turn with me if you will to Malachi
chapter 1 prophet Amos spoke of a day to which we have come behold the days come saith the
Lord God but I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor thirst
for water but of hearing the words of the Lord and they shall
wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east they
shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall
not find it. In such a day, in such a day as this, it should
be no difficulty for us to understand why God's prophets, in times
of judgment particularly, prefaced their messages with these words,
the burden of the Lord, the burden of the word of the Lord. I'm here tonight to speak to
you as God's ambassador. I can't tell you. how that weighs
on my soul. It is my responsibility and my
privilege to speak to you in Christ's stead. That means as
God's servant, I am responsible to seek and to have a message
from Jesus Christ himself specifically for you. for each of you for
this specific hour. And I can't do it. That's my responsibility, but
I can't do it. I can't do it. All the studying in the world
won't do it. All the praying in the world won't do it. God's
got to give it. And when I finished all my studying
and finished all my praying, I've got to wait on God to give
me the word. So often, one of you or someone
else when I'm preaching somewhere will ask me, what do you have
for us tonight? And I respond, not with any sense of being cavalier
at all. We'll just have to wait and see.
We'll just have to wait and see because I don't know what God's
going to do. But it's my privilege and my responsibility to speak
to you in Christ's stead. That is, for God to speak through
me by his word and the power of his spirit to your heart,
the word of his grace. And it is my responsibility to
do so fully conscious of the fact that I'm speaking to eternity-bound
men and women. You who may meet God with your
next breath. Eternity bound people. And that which I have to say,
if it's just me saying it, won't
amount to anything. But if God does what I want him
to do and you want him to do, If God the Holy Spirit does what
we pray he will do, if God speaks by this preacher's voice, then
what I have to say to you will be of eternal consequence. The burden of the word of the
Lord, that's my subject. Malachi chapter 1, verse 1. The burden of the word of the
Lord to Israel by his messenger. That's the word Malachi. The
burden of the word of the Lord. It is the burden of the word
of the Lord to a chosen covenant people. God speaks his word to
his people. This book you have in your hand
is God's word. It was written to you, His Israel. It addresses His covenant people. It's not written to those folks
out yonder. It doesn't address those folks out yonder. It's
talking to you and me. It's written to us and for us. It is not intended for folks
who don't know God to understand it. It's written to His Israel
and for His Israel. And it is by His messenger Malachi. The word burden. that is used
here is not used to suggest something grievously heavy. It is a heavy,
heavy burden, but it's not a grievous weight. It's a blessed burden,
a burden of great importance, a burden of great consequence,
but a blessed burden. The Lord's burden brings with
it the Lord's blessing. You may recall some time ago
I preached to you about Moses' great mistake and him giving
up the blessing of the burden following the counsel of his
father-in-law, Jethro. And when he did, he gave up a
lot. Oh, this burden, if God gives it, if God gives it, it's
a blessed, blessed burden. And still, God's prophets of
old, when they spoke of their message, the message God gave
them to deliver as Malachi does, called it the burden of the Lord
or the burden of the word of the Lord. Those faithful men,
you see, weren't triflers. They didn't run from place to
place like modern preachers and evangelists and soul winners,
entertaining sinners on their way to hell. I know that you
must think, you here must think, and those who hear this message
by all the various means God's given us, who listen to your
pastor regularly, must think, well, that crotchety old man
doesn't have any respect for preachers. You think right. I
hold him in absolute contempt. Any preacher who dares to speak
and call himself God's servant and doesn't speak for God and
speak God's word ought to be held in contempt. God holds them
in contempt. His church ought to hold them
in contempt. God's servants aren't triflers.
They're prophets, men who carry a burden, men who have something
God's put on them and put in them that they must deliver.
As it was in Malachi's day, so it is now. Those men who speak
as God's ambassadors to eternity-bound sinners, those who dare to speak
in God's stead to eternity-bound immortal souls have a burden
to bear. Honestly, I'm often shocked by
the way I hear preachers speak about the work they do. And I'm
even more shocked when I discover how they go about doing the work.
