Hearing the Word - Brandon Scalf

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2 Timothy 4:2-4

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All right, everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2
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Timothy chapter 4, and we will be continuing on in our series,
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Preach the Word. And today's message is entitled, Hearing the
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Word. And we will begin reading, as we have in weeks past, beginning in verse 14.
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And we will read all the way through verse 8. And so if you would please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and all -sufficient
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Word. 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 14 through 4, verse 8.
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This is the Word of God. But you, continue in the things you learned and became convinced of, knowing from whom you learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
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All scripture is God -breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped, for every good work.
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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 and his kingdom, preach the
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Word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and teaching.
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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.
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But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
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For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.
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I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
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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.
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And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.
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The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Amen. Amen. Go ahead and have a seat and get your eyes specifically on verse 2 as we will be looking at verses 2 through 4 today.
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2 Timothy chapter 4. It's been a few weeks since we have looked at this section of scripture, and so I want to, by way of introduction, give you a little bit of a recap.
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Not an exhaustive one, but one that will help us to get back into the flow of the apostle's thought.
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The apostle Paul here is writing to his true child in the faith, Timothy, just moments before his death.
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How long before his death, that I am not certain, but we know that he is about to be martyred, and this is the last thing that he ever wrote.
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These words were his last words, and because they were his last words, as it has been said, that means that they are lasting words.
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This is what he has for Timothy in terms of what he believes is the thing he needs to hear the most.
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When it comes to his ministry, there is one thing, and one thing alone, that he is to prize and prioritize, and that is the
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Word of God. Primarily, the preaching of that Word, and we know that because this imperative, this divine command coming from Paul himself by way of the
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Holy Spirit is found in these first two verses of chapter four.
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He is to preach the Word. He's to preach the Word because he has been saved by the
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Word, and it's that Word that is also sustaining him both in his life and his ministry.
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What is more, if we back up in context, is he is essentially experiencing a lot of pushback from would -be false teachers, and what
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Paul is saying is this is going to get worse, and if you want to be a man who does ministry right, if you are going to do what it takes to stand before God on the last day and hear, well done, good and faithful servant, you must, no matter what happens, preach the
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Word. And he begins just prior to chapter four here in verse 14, reminding him, for instance, that he learned truth that was found in the
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Bible, that he was convinced of that truth, and that truth was modeled for him both by him being
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Paul and then some family members. In verse 15, he says, from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.
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And we know that this was his grandmother and his mother. And then he begins, before even getting to this command to preach the
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Word, by reminding him that the Word is God -breathed. It's the Anustos. It comes from God himself.
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It's not man's opinion. It's God's facts. It's God's promises.
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It's God's commands. And the last time we were together, we looked at the reality that he is to take this seriously no matter what comes his way, and he needs to do so remembering the fact that he is ministering before a holy
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God, and he is standing, as it were, before Jesus Christ, which means he needs to take his job ridiculously seriously.
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Timothy then is to preach the Word, not his thoughts, not stories, not personal anecdotes, but the
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Word of God itself. And when it says Word here, it means the entirety of the
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Word of God, the entire counsel of God. And today what we are going to do is we are going to look at what the
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Word does. So, we have seen Paul give this command to Timothy to preach the
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Word, and now we are going to ask and answer the question, how? How is he to preach the
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Word? But in so doing, we are almost, as it were, examining a dual command, because if preachers are to preach the
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Word, then that means that hearers of the Word must listen to the
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Word. And so embedded in this command to preach the Word is the summons to hear, to listen to the
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Word, and to hear it well. And friends,
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I want you to hear me today. I want you to hear Paul today, and I want you to hear from God today, because we live in an age where people hear without listening.
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Now, if you know me at all and you follow me on social media, you will know that as soon as I say anything, people are going to argue to the teeth.
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And you know, people are going to find some issue with every little thing that is uttered from my lips.
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And that is the nature of speaking God's truth, so I'm not complaining. But what is very evident when you look through a lot of these replies is that most people reply before they even take the time to even read what it is
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I even said or to listen to the context of the sermon in which I preached. They're far more concerned about getting their opinion across than opening up their ears and listening.
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And of course, this is true in a church context as well. There are many people who would much rather tell you what the
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Bible says than to listen to what the Bible has to say. We live in a time where the proclamation of truth is met with indifference or outright rebellion.
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And what Paul is saying here is that time is coming for you too, Timothy. And in fact, it is already there.
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You are experiencing it. The apostle Paul has warned of such days when he exhorted
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Timothy here with urgency, precision, and passion.
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And so what we are going to see here is a story of what spiritual deafness looks like, so that preachers might understand what their role is in preaching the word, and hearers might understand how to guard themselves from this spiritual deafness.
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A spiritual deafness that began in the Garden of Eden when humanity listened to the serpent's voice as he preached his false word to our first parents instead of God's word.
