A Solemn Charge - Part 1

But let me give another scripture that I find very helpful. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Now that's the word. If I'm preaching the word, then what that verse described is happening. The word of God is quick, according to the King James, or living, as some people say. How many people were quickened the last time you preached? The word is life-giving. Now the flesh profits nothing, but the spirit is life. Let's be honest with ourselves. The biggest problem in America is those of us who preach. Is it any wonder there's this mass exodus of young people who have been listening to preaching that is without fire? Preaching that is absolutely not the hammer of the word of God. Preaching that is not quickening. No life is given. What if every preacher in the room were to thoroughly repent of preaching from the word, or about the word, and were to begin to preach the word which brings life? But the several terms used in Hebrews 4, 12 are all worthy of our focus. The word is quick. The word is powerful. When was the last time someone stepped up to you after you preached with tears coursing down their faces saying, Pastor, that word was powerful? The most common statement that men hear after they preach is, Oh, that was interesting. Oh, I never heard that before. Well, you can hear that a thousand times and it won't make any difference. It's when the word is quickening and powerful that God is powerfully at work in his own grand and wondrous way. The word is sharper than any two-edged sword. Do you find that true in your preaching? Do you see people simply cut deeply by the word that you preach? They come into the sanctuary full of themselves. But your preaching is sharper than a two-edged sword, and all of that self is leaked out by the time they leave the service. They are brought low. They are emptied by the preaching of the word. Isn't it time we began to concern ourselves deeply with this urgent issue of preaching the word of God? It's a discerner, or a judge of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Now, Pastor, let me ask you kindly, when was the last time after you preached when somebody stepped up to you and said, How did you know what I was thinking? How did you have all this story of my life? Who's been tackling on me? Who's been informing? The nature of the preaching of the word is that it exposes. It makes bare, so that the hidden things are no longer hidden. The covered-up matters are brought right into the light. So the word is a fire. The word is a hammer. The word is quick. The word is sharp. The word is piercing and powerful. The word discerns. But let me suggest just one more scripture. First Peter, chapter 1, verse 23. For you've been born again, not of seed, which is perishable, but imperishable. That is through the living and abiding word of God. And I want to ask those of you who preach, when was the last time you watched someone come alive, sitting in the pew? The service began. There was perhaps something like a dark cloud over them. But as you preached the word, the Holy Spirit brought life to that individual. Now, we don't have much reliance in our day upon the word of God as a life-giving agency. We have a whole lot more confidence in the altar call and in our appeal than we have in the word of God itself. But just think of what the nation would be like if over the next several Lord's Days, every preacher was preaching the word of God. And life was given to the thousands, to the tens of thousands, even to the millions of spiritually dead who packed our churches. So the command that Paul gives to Timothy is to preach the word. And I've tried to help you to see there is a very great difference between preaching from the word and preaching about the word and preaching the word. And we're not asked to subjectively examine ourselves and others. We've got some mighty objective truths in the three passages I have referred you to. And plenty more could be found if there were need of any additional. But look at verse 2, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Now, not just ready to drop a sermon at the moment's notice, but ready to preach the word. So full of the word that there's always a word from the Lord waiting to burst out of you. And what an incredible thing it is when a man is so full of the word of God that every time he speaks, it is the word of God that he's setting forth because he's ready in season and out of season. But now there comes a short series of words that help us further to examine whether what we're doing or what we're listening to is the real thing. Notice the words that are utilized in verse 2, preach the word, be ready in season, out of season. Number one, reprove. Number two, rebuke. Number three, exhort. And all with great patience and instruction. Let's look at those one at a time. Do you reprove when you preach? When you leave church as a listener, do you go away feeling the reproof that you've received? Now, reproof focuses upon error. Is it not an amazing thing, the multitudes of errors that are springing up in our day? Consider that ridiculous fellow on family radio who is urging everybody to abandon the apostate church and every church apparently that's not his is apostate. And