Pulpit Crimes

It is an honor to be with you, and I just I don't know where all the rain came from. I guess this is a rainforest, but you really did not have to bring it in just for me. Those of us from Phoenix, we tend to melt in the rain, and so if you'd like to have it go away for a little while, I would not complain about that whatsoever.

I do live in Phoenix, Arizona. I've noticed I've talked a number of you, you've visited there, and you may notice it's a rather dry place, and so I'm finding it very odd to pull clothes out of my bags that I have not touched yet since I packed them in Phoenix, and they're soaked.

And it's just like, what's it like to I don't know what that's like. So if you ever get tired of that, come on out to Phoenix, dry out for a few days, and you'll be actually glad to come back to where everything's green.

Because where I live, everything's brown. It's a pretty color. You know, it's just very different than what you have here. This evening, I've been asked to speak on the subject of pulpit crimes, which is a book that I wrote a number of years ago.

I did not come up with the topic title on my own. Someone else suggested it to me, in fact, about 10 years before I wrote it. He said, you've got to write a book by this title. And eventually, I got around to doing so.

But this evening, what I'd like to do and I do have a I'll be projecting the text on the screen if it will come up. It's on right now. It worked before, but evidently, it's not working at the moment.

Maybe it'll come up eventually, or we can do something, or maybe not. Ah, see? There you go. Just had to 10-second delay. Okay. All right. Well, I'll project the text. I feel more comfortable personally being in a biblical text and then making application from there rather than doing something completely topical.

Of course, we're talking about an entire religion, whether it be Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses. In fact, just to let you know, my heart right now is primarily in the area of Islam. That's where most of my study is right now.

I'm way behind on a book for Bethany House Publishers on that particular subject. And in fact, I'll be doing a debate this Thursday evening with a Muslim sheikh from Detroit on the Aramaic Broadcasting Network on a certain text in the Quran.

And then the very next week, I'll be debating Shabir Ali, who is probably the best-known Islamic apologist in the world right now, with the possible exception of Zakir Naik in Toronto. And that's really where my focus is these days in my studies and things like that.

Though I am an elder in a church, and so I do stand behind the pulpit and I do preach, preaching through Hebrews right now in my church. So I do come from a lot of different perspectives. I am first and foremost an apologist, but I also stand in the position of an elder in the church.

The Charge to Preach the Word in 2 Timothy 4

And so this evening, addressing that subject. So if you'd like to look at your own translation, just follow along with me and turn to some 2 Timothy chapter 4. I'd like to use this as sort of a basis, a foundation for looking at some of the key issues that I raised in the book, Pulpit Crimes.

First Corinthians, I'm sorry, 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul says to Timothy, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.

For 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 will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

But you be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.

In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Now as you know, the background of the text is Paul writing his, really his final letter to a beloved son in the faith.

And it has always struck me that if you know that the time of your departure is near, that very much focuses your attention upon what is truly important. And so in writing to someone who is very close to him, someone who is very close to his heart, someone that he knows is going to have to be experiencing difficulty and trial and tribulation.

Here is a man who has been whipped for his faith, he has been stoned for his faith, he has been shipwrecked. Paul went through quite an interesting life and he knows that this person who is so close to him will probably be facing many of the same kinds of trials and difficulties.

Obviously if you know this is probably going to be your last communication, what you say to him is something that is very important and very close to your heart. And so what he shares with Timothy in this epistle is obviously something that any person who in Paul's position is looking forward to the history of the church, he is looking forward to this continuing work of the Holy Spirit of God in building the church.

These are very important things for Timothy and they will be very important things for us today as well. Of course the fact of the matter is most of us don't see ourselves today standing in that line, in that long line of faithful men who have been called Lord Jesus Christ to build his church through all those years and that's a shame.

For many of us church history really goes back about 50 years, you know the ancient church father Billy Graham used to say or something along those lines. And the reality is that we stand in a very long line of men and women who have been called by the Spirit of God, given a love for the truth of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And we continue to stand in that line despite the fact that here we are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, we are on the other side of the world from where these things took place as far as the events of the gospel.

