I want to introduce this message
tonight with a few comments. It seems to be some sort of unwritten
law that we don't attack or criticize or find fault with any other denomination or any
other religion. or any other what we call faith. Folks sometimes get up in arms
when we call the Catholics by name or we talk about those who preach salvation by
works or salvation by baptism or salvation by church membership. And we get the idea that we're
being critical, we're being uncharitable, and we're judging. You know,
the Lord, they say, said, judge not. And we sort of hesitate to just come
out and tell people that this or that one is a false prophet. He just is not preaching the
Word of God. But our Lord warned us about
false prophets again and again and again. He said of the preachers
of His day, the disciples, He said the Pharisees, and those
were the religious leaders, and I mean men high up in religious
circles, they were accepted. They were theologians, they were
orthodox, they were students of the Scripture. And our Lord
preached a certain doctrine, and the disciples said, these
religious leaders were offended by what you said. And our Lord,
now listen to the master. He said, leave them alone. They're
blind leaders of the blind. These are blind men, he said.
Is that uncharitable? Well, it is if truth's uncharitable.
Left them alone, he said, they're blind leaders of the blind, and
if the blind lead the blind, they'll both fall into the ditch.
Again and again, he said, take heed what you hear. Now, we're
to take heed what we preach, but you're to have enough wisdom
to discern what is true and what's not true, and you're supposed
to reject what's not true. And the scripture tells us if
a man comes in bringing any other doctrine, don't admit him into
your home. Isn't that what it says? And
don't bid him Godspeed. Don't do it. A man wrote me this
week from Huntington, a friend, Dick Smith, a retired man who
lives in a retirement home that you built, Ed, up there on the
river, you know. And he's been supporting a Catholic mission
work in Africa. And they have some orphans and
they teach people to farm and they give out food and other
things. But he's been getting their literature
and he sent me a copy of the literature and asked me to read
it. He said I'm getting under conviction about supporting something
that that never mentions Christ, and he said, they insinuate that
salvation is in the church and in Mary and in these rituals
and ceremonies, and he said, I'm troubled. Asked me what I
thought, and I wrote back and I said, well, and he asked me
this, he said, do you think it's right for me to support something
that's taking care of people's bodies but poisoning their minds
and damning their souls? And I wrote him back and I said,
well, Here's where we are, Mr. Smith. I said, I admire the Shriners'
Crippled Children Hospital. They've got a lot of them over
the country, and I would support them. But they're not going in
the name of religion. They're doing it as a charitable,
humanitarian thing. And I say support them. The United
Fund, the Community Chest, these things are not religious organizations. They're not going forth in the
name of God, and they're not preaching a doctrine. But now
I can't bring myself to support an organization which is denying
the glory of Christ, which is going forth in the name of Christ
and denying Christ. And I told him that. I said I
would support orphans' homes and humanitarian efforts and
hospitals and anything that relieves the suffering and feeds the hungry
and clothes the naked, but where they go forth Like our Lord says
here, they come lying to the people. They're stealing my words
from the people. They're telling the people a
way of salvation that's not a way of salvation. And our Lord warned
us. He said they encompass sea and
land. They spare no effort to make
a proselyte. A proselyte to what? To religion.
to a profession of faith, to a denomination, to a program,
to a religious enterprise. They'd do anything to make a
proselyte. What's a proselyte? A convert. And he said, after
they've made him a proselyte, he's two-fold more the child
of hell than they are. That's Christ speaking. And he
tells us, he said, beware of false prophets. They don't come
to you announcing that they're false prophets. They come to
you in sheep's clothing. They come to you, they're wolves
in sheep's clothing. They're ravening wolves. They're hungry wolves. They don't
want your soul. They want you. They want what
they can get out of you. They're hucksters in making merchandise,
Paul said of people. Our Lord warned us and warned
us about false prophets. Now, would we be a true minister
of Christ if we didn't, in turn, warn God's people of this type
of thing? And then Paul, in the book of
Galatians, he said, if any man come preaching any other gospel
than the gospel I preached unto you, let him be accursed, even
if it's an angel from heaven. That's cutting it pretty thin,
isn't it? And then in 1 Timothy, where
we're studying in our Bible classes, a continual warning about men
misusing the Scriptures. And then turn to 2 Peter, and
let me read you what Peter says here about false preachers and
false prophets. And as I studied for this message,
I found so many Scriptures. I didn't have to limit it to
three or four or five. You can find a hundred. In 2
Peter 2, verse 1, it says, There were false prophets also among
the people, that is, in Israel, even as there shall be false
teachers among you in the church who privately bring in damnable
heresies, denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves
swift destruction. And many shall follow these men.
their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall
be evil spoken of, and through covetousness." Who's covetous? Well, the preachers are. Shall
they with faint words make merchandise of you? You're just so much merchandise,
like a man running a store selling bolts of cloth and things off
the shelf. You're just so much merchandise.
