Returning, if you will, again
to Ephesians chapter 3. Many years ago, Brother Scott
Richardson, who pastored the Katie Baptist Church in Fairmont,
West Virginia for 52 or 53 years, was preaching for us in Danville.
And he got to talking to us preachers about preaching. He said, Preaching
is getting a message from God's heart to my heart to your heart,
the best definition of preaching I ever heard. A message from
God's heart to my heart, to your heart. I hope, I believe, maybe
I have a message from God for you. I want to read this text,
and then I want to talk to you a little bit about the work of
the ministry. And we'll come back and look
at this text again. Ephesians 3 verse 7, Paul is talking about
the glorious mystery of the gospel. And he says, Whereof I was made
a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto
me by the effectual working of his power 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
and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery
which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who
created all things by Jesus Christ. Now this truly is a very special
occasion. We've come here tonight for the
public ordination of your pastor, Brother Clay Curtis, and I am
honored that he and you have asked me to have part of this
blessed service. I'm thankful, more thankful than
I can properly express, that God has made this congregation
such a delightful part of my life. and made your pastor and
his family such a blessed, delightful part of my life. I'm thankful. I've known Brother Clay since
he was a teenage boy, banging out great balls of fire better
than Jerry Lee Lewis on the piano in our basement. I've known him
a long time. His sister, his parents, his
grandparents, his grandfather, as you know, is with the Lord.
His mother, his grandmother, we still correspond and talk to
her. frequently. They've been friends for a long,
long time. A few years ago, this pretty
girl got hold of Clay's heart, and they got married, and their
family is special. God's given you a choice servant,
a choice family, and I'm thankful for that. Now, I said we've come
here tonight for the public ordination of your pastor, not strictly
speaking for his ordination. The Scriptures teach these things
concerning ordination. The prophet of God, the preacher
of the gospel, the messenger of God's grace to men's souls,
was ordained by God before the worlds were made, according to
Jeremiah 1 and verse 5. He was separated from his mother's
womb specifically for this work, according to Galatians 115. And
this particular man, was trained and prepared from his youth for
the work to which God has now called him under the ministry
of his grandfather, my dear friend, Brother James Watson. And in
all of his adult life, he's been a member of the College Grove
Church in Franklin, Tennessee, or College Grove, Tennessee now,
under the ministries of Brother Marvin Staldecker and Brother
Chris Cunningham. I'll tell you, I'm sure Clay
will remember it. He might not remember it quite
the way I do. He first moved to the Nashville area, and he
was writing music and writing songs and trying to work on a
magazine, and he wrote some religious articles. I guess at this time
you were 20 years old, maybe, something like that, and sent
them to me. And frankly, they were a whole
lot better than I gave him credit for at the time, because I didn't
want to give him any credit for them. I said, Clay, listen to
me now. Pay attention to me. Nobody is
interested in what a 20-year-old fellow writing music, writing
country-western songs in Nashville, Tennessee, has to say about the
Bible. Don't write anything. And I suspect
he got a little angry. I said, find your place in God's
church under a faithful man and listen and learn. And he did. And I'm thankful. God the Holy
Spirit separated, ordained Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto
he called them by leading his church through his spirit at
Antioch to lay hands on them and send them out. When you laid
hands on Brother Clay and called him as your pastor, he was separated,
ordained to the work of the gospel ministry through this local church.
I don't have any authority to ordain anybody and don't want
any. I'm not an apostle and those
who pretend to be apostles aren't apostles. The ordination of a
pastor is the work of God the Holy Spirit through a local church,
on this occasion through this local church. So what we're doing
tonight really is just publicly declaring what God has done through
this congregation already. For that reason, I asked you
men of the church to sign the ordination certificate we'll
be presenting to your pastor in a little while. And for that
reason, there won't be any of the things that are typically
associated with ordaining a preacher. I recall when I was ordained
as a pastor, we had to have an ordination council. Church had
already called me as pastor, just as you have. I had a grueling
time asking theological questions because the preachers wanted
to tell me how much they knew. And it's nothing but nonsense.