They speak about it with levity, they joke about it, don't seem
to take anything serious about it. They sadly think if they
spend 12 or 15 hours studying in a week's time, they've spent
a lot of time studying and they go about their work half-hearted.
It's no wonder that the world looks at religion as a joke.
Most people who claim to have experienced God's grace look
at it as a joke. And most fellows who claim to
proclaim God's goodness look at their work as a joke. This
is no joke. God's prophets get their message
directly from God himself by prayer and study. I. I get a lot of advertisements,
folks want to sell me stuff. Do you know you can buy sermons
ready, prepared three times a week and buy them cheap? And somebody does it. They sell
them all over the world. God's servants get their message
directly from God, by the spirit of God. with prayer and study,
diligent prayer and diligent study. And the message is so
weighty that it is called the burden of the word of the Lord. Someone said accurately, any
preacher who doesn't find his ministry a burden now will find
it a burden hereafter. a burden that will sink his soul
to the lowest hell. Any preacher who doesn't find
his ministry a burden now will find it a burden hereafter, a
burden that will sink his soul to the lowest hell. God's servants
are men who take this responsibility seriously. They don't engage
themselves in society, they engage in study. They don't seek to
please men, they seek to please God. They don't play with men,
they pray for men. They're earnest about their work.
Theirs is an errand of life and death. They have something to say, something
to say which so presses upon them that they've got to say
it. Paul said, woe is unto me if
I preach not the gospel. Not woe is unto me if I don't
preach. So we got preachers all over the place. We don't need
more preachers. We got too many preachers. He said, woe is unto
me if I preach not the gospel. The word of God is like fire
in their bones. consumes them, and it must be
given vent. It's the burden God gives, and
it's a burden worth carrying. For we carry truth, eternal truth, solid truth. divine truth, saving truth, truth
that you must have, truth you must hear, truth you must understand,
truth you must experience, truth you must believe. If you don't,
you'll perish. The gospel preacher, God's servant,
is a man who bears the weight of eternal realities heaped upon
his soul, pressing upon him all the time. all the time. Now don't
misunderstand me. I ask you to pray for your pastor
and for any other man who is called and gifted of God for
the work of the ministry. But we're not looking for pity.
This is not a burden I give up. Oh, not for the world. Not for
the world. No, no, no. It's For God's servant,
for man who's called and gifted of God, this is not a way of
life. It's not a part of life. This is the life of God's servant. This business of ministering
to the souls of men. I recall some years ago, Brother
Lindsey told me about a fellow If you may recall this, I won't
mention any direct associations, but I said the folks got together
and decided to give their pastor a sabbatical so he wouldn't have
to preach so much. And Lindsay said, I don't think
our pastor would want that. No, no. If I had the strength
to preach somewhere else every day, every day, this is not a
burden I'd give up, but a burden from which I am never free and
never want to be free. It presses all the time. No sooner
have I finished preparing and preaching one message that I'm
immediately consumed with the next, immediately consumed with
it, pressing heavily. God, God. Oh, God, give me what this man
needs. Give me what this lady needs.