You're not hearts and souls and people. You're merchandise. You're
numbers. They count you. We had 150 converted. Don't call anybody's name, just
call their number. We had 2,000 additions. You don't
call anybody's name, you call his number, John. He's just a
number. He's one of 2,000. anything to get numbers, whose
judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not." John, turn to 1 John, right on, let's go over a page or two,
1 John chapter 4, verse 1. He says, Beloved, Beloved, and
believe not every spirit. And this word spirit here is
is the preachers. We studied that, you remember,
in 1 John 4 some weeks ago. Believe not every preacher, every
voice that claims to speak by the Spirit of God, but try the
spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets
have gone out into the world. The world's full of them. It's a terrible thing to think
about, and it makes me shudder how many false preachers there
are. Satan has his messengers, and the scripture says that like
Satan himself, he changes himself into an angel of light. Is it
any wonder that his ministers are ministers of righteousness,
ministers of peace, and ministers of pleasant things and sweet
things? And I get so unhappy when people
are impressed by this sort of thing. You can go and hold somebody's
hand and soothly rub their brow, and they just, you know, How
sweet and how sincere and how beautiful, you know. Go say a
few words of peace and butter them up, you know, and the simple-minded
fall for that sort of thing. They cry, peace, peace, when
there is no peace. Peace and righteousness and love. This is the theme of the Bible,
you say. You're right, it is. But it's
God's peace and God's righteousness. And His love shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit. But these false prophets are
preaching your peace and your love and your righteousness.
And it takes wisdom to discern because they use Bible language. But over here in Jeremiah 23,
let's look at this for a few moments. There were many pretenders. Oh, the great pretenders. Maybe
that ought to be the title of this message, the great pretenders.
But there were many great pretenders in the days of Jeremiah. Look
at verse 16. Jeremiah 23, Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy
unto you. They make you vain. They speak
a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord.
They don't speak what God has said. They speak what they think,
what they imagine in their own heart. This is the way I see
it. These are my thoughts. And then look, if you will, at
verse 25. And he says, I've heard what the prophets say. I heard
what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name. They
say, I've dreamed, I've dreamed. And talking there, he's talking
there about, I have imagined, or I have come to this conclusion.
This is my opinion. These are my thoughts. And look
at verse 30. He says, Therefore, behold, I'm against the prophets,
saith the Lord, that steal my words. They steal my words from
the people. They deprive the people of the
Word of God, substituting their own writings and their own thoughts
and their own dreams and their own revelations. If we took as
much time teaching people God's Word and preaching to them God's
Word as we do all these other things, think how profitable
it would be. But we steal the Word of God
from folk. We deprive them of God's Word
and give them instead our words. And then he says in verse 31,
I am against the prophets that use their tongues and they say
God said it. This is what God says. It's not
what God says, it's what they're saying. They use their own tongues
and blame it on God. Verse 32. Behold, I am against
them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them,
and cause my people to err by their lies. They lead the people
astray. Look at the last line. I didn't
send them. I didn't command them. And they
shall not profit this people at all. Now here's a rule the
Lord gave us right in the middle of this chapter, verse 28, by
which the true message can be distinguished from the false,
right here in verse 28. The prophet that hath a dream,
a revelation, a personal idea, a thought of his own, let him
tell it. That's his message, his dream,
his revelation, his thought, his opinion, his idea, his doctrine. Let him preach that. But he said,
he that hath my word, that hath my word where? First of all,
in his head. I know God works in the heart,
but not apart from the head. Study to show thyself approved
unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth. Paul said to Timothy, and we'll
be studying this in a few days, he said, till I come back. I'm
coming back, he said, but I don't want you or anybody around there
to be idle. You give attention to reading.
