In this tenth chapter of Revelation,
the Apostle John saw the Lord Jesus as a mighty angel standing
with one foot upon the earth and another foot upon the sea,
with a little book open in his hand, as one who stands in sovereign
majesty over all things. ruling everything in absolute
accordance with that which is written in the book of God's
decrees. The meaning of the picture that
we have before us is simply that Jesus Christ, the Lord, rules
the world according to the purpose of God. And then in verse eight,
after John had heard the Lord Jesus thunder his voice out across
the universe, He says, The voice which I heard from heaven spake
unto me again. And he said, Go and take the
little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth
upon the sea and upon the earth. John had received a command from
the Lord himself to go and take the little book. And so in obedience
to that command, he says in verse nine, I went unto the angel,
and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto
me, Take it, and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter,
but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey." Now, the meaning
of the picture is just this. In order for John to speak as
a prophet in the name of God, He must first understand and
digest the message which God sent him to declare. He must
experience for himself what he preaches to others. He writes
in verse 10, and I took the little book out of the angel's hand
and ate it up. And it was in my mouth, sweet
as honey. And as soon as I had eaten it,
my belly was bitter. That is to say, the book of God,
the will of God, the purpose of God, the message of God to
this spiritual palate was as sweet as honey. He cherished
it and he delighted in it. But insofar as his carnal nature
is concerned, it was bitterness to him. For the flesh lusteth
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. The two are
contrary, the one to the other. They're never in agreement. And
this old man, even in you who believe, even in this preacher,
even in this Apostle John, The old man Adam still rebels against
everything that has to do with God and his dear son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's nothing in us by nature
that's compatible with God himself and with the glory of God revealed
in Christ. But then John was given a word
of assurance. The message that he was given
to deliver was certainly a message of judgment and of doom upon
the earth. The apostle was given a word
of assurance that he would yet declare the word of God and be
heard. And he said unto me, thou must
prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. Now, that's the general meaning
of these verses. The little book is the book of
God's eternal decrees regarding all things. And John was given
a vision and a revelation of things which must come to pass.
And it was his responsibility under God to faithfully declare
that which God had revealed to him, to faithfully declare the
message which God had declared to him. And yet there is in this
text, I'm confident, a message that is needful for us today.
There's something here for us to learn as well with regard
to our own responsibility and particularly for me. I'm preaching
to myself tonight and in preaching to myself I hope that God will
give you an ear to both hear and understand and to appreciate
that which is declared. Every true gospel preacher is
a man sent from God with a message which he must declare. Now that's
the thing I want you to see this evening. Every true gospel preacher
is a man sent from God with a message which he must declare. This is
the title of my sermon to you tonight, Needed, Men with a Message. Oh, if ever there was a day when
the church of God needs men, men with a message from God himself,
a message burning in their souls that must be delivered. This
is that day. We have plenty of preachers,
got too many preachers, far too many preachers. We don't need
more preachers, but we are desperately in need of men with a message
from God burning in their souls. I often find myself calling upon
God much like Christmas Evans did so many years ago in Wales. He was a preacher that was mightily
used of God. I'm sure you're familiar with
the story, I've told it many times, but it'll bear repetition. The time came for Christmas Evans
to preach one Sunday morning. The congregation had gathered,
they'd already sung a hymn or two, and the pastor wasn't to
be found anywhere. Some of the deacons got together
in the back and they said, we've got to go find the pastor. And
so this fellow said, I'll go this way and you go that way.
We'll look for him and see if we can find out what's happened
to it. Something must be wrong. And so they went and after some
searching, they came back to the vestibule outside and the
one deacon said, did you see the pastor? He said, yes, it
did. He said, well, did you tell him it was time for services
to begin? He said, no, I didn't interrupt
him. He said, well, what was he doing?
He said he was praying. He said, well, there's a time
to pray and there's a time to preach. This is time to preach.
Go get him. He said, no, I don't believe
I will. I don't believe I'll bother him. For this is what
he was praying. He was crying out, Lord God,
I refuse to go into that pulpit by myself again. I refuse to
preach again unless you speak through me. Fill me with words
from God on high that I may speak to the hearts of men. Oh, Lord
God. Let this man speak for God or
let him not speak. I constantly call upon God to
that end. that I may under God speak to
your hearts as the very voice of God himself. Not with the
words of wisdom, but with the words of eternal teaching. Not
with the words of man's learning, but with the words of God's power. Not with the words of my own
devising, but with the words of God's heart to your heart.
