themselves
with the people of those lands. Yea, the hand of the princes
and rulers in Judah hath been chief in these trespasses. And
when I heard this thing, I rent my garment to my mantle and plucked
off the hair of my head of my beard and sat down astonished."
That's an old word for astonished. He was horrified that what had
happened. Why is this important? You see,
you can read it and you can think, how cruel that all these wives
have got to be put away. You know, it's part of the prophecy
of Zechariah about putting them away and it's alluded to elsewhere
in the scriptures. How cruel? No, what's at stake
here is gospel purity. Because there was a holy line.
Israel, Judah contained that holy line from whom and the scriptures
cannot be broken, this is the key thing, the Messiah would
come. He must come from this line.
His genealogy must come from that line, this holy line. And
they had mingled themselves with those of false religion, of corrupt
truth. They'd mingled themselves with
those that didn't believe the gospel, that had nothing to do
with it. So gradually it was all being
corrupted. It doesn't take many generations.
Those of you that look back and can think of how society was
ordered maybe fifty or sixty years ago and compare it with
now it doesn't take long it doesn't take long for things to drastically
change and this was a horrific thing to Ezra who knew that the
law of God had been broken for Deuteronomy specifically forbade
them to take wives of the people around about them for that very
reason they would corrupt that holy seed that holy line that
would come down to Christ Now I know you can point to all sorts
of other examples where God in grace used Ruth who was a Moabitess,
that's not the point, here the point is that this holy line
was being corrupted and Ezra preached against it and that's
what he was initially raised up for, to correct this aspect
of gospel purity. And so it is today. What does
it teach us today? As we were looking recently when
they wouldn't accept the offer of those around them to help
them build the temple. No, you will not build with us
because you don't believe the same things. And we will not
associate in any sort of evangelistic effort or any sort of ministers,
fraternals or whatever else it might be with those who do not
subscribe to the scriptural view of sovereign grace and particular
redemption in the salvation of God's people. It's absolutely
essential. We preach the gospel to all who
will listen without exception, without distinction. We don't
make any distinction because we believe God has his elect
there. But we preach his message and we trust his spirit to awaken
his people and come and listen to it. We don't embark on all
sorts of false methods and false approaches and that's what this
intermarrying was a picture of. It was a corrupting of that pure
gospel line. But now I want you, and I am
going to finish very very soon, I'm just going to bring out three
or four points, Nehemiah chapter eight, which we read earlier.
Nehemiah chapter eight, because here we have the pattern for
the preacher's art, if you like. The people were gathered together,
they requested that God's Word was preached. In verse 4, Ezra
the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood which they had made for
the purpose, and several people which I won't read out beside
him. In verse 5, Ezra opened the book in the sight of all
the people, and they could see him. Why? Because he was on a
pulpit of wood raised up. That's why you stand up and preach. He was raised up above the people.
And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. This is where he started.
Honor and worship and praise was ascribed to God. And all
the people answered, Amen. Amen. So be it. So be it. We agree with you. Yes, this
is what you're saying is our prayer. This is what we believe.
This is the truth. And they lifted up their hands
and they bowed their heads and they worshiped the Lord with
their faces to the ground. And these other people helped
because there must have been a big crowd. And without very,
very fancy public address, it must have been very difficult
for one man to reach so many people. We read of people like
George Whitfield who miraculously were able to preach to huge crowds
who could all hear. But he had assistants to help,
causing the people to understand the law. And the people stood
in their place, and they read in the book of the law of God
distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand,
from the oldest of them right the way down to the youngest,
for those that could understand, it says in verse three, men and
women and those that could understand. And the ears of all the people
were attentive unto the book of the law, to the gospel being
preached. as it was then. He was preaching
from a pulpit. It was preaching from a pulpit. It was public declaration in
speech. It wasn't drama. God never says
use drama in the proclamation of the gospel. It wasn't entertainment. The purpose is not to entertain
people, it's to tell them God's truth. It wasn't debate. Now this is what I think, what
do you think? Irrelevant what you think. Irrelevant what I
personally think. To the law and to the testament,
if they speak not according to this word, there is no light
in them. It's this book. It's declaring it. Not discussing
it. It's proclaiming it. Not five
minute sound bites. Oh dear, how much longer is he
going to go on? Oh dear, I've had enough of this. Oh, I wish
he'd soon shut up. Oh gosh, this is getting awfully
boring. Did you notice It seems that this sermon went on a long,
long time. It was from the morning right
the way through the day. There was that case in the Acts
of the Apostles where the Apostle Paul was preaching in the evening,
and he preached so long that one young man who was sitting
up in the windowsill high up went sound asleep and fell on
the floor and got badly injured, but he was healed. But you know,
the point I'm making is not five minute sound bites, but clear,
reasoned preaching. This is what they did. They went
about in the Acts of the Apostles and reasoned with them from the
Scriptures that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. That's what they
did. Because therein is salvation. Therein is salvation of God's
people. And God is pleased to use that to awaken and call his
elect. He's not pleased to use other
methods, none of it. It's preaching to all that could
understand, including the quite young, it would appear. It's
a blessing for young people to hear. It's such a rare thing
in these days. You may say, hmm, not sure whether
I appreciate this blessing at the moment, but it's such a blessing
for young people to hear the word of God proclaimed, to get
used to it, And look at the verses 9 and 10. You see the preaching
produced a result. The first result was, look at
the end of verse 9, all the people wept when they heard the words
of the law. They all wept. What was that?
That was repentance. That was God-given repentance,
a knowledge of what I'm like compared with what He is like.
A knowledge of how far I am by nature from His justice and holiness. A knowledge of what I deserve
in myself. But then they said this, in the
preaching they knew that, but also they said this, the joy
of the Lord is your strength. Give portions to one another,
celebrate. What is it talking about? It's
talking about preaching that caused repentance for sin and
rejoicing for salvation. Repentance for sin and rejoicing
for salvation. Is that not it? The true child
of God, if you're a child of God this morning, you are at
one and the same time the most depressed with yourself, and
yet the most elated with your situation. For you know in your
flesh there dwells no good thing. You know that as you are, you
are worthy of utter condemnation. But praise God, you know that
he has saved you from that. He has made you anew. He has
given you a new nature, that in the Lord Jesus Christ everything
that was against you has been dealt with. You now stand, rejoice,
this is why there's rejoicing in the gospel, rejoicing for
salvation and this is the pattern that we seek to emulate. Pray
God that he will raise up preachers. Matthew 9 verse 38, pray ye therefore
the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into
his harvest.