You give attention to reading, he said, Timothy. Read the scriptures. Give attention to reading, exhortation,
and doctrine. But what came first? Exhortation? No reading. What came first? Give attention to reading and
then to exhortation and doctrine because exhortation and doctrine
can only come out of a head that's been taught by the Holy Spirit
from the Word of God. Give attention to reading and
then to exhortation and doctrine. Don't stand up and speak till
you've been taught. He has the Word of God in his
head. Secondly, he has the Word of God in his soul. He's experienced
it. Now, he that hath a dream, let
him tell his dream. He that's got an opinion or a
thought or an idea, let him go ahead. But he that has my word
in his head, having studied it, having read it, he that has my
word in his heart or soul, having experienced it, having experienced
conviction and repentance and conversion and faith and a love
for Christ, and he that hath my word in his heart, having
believed it, let him do what? Let him speak my word. not his
experience, not his thoughts, not his criticism, not his speculation,
but let him speak my word faithfully. For what is the chaff to the
wheat? In other words, that which the
false preacher preaches is to the Word of God what worthless
chaff is to pure and beautiful wheat. Paul, writing to young
Timothy, said, Timothy, preach the Word. Preach the Word. Be instant, in season, and out
of season. There's no season for preaching
the Word. It's in season and out of season. Preach the Word.
Paul said, Christ sent me not to baptize. Well, Paul wasn't
being critical of the ordinance of baptism. He wasn't lessening
the importance of baptism. But he said, that's not why Christ
sent me. He sent me to preach the gospel. That's my calling. That's my objective. And that's
my occupation, to preach the gospel. Then look at verse 29,
"...is not my word." Now, he that hath a dream, a speculation,
an opinion, well, let him lean on it. But he that hath my word
in his head and in his soul, burned in his soul and in his
heart, let him preach my word faithfully, faithfully, for my
word is a fire. My word is like as a fire. saith the Lord, and like a hammer
that breaketh the rock in pieces." In other words, he's saying this.
His Word comes not only as a fact. Now, His Word is a fact. Thus
saith the Lord is true. Paul would say over and over,
yes, this is a true saying. This is a true revelation. This
is worthy of acceptation by all men. This is a fact. But God's
Word is not just a fact. I wish I could get that across
to every preacher. God's Word is not just a fact.
It's a force. It's a force. It's not just a
fact. We don't preach the Word of God
as a fact only. It is a fact, but it's more than
that. God's Word is a fire. It's a force. God's Word is not only a thing
of beauty, it is a thing of beauty. I hear men, well, we have a famous
a famous Hollywood star whom people like to hear read the
Bible, Orson Welles. Have you ever heard him read
the Bible? He can read it beautifully. But he reads the Bible as a thing
of poetry and prose and beauty, but the Word of God is not just
a thing of beauty, it's a power. I remember reading a story one
time about about a program they were having at a certain place
and they were present on this program was a great orator, a
great actor who acted in one of these little theaters or something
like that. And he had a beautiful voice,
melodious and easy to listen to, like Senator Dirksen years
ago, they said, when he would speak, soap bubbles, you could
see them flying through the air, you know, and so this great orator
got up and read the 23rd Psalm, and when he got through, the
people just cheered and clapped, you know, it was great. And then
they asked an old white-haired believer, an old preacher, if
he would give the 23rd Psalm, and when he got through, Nobody
cheered and nobody clapped, but a lot of people cried. And somebody
asked, what was the difference? And this was the observation. The first man had it in his head,
and the next man had it in his heart. And the first man, somebody
said, knew the psalm, and the second man knew the shepherd.