That's preaching. Anybody under the sun with average
intelligence, can sit down after some studying and a little bit
of training and outline a passage of scripture and get together
a sermon on a subject and give a profitable talk about a profitable
subject and people can learn doctrine and learn creeds and
learn morality and learn many things from a man who speaks
in such a manner. But it's one thing to prepare
and deliver a sermon. It's another thing altogether
under God to seek, to find, and to deliver a message, a message
from God for you this hour. Now that's the responsibility
of a preacher, and that's what you need. That's what you need.
You don't need to hear another man give another little sermon
on another little subject, no matter how important the subject
is. You don't need a man to stand up and give you precise doctrine,
no matter how true the doctrine is. You don't need a man to instruct
you merely in the doctrinal truths of scripture or in your responsibilities. Those things, God in his good
providence does use them, I'm sure. But you desperately need,
I desperately need, to hear a man with a message from the heart
of God for my heart. Now that's preaching. That's
preaching. If somehow, under God, I can get a message from
His heart, burned into my heart, and pouring out to your heart,
you're going to hear what I've got to say. And it's going to
have an effect upon you. It's going to have a profound,
lasting effect upon you. that if all that's given is just
a sermon, a discourse, then our time together is going
to be futile, profitless, and vain. That's the reason I keep
encouraging you. I keep calling upon you. I keep
asking you, urging you. When you come to this place,
take time. and seek earnestly from God,
seek earnestly from God that you might have a message from
God delivered to your heart. Somehow I believe, I believe
that if you would earnestly come seeking a message, God might
graciously grant me a message. If you would earnestly come seeking
a word from God for your heart, God might graciously grant me
a word to your heart. If you would come like a hungry
man comes to a table, or like a thirsty man comes to a well
of refreshing cool water, you'd come into this place and find
bread for your soul and water for your heart that would bubble
up in you as a fountain of living water unto everlasting life. But if I do no more than meticulously labor to form
a proper doctrinal message. And I do no more than try to
find something that will impress you, that will win your favor
and your approval. And you do no more than go through
the duty. Oh, I hate that word duty. The
duty of coming to church and hearing a man preach, singing
your songs, My labor is going to be useless, my preaching is
going to be useless, and your hearing is going to be useless.
Oh, God, teach us the value of a message from God. Oh, the value
of a message from God. The church today needs some men,
some real men who are bold for the glory of God and courageous
in the cause of Christ. I know this, whenever God's pleased
to do great things for his church and with his church, he raises
up not great men, but men who accomplish great things for his
namesake. In the eyes of the unbelieving,
those men may seem a little rough, a little uncouth, a little too
straightforward. They may seem to be a little
harsh. They may seem to be out of step with the times. Men usually
are. Men never fit a bowl. Men never
fit a prearranged pattern. Men never walk according to somebody
else's method. Men are men. Moses, Elijah, and
John the Baptist were not mice. They were men. John Bunyan and
John Calvin and Martin Luther were not timid rabbits. They
were men, men filled with the Spirit of God, men who were bold,
ruggedly honest, intensely zealous because they were jealous for
the glory of God and concerned for the souls of men. And God
used men in those days to turn the world upside down. He'll
do so again. He'll do so again. We need men,
men who are free of the fear of man and free of cowardice. Men who feel themselves expendable
in the cause of Christ. Men who cannot be frightened
with the threats of death because they've already been crucified
unto the world. Men who cannot be charmed by
the allurements of this world because to them the world is
a dead thing. Such men will serve God and the
souls of men from motives too high to be understood by the
religious entertainers of our day who will do anything to please
the crowd just to get their money. Such men of God will be free
from the pressures that control the weaklings who now occupy
most pulpits in this land. They'll not be forced into compromise,
and they'll not be pressured into doing things contrary to
their consciences by circumstances and by the opinions of men in
order to please their audiences. No, sir, not God's men, not men
who have a message from God. Their only compulsion will be
the love of Christ, the glory of God, and the truth of the
gospel. This kind of boldness and freedom is absolutely necessary
if we're to have prophets in our pulpits instead of puppets.
Most preachers are nothing but puppets. Puppets on a string
manipulated by the opinion of men, the favor of men, and the
money of men. They're what Brother Mahan calls
Junebug preachers. I've never seen any around here.