We won't be examining the man to see whether or not he's qualified.
You've done that over the past year or so. And there will be
no meaningless ceremony, have him bow in front of me so I can
lay my hands on him. I don't have anything to confer
with my hands. And I despise meaningless ceremony. Some of you may know C.H. Spurgeon always refused public
ordination for just these specific reasons. He said, somebody told
me I ought to be ordained, and he said, I don't see what good
it will do for you to lay your empty hands on my empty head. And we despise meaningless ceremonies. We're here simply to declare
publicly what God has done for you and with you. Now, that said,
I want to spend a little bit of time talking directly to you,
my friend, your pastor. The title of my message is The
Work of the Ministry, and I'm going to be talking to your pastor,
but my message is for you as well as for him. And really,
this is a bit unusual for me. Not really going to be dealing
with a specific text, a specific passage of scripture. I believe
God's given me some things just in the last little bit that I
need to communicate. Solomon wrote by divine inspiration,
he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. He said, hear counsel
and receive instruction. that thou mayest be wise in thy
latter end. Now I want to begin by sharing
with you some counsel. Some of the wisest counsel I
ever had as a preacher. Thirty-two years ago, I was preaching
in Appomattox, Virginia at a Bible conference. There were ten or
twelve preachers there, older men. I was twenty-five. Brother Henry Mahan and I went
over together. He was preaching there. Brother Mahan was 50 at
the time. Every day as I was preparing
to preach, Brother Mahan would come by to visit me in our room.
We'd visit other times, but just about an hour or so before time
for me to, when he knew I'd be wrapping up my message, he'd
come by and he'd visit a little bit. And Brother Mahan's a very
wise fellow, and he'd chat and chat and chat, and then he'd
tell me what he came for. got to start to leave, and every
time he made a statement, a statement that just like a barbed arrow
in my heart. His first statement was this.
For the dawn, he said, preach the gospel, preach Jesus Christ. And he urged me, like Richard
Baxter of old, to preach the gospel as a dying man to dying
To preach like Martin Luther said he preached, as though Jesus
Christ were crucified yesterday, risen today, and coming tomorrow. Preach the gospel with urgency,
with urgency. Oh, God give us grace to preach
the gospel with the conscious awareness that we're preaching
to eternity-bound sinners who may meet God before we get done.
Some of you here, yet without Christ, hear me, hear me. The only way of life, salvation,
redemption, and grace for your soul is faith in the Son of God. Trust Jesus Christ Oh God, give
you grace to trust him now. Right where you sit without moving
a muscle, without saying a prayer, come to God by faith in his Son. Trusting his blood and his righteousness
as your only acceptance with a holy God. There is no other
way of life. No other way of life. Several
years ago, One of the men in our congregation had invited
one of the men he works with to come to one of our services
on a Tuesday night. And the man slipped in just about
the time I started to preach, came in a little late. I didn't
know who he was. I still don't know who he was.
And he sat down next to the back, right on the edge of the end
of the pew, right where Brother Art's sitting now. I'd never
seen him before, never saw him again. But the next morning,
either I got a call informing me or Someone had sent word to
me. I forgot which way it happened.
The man's out six o'clock in the morning, taking his customary
walk, and dropped dead. And I've never forgotten it.
What God did or did not do for him, I do not know. But oh, how
I thank God. That night, he heard the gospel
of God's grace, not just a religious lecture of some kind. Next, my
wise counselor urged me, don't try to preach to these preachers.
Boy, that's good advice. He said, find a man in the congregation
out there who looks like he's been digging ditches all his
life, who looks as though his heart is broken and heavy, who
desperately needs encouragement and comfort and help. That's
exactly what God commands us to do all the time. Comfort ye,
comfort ye my people. Every gospel sermon is a message. I didn't say it should be. Every
gospel sermon is a message of consolation to God's elect. A
message urging God's people to look away from themselves and
away from their woes and away from the cares and troubles of
life in this world to look away to Jesus Christ the Lord. Oh,
God, give us grace ever to turn the hearts of the people to their
Redeemer in preaching. And if we don't do that, Brother
Clay, all we've done is beat the air for a few minutes. Exactly
right. Everything else is meaningless. Word of counsel, Brother Mahan
gave me that week in Appomattox. He's in the room last time I
scheduled to preach and we chatted a little bit. He got up and started
to leave and I turned as I normally would right back to my work.