Give me what this child needs today. Give me what's needed
now. Yes, we bear the burden. but
honored to bear it. Brother Lynch was telling me
last Tuesday night, I believe it was, about reading William
Carey's biography. Carey had a son by the name of
Felix, who was once a missionary and preached the gospel of God's
free grace, just as his father did. And then Felix was offered
a position with the crown of England as an ambassador. And Mr. Carey got word that Felix
had been made an ambassador And someone was speaking to him about
it and was just congratulating him. Your boy, oh, he's made
it now. He's an ambassador representing the crown. And this is how William
Carey responded. My son, Felix, has shriveled
from a missionary to an ambassador. He shriveled from God's messenger
to a messenger of a man. May God, the Holy Spirit now
speak to your heart. I want to show you four reasons
why this business carrying God's word is a burden. Four clear,
distinct reasons. Number one, this is God's word. I'm here to speak to you the
word of God. If this book is divinely inspired,
if it is divinely inspired, and it is, what do you mean by divinely
inspired? I mean that every word is ordered
by God, written by hand, moved by the hand of God, exactly as
God would express himself to us in every part. I mean the
Word of God is God's Word. Not that it contains God's Word,
it is God's Word. Every word inspired. If Jesus
Christ is the incarnate God, if Jehovah alone is God, if salvation
can be had in no other way than by the doing and dying of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, then that message we have given us
in this book is of immense importance to be declared to all men. Preach the gospel to every creature
because this is the means by which God saves his people. That's
a weighty, weighty responsibility. Modern religion is child's play. Current theology is a trifle
lighter than air, but God's truth is weightier than gold. Gospel
preachers, gospel preachers, not some gospel preachers, every
gospel preacher realizes that he is responsible to faithfully
declare God's word. to faithfully give out the meaning
and the message of God the Holy Spirit in the word which he preaches. I'm preaching to you tonight
from Malachi chapter 1 verse 1. If I use that text just to
illustrate or to be a springboard to declare some doctrine that
I want to convince you of, then I have abused the text. I haven't
preached it. It is my responsibility to find
out what God intends by this statement. The burden of the
word of the Lord by Malachi. The burden of the word of the
Lord to Israel by Malachi. What does God mean by that? That's
the only thing that matters. That's the only thing that matters.
I know people today they like to have their home Bible studies
or get together on the Internet and rap about God and rap about
God's word and rap about theology and give their opinions. Everybody
likes to have his opinion, you know, like put my. Yeah, this
is what I think about it. This is my thing. Well, I don't
agree with that. Well, that's all right. Let me
tell you what I think. I don't agree with you either. And and think they're
doing God's think they're doing something. Think they're doing
something. Tell you what you're doing. You
take the book, throw it on the ground and just twist it under
your feet. It's meaningless. It's contemptible. It's contemptible. This book is to be handled as
a sword, two edged. And you don't give a sword to
a child to play with. This is God's word, God's word. We're responsible to find out
its meaning and declare its meaning exactly as God intends it. Matters
not how men respond to it. Matters not what God does with
it. Gospel preachers understand that they must seek, they must
have, and they must deliver God's message to the people who hear
them. Jeremiah 23, if you want to turn there, Jeremiah chapter
23, we read it this morning. Verse 28, God says, the prophet that hath
a dream, let him tell a dream. That's a pretty good way to speak
of it. Prophet's got, well, it's what I think. Well, tell what
you think. Who cares? Prophet's got an opinion. Go
ahead and give your opinion. Who cares? It's insignificant. Oh, did you hear what so-and-so?
Don't care what he said. No, it doesn't matter to me what
he said. Let him, he that hath my word, however,
he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. Faithfully, just declare my word,
declare it faithfully. But what about that prophet's
dream? What about his opinion? What about his learned theological
discourse? What is the chaff to the wheat? Who cares about chaff when they're
gathering up wheat? Who's concerned about the chaff
that blows to the wind when they're gathering wheat? What is the
chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord? You see, God's servants
are men sent of God with a message. Sent with a message. And there
was a story in 2 Samuel, chapter 18. Absalom had led a revolt
against his father and against Israel. David's servant Joab won the
victory and Absalom was dead. And somebody's got to go tell
the king. Somebody's got to go tell the king. And Joab called
a fellow by the name of Cushi and told him how to go tell the
king that God had delivered his enemies into his hand and Israel
is safe. And then tell him Absalom is
dead. And there was another fella there. He's chomping at the bits to
go preach. He just, I gotta, I gotta get on this thing of
preaching. I gotta get in on that. Oh, folks will see me.