When I was a boy growing up in North Carolina, we used to have
June bugs. They looked like those Japanese beetles, but they were
as big as the end of your thumb. I'd catch them and tie them on
a string and we'd fly them around. You'd have a ball with them,
take them wherever we wanted to take them, do whatever we
wanted to with them, but they were tied to our string and they
did only what they were allowed to do by us puny little boys. And that's the way most preachers
are. They're tied to a string. They're controlled by the opinions
of men, the applause of men, the approval of men, and the
fear of men. Not God's preachers. Not God's
preachers. I'm telling you, if you run across
a man with a message from God, you run across a man who's met
up with the living God face to face in his own heart, you come
face to face with a man who's been face to face with God, you
can't do anything with him but listen. You can't persuade him
to do anything but declare to you the truth of God. You can't
control him. You can't manipulate him. You
can't devise a method by which he operates. He's a man who speaks
for God, speaks from his heart as one who has been himself in
communion with the heart of the living God. Oh, God make me such
a man. God keep me from pretending to
be such a man, but God make me such a man. Most of what goes
on in our churches today is done out of nothing but fear. These preachers in our day are
persuaded to do what they do because of their desire for financial
gain, because of their desire for reputation, because they
serve self and not God. We're afraid of losing our crowd,
so we keep them entertained with programs, movies, concerts, ball
games, clowns, movie stars, and gimmicks of every kind imaginable.
I was watching one of those silly television programs the other
day, and they had some silly puppet, a duck, the gospel duck,
they called it, and everybody goes hooray over the gospel duck. Brother Darwin was telling me
about Going into a church building, they had a great big stage. It
was a church of God, I think you said. Great big stage. Didn't
have a pulpit, just had a big stage. Had a little old cubicle
hole back there. Darwin said, the fellow said,
he said, that's mighty small for a bad district. He said,
that's not a bad district. He said, that's where we had
the puppet show. That's where we had the puppet show. Got to
entertain folks. And preachers are the guiltiest
wretches out of hell, the guiltiest wretches out of hell, entertaining
men and women, sleeping them to death in a rocking chair of
religion while they're going to hell. And they dare not raise
their voices, dare not disturb man's peace, dare not disturb
the status quo. A very dear friend of mine was
converted a while back. She'd been in church all her
life, been teaching Sunday school since she was just a young lady
herself. And one day God showed her the
glory of God in the face of Christ. She went to her pastor and told
him what God had done for her and asked if he wouldn't baptize
her. You're not going to believe what that man said. You're just
flat not going to believe what he said. He said, we can't do
that. I'd raised too many questions.
That'd disturb folks. That'd make people uneasy and
uncomfortable. Oh no, you can't confess Christ. Not here. We got everything going
too well. Not here. Why, we don't want
to disturb anything. God's men, God's men don't give
a flip about disturbing the whole world. God's men are determined
to declare His glory regardless of cost or consequence. His greatness,
His grace, and His glory in Christ Jesus. But in our day, we're
scared to death we're gonna lose the crowd. So we're gonna have
our ball games, we'll have our little concerts, we'll have our
movies, and we'll have our movie stars, and we'll have our gimmicks,
and we'll have our tricks, and we'll have our fellowships. We'll
have everything under the sun except a man standing with boldness
to declare the message of God. We got time for everything else
under the sun. Everything else under the sun. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing? that in our
churches we can sing and read and tell stories and listen to
folks sing and everybody gets along fine. Everybody's just
right along doing very well. Man stands up to open the Word
of God and no more than reads a verse of Scripture. Just doing everything under the
sun trying to stay awake. Isn't it amazing? I'm going to
tell you something. I'm going to tell you something. I have been dog-tired on my feet. Dog-tired on my feet. And I have
never yet sat down at a table when I was hungry that I was
too tired to eat. Never have. I never have. Matter
of fact, if I was very hungry, I made arrangements to make certain
I was wide enough weight to eat. And I'm telling you that if we
come into the house of God seeking a message from God, if it's important,
if it's important, I'm talking to you and to me. If it's important,
we'll see to it that we prepare our hearts to hear a message
from God. If it's important. Problem is,
it's not important. It's not important. Somehow or
another, the precious things of God The precious things of
heaven, the precious things of Christ are so commonplace in
our ears, David, that they're less interesting to us than a
morning news report. Oh, what a commentary. Preachers are afraid of losing
their jobs, so they keep their ear to the ground. And they preach
whatever the bulk of the people want to hear. They're inspired
by fear. Whatever the people want them
to do, they do. Whatever the people want them
to preach, they preach. And they go about their work
with a trumped-up zeal and a show of godliness that impresses the
people they're interested in impressing. These modern prophets
of deceit are called and motivated by men and money, nothing more. They don't know the voice of
the eternal God. Sometimes I wonder if I do, but
I've got no question about what I hear going on around me. The
preachers I hear on radio and television, the little sermonettes
I read in publications and the newspaper and elsewhere, they
don't know the eternal God. I know they don't because I hear
what they say. And what they say is designed
and calculated to impress men, only men. It's designed and calculated
to win the favor of popular, conservative, moral, religious
men. And they wouldn't dare offend
the popular, conservative, moral, religious element of their society. Wouldn't dare do it. God give
me opportunity. I'm determined somehow, somehow
to make this religious world know that without the knowledge
of the living God, I don't care what you have. If you don't know
Christ my soul, you're perishing. The true prophet of God neither
seeks nor follows public opinion. He seeks the will of God and
the direction of the Holy Spirit. He knows the burden of the word
of the Lord that crushed the hearts of the Old Testament prophets.