He said, now Brother Fortner, find something in that book that
speaks to your heart and preach that to us. Find something in
that book that you need. Something that speaks to you.
Something that ministers to you. And chances are pretty good,
if you need it, the rest of the folks out there need it. But
if you don't need it, nobody needs it. It is our responsibility and
our great privilege to, as God's servants, declare to poor eternity-bound
sinners, the gospel of God's grace. Let us ever do so with
urgency, with tender feeling of compassion, preaching Jesus
Christ to men and women, recognizing that He is the only hope, the
only consolation, the only joy of our souls in this world. Now, that said, let me talk to
you about preaching Christ. I pray that God will never allow
me to forget the instruction of my friend. I think that hell
must roar with laughter when preachers stand in the pulpit
and try to untie theological knots and try to argue points
of doctrine and theology that nobody sitting out there has
a clue what they're talking about. Until I find a message more glorious
than Christ crucified, more needful than God's free grace, more delightful
than infinite mercy, more comforting than absolute forgiveness, more
assuring than perfect righteousness, more compelling than redeeming
blood, more hopeful than heavenly glory, and more joyful than the
infinite, immutable love of God in Christ. I'm determined not
to preach anything else. I'm determined not to preach
anything else. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Preach Christ. preach Christ in all his redictive
glory, in all the fullness of his person, his character, in
all the glory of his exaltation, preach Christ high and preach
Christ incessantly. Christmas Evans, the famous Welch
preacher, many years ago made this statement, the flame of
Calvary's love is intense. and it should glow in the pulpit. The American Puritan Cotton Mather
instructed his students with these wise and needful words,
Among all the subjects with which you feed the people of God, I
beseech you, exhibit as much as you can of the glorious Christ. Yea, let the motto upon your
whole ministry be, Christ is all. John Berridge wrote to his
friend much more well-known than he, Roland Hill, these words. Avoid all controversy in preaching. Don't ever attempt to answer
any assault or any argument made against you or the gospel in
preaching. Avoid all controversy in preaching,
in writing, or in talking. Wage war with none but the devil. What do you do about other things?
Ignore them. Just ignore them. Now, it's nice if you can ignore
them in such a way that they know they're being ignored, but
ignore them. Just ignore them. Preach nothing down but the devil. Preach nothing up but Jesus Christ. Oh, happy is that preacher who
follows that counsel. And blessed will these people
be, if you will. Wage war with none but the devil. Don't allow anybody to draw you
into any kind of conflict and controversy over the issues of
the day. Oh, how blessed the church of
God would be if all who fill her pulpits preached Jesus Christ
the Lord. This is what Paul said, God sent
me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. He sent me not to
make disciples, to follow me. He sent me not to gather folks
around me. He sent me not to get people
to make a profession of faith. He sent me to preach the gospel,
and this is the power of God unto salvation. It may be foolishness
to the Jews, and it may be insanity to the Gentiles. It may be nothing
but mockery before men. But it's the power of God to
salvation. And Paul says, therefore I'm
determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. Now I know people pooh-pooh this
all the time. Oh, those poor fellows are so
dumb. They don't understand anything
except the simple gospel. Let me tell you about this simple
gospel. Christ crucified is all the counsel
of God. When Paul said to the saints
of Ephesus as he was about to leave them for the last time,
I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. He was saying exactly the same
thing as he said in that passage I just quoted in 1 Corinthians
2 to the Corinthians. I determine to know nothing among
you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Everything in this
book, now listen, everything in this book speaks directly
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The events of Old Testament history
came to pass in order to be a picture of something concerning redemption
and grace and life in Jesus Christ. We tend to think that the writers
of Old Testament Scripture saw something happen like Noah in
the ark, or saw something happen like Israel in Egypt, or saw
something happen like the Babylonian captivity, and it's all there.
