“Preach!”
(Training message for House Church and individual use: preached 11/15 – 11/21/2020)
If you’re going to be a man of God then be a man of God! Not one who is wimpy and wimbly and weak and worrisome of what he thinks of himself and of what other men (and women) think of him. Be a man of God, or else go back to your prayer closet and confess and repent of being a man – of men – who fears men more than he fears God. Yes, it is written,
“Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” (Jeremiah 17:5)
Likewise and therefore, if you’re going to preach the Word of God then preach! Be that super man of God divinely sent by God to preach that word of God that you were sent to preach! Then preach that truth through which you were so powerfully saved from the power of sin.
Do you understand? Yes, you overcame through him who overcame for you 2,000 years ago! So now, yes, now go and be!
- Be that mighty messenger for the Savior who saves from sin!
- Be that rejoicing renegade who rushes out to bring souls in!
- Be that Peter and that Paul who won’t stop going back again!
- Be that friend of sinners who keeps bringing sinners to meet the very best of friends!
- Be that amazing new creation of God who being won continues to win!
- Be that believing believer who when he sees Jesus walk on water steps out of the boat and walks out to him!
- Be that child-like soul who will be… like his Savior when he was a child and be… lost to the world and found busily… about his “father’s business” winning the souls of men!
Preach the word! Go – ahead and preach and pray and share the good news that: “Jesus came and took away your sins!
Preach the good news that… Jesus lives to keep you safe from sin!
Preach the good news that… Jesus Christ – crucified to pay for your sin, risen to save you from sin – is coming back again, is coming back again, is coming back again to reign here on Earth!
Preach… Jesus is coming back again… soon!
Preach the word! God is giving gifts to men! God is sending preachers. Every time a soul is saved, God is sending preachers to men! God is giving gifts to men: gifts of other men who being saved will go and seek the lost; who being converted are instantly called to go and bring more men to the cross; who being pulled out of the fire are sent back to the flames to pull other men out: to preach and pray and pull, and then… preach and pray and pull, and then… preach and pray and pull, and then… repeat, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat until Christ comes or else they are called up first to meet him.
- God is giving the good news: the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!
- God is giving salvation: your sins taken away on the cross by our Lord Jesus Christ!
- God is giving victory: your sins overcome through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!
- God is giving eternal peace and joy and rejoicing to know that “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go…” (Acts 1:11)
- God is giving… “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever!” (Hebrews 13:8)
Preach the word! Not like a namby pamby little nit picking puppet! Preach the word! Not like a broken-in broken-down one eyed dog bullied into whimpering in a corner by bullying women and bullied men who have been bullied into acting like women by their bullying domineering wives. Preach unhindered! Preach boldly in the land of the freely preaching for Christ!
- Preach for God and never for man!
- Preach for Christ and never for crowds!
- Preach in the power of the Holy Spirit of God and never in the weaky little so-called wisdom of this unregenerated world and its devilishly deceived men!
- Preach like you’re on the battlefield, fighting for the lives of your people with a sword in your hand – because you are – so Preach!
- Preach the word! Preach the word!! Preach the word… of God!
So, yes… get up!
- Get up out of the trash can of what the world thinks, and go preach the bright and cleansing truth of God!
- Rip off that bushel on top of your head, and go let the Light of God light up the world!
- Lift high that city of the glorious Gospel out of the ruins of men; and go set it to shine on the side of every hill, ten million times brighter, ten billion times better than those fake and phony worthless and false lights that so eerily glow, down in the darkness of this world!
- Get out of yourself and rip into the world!
- Lift up the great truth you’ve been given to share!
- Preach the word! Preach the word! Preach the word!!
What does the Bible in 2 Timothy say? What does the fourth chapter of 2 Timothy say? What does 2 Timothy 4:1-5 say? Review it tonight but listen to it right now!
2 Timothy 4:1-5 says this,
1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
Do you understand this? Will you do this? And…
- Will you go and preach this?
- Will you go and preach just like this?
Answer these questions. Answer in the affirmative, and then…
Let us conclude this message, and let us allow these five verses from the word of God – these great directives from Heaven given in 2 Timothy 4:1-5 – let them take this truth of God, and cut home to our hearts!