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What we will see is that hearing requires a bit of obeying. In other words, if we are not hearing, or if we are not obeying rather, and we are not loving and cherishing, we're not hearing.
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And so as we look, I want to revisit just for a quick second, the mandate. The mandate.
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I want you to see that as the first point. The mandate. In verse 2, he says, preach the word.
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Of course, this is a solemn charge given to Timothy in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus.
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And if you remember, this word preach means literally to publicly proclaim with authority.
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It is one that is, a word rather, that helps us to understand that this is not just simply a
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TED Talk, or it's not simply a motivational speech that he's to give. He's not a self -help guru, or some sort of clown trying to usher in, as it were, people at Vanity Fair.
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But he is, in many ways, to be a herald of the king. In fact, this was used in antiquity for that very thing.
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People would be heralds of the king. They would hear a message, and they would have to give that message the way that the king wanted it to be.
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So to preach the word meant to herald the word the way that it is supposed to be heralded, as it is.
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And what that means is, it's a non -negotiable. The word means what the word means, and it always means what the word means, because it's
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God -breathed, and that matters. It is unchanging, this word, which means the preaching ought to be unchanging.
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It ought to pierce hearts and transform lives, because that's what God is after. And we saw that as we looked at Hebrews 4, verse 12, where it talks about the sword of the
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Spirit. The Bible lays people bare. But now let's get into the meat of it.
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Let's get into the meat of this charge. He's been charged, but how is he to do it, and where is he to do it, and when is he to do it?
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Well, firstly, he's to do it as we continue on in verse 2. He needs to preach the word and be ready in season and out of season.
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Now, I want to take this just a little bit slowly here. He says, be ready. That means he is to work hard before he gets there.
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It's not just winging it. In order for you to be equipped for the task, in order for you to be able to do a good job, you must be ready.
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He can't just show up and open his Bible and just say some things. He must have a bulwark of information in his head and heart.
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He must understand what the Bible has to say and what it is pointing to and what it's teaching. He can't do any of the following commands unless he comes to the pulpit ready.
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In 1 Timothy, it's said that he's to be absorbed in God's word.
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That it's supposed to permeate every area of his life, every part of his being.
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That there's not a second of his day, a second of his life where he is not completely drenched in the word of God.
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Because this is his task. His task is to put the word of God before God's people and to have them eat of it and drink of it and see
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Christ in it. And so this readiness here is a readiness that is an urgent readiness that is laced with persistency, if that's a word.
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And if it's not, you know how I roll. He's to be ready at all times and he's to be ready in season, it says, and out of season.
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Now, a lot of different people have interpreted this in season and out of season a lot of different ways.
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In fact, I was just reading something from Charles Spurgeon that I'm pretty sure he just made up, but it was awesome because he's
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Charles Spurgeon. And so we can really take this to mean, on the one hand, sure, at any given moment you should be ready to preach if you are called to preach at any given moment.
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And that doesn't mean that you just, once again, just stand up and go for it. Right? Because the first part is be ready.
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You must be ready to be able to preach in season and not from you, but from God, from his word.
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And are you able to give it? That's the command. To preach the word means to be ready, to be equipped, to have a base knowledge of what's going on, and to do so whenever the opportunity arises.
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That's one interpretation. It's not my favorite interpretation, but it's a interpretation. It also doesn't mean at face value this season and then the next season in terms of agriculture.
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This is obviously a type of poetic language being utilized. So what does it mean?
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Well, it means to do it whether the culture is receptant or resistant, or whether people want to hear it or they don't, though I don't want to undo the other stuff because that's true as well.
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Because the reality is pastors need to keep working whether they feel strong or exhausted.
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As one commentator put it, whether they are healthy or sick, prepared or unprepared, they must always be prepared.
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They speak whether their hearers are smiling and attentive or frowning or distracted, because even the toughest of crowds surely has some eager listeners.
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And even if they don't, God's word as it is preached is always, if you've been paying attention to the series, doing its work.
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Whether it is softening the heart to receive more beautiful truths about Christ, or whether it is hardening it for the day of judgment.
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But the idea really here is that you are to preach the word when it's popular or whether it's unpopular.
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Whether your church is growing or whether your church is shrinking, you preach the word.
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Because the reality is the world does not love preaching, and phenomenal fake
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Christians do not love preaching. And even Christians, when you're touching their pet sins, do not love preaching.
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They must be drawn by the spirit to love that preaching.
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And so no matter what's going on in your church, preacher, or going on in the world, preacher, you stand firm, you preach the word, and you must be ready, and you must do it when it's popular, when it's not popular, when it's easy, when it's not easy, when you're hated, and when you're loved, because you will experience it all.
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There will be times where people say, congratulations, you're doing a great job, you're such a help to us and our family, and there will be times where people will accuse you of doing incredibly untrue things.
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And they will say that your word is not the preached word, your word is a horrible word, your word is not a true word, and you must, so long as you are preaching the true word, stand your ground and let the chips fall where they may.