There's a good illustration of what I'm talking about. No. No.
Those things came to pass. to be examples to us upon whom
the ends of the world have come. They came to pass. They were
brought to pass by God's hand of sovereign providence to be
vivid portrayals of Him who was promised to come and redeem us
from sin by crushing the serpent's seed. Christ crucified is the
sum and substance of all true doctrine, the life of all gospel
ordinances, the secret ingredient to all true worship. Jesus Christ
is the mercy seat on whom God meets with men. He is the motive,
the only motive, of all godliness, obedience, service, and devotion.
He is the reward of heavenly glory. Indeed, He is heaven itself. Christ is our God. He is our
Savior. He is our salvation. He is the
way to heaven, and he is the truth. He is the giver of life,
and he is the life. We talk about divine sovereignty.
I'll give you an illustration. Several years ago, oh, it's been
10, 12 years ago, there was a fellow, well-known theologian, who preached
over here at Calvin College in chapel for five days, Monday
through Friday, on what he called the five points of capitalism.
And you know, everything he said was true. I listened to all five
sermons. I didn't find one point in anything
he said with which I would differ. And he didn't say a frazzling
thing. He didn't say a frazzling thing. I listened to each of
the sermons and then listened to them again. And I thought
to myself, if I had walked into that place off the streets and
didn't know who God is, and how God saves sinners, and how I
can get in on it, I'd have walked out the same way I came in, because
there was nothing in the message of life and faith in Christ. We talk about divine sovereignty.
Christ is our sovereign God. Predestination is that we be
conformed to the image of Christ. Election is unto salvation in
and by Christ Jesus the Lord. Redemption is the deliverance
of our souls from sin by Christ being made sin for us and suffering
the wrath of God in our stead. All the types, all the pictures,
all things in the Old Testament speak of Christ. When I was a
boy growing up, I didn't go to church much. But when I did,
I'd hear them tell Bible stories. in school when I was a boy, I
don't know how things are now, we used to have, teachers have story
time and they'd read Aesop's Fables. And I thought, man, that's
great. And they'd read Jack London Tales.
And they were great stories. And these Bible stories were
even better. I mean, they told of great things. And that's all
I got from them. That's all I got, because that
was all that was taught. Noah's Ark. is not a declaration
of God's supernatural work saving animals during a flood. It's
a picture of redemption. God established an ark. God put Noah in the ark and God
poured out his wrath destroying everybody, even Noah and his
family. But the wrath of God never touched
Noah because he's in that ark. And the ark bore all the wrath
of God. with Noah in the ark, safe and
secure. That's redemption by Christ.
That's what it is to be redeemed. He's the ark. God put us in Him. He bore all the wrath of God
to the full satisfaction of justice and we bore it all in Him and
it never touched us. And now we go out free in our
Redeemer. Our message is Jesus Christ the
Lord, preaching I read every book that I think
might be of any help on the subject, have for years, and there are
not many that are. Let me sum it up for you the
best I can. Preaching is telling sinners
about the Savior. Everything else is vanity. Everything
else is a waste of time. Everything else is a mockery
to me and souls and an abuse of the Word of God Call it what
you may Anything else is not preaching Our message is Christ
crucified and I know with some folks. That's a cliche That's
not a cliche with me We preach Christ. I don't mean that the
Lord Jesus is the most important thing in Scripture I don't mean
that Christ crucified is the central message of Scripture.
I mean Christ crucified is the message of Holy Scripture. True
biblical preaching is not merely giving a methodical, historic,
grammatical exposition of Scripture. Any man who's willing to study
a little bit can do that. Anybody can. It's not hard to
understand the historic setting of any passage. It's not very
hard to grasp the grammatical teaching and the grammatical
structure of any passage. It's not difficult at all to
give a historic exposition of a passage. There's something
more to preaching, however, than just giving out facts. Bible colleges and seminaries
produce hundreds of Paul Parrott preachers every year. who couldn't
think for themselves if they had to. All they do is repeat
what they've heard and call it in different names. There's something
more to preaching than just stating facts. Yes, we interpret the
scripture factually. Factually. Don't ever come to the Word of
God saying, let me tell you what this means to me. It don't mean
squat what it means to you. Doesn't matter what it means
to you. It doesn't matter what it means to me. What does it
mean? What does it mean? That's the only thing that matters.