And yet we are a fulfillment of the fact that Christ has built his church. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but when I stand behind the pulpit at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona I frequently give the pastoral prayer.

And one of the things I frequently pray about are the persecuted Christians around the world. That's the main reason I've been studying Islam is because I was studying the persecuted church and you cannot study the persecuted church without addressing the subject of Islam today unfortunately.

And I think about the fact that as this planet has spun in space and God's Son has crossed over this world, that men and women from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation have raised their voices in worship of the Lord Jesus Christ during the course of that day.

Now we're toward the west coast of the United States. We flip-flop between two different time zones because, well, we in Arizona don't change our clocks. We honor God's created order. We don't play with time.

We recognize that you can turn the hands on a clock all you want. It changes nothing at all. And so while everybody else is falling forward and springing backwards or whatever it is you do, I don't know, we just keep the same old time because we know the sun's going to come up at the same time tomorrow no matter what I do with my clock.

And so anyways, right now we're in the mountain zone and during the rest of the year we're in the Pacific zone. And so as I think about that, I think about, you know, there aren't too many people left to get up and proclaim God's truth and to worship God on the Lord's Day.

Already people in Australia and all through Russia and China and all those areas, my good friends in the United Kingdom and places like that, by the time I am standing to offer the pastoral prayer, my God has been worshipped in pretty much every language of man before I've gotten around to doing it.

And there is something tremendously encouraging about recognizing our unity with those brothers and sisters in Christ, even though we may dress differently, speak differently, we may have different styles of worship, as long as the truth of the gospel has been the centerpiece, who God is, who Christ is, what salvation is, that's been the centerpiece, there is a unity that we have there.

You're about the only folks left. As the sun continues going on its way, we even beat you guys to the punch. You're about it. I mean, when you get up to sing and to worship on a Sunday morning, I hope it's an encouragement to you to realize, you know what?

Men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation have already been proclaiming God's truth this day, and we get to be the final chorus. We get to be the amen at the end. That's a privilege. And I hope it is an encouragement to you to see that, and to me, it not only emphasizes the connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in the world now, but it also helps us to think about the fact that we stand in a long, long line.

You know, Christ has been building his church for 2 ,000 years. We stand on the backs of giants. We have learned so much from the generations that have come before, whether we recognize it or not, we have learned so much from them.

And when we gather in the church, and a man stands behind this, well, the Puritans called it the sacred desk, to open up the word of God. We have the opportunity, as we gather and we sing and we read and we pray, to have a little bit of a foretaste of the worship that is going on before the very throne of God in heaven, where all of those who served and loved Christ before us, they're already in his presence.

And we have that opportunity. And you say, well, I'll be perfectly honest with you, there are many times I show up at the place of worship and my mind's a million miles away. I haven't prepared my heart.

I haven't been looking forward to it. I've been so busy with the things of the world that, to be perfectly honest with you, I stumble into worship. And isn't it amazing how often God blesses us despite that?

And you know what? I hate to tell you this, but even for those who stand here, very often the week before has been difficult. Very often the spiritual temperature is not where it should be. And yet, you open the word of God and his spirit comes and he blesses his people.

And none of that's ever an excuse. I would challenge all of us. You know, as an elder in the church, we hear every reason. When someone leaves the fellowship, we hear all sorts of reasons. But the main one, first of all, we rarely hear the honest reason.

The elders rarely hear the honest reason. We hear that from about third or fourth person from somebody in another church someplace about two years later. That's when you actually get that. We'd like to hear the honest reason.

But you know what you hear is this, well, you know, I'm just not getting out of it what I need to get out of it. Or sometimes they'll say to you, I'm just not getting out of your teaching and your ministry what I need to get out of it.

And before you ever say that to an elder in the church, may I suggest something to you? Ask yourself a simple question. Did I prepare my heart before I came into the presence of God and the ministry of God's word?

And did I do it regularly? Because honestly, for most of us, when we come into worship, we are challenging God to work a miracle to bless our hearts because we are so spiritually asleep and so distracted with the things of the world that we are demanding a supernatural activity take place.