He has no personal interest to protect, no ambition to pursue. He's got nothing to lose. He
got nothing to lose. I'm telling you, whether I meet
the character, whether I don't, I'm telling you that a man who
has a message from God that he's got to deliver, he's got nothing
to lose, nothing. He's already given everything
up. He got nothing to lose. He got nothing to protect. He's
under the rule of King Jesus. He's got no ambition seeking
after. He seeks nothing but the glory
of God in Christ Jesus. He's already given everything
over to Christ and therefore he doesn't fear any man. He's
completely careless about his standing among men. If they follow
him, well and good. If they reject him, He loses
nothing that he holds dear. Whether he's accepted or rejected
by men, he is totally unaffected, totally unmoved. He'll go on
proclaiming the truth of God, for he's not a politician. He's
a preacher. He's a preacher. I'll go on record. I don't often speak about political
matters. I'm going to go on record. I
don't care whether they're Democrats, Republicans, I don't care what
they are. I don't have any confidence in
any politician I've ever heard, seen, or read about, not one
of them, because everyone I've ever heard, seen, or read about
is interested in the next election. He's not interested in the people
he represents. He's interested in the next election,
nothing else, nothing else. And I have the same contempt
for most men who stand in pulpits all across this country. They're
not interested in the souls of men. Not the least bit interested
in the souls of men. They got a big hoopla, and they
shed a lot of crocodile tears, and they impress folks, and everybody
gets all excited about them, but they bend and they sway with
the tide of opinion, and they do exactly what they're expected
to do, neither more nor less, because they're concerned only
about their job security. Nothing else. Nothing else. If the Church of Christ is to
accomplish anything in this day for the glory of God, she must
once again have some real men to fill her pockets. We must
repudiate as weaklings those who dare not speak out for God.
And we must seek by earnest prayer some men who are made of the
stuff that made the prophets and martyrs of old. God will
hear the cries of His Church today. I believe He will. just
as he heard the cries of Israel in Egypt. He will revive again. He will send pastors after his
heart to feed his people with knowledge and understanding.
He said he would. He will send us men once again
to stand in the gap and boldly declare the truth of God for
the glory of Christ. I know he'll answer our prayers
if we call upon him with earnest hearts. I know he will. This
is God's way among men. When God sends men filled with
His Spirit, through their labor in preaching the gospel of Christ,
He will call His elect from the four corners of the earth and
send that long-awaited revival which we so desperately need
and I hope so desperately want. And when God sends such men,
you can be sure of this, they're going to be men with a message
from God bursting their hearts. men with a message from God bursting
their hearts. I talk to preachers all the time. Saturday morning, Saturday night,
don't have any idea what to preach. Sunday morning is getting close,
got to find something to preach. I don't ever Thank God I don't
ever have to look for something to preach. Never. I have to try
to figure out a way how many sermons I'm going to have to
use to preach it in. I have to figure out some way
to cut it all down, whittle it down to the space of 55 minutes
or an hour so that I can get done. But the message, oh my
soul, there's a message, a message in my heart. I've got to proclaim
it. Burns in my soul and the glory
of God and the souls of men demand that I declare the message. Got
to. This is what John experienced
here in Revelation chapter 10. Oh, I think it'd be well to paint
signs in large letters and hang them over every pulpit in the
country. Need it. men with a message. Oh, let me
hear a man with a message. I'll drive across the country
to hear a man with a message, a message from God, a living
message from a living man with a living heart before the living
God to speak to my cold, hard, stony, flinty heart. Now, I want
to take these four verses here in Revelation 10 as a picture
of the kind of man God uses. Here are six characteristics
of those men who are sent of God to preach the gospel. I'll
give them to you briefly. I hope clearly, powerfully, and
profitably. Number one, that man who is called
of God to preach the gospel knows personally the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows him. He knows him. When the voice spoke to John,
John didn't have to turn around and look and see who the voice
was. He had been hearing it speak for a long time. He knew who
it was. It was the voice that spoke to
him before. It was the same one that he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was the same voice he heard
on Mount Calvary. It was the very same voice that
he saw when he was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day in chapter
1. He's seen and heard that voice numerous times. John knew him. He knew that one who had revealed
himself here as the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon
the earth. No man can speak for Christ who
doesn't know Christ. I can't possibly introduce you
to a person I don't know. I just can't do it. I suspect maybe that's the reason
so many people have difficulty introducing sinners
to the Son of God. I suspect maybe that's the reason
so many preachers have difficulty standing in their pulpits describing
who Jesus Christ is. You see, I can introduce to you,
I can describe for you with clarity anybody whom I know. I can describe
them for you so that if you were to go and pick them up at the
airport, you'd know who they were the minute you laid eyes
on them. I can just describe them for
you. I've gone, of course, I have outstanding characteristics that
some of you don't have. Two or three times as many of
those characteristics as some of you have. But I go to airports
all over the country and folks come pick me up who've never
laid eyes on me before, never seen me before. Mr. Fortner,
brother so-and-so sent me down to get you. How did you know
me? Well, he described you pretty well. He described you pretty
well. He knows you, you see. He's seen
you before. He knows what you look like.