Yes, let these five verses of truth, these orders from on High change us in a way that should make you, and me, and altogether every man or woman who does, and who, by “the grace of our Lord” and through the “faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14) move us out to be a better servant of God than we were before:
- More of a sinner saved for service,
- More of a preacher called to proclaim,
- More of a man or woman who will be a real man or woman;
- More of a saint…
- who will be a soldier for the Lord Jesus Christ,
- who will be a warrior for the Lord Jesus Christ,
- who is committed to spend his life on the battlefield for the Lord Jesus Christ; and
- who is committed to live and to die and to then be rejoicing forever and ever and ever and ever, amen… for the Lord Jesus Christ!
OUTLINE:
“Preach!”
(A Message to the Ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ)
“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)
WORSHIP:
Opening:
“The Mark of a Man of God” – [Where are the Men of God?]
Message:
(A Message to the Ministers)
(Preached Saturday Evening, March 28, 2020)
“Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.”
(John 2:5)
What do dead men do? Nothing. They cannot do anything. They are dead. “And you?”
What does the Word of God say? Listen! Let it speak.
“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses…” (That’s taken from Colossians 2:13: please study it in its full context later.)
Such a simple statement which very simply highlights two very great concerns: either you’re dead or you’re not. Either all you have is the gloom of “being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh”, or you have the joy of being “quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.”
Yes, “with him.” “Quickened together with him.” He is the one we wish to see; the one we wish to follow. He is the one who we seek to be our true example, and the one to tell us how to truly live.
Jesus!
There he was, the Lord Jesus Christ! Before being crucified, he had been publicly abused, horrifyingly tortured, heartlessly and yes bloodily executed. The fact that he remained alive so long was, well, shocking. Finally, yes: he died! Nailed by brutal savage soldiers to a wooden cross, and then lifted up before the world, before demons, before angels, before God.
Yes, but all that was now forty days ago, and now there he stood in a mountain where he “had appointed” to meet with his followers before ascending up into Heaven. Capture the moment, if you can.
He is alive! He has visible holes in his hands, in his feet, and beneath his robe, in his side. Ah, yes but he is alive, and more so than ever any man could be. He has turned water into wine. He has walked upon the water. He has stilled the storm, healed the sick, raised the dead, conquered sin and more. He is the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Savior of the World. He is Lord. He is, and as only God could say he has said,
“I am.” (Exodus 6:14; Mark 14:62)
Yet, before ascending into Heaven, before going back to sit on his throne at the right hand of God the Father, he now provides us with our mission; with what business to be about until his, Our Lord’s return.
“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ Amen.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
Amen. Amen!
“Go!” And yet you may ask, “How should I go?” After all, as is commonly known, it is written,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
Jesus has told us how to “go”, how to live as we “go” for him. Jesus has given us answers, from his lips and through that God breathed Book: the Word of God: the Bible. No other answers are valid if they contradict what we find there! As it is written,
“God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, ‘That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.” (Romans 3:4)
Let us then silence the voice of tradition. Your denomination cannot compare. We shall ignore your opinions if we find them unvalidated by God. What shall we then do instead? We, by the grace of God given through our Lord Jesus Christ shall be
“Avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.” (I Timothy 6:20)
So then, let us hear from Him. Let us hear from God!
“Sir, we would see Jesus.” (John 12:21)
“Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” (John 2:5)
What does he tell us to do?
I. He commands us to love one another
John 13:34: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
John: 13:12-17: “So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”
I Corinthians 13:1-3: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”
II. He commands us to be kind to one another
Ephesians 4:30-32: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
III. He commands us to be meek
I Peter 3:3-5: “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”
IV. He commands us to be gentle
Psalm 18:35: “Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.”
II Corinthians 10:1: “Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:”
Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,”
1 Thessalonians 2:7: “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children:”
2 Timothy 2:24: “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,”
Titus 3:2: “To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.”
James 3:17: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”
1 Peter 2:18: “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.”
V. He commands us to be equal
1 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
2 Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
5 But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
6 And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.
11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
(Matthew 23:1-13)
Conclusion:
“Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?“ (Ezekiel 33:10)
OUTLINE:
“How Should We Then Live?”
- He commands us to love one another
- He commands us to be kind to one another
- He commands us to be meek
- He commands us to be gentle
- He commands us to be equal