We're not making it easy for him. But still, no matter what the situation there might be, we believe that when we gather as the people of God in this place, that God meets with us and something supernatural takes place.

And that is through the ministry of the word of God. Each one of us is changed and in fact are more closely conformed to the image of Christ. That is a supernatural, miraculous thing. It does not require anyone's short leg becoming the same length as his long leg or anything like that.

It is miraculous when we who live in this world, we're constantly under the pressure of the world to be conformed to the image of this world. We come into this place and the exact opposite is supposed to take place.

We are supposed to be made in the image of Christ, not the image of this world. We are supposed to be conformed to the mind of Christ that is ours, not to the way of the thinking of the world. And when you think how much time the world has every single day of your life to conform you to its image, and let's be honest with ourselves, brothers and sisters, how often you and I voluntarily expose ourselves to the pressures and ways of the world so that we think like the world and we act like the world and we speak like the world, and then we come into this place and what's supposed to happen is through the ministry of the Word of God made alive in our hearts by the Spirit of God, we are to be conformed to the image of Christ.

That Christian worldview that we should all treasure so much and should recognize we need to be working on all the time where we're seeking to be consistent in light of God's revelation and how God would have us to live and how God would have us to think and how He would have us to speak and to act and everything else.

In this place, in the exposure to God's Word, that's the time when all that damage that's been done over the week can be undone and we can be seeking to make progress. Now clearly, in our own study of the Word of God and things like that, that takes place as well, but here in the body we are encouraged because we are around other people who say yes, Jesus Christ is Lord.

He died, He was buried, He rose again. I live my life in light of His Lordship and I encourage you in doing that as well. That's why we are to gather together. That's why the book of Hebrews says do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.

Lone ranger Christians normally become, well, they become casualties. That's why we have the time together. And so you see, if that's the case, if the central act of worship of the church, and I believe this firmly, the central act of worship of the church is when we with expectant hearts open God's Word and we expect to hear from Him.

We expect something supernatural to happen and God is worshiped when we come into His presence and we truly desire to hear from the Word of God. That is showing faith toward Him. That is showing that we believe You have spoken and we know we don't know everything there is to know yet and we want to be open to hearing Your truth.

And that is why, if all those things are true, that is why pulpit crimes are crimes against God Himself. Because if this is meant to be the place where God's Word is clearly presented to God's people and He is worshiped and He is the one who defines His worship, He is the one who defines what is pleasing to Him, then what we see going on around us should break our hearts.

When we see what is parading as Christian proclamation that has no warrant whatsoever in the Word of God, it should break our hearts. Let's look to what the Word of God here says. Paul says to Timothy, I solemnly charge you, and if you look, if you are familiar with the original languages, it is that term, a martyr, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God before God and the Messiah Jesus who is to judge both the living and the dead.

So this is, when you make a charge to someone, doesn't it have much more weight when there are dignitaries there? You know, if the President of the United States, five-star generals, they're all in attendance and that's when the troops are being given their charge, that's going to carry a whole lot more with them than if there's just one bird colonel that's there.

And what Paul is saying is, this charge I'm giving to you, Timothy, even though I'm an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and I have the authority to speak in His name, you need to understand, this charge I'm giving to you, I'm giving to you in the sight before of, in the presence of, God and Jesus Christ and the angels.

The one who is going to be judging the living and the dead by His appearing in His kingdom. In other words, heaven is looking down, Timothy. Heaven is looking down and this charge that I'm giving to you has divine authority.

And the first pulpit crime I can think of is when we have men who stand behind the pulpit and they don't first recognize that their calling to be there is divine. It doesn't come from men. It doesn't come from men.

You see, sadly, the way we frequently treat the preacher and the pastor is he's a hireling and we put men in situations where they don't feel like there's a divine calling upon their ministry, this just happens to be where I am right now.

In fact, just a few years ago, in the average Southern Baptist church, the average tenure of the pastor was between 18 months and two and a half years, that was it. That's how long the average Southern Baptist pastor was in a church.