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Because preaching, biblical preaching, is not subject to popular demand, but it is subject to divine command.
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We preach for an audience of one. The word must be proclaimed with authority, whether it convicts sinners or consuls saints, whether it brings life or judgment.
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That's the truth. And the question that we have to ask at any given moment, as the people of God is, are we sitting under the type of preaching that expounds the word, and are we listening to preachers who will preach the word, no matter what comes?
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One who will press truth into your heart, whether it's comfortable or not.
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The second thing that I want you to see is the method. That's the mandate, now let's look at the method.
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Preachers of God's word are to preach the word, Timothy is to preach the word, to be ready in season and out of season, and he is to do so by reproving, rebuking, exhorting, and to do that with great patience and teaching.
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Do you see that? Here, Paul lays out the work of the word, and essentially this has been called by many theologians and commentators a triad of ministry, or the triad of ministry.
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Articles are important here. This is how preaching is done, and it's done this way because if you do it this way, because this is
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God's way, it functions like a surgeon's scalpel, and it cuts to heal. And so you have this one imperative, preach the word, that everything before it and after is pointing to, and then you have these subsequent imperatives that tell us how to achieve that first imperative.
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Rebuke, reprove, exhort, and it tells us how to hear preaching.
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We must be willing to be rebuked, reproved, and exhorted.
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And according to Robert Yarborough, a commentator who I was reading, he says that this call to reprove, rebuke, and exhort represents a comprehensive approach to preaching.
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Each of these verbs encapsulates a form of engagement with the congregation, or as Richard Sibbes says, in like manner but only the way a
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Puritan can, the pulpit is the throne for God to reign in the hearts of men.
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Puritans just had it going on. So let's look at these one at a time. The first one, reprove.
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So how do we preach? How is the word to be preached? It is to be preached in such a way that the wayward is reproved.
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This word reprove means to expose error and confront sin.
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Timothy is to be a faithful preacher, and to be a faithful preacher means to put his thumb on sin and expose it for what it is, shedding the light of scripture on it, and calling people who would engage in that type of sin to repentance so that they might be convicted and walk in the ways in which the scriptures teach, to walk worthy.
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And what this means is it's not necessarily people who hate God, right? This is the context of a church that he's pastoring, but people who might just be getting off the tracks, as it were.
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Pastoral preaching, preaching of this magnitude, often helps people stay on the desired path, that is, according to Psalm 1, right, the only path, the path of the righteous, by addressing errant tendencies.
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So sometimes it's not just, hey, I know this sin is going on in the congregation, but rather we're in this text, therefore, look what
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God is trying to warn us of. If our hearts do not align itself with what is to be said here, and what this means then is that preachers are not just here to give information, not just to disseminate facts or offer engrossing talks, but actually to deter people away from ungodly living, to bring back
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Jesus' sheep back to the fold. And sometimes that requires getting in the mess, getting in the business, getting into the refutation.
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Specifically here, it's also talking about rebuking error.
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So ungodly behavior needs to be rebuked, but also error, theological error that would lead to someone living in such a way.
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And here's what this means for those of you desirous of the preaching ministry, of the pulpit.
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If you desire to be a people pleaser or a popularity seeker, if you have the sin of falling into flattery, then the sacred desk is not for you.
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And the reason that I say that is because you must say what
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God has to say. And if you don't say what God has to say, then you're not preaching.
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And if you're not preaching, then why preach? It would be better for you to never touch a pulpit than to stand before God and say, well,
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I was afraid they were going to act this way, or that they would leave the church, or that they would respond in such a way, or whatever the case may be.
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Or they wouldn't repent, and I didn't want to push that hard. Or culture is really saying this thing over here. If that's your attitude, go home.
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Because you've got to put your thumb on the idols in the church. You've got to put your thumb on the idols in the heart.
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You've got to put your thumb on the idols in the culture. And you have to call people to biblical fidelity and trust in and love for the
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Lord Jesus Christ. I don't think it's a mistake that he leads here with reprove and rebuke and exhort.
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In order to exhort people in the way that they should go, they must first see their error. So the second word, rebuke.
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The Greek word here carries the idea of a stern warning. It's not just a suggestion on how to live or to think about the biblical doctrine, but it is actually a very firm declaration of the dangers of sin and wrong theological thinking.
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So exposing sin and error, and then warning, and to some degree directing them away from that thing, that's the pattern.
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From reproving to rebuking.
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So you confront and you correct. And that means there is confrontation.
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Confrontation of doctrinal error and sinful behavior.
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Now, I've taken some preaching classes in my life. I've taught some preaching classes in my life.
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I've thought a lot about preaching and read a lot of books about preaching. And do you know how many people talk about preaching as confrontation?
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Not many. Not many. And that is why the pulpit in many churches is so weak.
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Because they do not see it as a confrontation. Now, to be sure, it is to be a loving confrontation.