people by the countless numbers are abandoning the church. And we've got all kinds of wild teaching. Every week some new novelty doctrine seems to occur. But where's the reproof? Where's the rebuke? Where's the exhortation? In 2 Timothy 3, 16, Paul said all scripture is inspired by God. And it's suitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. In Titus, the apostle in chapter 1, verse 13 said, this testimony is true. And for this cause then, reprove them so dearly that they may be sound in faith. Now, pastors, men who preach, I want to ask you, is every message a message of reproof? The only justifiable reason for saying no to that would be there's no one needing reproof. I'd love to visit your church. I mean, just to sit there, just to be among people that need no reproof. Now, that would be a treat. But you're not really preaching the Word unless you're reproving. You can preach from the Word, and you can preach about the Word. But when you preach the Word, there is the issue of reproof. And those of you who are listeners, how often do you feel reproved? And would there not be great wisdom in setting your heart to pray for a Reformation revival that will bring about the preaching of the Word of God that includes reproof, but also rebuke? Now, one scarcely even hears of a church, let alone attends one where there is not someone in some flagrant sin. And often, the pastor himself, more often perhaps the deacons or even the elders, there is this incredible need of rebuke that can be done publicly. It must in the preaching of the Word, but it must also be done privately. But I'm aware of pastors who don't dare rebuke anybody. They'll say to me, man, we've got this awful problem in our church. Well, what have you done about it, I ask? Oh, that's too hot to handle. I'm not going to get myself in that one. Well, now, if you're not willing to rebuke, if you're not faithfully rebuking, then stop kidding yourself when you say you preach the Word. Let's be honest. Is not the desperate need of the hour honesty in the church? Honesty among those of us who preach, honesty among all who hear what is said to be the preaching of the Word of the Lord. And number three, reprove, yes. Rebuke, yes. Absorb. It's rather sad when you think of it, but in earlier years, churches had exhorters. The Methodist movement was famous for its exhorters. Men who went around the country exhorting people, you've heard it, now live up to it. You know what's right, now repent of what's wrong. Repentance, after all, is not merely negative, turning from sin. Repentance is positive, turning to righteousness. So we repent of that which is evil and we turn to that which is good. And many of our people haven't turned to good. Their lives are so full of that which has no consequence. Somebody needs to exhort them, get busy now in filling your life with the good things that are pleasing to Christ. So reprove, rebuke, exhort. But behind all this, there lies a matter of great concern. And verse three and verse four bring this great concern out into the open. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. And they'll turn away their ears from the truth and they'll turn aside to myths. When I was going over this, I had to ask, is it possible that what I'm really doing is entertaining people, tickling their ears, catering to the evil that exists within the church, pretending to be a spokesman of God, but in actual fact just contributing to the evil? Sure, we all recognize what the times are like, but it's urgent to ask, what impact am I making upon the times? Our dear brother who spoke last night made it sound as if it could be a badge of honor to be put out of the church. Well, if that's what he said and that's what he meant, I applaud him. Some of us are so concerned for our own respectability, for our acceptance, that we're willing to compromise. We know what the times are like. Sure, these are wicked days. Yes, people do not like to hear the truth, but God can make them like it. And the nature of a revival is that God gives people a desire for that which they hate. You preach the word of God, you reprove, you rebuke, you exhort, and you'll discover a whole lot more people are hungry for it than you ever guessed. So don't let the times turn you aside from the call of God. Let verse 5, be sober in all things. Endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Be sober in all things. But sober over against the conduct of a drunkard. There's a lot of spiritual drunkenness around us, maybe a good bit within us. Some of us perhaps look a whole lot more like a drunkard than like a godly man. Be sober. The times are such. The urgency is so great that incredible sobriety is in order. So I say to myself, all right, if I go to that church and preach what I know they need to hear, they may stone me to death. Well, for what? This is what God says, this is what they need to hear, this is what I speak. To what extent is that your spirit, your attitude, that you are on the front lines, that you know what the battle is, but you're watchful, you're alert, you're waitful, you're controlled, you're well balanced. Lord, I'm going in among the enemy now, and I'm going to fire the gospel gun, and I'm coming under attack. But if you want me