Yes, we interpret the scripture factually and grammatically and
historically. But our purpose is to find the
message of the scripture. Gospel preaching is the preaching
of the gospel. Preaching Christ as he's revealed
in the book of God. Well, Brother Don, I don't see
how this text speaks of Christ. You know, sometimes I have that
problem. I'll be preaching through the book of Zechariah. And it
took me a good while to get through the book of Zechariah. Every
now and then I'd come to a passage and I'd scratch my head. And
I'd pray for God to open my heart and give me some light. And I
knew who wrote it. I knew when it was written. I
knew to whom it was written. I knew of the facts about which
it dealt, but God, how does this speak of your Son? And how does
this speak of your Son to the hearts of your people here and
now?" And until I could find the meaning, I leave it alone.
I go preach on John. Until I find the meaning, I'm
not going to invent the meaning. But the passage speaks of the
Redeemer. Christ crucified. is the message of Holy Scripture.
And this is the message God uses for the benefit of the everlasting
souls of men. Now, God has called you and me
into the work of the ministry. Let me tell you what that work
is. It's preaching. Preaching. Whether
standing here orally and preaching, or whether writing, it's preaching. It's not debating. Not defending
a creed or a denomination or a position. Debate is always
nothing but the exercise of the lust of the flesh. I like a good
debate. I know we all like to exercise
our lust. We all do. It's the lust of the flesh. Read
the book of God. All my personal experience and
the practice had been painfully verified by the Spirit's testimony. It's just the lust of the flesh.
It is the business of gospel preachers to preach the gospel. This is the power of God to salvation.
This is the standard of godliness. Our Lord Jesus said, you go and
do as I've done to you. He died bearing our sins, Peter
said, leaving us an example that we should walk in his steps.
Gospel preaching is the motive, the basis, and the guideline
for all consecration, denial, self-denial, sacrifice, and service
in the kingdom of God. I often hear folks say, well,
I wish you'd preach more practical sermons. And I say to whoever
says it, would you please tell me What's more practical than
me saying to Pete and Lynn, behold your Redeemer and follow Him? You tell me what's more practical.
Oh, but we won't hear sermons on marriage and counseling and
morality and educating our children and disciplining our children
and economics and paying our bills and how to handle our money.
Why don't you go to college somewhere? I'm not joking. Go somewhere
where folks are interested in that stuff. You see, what happens
in religious circles, preachers start on some kind of subject
like that. Let's just suppose Brother Clay gets up here, like
some nitwit preacher, and says, now, Lord willing, next week
we're going to begin a series of studies on the family. And
we're preaching to you on the family. And you come, and you
bring your neighbors and your friends, and he starts working
on the family, and tells you, man, what you ought to do, and
how often you ought to pray, and how much time you ought to
spend preparing your family devotions, and tells you how you ought to
love your wives, and come home and spend time with your wives,
and take them out to dinner once in a while, and buy them a present
now and then, and you ladies, how you ought to love your husbands
and take care of them, and you say, oh, boy, I needed that.
Oh, I needed that. Oh, I needed that. And then after
two or three weeks, she said, boy, I sure wish you ought to
pay attention to that. And you know I'm telling you
the truth because you've all been there. Because after two or three
weeks, you start cleaning up the outside of the platter. And
you say, look at me. Now, this kind of husband you
ought to be. And that's the whole purpose
of it, is to make you feel good about yourself. What instruction
our God gives in this book about the family arises from and points
to Jesus Christ crucified. You want to know how to be a
good husband? Look at your husband. You want
to know how to be a good wife? Look at his wife. The whole thing
speaks of Christ crucified. God never sent a man. God never
called a man to preach politics, liberal, conservative, or in
between. He never sent a man. He never called a man to preach
psychology, marriage counseling, family values, or social reform. So what about all those people
historically? I didn't say men didn't do it. I said God didn't
call them. Either they weren't sent of God to do this kind of
work. Those men who are called and
gifted of God to preach the gospel are called and gifted of God
for that alone. It doesn't matter to whom, or
when, or where. I'm not an after-dinner speaker.