They'll see me stand up and they'll think I'm something else. They'll
think I'm something. Folks ask me all the time about my family.
What do they think about me preaching? They're tickled to death. I'm
a preacher. Man, they're so proud I'm a preacher. I mean, my mom
and dad, they couldn't have carried beans about what I was preaching.
But they were proud to have a boy as a preacher. He's a preacher.
He's a preacher. This fella named Ahimaaz, he
said to Joab, let me run. Well, run. And he took off, and
he outran Kushai. He got there first. And David
asked him some questions. He said, well, you got nothing
to say. And he sat him down. And he came to Cushi. And Cushi came
with a message for David. God, oh, God, give me a message
for your people. You see, gospel preachers know
that the word of the Lord is the instrument. Not a instrument. Is the instrument. by which God
ministers to all the needs of his people in this world, and
by which God performs all his works of grace in this world. This is, Bill Raleigh, if God
Almighty speaks to you at any time, it's going to be by the
preaching of the gospel. I read the Bible at home and
he speaks to me. If he does, it's because you heard somebody
speak about the word. It's because somebody explained
it to you. Otherwise, you don't have the ability to understand
it. If you did, he wouldn't give you a preacher. It's exactly
right. It's exactly right. Well, I'm
as smart as you are. Smarter? I'll give you that. Smarter?
I got more brains than you do. I'll grant that. I'll grant it
in a hurry. But God's given me a message.
You've got to hear. Got to hear. This is how God
saves his people. This is how God directs his people.
This is how God reproves his people. This is how God strengthens
his people. This is how God comforts his
people. This is what God does in the feeding of his people.
They understand. God's servants do. This is how
God works. In Jeremiah 23, verse 29, The Lord God says, is not my
word like a fire, like a hammer to break in pieces? Oh, you come in here and your heart
cold as ice and hard as steel. And God speaks by his word to
you. and the ice begins to melt and
the steel begins to dissolve. You come in here and you're clinging
to some idol and God speaks by his word and takes the hammer
and smashes it to pieces. You see, this is the word by
which God builds his kingdom, builds his church and saves his
people. Paul tells us that Every man's work will be tried. And
those who build on the foundation, Christ Jesus, on the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ crucified. Those
who build on that foundation God has laid, but build with
wood, hay, and stubble. They build with their opinions.
They build with entertainment. They build with personality.
Let's put it this way. They build. They build. They do the work. Look at the
church he built. Look at the church he founded.
Look what he has done. It's all wood, hay, and stubble. And you're going to get to see
it burn. For my part, I'm determined,
Merle Hart. I'm determined. God help me,
I'm determined not to even try to make anything happen. Nothing. Nothing. You mean you
don't try to get folks safe? No. You don't try to get the
church to go? No. You don't try to open doors? No. I've opened too many. And
there's always a trap door just as soon as I walk through the
door. No. What do you do? I preach the
gospel and wait on God to do what he will. And if that means
he shuts the doors of this place, David, that means he wants the
door shut and they'll be shut. Just that simple. Just that simple.
This word contains the gold. Jesus Christ person and the silver,
his finished work of redemption, precious blood atonement represented
throughout scripture as silver and the precious stone. the precious
stones of his accomplishments by which God builds his church
and kingdom. How is it that this word is a
burden to the preacher? It's a burden in getting it, to get a message for you. My wife will tell you, I have
a constant recurring dream. I've told some of you about it. I've been having it for 40 years. Constantly recurring dream. I
have a horrible dream. I wake up in the middle of the
night often in a cold sweat, dreaming that I've come here
and I've got nothing to say. Nothing to say. Saturday nights,
I don't sleep much. I've given up trying. Just don't
sleep much. Wake up every few minutes, preaching,
going over the message. Well, you ought to prepare better.