Oh, that's the difference. So God's Word is not just a thing
of beauty and prose and portrait. God's Word is a... My Word is
a fire, God said. My Word's a hammer. You ever
been in contact with either one of those, a fire or a hammer? It has a lasting effect. I remember
putting a roof on one time and that finger got in the way of
a hammer. And I carried the effects of the blow of that hammer for
a long time. And I've carried some effects of fire also for
a long time. It's a force, it's a power. And
God's Word is not only to be admired. I hear people say, I
admire the Scripture, I admire the Book of Psalms. It's to be
obeyed. A force is to be obeyed. Not
just admired. God didn't send His Word to tickle
our ears, but to break our hearts. God didn't send His Word to entertain
us, but to convict us and rebuke us and convert us and comfort
us. God didn't send His Word to be
argued, but to be believed and received. My Word, He said, is not my Word
like a fire, a force, a power. My Word is like a hammer. And
the false prophet comes with his oratory and his enticing
words and his pleasing voice and his flattering terms and
his words of peace and joy and love and safety and words of
logic and reason and argument and words of man's thoughts and
ways, but the true minister of the gospel comes with the naked
Word of God. There's an old preacher who came
to hear me Almost every night in Houston, we had anywhere from
six, seven, eight, nine preachers in the meeting every night out
there. Two of the former pastors from
this particular church where I was were there nearly every
night, and one of them was up in year 65 or 66, and he'd written
some books, one of which was quite good. He gave me a copy. I read it and had him autograph
it for me. It's quite a good book. And he told this story
in the preface. He said that one day truth was
taking a bath in a beautiful lake, and error came sneaking
through the leaves and stole truth's robe and went off to
deceive men in the world, wearing the robe that belonged to truth. And when truth came out of the
lake, rather than getting the old rags that error had left,
or covering himself with his own leaves like Adam, truth has
gone forth naked, because it doesn't need to be protected
and covered. It doesn't need anything to make
it pretty. It doesn't need anything to make
it attractive, just the plain naked truth of God's Word. He
says, my word is what? My word is like a fire. Now,
when we say, is not my word like a fire, preachers, we're not
talking about our sermons. We're not talking about our illustrations. We're not talking about our doctrines
or our poetry. We're talking about God's word
itself. He says, my word is like a fire. He didn't say your opinion of
my word or your outlines about my Word, or your illustrations
from my Word, but my Word is the fire. My Word is the fire. Is not my Word like a fire? His Word is like a fire. In what
way? Let me give you several ways
the Word of God is like a fire. First of all, a fire can be felt. It can be felt. It has heat.
It has effect. You can feel a fire. You can
experience its warmth. You cannot be around a fire without
feeling some effect. According to the conditions,
it'll either make you uncomfortable or comfortable. But you can't
be around a fire without feeling its effect. A fire, you experience
a fire. Did you know that? You experience
a fire. Men may laugh. They may laugh
at us and say that we have a sweet tooth for certain doctrines.
I do. I do have a sweet tooth for certain
doctrines. Just like I have a sweet tooth
for certain foods. There are certain foods I don't
care for. My wife has deceived me a time or two in this food
business. I remember I never did like spinach.
Never did like spinach. I just wouldn't eat spinach.
I just didn't like it. I'm flat, didn't like it. I tried
it and I didn't like it. And one day she had a salad.
one of these new salads that came out, you know, beautiful,
dark green, fixed up with bacon in it and eggs in it and all
kind of things in it, you know, and put it on the table and I
dipped out a big thing and put it in my bowl, you know, and
I was eating on it and I said, this is a new kind of lettuce,
isn't it? She said, do you like it? Now, she doesn't deceive
you by telling a lie, but she does it by covering up the truth.
Now, you figure that out, but women all understand that. I
said, this is a new kind of lettuce? She didn't say yes, she didn't
say no. She just said, do you like it? Well, I said, I've never
eaten lettuce like this before. Where'd you get this lettuce?
Do you like it, she said. Well, I said, I'm crazy about
it. She says, well, eat it. And I ate it, all of it. When
I got through, she said, it's raw spinach. Raw spinach. There's certain things I like,
certain things I don't like to eat. There are doctrines that
I like. But you know, even a dog knows when he's well fed. Even
a dog knows that which delights his taste buds and fills his
need. Listen to the scripture, the
ass knows his master's crib. He knows where to get something
good to eat. He knows when he's been to his master's crib, doesn't
he? The dumb donkey knows when he's been to his master's crib.