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A confrontation that wants to see you in a better place, me in a better place, us in a better place, but a confrontation nonetheless.
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There must be authoritative confrontation, which is why pastors who stand up and say, hey, so here's what
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I'm thinking. I'm thinking that maybe the verse says this. I could be wrong here, but here's what
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I think. And in light of what
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I think, you might try this. No, that's not preaching. Preaching is, this is what
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God says. Listen to what God says and do what God says because you love
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God. And that was because of what
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Jesus Christ did. The word here for rebuke is actually only used one other time in the
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New Testament epistles. It's used once in Jude 9 when
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Jude says, but Michael the archangel, when he, disputing with the devil, was arguing about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a blasphemous judgment, but said, the
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Lord rebuke you. It's the only other time that it's used in the epistles.
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But it is frequently, however, used in the synoptic gospels to describe Jesus's action, things that he's done.
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Jesus taught his disciples to quote unquote, rebuke one another, to forgive them when there is repentance in Luke chapter 17, specifically verse three, when he says, be on your guard.
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If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. So you see here,
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Timothy's preaching and everyone who follows after him and their preaching should not only correct, but when necessary, confront with stern reproof and a calling away from said thing.
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So not only is it to reprove the wayward, not only is it to rebuke the rebellious, but it is also to exhort the weary, right?
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Because not everybody fits into every single one of these camps. Sometimes when we come and we sit in the pew, we're a bit more wayward.
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We're not actively engaged in some sort of heinous sin, but we're falling maybe off the tracks and we need to put back on like sheep need to be done from time to time.
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Maybe we're not rebellious, or maybe we are completely disregarding what the word of God has to say, but other times we simply need to be encouraged.
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Encouraged. Well, I've told this to the men in the Shepherds Institute, but above, you know, where I write my sermons, there's a sticky note and there's a box and it's got four people in it.
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And every time I write a sermon, I'm trying to address every single one of those people. The first one is the hard -hearted non -Christian.
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The second one is the soft -hearted non -Christian. The third one is the hard -hearted
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Christian. And the fourth one is the soft -hearted Christian. And all four of these people are going to fall into any given pattern here, whether it be rebellious, weary, or needing reproof at any given moment.
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And to the hard -hearted, you're going to get in their face.
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You're going to remind them what the word of God has to say. And you're not going to beat around the bush, and you're going to tell them that they are completely in error and they are dishonoring the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Demand repentance. But there are other times where the conscience is tender and they need and encourage.
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This word exhort means to come alongside and to strengthen, to pick up, right? So preaching is not just confronting, though it's not less than that.
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It also is comforting, offering hope, not just to those who are struggling, but to those who are desirous of repentance, right?
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You don't beat repentant people up. Repentant.
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You encourage them. You strengthen them. And here's a word that I read in a commentary or two that I didn't love, but I'm growing to love it more.
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Nurture. Nurture. John MacArthur says in his commentary on 2
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Timothy, this means to come alongside and in love, encourage to spiritual change.
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In other words, Timothy's preaching and our preaching should be infused with heartfelt, affirmational appeal that will confirm in listeners that their pastor cares and that there is much at stake.
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Reproving and rebuking is needed. But if all you're going to do, if any preacher is going to do, if what
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Timothy is going to do is just stand up and wield the sword of the Spirit like a club, then they need to go somewhere else and do something else because they're not doing what
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God has called them to do. They must encourage.
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They must love. They must strengthen. They must build up as well as confront.
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Confronting and comforting. That's how. And so the question is then, how do we do that?
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How do we reprove? How do we rebuke? And how do we exhort? How do preachers do that? How is
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Timothy to do that? Well, he tells us moving on with great patience and teaching.
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With great patience and teaching. So he is to reprove, rebuke, exhort, and to do so patiently and didactically.
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Right? So this word great literally comes from another word that we translate all in the
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Bible. So this means like entire, full, or complete. In other words, Timothy's patience and his teaching should not be partial in nature.
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It should permeate everything that he does because change takes time.
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Change takes time. And if a person is unwilling to be completely and fully patient, trusting the then he's going to wonder if his preaching matters at all.
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And also people are messy. I'm messy. The Bible says that people are messy. So I'm going to assume all you guys are messy as well.
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And we oftentimes are slow to learn. And it requires a pastor and a preacher who is patient.
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Who walks slowly, methodically, and helpfully.
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And doesn't expect change overnight. But prays for it, labors for it.
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Right? Reproves, rebukes, and exhorts to that end. But also in his teaching, he's to carefully instruct.
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To lay forth and expound what the scriptures actually principally teach.
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Here's what this means. Pastors are not merely orators. They're not just people up here saying stuff and to sound pretty.
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They are, and here it is, to equip the sheep with the word of God.
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That they might stand on their own. This is why I say over and over. My hope and my prayer is that I work myself out of a job.
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That I preach the word in such a way that everybody knows how they got what I got. So they don't need me anymore.