That's hardly long enough to even get to know people. I am so thankful that at my church, we are getting ready to celebrate 40 years. Of ministry by my fellow elder who has been there. I've now been at that church 23 years.

There is consistency there because one thing that we can say without any question is we believe that those, and we are very, very careful and in fact, let me say thank you very much to Shane and to the elders for the honor of standing in your pulpit because I know at our church, I can count on one hand the number of men who have stood behind that pulpit and instructed the people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church in 23 years, on one hand.

We are very, very careful about who we entrust and it is a trust to instruct the people of God in the church, who we entrust that to and so I thank you for that honor. But when you think about what it means to stand here, it is a divine calling.

It has the highest level of authority that can possibly be seen in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and we are talking about the one who will judge. And what does that mean? The one who will judge the living and the dead must be absolutely righteous in all aspects and he must be able to judge the living and judge in justice the living and the dead and that means he is divine in his character.

And so this is a solemn charge. It is made by his appearing and his kingdom and so it is a kingly charge. We know that in scripture, we are told that we are ambassadors for a king. It is a high, high calling and so when I see what is done today by men behind a pulpit, not just what they say, but the behavior of those men, I am absolutely shocked.

They wouldn't do that if even someone we consider to be greatly important in our culture were in their presence. They would change their behavior, which shows they really don't think that God is present with his people in the ministry of his word.

We would view it as a holy thing if we really did believe, not only that God is looking from heaven, but that God by his spirit is truly present with us. The world has the idea that, well, it is the numbers that matter.

You don't have big numbers and so you can do what you want. No. It doesn't matter what the numbers are. If we believe what the word of God says, the ministry of the word is a divine ministry and that means God is worshipped and he is honored and he is glorified when his truth is accurately and consistently presented to his people.

And when his people have gathered, it doesn't matter how many there are. If they have come in with a heart longing for the word of God and to be changed by that word of God, that is the closest representation you're going to have of the worship that's taking place before the throne.

The numbers don't matter. Yes, there are myriads and myriads of those that are around the throne. Yes, that's a wonderful thing, but the reality of the worship is the intimacy of the worshipper with his God.

And that happens when God's word is ministered to the people. What is the first commandment that Paul gives to Timothy? Preach the word. Now the term that's used there in the Greek would refer to the one who would make proclamation.

And the one who represented a king and would make proclamation of a king's decree did not first and foremost concern himself with how the people thought of him. His first and foremost concern was the accuracy with which he communicated the king's decree.

I mean, I cannot imagine a representative of the king who takes the decree and just sort of, okay, great. You know, this is sort of stodgy. I'll juice it up when I go talk to the people. I'll make it a little bit something they'll like a little bit better.

Can you imagine that? What type of attitude does that reveal about the proclaimer and how he views the one who's given him the message, the message he has to proclaim? What does it say when instead of being focused upon the accurate full proclamation of the entire counsel of God, that so many today are first and foremost concerned about, well, almost anything else.

Their looks, their performance, all the stuff that goes around, the amount of money that's going to come in, all these other things. It shows that that person really does not believe that they are a representative of a divine king.

Preach not yourself. Proclaim not what is going to make you popular in the minds and eyes of men. In fact, there's nothing here that would in any way, shape, or form make Timothy think, wow, this is going to be a great gig.

This is going to be great. Think about it. Preach a message given to you that you know is going to be offensive to the world. Think of 1 Corinthians 1. What is the preaching of the cross? It's foolishness to those who are perishing.

It's a stumbling block. It's moronos. That's where you get moron from. It's foolishness to the world. And every single time, brothers and sisters, that we try to make the proclamation of the cross anything other than foolishness to the world, we are showing ourselves to be very foolish.

We are showing ourselves to actually be ashamed of the message. But you think about it. Preach the word. Be ready in season and answer. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and long Paul, that doesn't sound like I get to put myself out there.

I don't get to promote myself. Exactly. You don't. And when we see anyone who utilizes the word of God as a means for self-promotion, there is no recognition of the divine nature of the calling that they claim is theirs.