And I'd be dumber than a beast if I didn't know that which fills
my heart and thrills my soul and satisfies my mouth, the good
thing. So I delight in the sovereignty
of God. I'd love to hear a man preach
on the sovereignty of God. I just never get tired. I'm glad
God is God, and that just pleases my taste. And I just don't enjoy
eating at the table where they put a question mark on God's
power and God's might and God's sovereignty, and I just push
it back because I can't eat it. I can't eat it. You see, so when
a man takes the Word of God and reads Scripture that has to do
with God's power and might and glory, I feel it, I experience
it, I taste it, and it's good. And I chew it up and swallow
it, and it meets my need, and it sends me out rejoicing. I rejoice in the covenant of
grace. Somebody reads Exodus 33, I'll be merciful to whom
I will be merciful. And that's good eating. That's
good eating. It's not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. That's
good eating. I feel it. I experience it. I
rejoice, I'm warm by electing love. I rejoice in sufficient
atonement. I find comfort in the intercession
of Christ. I find joy in the promises of
His Word. I look forward with expectation
to His return. So when the Word of God is read
to me and preached to me, I eat it and experience it and feel
it, don't you? Enter into it. It's not just
a beautiful fact. It's a force to me. It's a fire. Like when I come in contact with
a fire, I feel it. I experience it. When I come
in contact with this book, I feel it. I experience it. It's just all through me. The
Word of God. And there's special things in
this Word, or special things that this Word teaches that are
my favorites. And then secondly, what does
a fire do? A fire is felt. And secondly, God said, my word
is a fire. It's not only felt and experienced,
but it comforts. Now I'm telling you, I don't
like the cold. I can stand the heat, but I don't
like the cold. And when I've been out in the
cold for a spell, and come back in the house, and there's a warm
fire going in the grate, What a comfort. Oh, it just, that
fire just comforts like nothing else. When you've been out there
in the chill and cold and darkness and dampness of the night, and
you come into the warm house where the fire is burning, and
you take off your coat and sit down and warm yourself, it just
comforts you. That's what this book does. It
comforts. Life is full of trials. Life's
not easy. You know it and I know it. There
are trials of sorrow and failure and disappointment. There are
chill winds of reproach and misunderstanding. There's the cold darkness of
sickness and even death. But His Word comforts me. And
nothing comforts me like the Word of God. I appreciate a friend
taking me by the hand and saying, I love you and I'm sorry for
you. And that helps, but not like
this book here. Not like this book. I'm a sinner
and this book gives me hope. I'm a fool and this word gives
me wisdom. I'm weak and this word is my
strength. I'm a dying man and this word
of God is life. And it meets everyone and it
comforts me. I can have doubts about my relationship
with God and I can go to this book and come away comforted.
I can have an understanding of my weakness and insufficiency,
and I can go here and find that my grace is sufficient. I can
do all things through Christ which strengthens me. These things
comfort me, don't they, John? The word comforts. Nothing comforts
like the word. And brother, when you come in
out of the cold wind of the world, there's nothing comforts like
a warm fire. And God said, my word's a fire.
It comforts. And then thirdly, What is a fire? Well, a fire not only is felt
and a fire not only is experienced and comforted, but a fire melts. Fire will melt. If it's hot enough, it will melt. What will it melt? It will melt
the hardest ore. That's right, it'll melt the
hardest ore, it'll melt the hardest gold, it'll melt the hardest
silver. Fire, if it's hot enough, it'll
melt anything. And the Word of God in the hands
of the Holy Spirit can melt anybody's old hard heart. Now you take
all your... Mama can stand in front of a
wayward boy and cry, but Mama's tears won't melt that old boy's
hard heart. Now you'd think mama's tears
could melt it, but it won't do it. It won't dissolve that old
hard heart. And daddy can look at a boy or
a girl and talk about how disappointed they are, and the words of a
father will not melt. And a preacher can get up and
lamb-bast and rant and rave and tell you you're going to hell
and all these things, and it won't do it. But I'll tell you
what will melt and break the hardest heart is God's Word.
It's a fire. It'll melt the heart of an unforgiving
heart. It'll melt a selfish spirit.
It'll melt a proud will. It'll melt an unholy temper.
It'll just melt it away. And God's Word, this fire of
God's Word will melt and purify and it'll put away the dross
and it'll preserve the faith. It'll preserve that which God
created. It'll preserve the gold and silver
and precious stone. That fire will preserve. That
fire will purify. Did you know that? That's what
he says over in 1 Peter 1, 7. He said that's what trials the
fire to purify your faith. And the purer the gold, the hotter
the fire it came out of. That's what this word, my word
is a fire, God said. It'll melt. It'll melt. You want
to conquer that temper of yours? This'll do it. This'll do it. You want to conquer an unforgiving
spirit? This Word'll do it. If you want
the love of God in your heart, this Word'll do it. It melts.