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Now, the way God has worked, right? We will always need preachers.
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Even if we are really good at understanding the Bible. Combined with patience, sound instruction then, will guard and ground
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God's people so they can withstand the challenges of which the next two verses are going to speak.
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Let me ask you a question before moving on. When you hear the word preached, do you welcome confrontation?
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Or is every time the word preached about your spouse or your friends or the people sitting next to you, do you allow the word of God and the preached word to reprove you, to rebuke you, and to exhort you?
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Do you start with the heart posture that maybe you could be wrong about some things?
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Because the word exists to chisel and mold us and to shape us. Let me ask this too.
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Maybe some of you are a little better at receiving the confrontation, but do you let the word of God encourage you?
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As a pastor, I know there's lots of people out there who are fine to be corrected to a degree, right?
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And as much as the Spirit will give them the grace to, but they will refuse and kick against the goad when it comes to being comforted.
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There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yeah, but you don't know the sin that I have. God does.
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The word does. Or do you resist rebukes?
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Do you prefer softer words? The Puritans used to say, the same ice that, or the same sun rather, that melts the ice hardens the clay.
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And so if you are believing the word to do the work of the word through the God of the word, then confrontation, rebuking, exhorting, and comforting is going to transform your life.
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But if you don't, it won't. The third thing that I want you to see is the madness.
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Paul here is about to warn Timothy of what's around the corner. What is there, what's around the corner, and what will continue until the day that the
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Lord Jesus returns in some form and measure. Look with me at verse 3.
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He says, 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 with their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.
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The sad reality of this verse is that Paul is communicating to Timothy the truth that there's coming a day when people will abandon truth for comfort, and they're going to do it in your church.
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Now, some commentators will say, well, there is no antecedent to they, therefore it must be talking about sinners in the world.
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Well, in context, that doesn't make any sense. I prefer to believe that the they that is spoken about here is people in his midst who had been seemingly walking according to sound doctrine, but now no longer are, right?
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Because that's what he says. A time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.
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Some translations say no longer endure sound doctrine, picking up on this same reality that they once seemingly did.
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They were nominal fake Christians in the midst, but now their colors have been shown, and they are rejecting sound doctrine, and they are gathering for themselves people who will tickle their ears, give them what they want.
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And this is, of course, demonstrating a rejection of objective truth in favor of subjective satisfaction.
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The time will come here implies a change of mind from once enduring to no longer enduring, in which case they, as I've said already, refers to unbelievers who become nominal believers in the church, whose profession of faith was only superficial.
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Now, there are people among us, even now, probably.
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I mean, I can't say that for any sort of certainty, but if experience and the word of God teaches me anything, there are people sitting in this pews who like the idea of being a part of a church, love the community, are okay with hearing about Jesus, but at the end of the day, they're just here until something better is on the menu.
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And that's what's going to happen to Timothy. And this should be an encouragement to those of you who want to preach for a couple different reasons.
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One, as we've been looking through this, have you noticed that the emphasis has been on the word and the message, not the messenger?
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The word is the one who does the work. But secondarily, if people are doing this to Paul and Timothy, who are you?
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Oh, man. Right? So think it not strange when these sorts of things happen.
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I just had a friend relatively recently, and I hope he doesn't watch this because he doesn't know
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I'm going to do this, but tried to rebuke some elders of his who were in open, unrepentant sin.
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They refused to repent, and so him and the other elders were going to bring them before the church, and instead of them repenting then, they decided to pull together people who wanted to have their ears tickled.
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And what did they do? They made him the enemy. They made him the enemy.
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And you know what the first words out of my mouth were when he told me this? Think it not strange, brother.
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Did the word not promise you, when you take the word seriously, when you preach the word faithfully, that these things are going to happen?
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Does it hurt? Yes. But you never stand behind the pulpit.
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You never take up the charge to preach the word and not be aware that when you preach the word, there's going to be collateral damage.
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As a preacher, I get to see some of the most beautiful things, I believe, that anybody on this side of heaven get to see.
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I get to see lives transformed. I get to see people repent of sin, go from death to life.
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I get to see them love and chase after Jesus. I get to see them baptized. I get to see them grow over time in the grace of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. I get to see miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle, as the
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Holy Spirit uses the word of God to produce people of God. And yet,
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I see some of the worst things, as some people reject Jesus, defame the
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Lord, reject truth in favor of their own pompous ideas, and ultimately wind up walking away from Jesus because they were never actually following Jesus in the first place.
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They were just playing some sort of game. And oftentimes, preachers are the ones that those people take wax at and get you don't complain.
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You stand your ground, you preach the word in season and out of season, and you do so with tears in your eyes and a smile on your face, knowing that the
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Lord Jesus is doing his work. So a time is coming, he says, when people reject sound doctrine.
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This means that they will refuse to tolerate the truth. Friends, the truth is that the spiritually sick reject the medicine of the word.