All right, I'll give you that. But I can't. God, will you put in me what
you would give through man to your people. You see, you can't
preach repentance except as you experience it. You can't preach
turning except you be turned. You can't preach about conviction
except you know what it is to be convicted of your own sin. You can't preach about righteousness
except you know what it is to have the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus as your own. You can't preach about conversion
except you be converted. You can't preach about believing
God. Can't. Just can't do it. Except
God give you grace to believe Him. Can't do it. If you do,
it's just chatter, just babble, just talk. And the Word of God is a tremendous
burden in the fact that having delivered it as God's spokesman, I must take
great care as I deliver it, that I speak only God's word. No more. All of God's word, no
less. Exactly God's word, no deviation. And then I'll go home tonight. And after you've been asleep
for a while, I will still be carrying the burden. God, what
are you going to do with it now? Will you use it for Larry's everlasting
good or his everlasting destruction? Will you use it to save or to
destroy? He will use it for one or the
other. He will use it for one or the other. If he gives the
word, his word will not, it will not return to him void. It will
accomplish exactly what he sent it to accomplish. Whether it
be the salvation of your soul or the damnation of your soul. Second, this is a burden. Because the message itself is
a weighty message. Deals with eternal realities. Eternal realities. Understand this my friends. Please
God help you to understand this. Nothing you see. Or touch or
handle in this world. is of any real meaning. Nothing. Y'all been working on
that house down there, what, six months now? And it'll take just a little
puff of wind and a spark and it's gone. Well, that sure makes the house
seem insignificant. Good. Good. Insignificant. Insignificant. Everything temporal. Everything
temporal. Everything that's temporary is
insignificant. Only that which is eternal has
any reality. We come to deal with God's Word. The psalmist in Psalm 138 verse
2 makes a remarkable statement.
He says, thou hast exalted thy word above all thy name. I mean, I want to know what that
word is, don't you? I want to know what God has to say. It
deals with the eternal God, eternal salvation. That's salvation ordained
in eternity, finished in eternity, reaching to eternity. It deals
with the wonders of electing love, sovereign predestination,
God sitting on his throne, accomplishing what he will. I've been reading
and studying. I'll preach to you as soon as
God gives me a message from it. Judges 14, Samson's riddle. What's that riddle? How that
God brings honey out of the carcass of a slain lion. How that God
accomplishes good for his people through all that he has ordained
and brings to pass in time. Everything. We deal with matters of eternal
life. eternal heaven, eternal death,
eternal hell. One or the other you shall inherit. There is a dreadful, dreadful
hell and everlasting pains where sinners must with devils dwell
in darkness, fire, and shame. The message is waiting because
the pastor has the responsibility of finding the need of those
to whom he preaches every hour. Every hour. Finding the Samaritan
woman's tender spot. Just ask God to give you direction
and somehow When you find it, when you find it, you know you
found it. I can't begin to describe that
to you. But standing here, anywhere I go to preach, no matter where
it is, no matter how large or small the group is, if God gives
me something, I know just as well when I've got what he gave
as I know I took a drink of water out there. What do you do then? Folks start to twist a little,
back off a little, some get a little angry, some a little happy. What
do you do? You push hard and push harder and push harder and
insist that men bow to God's word, that they bow to it. Brother Bob Lips is with the
Lord now. Who wouldn't mind me telling
you this? When I first came here as your pastor, nearly 30 years
ago, Brother Bob met me one day at
the door when we were meeting at the KU building, and he said,
Mother Donna, I'm not sure I believe this thing about limited atonement. Well, what am I going to do? Let's back off a little bit and
be easy. Don't offend him, you know. He might run him off. If I didn't have a challenge
given me, if I hadn't had a challenge given me, I might not have preached
on it quite so much. So the next service we met and
I preached on limited atonement. And the next service we met and
I preached on limited atonement. And the next service we met and
I preached on limited atonement. And it went on for about a month
and a half, about a month and a half. Don't you have anything
else to preach? Yeah, but you got to get this
first. You're either going to bow to it or get out. Either
bow to it or get out. The sooner the better. Bow to
it or get out. Brother Bob met me at the door.