It melts an unforgiving spirit. It just melts it away. An unforgiving
spirit, an unmerciful spirit, and a bad attitude can't live
long in this furnace right here. It just can't do it. I remember
one time reading in a Bible, somebody wrote in front of a
Bible, sin will keep you from this book and this book will
keep you from sin. And this book will do a whole
lot of things for us if we'll read it. And then in the next
place, a fire consumes. You've driven down the highway,
coming back from Birmingham last week, we drove by a place where
There used to be a beautiful home, and all that's left standing
now is a stone chimney. That's all that's left. That's
the only thing standing. Everything else is gone. Why?
Everything else was wood, hay, and stubble. That fire couldn't
burn that stone, but it could burn everything else, and that's
what the Word of God does. It'll burn our rags of self-righteousness. But it won't burn the pure righteousness
of our rock, Christ Jesus. It won't do it. And this word
will burn away the stubble and rubbish of tradition. You can't
hold your tradition in the light of this fire. You see, this fire
is light, and your tradition's darkness and light and darkness
can't get along. The light's going to drive out
the darkness. And the fire's going to burn up the stubble
of tradition. You can't hold it in the face
of this fire. And the Word of God will burn
up the custom, and legalism, and ceremonialism, and ritualism,
and any other kind of ism, just like Paul the Apostle said, I
once was a Hebrew of Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee
of Pharisees, and all these things, but I count it but rubbish, only
fit for the burning, that I may win Christ and be found in Him. My Word is a fire. I tell you,
if I didn't have but one more sermon to preach, I believe I'd
read the Bible about 30 minutes and talk 5 minutes. That'd be
a good sermon. Because God's Word's a fire.
And then God's Word, He says, look back at verse 29, let me
close. My Word's like a fire, God says.
Now your dreams won't do it. You got a dream or a vision or
a revelation or something special, speculation, you tell it. That's
all you got to tell, tell it. But if you got the Word, speak
the word, and do it faithfully. And he says, my word is like
a hammer. Now listen to me a moment. What does a hammer do? Well,
when we think about a hammer, we think about several things.
Jay and I were talking about this today. He had his mind on
driving a nail, and I had my mind on beating a rock. I don't
know what you have yours on with a hammer. I know Jack's probably
straightening a fender. And Dave and Ronnie back there,
they're thinking about straightening out a wrinkle in a door or something,
you know. Let's make the rock. Let's use a rock. Let's use the
hammer on the rock. And that's what jailers used
to do, isn't it, bust rocks? But anyway, he said, my word
is like a hammer. It'll break the rock. It'll break
the rock. My word'll break the hard heart. My word'll break the stubborn
will. It can't stand under the force of the pounding of God's
Word. God's Word is like a hammer that
crushes and bruises and breaks and grinds to powder all flesh
and all human righteousness. Now let me tell you this, when
we're handling the Word of God, preachers and teachers and others,
witnesses, it doesn't take a lot of credentials to use a hammer.
It doesn't take a lot of education to use a hammer. It doesn't take
a lot of training to use a hammer. But it takes a lot of wisdom
to use a hammer. You can get hurt and you can
hurt folks using a hammer if you don't have some wisdom. A
man doesn't have to have a college education to use a hammer. He
can go have a third grade education to use a hammer, but he needs
some wisdom to use it. You don't put a hammer in the
hands of a two-year-old. Or you'll wind up with a busted
china cabinet and a busted storm door and a busted coffee table. It takes wisdom to use a hammer.
This word's a hammer. That's what God says, it's a
hammer. It takes wisdom for what? Well, knowing where to hit. You
see, that's what the three-year-old doesn't have that wisdom. He
just gets his hammer and draws back and clobbers the coffee
table, you know. The hammer's used, it's supposed
to hit certain things. And that's the thing about using
the Word of God. It's having wisdom to know where to hit.
It's having wisdom to know when to hit it. The blacksmith uses
his hammer on the horseshoe, but he doesn't hit it on the
horse's foot. And he doesn't take it off the
horse's foot and hit it cold. Gets it ready to hit. You with
me? It doesn't take a lot of education
to use a hammer, but it takes a lot of sense. And I'll tell
you this, this hammer is a lot more dangerous than that nine
pound hammer you got. This hammer is sharp. It cuts
and wounds and bruises. So it takes some wisdom to know
where to hit, when to hit. It takes some wisdom to know
how hard to hit. We'll drive a nail with Jay.