I accept the invitations. But I only usually get them once
from the same fellow. Because I'm not here to entertain
men. Somebody calls me to preach, before Congress or before prisoners. My business is to preach the
gospel. If we're gifted and called of God, we must do so being undaunted
by the charges of extremism, dogmatism, or lack of balance. The most popular word in this
world to cover up compromise these days in the religious world
is balance. Don't go and pay too much attention
to Brother Fortner. He lacks balance. Well, I do. I promise you, I do. I'm out of kilter. You're exactly
right. On purpose. I'm tired, sick and
tired of hearing men court the favor of men and seek to make
men feel good about themselves, entertaining them on their road
to hell. I am determined to lean over backwards to exalt God's
glorious sovereignty and Christ's redeeming grace and mercy." We
must preach with dogmatism. When I go to England, it always
happens. The British don't much care for
dogmatism. Now, it's all right to be dogmatic
about whether or not you want to wear tassel loafers, but not
doctrinally. It's all right to be dogmatic
about whether the church building ought to have curtains or open
windows with no curtains, but not doctrinally. It's all right
to be dogmatic about whether you ought to sing hymns or just
psalms, but when it comes to doctrine, you just ought not
to be that dogmatic. I don't come to the pulpit. And
I urge you, Clay, don't ever come to this place to give an
opinion about anything. Until God seals a message to
your heart, gives you understanding in the text you're dealing with,
don't pretend you understand what you don't understand. And
when God teaches you, you'll stand up on your hind legs and
preach with dogmatism and insist that folks believe and bow to
the Word of God. God's servants aren't like the
servants of men. The servants of men grovel before
their masters about balance and extremism and all those things
men like to talk about. God's servants are utterly unconcerned
about the approval or disapproval of men. Preach with simplicity. Now, for me, that's not any difficulty. But every now and then, as a
matter of fact, this happened to me within the last year or
so. I'd written a brief article in
one of our bulletins, and I used a word. One of our ladies stopped
me walking down the aisle before services started, and she said,
what's that mean? And I was embarrassed. I was
embarrassed by my arrogance and my ignorance in using such a
word. That would never happen. It will
never happen. Preach with deliberate simplicity. With deliberate simplicity. Well,
but, Mother Donna, I'm preaching to educated people. You're preaching
to farmers. Well, some of them have got a little education.
Some of them do. And I'll tell you what, the ones
who've got a little education, if they want to, they can understand
the simple. If they want to. Our object is
to preach to folks so everybody can understand. All words do
that men and women and children don't understand is impress folks
with us. Preach with simplicity. Again,
preach with determined dogmatism as a man sent from God. I've
got a message for you. I'm seeking to deliver that message
to you. And I'm not going to let anything
stop me from delivering it. You see, a man who's called and gifted
and sent of God to preach. And I keep praying God will do
that for me. Send me tonight. Oh God, send me this hour to
speak for you to the hearts of your people. And that man who
is thus sent of God has a mandate from heaven. And I tell you what
you do with a man like that. You either listen to him or you
get out of his way. It's that simple. Either listen or get
out of his way, because he's not going to back up. It's called
meekness. I've told you this many times.