He knows how you walk, how you dress. He talked to you last
night and he said that you told him you'd be wearing that black
suit and you're the only one there with a black suit and the
only one that looked to me like you might weigh 300 pounds, the
only one that I saw that was kind of balding and sandy hair. Must be him. He's wearing glasses
and he'll be carrying big briefcase. That's him. That's him. If I
know somebody, I can describe them to you. And I believe I
know the Son of God. I believe I do. I know him so
well, I believe that I can describe him to you with clarity so that
if ever you look to him, If ever he plants himself in your path
and you see him, you'll know him immediately. You'll know
exactly who I'm talking about. This one I'm speaking of is himself
very God of very God. He's the perfect, righteous,
holy man. He's God and man in one glorious
person. He's the God-man who by his own
shed blood redeems sinners. He's the God-man who ever lives
above, who sits at the right hand of the majesty on high and
makes intercession for the transgressors. He's that one whose name is Emmanuel,
Jesus, our Savior, our Lord and our King. If you ever meet him,
you'll know him. You'll know him by the very glory
and majesty of God revealed in his face. I expect that nobody here has any difficulty
telling other people about a person they love. Do you? I don't have
any difficulty telling people about somebody that I love, I'm
interested in. Matter of fact, I'll tell the
same story so many times that folks who've been around, you
know, Don, you told us that about her. We've already heard that. We've already heard that part.
Have you got anything new to tell us? And I've usually got
something new. I'll start telling that. And I'm persuaded somehow that if preachers Love Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. They don't ever get tired of
telling folks about him. Matter of fact, they have a tough
time getting them to tell about anything else. They're persuaded
of his glory and they've seen him and they've never seen anything
like him. They've heard his voice and never
heard anything like it. They've experienced his grace
and they've never experienced anything like it. They've got
to tell it. They've got to tell it. Secondly, that man who is called
of God to preach the gospel has a commission from God himself. Here the Lord God said to John,
verse 8, go, take the little book. Then in verse 11, he told
him that he must prophesy again. Now, I don't know that I can
explain it. But that man who is called of
God to preach the gospel does have a distinct mandate from
God to preach the gospel. He has a distinct mandate from
God to preach the gospel. God gives him a message that
he's just got to declare. He doesn't have any choice. He's
got to declare it. Not only does God give him the message, But
when a man's called of God to preach the gospel, God gives
him the ability and the opportunity to declare that message. Turn
over to Jeremiah chapter 1. Jeremiah chapter 1. Verse 8. The Lord said, Jeremiah, before I
formed you in the belly, I knew you. Before you came forth out
of the womb, I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet
unto the nations. Now look in verse 8. Be not afraid
of their faces. Don't you be afraid to look in
their faces. Don't you be afraid to look at a man's face and tell
him what he is. Don't you be afraid to look in a man's face
and call a rebel a rebel, a sinner a sinner, a snake a snake, a
worm a worm. Don't you be afraid of their
faces. Don't you be afraid of what they can say or what they
can do, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold,
I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee
over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out, to pull
down, to destroy, to throw down, to build and to plant. And when there is a facade of
religiosity, when there is a fake building with no foundation,
The greater part of the prophet's work must first be to root out,
to pull down, to destroy, and to throw down. He cannot plant
and he cannot build until he roots out all error and pulls
down the false refuge and destroys the refuge of lies. Then he begins
to plow up the hard ground and make the ground prepared for
the Word of God to plant the blessed seed and to build thereupon. That's what God gives a man to
do. And he's got no choice, he's got to do it. It was God himself
who told John to take and eat the book and proclaim its message.