to keep on, you protect me against their assaults. And God does in a truly wonderful way. Be sober. Endure hardship. In a conversation last night with one of the dear brethren, we were sharing our own hearts about the cost of maintaining a concern for revival. I said to him a number of years ago, I felt prompted to take a sheet of paper and to draw a line down the center, and then I listed the names of 10 men with whom I was very intimate. And then in the second column, I listed what I knew they were suffering. When I had made up this list of 10 men, these were men who were close to my heart, men who shared my own burden for revival. When I got through, I could hardly believe what I had written. I said to myself, I doubt seriously if under any other kind of circumstances, one could draw up a list of 10 men they were close to and discover the level of suffering of all 10. I'll mention just one. Shortly before I had drawn the list, he had asked me to lead a solemn assembly in his church. And while I was there, I heard people say, who's that guy that pastor's got here? What's this business of a solemn assembly? That's not something we do in our church. Three days after the solemn assembly, the pastor suffered a heart attack and died. And his wife said to me, he died of a broken heart. The hard-heartedness of those people, I didn't have any doubt that that was true. Be sober and endure hardship. We've got an incredible cause. We've got a king who is going to triumph. And why should we play the role of the sissy when the Lord God is commanding us to preach the word, the fire, the hammer? Do the work of an evangelist. It's interesting to me to know that the great burden on the heart of the reformers of the 1500s was evangelism. They longed to see the kingdom of Jesus Christ progress vigorously. The great burden on the heart of the Puritans in that incredible era where those mighty men of God served, the great burden was evangelism. The great burden of all the great revivalists in America has been evangelism. Charles Spurgeon was asked about his position on evangelism. And he said, evangelistic preaching is a choice every true called of God pastor makes. If a man does not have an evangelist heart, he should leave the ministry. He's obviously not called. I believe he's right. Do the work of an evangelist, says Paul to Timothy. That's the work every one of us has. There is a world that needs Christ, and we are called upon to bring the message to them, but to do it through the use of the word. But now Paul closes this brief passage with a personal statement, and I believe the statement adds urgency to the whole matter. I'm already being poured out, he says, poured out indeed as a drink offering. The time of my departure has come. I think I know a little bit about what Paul was talking about. I'm amazed to be here today. A curious thing happened quite recently. A man who at one time worked under my direction, but is now involved in some ministry in Jerusalem called. And when I answered the phone, he said, oh, I was told last night you were dead. Well, I said, I'm not. No, he said, from hearing your voice, it's clear the message was exaggerated. But he said, I was with a pastor last night in Minnesota, and we had supper together. He said, oh, Mr. Roberts has been dead for five years. Well, then to my wonderment, the next day the pastor called. He said, I've been telling people for five years that you were dead. I was amazed to be informed this morning that you are not. But I'm old enough to be dead, and it's only by the providence of God that I'm here. But when Paul speaks about having run the course, when he talks about being close to the end, I know what he's talking about. But I believe that there's an incredible word of urgency for us in this. Paul makes it plain. I have run the course. I have finished. I've done what I was called to do. An awful lot of people that I see can't say that. I am deeply moved every time the matter comes to my mind. Moses, 120 years of age, commanded to speak to the rock in a moment of anger, takes the rock and whacks the rock. And God said, because you did not maintain my holiness before the people, I must maintain it at your expense. And so he died without ever finishing his work. Moses wasn't called to lead the people into the wilderness. He was called to lead them into the land of promise. But he didn't finish because he lost his temper. Now, all of us have a task that's been assigned. And by the grace of God, we all have opportunity to finish, as the apostle Paul did. And by God's grace, may we do so with power and grace and glory. Preach the word. And if you're in a church where the word is not preached, begin to pray in a whole new way, that the preacher in your midst will discover the heart of God. Well, Lord, we all need you. We feel at least something of the standard of the word of God. We see people abandoning the church in large number. We almost feel in a sense that they're justified because their hunger for you and your word is not met. But I pray that you will bring out of this assembly a reformation revival where the preaching of the word of God covers the land and where the kingdom of God makes a giant step forward to the eternal praise of King Jesus. Amen.