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For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. They will not even bear to hear it. They will reject it outright.
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And what will they do? They will have their ears tickled. This is just simply a way of saying is they will garner for themselves people who will preach to them what they want to hear.
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See, one of the things that's common in the Reformed camp is to come down on people like Joel Osteen and other preachers like this who are no doubt a plague on our church.
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But what you need to understand is Joel Osteen is not the biggest problem.
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And here's what I mean by that. The biggest problem is everyone sitting in the crowd, because they are the ones who want that.
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Joel Osteen did not convince everyone to listen to him.
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They wanted to hear what he had to say. They wanted to believe what he says.
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He is judgment on them because they want it.
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The phrase here, ear tickled in the Greek, evokes the image of people literally craving pleasing words that soothe their consciences rather than confront their sin.
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Look, who doesn't want to go to a church where they're never told they're sinners? Who doesn't want to go to a church that when they sit in the pew, they're told you're awesome, you're awesome, right?
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You're loved. Look, you are loved. If you are in Christ, you are loved far greater than any type of love that Joel Osteen is promoting, okay?
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But you are not awesome. Jesus is awesome. Jesus is awesome.
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And the best thing we can do is confront sin. I remember seeing Joel Osteen, and this is not like a pick on Joel Osteen sermon, although it's turned into that for a second.
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But he was asked by Larry King in one particular interview, like, why don't you ever talk about sin?
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Like, isn't that like, because Larry King was a Jewish guy, right? And so, I mean, not like an
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Orthodox one or anything, but he's Jewish. And he asked, why don't you ever talk about sin?
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And he said, well, people know they're sinners. And they don't want me to bring them down, essentially, is what he said.
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No, people do not know they're sinners. And they need you to bring them down so that you can lift their eyes to the exalted
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Christ who has, in fact, paid their sin debt. You see, if you do not confront sin, you cannot offer the balm for sin.
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So, they gather these false teachers, these ear ticklers. They seek them out, and they gather them, right?
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That's what it says. They will not endorse sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate, right?
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They will gather many, not just one, but many. They will literally pile up teachers who align with their passions, with their desires, with their theology.
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And friends, that's spiritual consumerism. And we do it in the Reformed camp all the time, even though we pretend we don't.
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But just get on Twitter for five seconds. It's interesting to see what's happening in the
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Reformed world at the moment. There's an entire group of young men who are literally slandering, harming, lying about preachers and pastors they sat under for years and learned tons from.
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And instead of listening to the rebukes and asking if there's any merit, there's like literally teams and tribes forming.
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And why? Why? Because they've chucked this out the window, and they've gathered for themselves, even in the
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Reformed camp, a place to have their ears tickled. And it's there where truth is sacrificed and slaughtered on the altar of personal preference.
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Friends, if you want to be a good hearer of the Word, you don't. You don't.
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You gather for yourself Bible teachers, and you listen to the Bible. And if for some reason you find that the person preaching you the
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Bible seems to be saying something different than what you think he's saying, I don't know, have a conversation with the guy.
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Be willing to be wrong. Be willing to lay out your argument, and hopefully the pastor, if he's wrong, will have something of repentance to be had.
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Well, at the same time, I want you to remember that preachers are to be ready before they even open their mouth.
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And so a preacher is not one who is just going to be tossed to and fro because someone comes up and says, hey, I think you might be wrong about that.
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Okay, I'm willing to hear you. I've been wrong before, and yet I'm ready.
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I wasn't sleeping before I preached this message. I wasn't sleeping in the four years
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I was studying the Bible in seminarity at a master's level. When I was studying the Greek and the Hebrew, I wasn't asleep then.
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I was getting ready. That's why it's important, because you can't combat false doctrine.
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You can't train people in sound doctrine if you're not ready. You're not ready.
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The commentator sums it all up like this that I was reading, and I want to read for you this in its entirety because it was that good.
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He says this, this itching is relieved by the message of the new teachers, that is those who they've gathered.
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In the 21st century West, examples abound with books and speakers garnering followings and often prophets based on views regarding eschatology, sexual behavior, theories, or purported discoveries proving the
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Bible is not true or needs radical reinterpretation. Sensational religious experience, including wealth acquisition through faith, and other titillating claims like describing what it is like to die and go to heaven.
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Been a few movies about that. Paul's words are a reminder that such fascinations are nothing new.
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North America and other relatively affluent regions with their consumerist and often narcissistic social orders, decreasing biblical literacy, and a lack of appetite for features of the gospel and God as presented in scripture, are prime venues for such activity.
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Through electronic means, the West's deceptions and delusions find ready a reception worldwide.
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The antidote would lie not in denouncing the West, but in rediscovering the message
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Paul and Timothy preached and living accordingly.
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There are all these things. He goes on to even say, it's not just that they are rejecting sound doctrine, and it's not just that they're garnering a tribe of teachers to satisfy their own lusts, passions, and desires, and the thing that they think so that they can feel good about themselves, but it says that they will actively, verse 4, will turn away their ears as an active movement from the truth.