He said, I believe I understand that now. So we move on to something
else. We move on to something else.
God's servants will faithfully deliver his word regardless of
consequence. I had a preacher one time. I
was preaching when I first met David Burrage down in Florida.
Preached one night on matter of particular redemption and
the hideous doctrine of universal atonement. And that pastor asked
me, he said, you wouldn't preach that right over there, would
you? Pointing to First Baptist Church. I said, you make the
appointment. I'll pay my way down here and
preach it. You wouldn't. I said, try it
next Sunday. Try it. Well, you don't dare. I dare
not do otherwise. Dare not. Anybody who defies
God, God's servants will defy. Anybody who objects to God will
be offended by that man who preaches the gospel of God's grace and
deliberately offended, deliberately so. Someone was, one of the preachers
in Oliver Cromwell's day, one of the Puritan preachers got
a, got a word from a fella, the local squire, the Lord sent a
word to him, said, uh, Lord so-and-so was offended by your message
last Sabbath, they called it. He asked a few questions and
he said, is your Lord accurately described with this? He said,
well, yes. He said, if your Lord dares to
offend my Lord, your Lord shall be offended. He shall be offended. God's servants aren't going to
backpedal for somebody just because they've got power or money or
influence. And the message, the burden of the word of the Lord
is a burden because of its consequences. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
3. Chapter 2, verse 15. We are unto God a sweet saver
of Christ. We who preach Jesus Christ and
him crucified, we who faithfully declare to you all the counsel
of God. We are a sweet saver of Christ.
Now watch this. In them that are saved. And in them that perish. To the
one we are saver of death and to death. to the other, the savor
of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these
things? I sent Matthew back yonder. Been
here most of your life. And what you've heard, sitting
right where you're sitting, will either be to you everlasting
salvation by God's grace or it will be your everlasting torment
in hell. Who's sufficient for that? Who's
sufficient for that? Not me. Look at chapter 3 verse
5. Not that we are sufficient of
ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God. One more thing makes this a burden.
Turn to Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17. The spirit of God says, here
obey them that have the rule over you. and submit yourselves
not to the preacher. My soul, I don't want you to
submit to me. Particularly folks who call themselves
reformed, they like to rule your life. They like to check up on
you and control you. You bear me witness. I make no
effort to control your lives. I don't think about telling you
what to eat, what to drink, what to watch on television, what
not to watch. I don't dare try to tell you when to read your
Bible, when to pray or when not to. I don't want to control your
lives. But submit yourselves to the
message preached. Submit yourselves. How come? For they watch for your souls. They're overseers taking care
of sheep. They watch for your souls. Not
for your money, for your souls. Not for your influence, for your
souls. They watch for your souls as they that must give account. Obey them. Submit yourselves
that they may do it, that is, that they may give account with
joy and not with grief, for that's unprofitable for you. I tell you how I go about this
business. of what men call the ministry. With a conscious, ever-increasing
awareness that I would have to give an account to God. If I faithfully warn and proclaim to you as God's
watchman, righteousness in Christ, redemption by Christ, salvation
by God's grace. And you don't hear me. That's
your fault. And I'm free from your blood.
But if I faithfully or do not faithfully declare the gospel
to you, And you go to hell. Whatever my reason for not preaching
it, and it doesn't matter what the reason is, I'll go to hell
with you. Woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel. This is a tough place to be in.
We carry the burden of the word of the Lord. And the day's coming
when I'll give an account for everyone who's heard what I preached. I don't know how all that's going
to work, and I don't even try to figure it out, but somehow
I'm giving account, Bob Duff, for everything you've heard,
and I'll account whether you're justly condemned or justly delivered. And you will give an account
to God for the gospel you've heard or could have heard and
chose not to hear. You give an account and it will
be something else in hell to wake up and have screaming
in your ears forever the message you've despised all your life. Oh, God save you from that, for
Christ's sake. Amen.