And no man can preach the gospel and the power of God the Holy
Spirit to the hearts of men unless he's sent of God. I can't do
it. I can't possibly speak to your
heart unless God sent me to deliver this message. I can't do it. I can talk to your ears and I
can impress your mind and I can stir your emotions, but I can't
speak to a man's heart unless God sent me to do it. Can't do
it. How shall they preach except
they be sent? If God didn't give me this message,
and send me to proclaim this message is no more than a clanging
cymbal, no more than a noise in the air, nothing else, nothing
else. Thirdly, that man who is called
of God to preach the gospel seeks a message from God himself. John went directly to Christ
and he said in verse 9, give me the little book. Give me the little book. Since I left here Tuesday night,
I preached every night but last night. Driving down the road Tuesday
night while my wife and daughter were sleeping, my heart's crying
out, Lord, God, give me a message. Give me a message. Give me a message for these people.
The next night, Lord, give me a message. Give me a message. And the next night, Lord, give
me a message. All day Friday, I was preparing
what I preached to you this morning. Crying, Lord, give me a message.
Give me a message. Don't let me speak. Vanity. Oh, God, I'd rather never speak
than just speak. Vanity. All the way home yesterday, I
was riding along in the car. Let faith do the driving. her
first time to drive on the freeway, I guess you know how much I slept.
She did the driving all the way home. Lord, give
me a message. All afternoon this afternoon,
as I'm preparing this message, I cry unto God, give me the message. Give me the message. Here I have
come to this passage. I've been looking at it now for
several weeks. I've got to somehow, somehow
got to preach to men and women, many of whom, most of whom, most
of you will never stand publicly before people and preach. And
I've got to preach to you about preaching. Now, they're not anything
drier, anything harder, anything more difficult. But if God gives
a message, If God gives a message, then I've got a message. I've
got a message from God for you. I believe I do. I believe I've
got a message that needs to be sounded throughout this world.
That man who's called of God to preach the gospel is not satisfied
with anything less than a message directly from God to his heart. to deliver to the hearts of men. If the preacher would preach
with purpose for the good of men's souls and the glory of
God, he must seek a message at the throne of grace. Old John
Trapp made this statement. He said three things make a preacher,
reading, prayer, and temptation. That's about right. Three things
make a preacher, reading, prayer, and temptation. And then he said,
he that would understand the riddles of God must plow with
this heifer. This is the way you open up the
book, reading, prayer, and temptation. The spirit of God and the message
of God is not given to any, but those who diligently seek it
at the throne of grace. This is the responsibility of
every gospel preacher, to give himself with untiring labor and
diligence to seeking a message from God. Not only seeking the message,
but faithfully declaring it. Paul told Timothy to give himself
wholly to this work, wholly to this work, entirely, Don't let
anything interfere with it. Don't let anything interfere.
Give yourself wholly to the work. We were discussing back there
in the office, Darwin and I were, before we read the scriptures
and had prayer together. People help. Nobody minds too
much telling the preacher how he ought to conduct his business
and how he ought to carry on the ministry. And everybody's
real free with their suggestions and ideas. And whenever things
aren't going just quite the way folks think they ought to, somebody's
sure to come along and suggest that the preacher go out and
spend his time knocking on doors, visiting folks and visiting at
the hospital and all those things. I don't say there's no place
for those things, but I do say the preacher's got no place doing
it. I do say the preacher's got no
place. The preacher doesn't have time to chase ambulances like
some lawyer who's hungry. Preacher doesn't have time. He
doesn't have time to spend his days and his evenings chit-chatting
with folks. He doesn't have time. Not if
he's doing what he ought to be doing. Not if he's doing what
he ought to be doing. His responsibility, my responsibility
to you and to God as your pastor, is that when you come here Sunday
morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night, or if we meet seven nights
a week, or if I go somewhere else and preach the gospel, it's
my responsibility to have something from God fresh and living for
your soul. That's it. That's it. To study
and to preach. To study and to preach. To give
himself to prayer, to meditation, and to preaching. Well, but you got to take time
for people. My soul, my daughter, 16 years old, and I haven't taken time for
her. Been married to my wife for 18 years. I seldom take any
time for her. They understand. I hope they
understand spiritually. I believe they do. I hope you
understand. I've got no time for anything
that interferes with this time. Meditating, seeking a message
from God, calling upon the name of God, and delivering the message. Nothing else matters. Nothing
else matters. Nothing. I honestly don't believe I would
neglect my wife and daughter for anything else. I don't believe
I'd neglect time with my wife and daughter for anything else.