Sooner or later somebody's going to hear what I'm saying. Everything
that men and women think about meekness, naturally, is nothing
but haughty pride and arrogance. Meekness, what is that? Moses,
didn't the scripture say he was the meekest man living? The meekest
man? Moses? Go ask Pharaoh how meek
he is. Moses? Go ask the sons of Korah
how meek he is. Moses? What on earth is he talking
about? Moses understood who and what
he was. And he understood that he belonged
to God Almighty. He had a message and a mission
from the God of glory. against him Pharaoh must either
bow or must be destroyed, one of the two. The purpose of gospel
preaching, always, is to turn the hearts of men Godward. I don't know how many times,
of course the past 40 years, I sat where you're sitting tonight and heard factually true preaching
that was just like reciting facts from a chart. And there was no
effort, and obviously no effort, to turn the hearts of the people
Godward. Oh, that's our object. You come here tonight You folks
come from struggles through the day, come from difficulties and
trials and fights and trouble and misery, and you come in here
and you sit down and my object is to turn you away to God in
heaven to worship Him. That's what preaching is. And
the scriptures expressly call this a good work. He that desireth the office of
a bishop desireth a good work, the highest, most noble work
there is in this world. It's called a good work because
a pastor's work is the work of a shepherd. It's the preaching
of the gospel of God's grace. God's servants labor in the word,
in preaching, in writing, in correspondence. I urge you to
learn to practice that. You write good articles. God's
giving you some talent. Use it. Correspondence is a tremendously
helpful means of ministry to folks, many of whom don't have
what these folks have, don't have another brother around them
with whom they can communicate. God's servants are men with a
purpose, and they purposely care for God's sheep. Our Lord said,
Peter, now that you understand who you are, feed my sheep, feed
my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. That's the business
of the preacher, caring for God's sheep. And every pastor must
do the work of an evangelist. Without neglecting the care of
God's sheep, trusted to his care, it is our responsibility to use
every means at our disposal Every opportunity God gives us, everywhere
in the world, to declare to this generation the glorious gospel
of God's grace. Make full proof of thy ministry. Do the work of an evangelist,
assisting God's churches, helping to establish churches, preaching
the gospel wherever you can. And this is training, the place
of training for preachers, right here. I had a young man sitting
in my office Sunday. He started attending our services
in Danville. And he's chomping at the bit to be a preacher.
And I said to him, I sure wish you'd quit telling folks you've
been called to preach. And he was shocked. Just quit telling
folks you've been called to preach. You haven't. Well, how do you
know that? Because nobody knows it but you. No man should ever presume that
he's being called to preach because he has an urge to preach. When
God calls a man to the work, he puts him in the work. And
the best place for him to train is right where God trained you
for the last many years of your adult life. A faithful pastor
preaches the most profound mysteries in the universe. with simplicity
in shoe leather. It's walking around theology,
the kind you live with. And no man will ever, ever, ever
be capable of ministering to men who doesn't know what it
is to be part of a local congregation faithfully laboring with a pastor
in the cause of Christ. Now personally, I never recommend
anybody to go to seminary I never recommend anybody to try to learn
from imaginary theologians something about preaching. I might if I
knew of any seminary in the world that clearly taught the gospel
of God's free grace and was committed to it, but I don't. But this
business of preaching is an all-consuming business. It's not a career. It's a life. I've heard Brother
Henry Mahan quote hundreds of times a statement that he heard
his mentor, the man through whom God taught him the gospel, Brother
Roth Barnard state. He said, Brother Roth used to
say over and over again, he said, 69 years old when he died, right
before he died I heard him say, one of these days I'm going to
enter the ministry. One of these days I'm going to
enter the ministry. That seems strange for a man
nearly 70 years old. I heard Brother Mayhem make that
statement when he was way past his seventies. One of these days I'm going to
enter the ministry. What on earth is he talking about?
This I say, brethren, the time is short. It remaineth that both
they that have wives be as though they had none. They that weep
as though they wept not. They that rejoice as though they
rejoiced not. They that buy as though they
possessed not. They that use this world as not
abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away. My wife married to a preacher. I wouldn't wish that off on any
of you ladies. My daughter was raised by a preacher. I wouldn't
wish that off on any child because my wife and daughter have been
neglected a great deal and I wouldn't change it for the world. I wouldn't
change it for the world. Shelby travels with me some now.