When you drive a carpet tack, you're not going to hit as hard
as you would a 16-penny nail, are you? I like what that fellow said
to the preacher. He came to church one Sunday.
It snowed. Wasn't anybody there but him
and the preacher. And the preacher preached about an hour. And when
he got through, the man came up and said, well, sir, that
was a good sermon, but it was an awful long preacher. And the
preacher said, well, if you had a bunch of cows and you went
down to feed them and didn't but one show up, you'd feed him,
wouldn't you? He said, yeah, but I wouldn't make him eat the
whole truckload, you know. You've got to have some wisdom
to knowing how hard to hit. You've got to have some wisdom
to know how long to hit. You don't just keep pounding
after it's been broken. when the rock's been broken and
broken to smithereens. And this is what I find so often
preachers, I've been guilty of it, all of us have. Barnard said,
well, I've been right one time because I've held all of it,
you know. But you just keep pounding and keep pounding. There's a
time for other things. There's a time for what I'm about
to say. The hammer is used for something else besides breaking.
The hammer's used for shaping. You go to the blacksmith shop
with me and he takes the horseshoe and he puts it in the hot coals
and he pumps the bellows, you know, and he gets it hotter and
hotter. And in a little while that horseshoe itself is red
hot. And then he puts it on the anvil and gets the hammer. What
are you going to do with the hammer? Are you going to break
the horseshoe? No, I'm going to shape it. I'm going to shape
it. And that's what God's Word does.
It breaks the hard heart. It breaks the stubborn will,
it breaks the pride and self-righteousness, and then he takes the same word
in the mouth of the same preacher, and he begins to shape that metal
that's been in the fire. He begins to use that hammer
to shape it. What's he shaping it for? For
a useful purpose. And God knows how to shape every
piece of metal. In the house of the Lord, there
are vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor, Vessels used for
one thing, silver and vessels of gold. And they're different
uses. There's a piece of metal used
for a horse to walk on, and then there's a piece of metal used
to encircle a house, and then there's a piece of metal used
as a lintel over the door, but you don't use a horseshoe over
the door. And you don't use a lintel on a horse's foot. And you take
the hammer and you shape each specific piece of metal for its
own use. And that's what God does with
this Word here. He shapes me, and Jay, and Bruce,
and Jack, and Todd, and Joe, and you, John, and Mike, and
He shapes us, Charlie, like He wants us to be. And He uses the
Word here, the hammer. But I tell you this, He doesn't
beat on cold metal, though, Charlie. He's going to put it in the fire.
And if you don't want God to shape you and use you, Don't
ask him to, because he might. But I tell you, where you go
first, you go to the fire. If you haven't been to the fire,
you're not ready to be shaped. You've got too much dross. You've
got too much impurities. You've got too much self. You've
got to be burned. And then the hammer. And then
he comes with a hammer. Well, you've got a dream, tell it.
But if you've got a book, preach it. And do it faithfully. Because it's a fire. It's a fire
and it's a hammer. Our Father, we thank Thee for
the Word. And that doesn't say what we
feel. We're grateful and appreciative and praise Thee. Where would
we be without the Word? What would we be without the
Word? What foolishness we'd believe and what what filth we'd engage
in, what tradition would bind us, and what customs of men that
seemed so natural to our thinking. And we'd be following dreams
and visions and revelations of devils. But Lord, you've given
us thy word. Let us go out of here tonight,
our hearts beating in joy because we have this word and forgive
us for neglecting it like we have. May we saturate our souls
with the word of God. Make us students of thy word.
Willing students, understanding students. Impress upon our hearts
as never before what a treasure we hold in our hands. Life and
death. Eternity. Joy and eternal hell. all in this book. Thy word is
a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I'll hide it in
my heart. I'll hide it in my heart that
I might not sin against thee. Thy word has caused me to hope.
For Christ's sake, we pray. Amen. Brother Jay, you have a
song. Hymn number 268. 268. For Stanley. How firm a foundation, ye saints
of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. What more can He say than to
you He hath said, You've already reached the dreams of man