But compared with this business of seeking and declaring a message
from God, they're secondary. They're secondary. That man who is sent of God to
preach the gospel first experiences in his own soul what he preaches
to others. John said here in verse 10, I
took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it up. And it was in my mouth as sweet
as honey. And as soon as I ate, I had eaten
it, my belly was bitter. by reading prayer and meditation.
The man who speaks for God must devour the Holy Scriptures so
that like a ready scribe, he is able to instruct the ignorant
in the things of God. Every man who ever preached to
the hearts of men preached from the inner experiences of his
own heart. Somebody said the gospel preacher
gets a message from the heart of God. digested in his own heart,
and delivers it in the power of the Holy Spirit to the hearts
of men. Now here John tells us three things that he did. First,
he ate up the book of God. You can read a comparison chapter
in Ezekiel chapter 9, or chapter 2 rather, in verse 9 through
chapter 3 in verse 3. Ezekiel said, I ate up the book.
I ate it up. I digested it. That's what you
do in study. You take the word of God and
you receive it by faith and prayer into your own heart and you eat
it just like a hungry man eats bread. You eat the word like
a thirsty man drinks water. You drink in the word, the living
word of the living God so that it becomes you. It becomes you. And then John said, I tasted
the sweetness of the gospel. By the word, God was in my mouth
like honey. Sweet as honey. It's what the
psalmist said. His words are sweeter than honey
in the honeycomb. Oh, the word of God to the newborn
soul is sweet, precious, more precious than anything on the
earth. To the spiritual palate. To the renewed heart, to the
sanctified spirit, nothing's more valuable Nothing's more
important. Nothing. I fear for men and women who neglect the Word of God in
their daily lives. I write a great deal about this
book. If you never read anything I
write, read this book. Read this book. I fear for men
and women who neglect the ministry of the Word. I fear for them. I fear for them. A heaven-born
soul delights in the Word. To him, it's sweeter than honey
in the honeycomb. You know how sweet that is, if
you've got a sweet tooth. My little girl's got a place
she likes honey and buttered biscuits. If we've got biscuits,
get done eating the last thing she wants. Mom, we got any honey?
Got any honey? Just ritual at the table. Got
any honey? Stir them up. Let's have some
honey and butter with our biscuits. That's the way the believer is
about this word. Lord. Oh, God, have you got any honey
for my soul today? John said, I ate it. And it was
in my mouth as sweet as honey. But then he tasted by personal
experience the bitterness of the message he had to preach.
Bitterness. Pastor, what does that mean?
You see, the gospel of Christ is never pleasing to the flesh.
And the message God sends his servants to declare is never
appealing to the flesh. You can jot it down. I would
suggest you jot it down and paste it up on your TV screen. The
message God sends his servants to preach is never appealing
to the flesh. Never. Never. There's nothing
in this book appealing to the flesh. And you hear a man preach
that which is appealing to the flesh? pleasing to the flesh,
delightful to the flesh. You hear a man preach that which
causes the flesh to delight and causes the flesh to swell with
pride. He's not speaking for God. He's not speaking for God. These fellows get up, expect
a miracle. You can make a miracle happen.
Six easy steps for miracles in your daily life. God doesn't
want you to be sick. God wants you to be in health
and he wants you to prosper. He wants you to prosper in your
finances and prosper in your home and prosper in your business. God's in the prospering business,
not in the despondency business. Something good's gonna happen
today. By the smiles like that, I know
he's lying. He's lying. No, it ain't so. The message
that God sends to a man to declare to your soul will never cause
your flesh joy. Never. Never. You see, the message of God is
a message of repentance. And repentance is a painfully
bitter experience. The message of God demands submission
to Christ as Lord and submission is contrary to the rebellious
heart of flesh. The message we are sent to preach
demands faith in a substitute and faith as opposed to proud
flesh. Man thinks himself righteous.