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They no longer want to hear it, and will turn aside to myths. Turn aside to myths.
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Turning from the truth, which is what it happens and what it will happen to Timothy and happens in churches all across America, is not a passive act.
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It is a deliberate rejection of the truth. This word to turn away implies an intentional act of rebellion against the word of God Almighty, and that's scary.
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That's scary, and it's disastrous, because salvation comes through hearing.
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Sanctification comes through hearing. These myths are deceptive, and we become, and they become attracted to these myths.
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The word myths here, or mythos in the Greek, refers to, quote, fanciful stories or false ideologies that sound spiritual, but lead people away from important things like the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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One prime example of this, you know, I get on this drum all the time with some of the guys in Shepherd's Institute, but this podcast that everybody seemingly is obsessed with,
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Haunted Cosmos, right? Now, is some of that stuff entertaining?
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Sure, right? Do I have anything against these guys personally? I don't know them personally, but here's what
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I know. If you have so many hours in your day, and you're trying to watch a three -hour podcast, or vodcast, or whatever they're calling them these days, the video podcast things, on how
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Atlantis can be proved in the Bible, your guns are aimed at the wrong target.
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You're engaging in myths that have nothing to do with anything, not provable, and it's a complete waste of time.
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You need to have your face buried in the word of God, and not having anything to do with these silly myths. Elsewhere, Paul calls this silly wives tales or wives fables.
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Stories that people are saying and talking about. God's men who preach the word must labor in the word, and not weird ideas, weird conspiracy theories.
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There's one truth. Preach that truth.
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Paul here is speaking, probably most certainly, about Jewish teachers or Jewish circles that lacked credible basis and fact for the things that they were saying, and distracting
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Christian congregants from doctrines they needed to affirm and live out. What's more important, trying to figure out where Atlantis might be, or how to put your sin to death by looking at the cross?
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You tell me. The consequences are tragic when we engage in these sorts of things, and so we must be on guard.
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We must train ourselves not to be these type of people, but to lean in to the preached word, to be willing to be confronted.
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And so I want to end here by saying, and this is my last point, I want to look at what the marks of someone who hears the word looks like.
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And really, this is an implied point. It says, preach the word in verse two, be ready in season and out of season, approve, rebuke, exhort, and great patience in teaching.
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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.
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They will turn from myth, or turn from truth, and put their sights on myths, and they will bolster those things up, right?
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Like Hitler wasn't the real enemy, Winston Churchill was, and I'm going to get myself in trouble if I keep going.
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But here's the deal. You give yourself to the word of God, and when the word of God is preached, and the people of God hear it, there is marks upon them that exist.
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Namely, they didn't just hear what they said, but they believed it, and they obeyed it.
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They believed it, and they obeyed it, right? If you're reproving someone, if you're rebuking someone, and you're exhorting someone, you're exhorting them to a new way of thinking, which leads to a new way of living.
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This is why James says, for example, that not many people should be teachers. Because if you tell someone to live the wrong way, that's on you, bro.
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So preaching the word requires that you take it seriously on a level that I can't get into, right?
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I mean, it's so huge. Go listen to the last sermon I just preached about standing before God and preaching. That's what the whole sermon was about.
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It is a trust to preach the word of God, and you must do so with unwavering fidelity.
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But in this dual command, as it were, hearing the word requires a humble heart and a willingness to be changed by the sword of the
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Spirit. A willingness to open your ears, your heart ears, as it were.
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And listen, because the word transforms hearers into doers.
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James chapter 1 verse 22. We're to be doers of the word, not simply hearers.
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If we hear the word and don't do it, it means nothing, James says. So very practically,
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I want to give you a few uses. How can you better hear the word?
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How can you better hear the word? First, prepare your heart with expectant prayer. Before you get here, pray.
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Pray, right? If Timothy is to be ready in season and out of season, that implies a continual expectancy.
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And the same readiness is required of you as the hearer. That's just true.
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Pray that the Lord would give you illumination, that you would have your heart opened by the
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Spirit and the truth of God and the beauty of Christ poured on it. Thomas Watson, one of the
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Puritans of old, was talking about this very need and he said, the word is like a key.
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The Spirit of God must unlock the heart. Without the Spirit, the sermon will be like a seed on stony ground.
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So pray that the Lord would illuminate the scriptures and open your heart to receive it. Pray that the word would enable you to confess sin, to have a spiritual receptivity to the sin in your life, or to represent to killing the sin in your life, and anticipate hearing
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God's voice, right?
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Because as we discussed last week, when the word is faithfully preached and faithfully applied, God speaks. Approach the sermon with hunger, believing that the word of God has an appointed means and that it is speaking directly to you.
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Come early and settle your heart and settle your mind. A scattered arrival often leads to scattered hearing.