Preach the word. What we are to proclaim has already been defined by the word of God. The word is defined for us. And if there is ever a time, brothers and sisters, and especially those who are involved in ministry, if you're involved in ministry, if you're a pastor, if there is ever a time where you are tempted to look outside of that which is theanoustos, that which is God-breathed, that which is the word, if you start looking for other things out there and reaching for other things out there, you've got to check your spiritual temperature because I start to wonder if you really do believe that the Bible is what it claims to be.

Is it truly how Jesus viewed it? How did Jesus view the scriptures? Remember what he said to the Pharisees in the book of Matthew? Have you not read what God spoke to you saying? Have you not read what God spoke to you saying?

And then he quoted from the book of Exodus. How high of a view of scripture did Jesus have? To look at men in his own generation and hold them accountable for what had been written 1400 years earlier as if God had spoken it directly to these individuals.

And if that was Jesus' view of scripture, it better be ours. Now I understand that many today go to seminaries and schools where they're taught all sorts of things about the Bible. And they're taught that there really isn't any consistent message.

And you know Paul contradicted Paul and we can see development in Paul. And certainly Paul and James were at loggerheads with one another. And there is no biblical theology. There is no consistent message.

And the people who imbibe that, first of all those who teach it will answer to the author of the word someday. But those who imbibe it, I went to a seminary that was way over a hundred years old. And I remember over there from me, that's my left side, okay.

I went to a seminary that was not nearly as conservative as I was. And sometimes it was difficult. Sometimes it was discouraging. I know now why God had me do that. I had no idea in seminary what the Lord had in mind for me.

It never crossed my mind and I don't think the Lord wanted me to have known. I'm not sure that my wife would have married me if she had known that, for example, later in this year, Lord willing, I will be debating a Muslim in the South London Mosque, the largest mosque in London.

And I've already had the opportunity and it's a privilege to stand. I stood in a church in London that was only a couple of blocks from where one of the 7 -7 bombings took place. Remember the 7 -7 bombings in London?

That was their 9 -11. And I've had the privilege to stand there and stand before the Muslims were over on this side. Don't worry about that. I'm not sure what that means, but they were on this side and all the Christians were on this side.

And I've had the privilege to look at those people. Some of the women were in full hijab, all I could see with their eyes and proclaim to them, Muhammad is not a prophet and Jesus Christ truly is your Lord.

Now I had no idea in seminary what that was going to involve. I now know why I ended up at the seminary that I ended up at and why I had to fight the battles that I had to fight. God was in control. That's fine, that's wonderful.

But I saw people going into that seminary and when they first showed up, they sort of knew what they believed. And a few years later, they graduated with a master's degree in confusion. That's really all they had.

I'm thinking, I can see this man's face in my mind right now. And I knew him when he first came in and I knew him when he graduated. And when he graduated, he no longer had a message because he was so confused.

He really didn't believe any longer that God had spoken. Paul said, preach the word. That means we have a word to preach. We have a message, not many messages. We have a conception. We have a consistent word from God to present.

And I am so thankful that after a number of decades of ministry now, my ministry is, well next year will be 30 years of age. And after those decades of debating Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholics and Muslims and liberals and atheists, and seeing every kind of imaginable attack upon the word of God, that my faith and my belief that God has actually spoken in his word has been deepened.

Not on a surface level. I'm not just doing this to try to wind myself up. Yeah, I still believe it. I have been forced to see the underlying themes of the word of God. And themes and harmonies of the word of God that are not generally easily seen on any type of surface level examination.

But I have found the word of God to be consistent with itself. And I have found that those who truly know their sin and turn in faith to Jesus Christ, I find that the Holy Spirit of God puts within their heart a trust in the word of God.

And a thirst for his word. And a hunger for his word. And when I find people who aren't hungry for the word of God, that's a dangerous thing. It's a dangerous thing. Paul says to Timothy, preach the word.

And almost every single pulpit crime we see taking place in the evangelical church today is when that is no longer the central aspect of the worship of the church. When it's been replaced by entertainment.

When it's been replaced by a concern about the sinful heart of man and making him feel good about himself. All these pulpit crimes all come back to not believing that we really have a word to preach. A command to preach it.