He will not confess his sin and he will not forsake his righteousness
unless God causes him to do so. That man who does not know the
bitterness of gospel repentance, the humiliation of submitting
to the dominion of Christ and the pain of self-denying faith
in his own soul cannot preach the gospel to other men. It takes
a wounded heart to reach wounded hearts. It takes a pierced heart
to pierce hearts. It takes a broken heart to break
hearts. But here's another thing that's
to be seen in the bitterness that John felt. This is my fifth
point. That man who is called of God
to preach the gospel knows the serious, eternal consequences
of the message he declares. John's bitterness was in part
due to the fact that he knew the message he had to deliver
was a message of judgment, of condemnation, of wrath from a
holy God. You read the 11th chapter and
you'll find out what the message is. It's the final woe of God
about to be poured out upon the unbelieving world. And John's heart broke within
him because he saw before him perishing
multitudes of men who would not seek mercy. The word of God brought bitterness
to his belly because he knew that the preaching of this word
would bring the great persecution that was described in the next
chapter. And like John, every man who is called of God to preach
the gospel knows full well the results of his preaching. If I preach, if I ever really
preach. Sometimes I wonder if I ever
have and if I ever shall. But I know this, if I ever really
faithfully preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, the preaching of the gospel will
bring certain, sure, inevitable results. If you ever hear me or anybody
else speak in the power of God, the gospel of Christ, you won't
have to question it. You'll know it, and you'll never
be the same as a result of it. You see, the faithful preaching
of the gospel always brings about bitter persecution from an unbelieving
world. The gospel of Christ is offensive
to the world. Both the religious world and
the secular world are opposed to Christ and him crucified. I would feel just as welcome,
just as safe, just as much at home, perhaps even more likely
to be received, to carry the message that I preach into the
bar rooms and whorehouses around town. than to carry the message
that I preach into the churches around town. The message of the
gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive to self-righteous men. It's offensive
to man's love of self and man's love of his own righteousness.
It's offensive to sinful men and offensive to moralistic men.
And it will always result in persecution of one form or another. Faithful gospel preaching will
also result in the eternal misery of those who despise our message. You talk about bitterness for
your soul. Here's a bitter pill I have to
swallow. I honestly don't like it. I honestly
do not like this, contrary to my nature, contrary to my flesh.
I don't like it. One of these days, God will fix
it so that I will, because I'll see things like he does. I'm preaching to an assembly
of men and women that are the most precious people
on earth to me. I love you. I love you. And I know full well that if
God lets me speak in the power of his spirit, if I've spoken
to you by the spirit of God tonight, the gospel of Christ, this word
is either going to harden your heart or break your heart. It's
either going to bring you life or it's going to bring you death.
It's either going to bring you eternal joy and eternal salvation
or eternal misery. and eternal damnation. If you hear the gospel preached
in the power of God and you willfully, deliberately stop your ears and
shut your eyes and harden your heart and say, no, sir, I will
not bow to Christ. You'd be infinitely better off
never to have been born. The hottest place of God's wrath
in hell is reserved for men and women who hear but refuse to
obey the gospel of his grace. I'm going to tell you what. Had to do one of two things.
Had to do one of two things. The knowledge of that fact will
either cause a man to cry out for God to speak through him.
It'll cause a man to shut his mouth and sit down, let somebody
else do the preaching. Just let somebody else do the
preaching. I don't want any part of it. If God's not in it, if
God's not in it, I don't want any part of it. But the faithful
preaching of the gospel will also be blessed of God to the
salvation of some. So shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth. It shall accomplish that which
I please. It shall prosper in the thing
whereto I send it. One last thing. That man who's
called of God to preach the gospel of Christ always faithfully delivers
the message God has given him. The Lord said to John, Thou must
prophesy again. Yes, sir, you're going to speak
again before many peoples and nations and tongues and kings. Regardless of cost or consequence,
whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, in season
and out of season, the man of God delivers the message of God. He fears nothing but God. He
seeks nothing but the glory and the honor of his God. and therefore
he cannot be induced by terror nor bribed by men to tram or
to alter his message. He preaches precisely what God
gives him to preach. He'll do it anywhere, anytime,
with any people. I see and hear of Listen to men who hedge and trim and back up
and soft pedal. Depends on where they are, the people they preach to, the
condition, the shape of the congregation determines what and how they
preach. Darwin, such a man is not sin
of God. I don't care who he is. I don't care who he is. A while back I observed a fellow going to have
a wedding in his church. The girl getting married was
a Catholic. There are folks devout Catholics. Devout. Or should
I say something Catholics. Her daddy would get real upset
His daughter got married in a Baptist church. So he took the sign down. Changed the name of the church.
Why, shoot, I don't care if the Pope of Rome comes along. Give
me a chance. I'd tickle to death to upset him. I'd be tickled
to death to upset him. Or anybody else. Anybody? Anybody
who's offended with God, I'm anxious to offend. Anybody who's
angry with God, I'm anxious to stir up their wrath. Anybody
who opposes the gospel of Christ, I'm anxious for their opposition
to be seen. Now that's either of God or the
devil. I don't really know which, but it's one of the two. And
I'm telling you that God's servants cannot be induced, bribed, threatened,
or terrorized into forsaking the message. They're going to
declare it wherever they are, to whomever they speak. Amen.