All the time our daughter was in school, she took care of seeing
she was off to school every day. I spent more days sleeping somewhere
else than I did sleeping beside her. I have done so all our married
life. I dare not give myself to providing
the things for my daughter, for my wife, that other men can.
I dare not. You see, I have something more
important. than my wife, my daughter, or
my grandchildren. It's called the work of the gospel. And they can't stand in the way.
Thank God. Oh, how I thank God. They have
been always an assistance. But if they weren't, they still
can't stand in the way. Let me tell you where we've got
to go, Brother Clay, if we would enter the ministry. And we've
got to go every day. to Calvary and bathe your soul
in the blessed sacrifice of your Redeemer. Bathe your soul every
day in that which He has done for you. Every day. If ever we
enter this ministry and it becomes an all-consuming thing, we've
got to go to the cemetery. I keep going. I went there a
long time ago and I keep going. You and I cannot enter the ministry
and give ourselves relentlessly to this work until we buried
mother and father and wife and children and our own lives also. Where the calling, the service,
the truth, and the glory of Christ are concerned, we must have no
natural ties. Third, if we would enter the
ministry, we need to make a regular daily trip to the garbage dump
and dispose of all our rubbish, our heritage. I can't believe
I got, while I was preparing this message last night, I ran
across something just kicked in my mind and started to trace
out a little bit of my heritage as if that meant something. Thankfully, I didn't find anything
meaning anything. Our learning, our wisdom, or what we think
is, our self-righteousness, our self-worth, our personal zeal
at the garbage dump continually throw everything away for what
it really is, just dumb. That's all it is, that we may
win Christ and be found in Him and know Him. and walk with Him
in the fellowship of His suffering and the power of His resurrection.
We must continually throw all away that we might be His. If we would enter the ministry,
every day we've got to keep opening an account to the bank of faith
and living on it. Over the years I've had a few
folks to offer me opportunity to make some money, and they
made some money at it. A fellow stopped by my office
one day years ago, sitting out there with tires and threads
showing through on them, and he did me a big favor, come by
often, put me in business, and I had to just work a little bit,
and this is what I could make. And I said, thank you for your
attention, but I'm not interested. What? How much money do you make?
I said, well, I make enough. You're not interested? No, because
I can't possibly do it. without robbing God and His people. You can't do it. Give up your
fishing boats, throw away your nets, and look to Christ alone
to supply your needs. Now, I know this may come as
a shock to you looking at me and knowing I look like I'm starved
to death, but I've been living on God's provision through the
charity of His people all my life. And I've never lacked anything. I've never lacked anything. Oh, you got plenty of money?
I don't have two nickels rubbed together. One of these days I'm
going to save up enough money to buy a grave plot so my daughter
doesn't have to do that. I don't even want that. But I've never
lacked anything. You see, soldiers in the army
of King Jesus don't have to pay their own way. The king takes
care of his servants. I have a checking account in
the bank of faith, as Mr. Spurgeon would say. It was opened
for me by Christ himself. It opened in his name. And every
time I've ever gone to draw any money out, it was there. Every
time. One more thing. If we would enter
the ministry, We must go to our studies. To our studies. You can't preach if you don't
study. Make it your business when you come here. If you preach
one time a week, three times a week, or twenty times a week,
don't ever come with stale bread. Come fresh from the throne of
God with a heart prepared to minister to God's people. I can't
do without sleep, do without it. I can't do without time,
do without it. Whatever you have to do without,
study, study, study. Pray and seek God's blessings
and seek a word from Him. And I'll tell you what God promises.
Him that honoreth me, I will honor. Look at this text. Let's
read it together. Ephesians 3. I was made a minister. according to the gift, watch
this, of the grace of God given to me, oh, by the effectual working
of His power unto me, who am less than the least of all saints.
Later he said the chief of sinners is this grace given, this grace
that I should preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches
of Christ. What a grace God's bestowed on
you. Honor Him with it. Serve His people with it. And
God will bless you. God will bless you. Amen. Let's sing a hymn first and then
we'll play with this certificate. I'll ask you immediately after
we sing this hymn to stand up here with me while we do so.