And that it's a divine calling from God. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. In other words, there's never a vacation, Timothy. There's never a time when he who has been called by God can go, well, I'm going to lay that calling aside for a while.

A lot of people look at me and they say, man, you spent a lot of time doing what you're doing. You've got a busy schedule. And my response is there's going to be a lot of time to rest in heaven. This is the time when we've been called to glorify God and to suffer for the gospel.

There'll be a lot of time around the throne of God in the future. Be ready in season and out of season. In other words, don't expect, don't expect that it's going to get easier. I am so thankful that in my church I have known the elders who came before me.

I've known two elders who came before me before I became an elder in that church. And they both passed away. And I was with one of them very close to the time when he did pass away. And I learned much.

We shoot ourselves in the foot, church, when we segregate the older saints from the younger. There is so much wisdom to be learned from those who have walked with the Lord for many decades. So much wisdom.

Young people, get to know your elders. Get to know those who've known Jesus for a lot longer than you have. They, there is such a modern hubris in our society where young people look at the older people as if they're stupid.

They can't run my iPad. They don't know how to use my iPhone. How can they have any wisdom for me? Well, maybe, you know, before they had iPads and iPhones they actually sat around and talked to each other.

And they shared life experiences. And they actually, instead of just watching television or constantly having music going in their head, they actually thought about the meaning of life. And they might have things to share with you.

It doesn't get easier. And I'm so glad that I learned from my fellow elders at the end of their life. They told me, don't ever think that the flesh will give up in its temptations and its attacks upon you.

It doesn't get easier. That's a good thing to know. Be ready in season and out of season. And then we have a whole list of things that our society says we shouldn't be doing anymore. We are told to reprove.

We are told to rebuke. We are told to exhort. That's the term, parakaleo, to the paraclete, the parakletos, the comforter, the Holy Spirit. We are told to encourage, to exhort with great patience and teaching or doctrine.

I don't know, folks, how long each one of us is going to have the freedom to openly in our culture say what God's word commands us to say, especially about such things as what God says about marriage and sexuality and human life and the purpose of life and the origin of life and how we are to live as creatures made by God.

Now, I've debated the subject of homosexuality many times. And I'll be honest with you, I'm going up to Canada to debate a Muslim. It crosses my mind what I will be able to say and not say while I'm there.

Because we know already of ministers who have been sued because of things they said. And even if I get in and out without that happening, it's still in the back of my mind. And you say, well, yeah, that's you.

You deal with all that kind of stuff. Folks, do you want to be a silent Christian? Are we not called to be salt and light? Do you want to be salt and light in this society? What does it mean for you to be salt and light today?

In your place of work, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your school, wherever the Lord has placed you, what does it mean for you to be salt and light? Doesn't there have to come a time when you speak the words of Christ?

And Christ's words are very offensive to our society today. Since God has revealed his truth, that means we are to reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and teaching. Now, I'm talking about to the whole world, the immediate application of this text was to Timothy in the church itself.

And my, how that element has either completely fallen out, church discipline, rebuking someone, I mean, let's face it. It's either completely fallen out because we're afraid of offending people or we know of people who have abused this so much in the past, people who have used the pulpit as a means of controlling other people for their own ends.

We've seen both extremes. The truth is in the middle. But we tend to want to just put this aside. Reprove? You reprove someone. You reprove behaviors and thoughts and actions from the pulpit and people can find another church down the road.

What's the closest church? How close is another church around here? Six blocks. Go around the corner. It's easy. You bet. And isn't that how most of us view our relationship to the local church? If I don't like it there, I can just move someplace else.

If Pastor Shane, if he just goes walking by me one Sunday morning and he doesn't say hello with a bright smiling face, I'm just going to pull my robes of self-righteousness around myself and get myself nice and offended and go someplace else.

The only way, if you really believe the Word of God, the only way to make any sense out of what it teaches about what's supposed to be happening from the pulpit is if you recognize that you have been joined to this body, you have been called to this place, and that your primary purpose is to serve your Savior in this place.