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One of the things a Presbyterian church that I used to be a part of used to do, don't follow my bad example, but it was beautiful.
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They would play music for like five to six minutes when the service started and we just sit there to get our heart right.
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It's wonderful. Next, attend with reverent focus.
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Preaching is a solemn charge. It's a solemn duty. And if everything that I've said up to this point in the sermon series is true, then preaching deserves your undivided attention.
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Resist distractions. The Puritan Richard Baxter once said, make it your work to meditate and dwell on every word, lest the devil snatch away the seed.
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View preaching as worship. Oftentimes we think the music is worship and then preaching is just preaching, but no, preaching is worship.
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Next, listen with a teachable spirit. When you're convicted, lean into it.
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Embrace doctrinal truth. Do not shy away from sermons with heavy theology.
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You see, oftentimes we want to just hear, how do I do this? How do I do this? How do I do this? There's a time and there's a place, but there's also a time for sound doctrine.
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Have you not been paying attention? Guard against criticism.
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Guard against criticism. This is an important one because oftentimes the devil will use criticism to harden our heart.
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The reality is God is going to use imperfect vessels to preach his word.
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And that's true of every preacher that gets into the pulpit, no matter how mightily God uses him. The first thing that I do when
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I sit down to listen to a sermon, I'm working on my doctorate in preaching. And so whether or not
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I've excelled in that, I've heard a lot of opinions about how it should be done. And so the first thing that I have to do when
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I listen to someone preach is I have to completely just pray that the Lord would guard me from critiquing the homiletical method and just receive what
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I'm hearing. I remember when I was younger, I went to a recording school and I played punk rock music and I would record my guitar parts, my drum parts, all these sorts of things on a cassette tape.
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They sounded horrible. You could hear people talking and opening cans in the background and yelling and screaming from people who were in the kitchen.
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And I thought it was the greatest thing ever. And I thought, man, I want to learn how to record and do this well. So I moved to Chillicothe, Ohio.
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I lived in the woods and a couple multi -million dollar studios. And I learned how to mix and master and make recordings sound epic.
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And then I got home, I popped in my old punk rock tapes and I was like, oh, this is horrible. It stole my joy.
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Why? Because I was listening for all of the ways it was wrong and how it could be better.
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That's the wrong way to listen to sermons. Even Martin Lloyd -Jones, considerably the best preacher in the last hundred years.
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He would go and he would just, when he was dying of cancer and he wasn't preaching anymore, he would just go to other churches and encourage the pastors.
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And he would sit in the back and he once asked, you know, like, you probably hear a lot of really bad sermons. And Martin Lloyd -Jones said,
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I can forgive almost any bad sermon. I'm not so concerned with that.
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So long as they give me God. So long as they give me
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God. Is that your heart posture? It should be.
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Meditate on the message throughout the week. Review your notes, which means take notes, right?
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Reflect on key truths that this brings up. Richard Baxter, Puritan, again, apply the word to your soul as you would apply medicine to a wound.
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It's that important. Pray over the notes. Discuss those notes with other.
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Fellowship around the preached word. And this fosters mutual edification and deeper understanding.
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This is why we do fellowship group the way that we do. Fifthly, obey the word with fervent application.
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Now this is one that a lot of people leave off in their books on how to hear the word.
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But the best way you can hear the word is to obey it. To do it. Hearing without doing is the pathway to apostasy.
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If you let words come into your ears and you don't let it work itself out through your hands, then you're not a
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Christian. Act quickly. Apply the sermon immediately before the enemy steals it away.
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Charles Spurgeon once said, a sermon is never finished until it is lived. Examine yourself.
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Use the sermon as a mirror to identify areas needing growth and commit to change.
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And lastly, cultivate a love for the truth. A love for truth will safeguard you against much peril.
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If you treasure the word as life, then you'll want to hear that word and live that word.
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Regard the sermon as a lifeline for your soul. As Thomas Watson has said, the word is both food and antidote.
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It feeds the soul and repels the poison. Guard against ear -tickling preachers.
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Seek sermons that pierce your heart, not just tell you cool information about the things that you want to hear. My favorite preacher in the entire world is
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Paul Washer. And that dude could not exegetically preach himself out of a paper bag. I was listening to a sermon he was preaching the other day.
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I don't even know what he was talking about in light of the text he wrote. But man, it was true and it cut me to the core.
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Sometimes we need to be punched. Pray for a greater appetite for truth.
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As God deepens your love for doctrinal truth, pray for more loving of doctrinal truth, even when it cuts against your preferences.
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So if you want to be a hearer of the word, be a believer of the word, be a doer of the word, and take the word seriously.
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Because if you don't, the consequences are dire, will wind up like the men spoken about here.
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So preachers preach the word and hearers hear the word. And in closing,
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I just want to read for you a quote by Charles Spurgeon. He says, when we see a soul brought to Christ, let us thank
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God that the word has done its work. And when we see a saint grow in grace, let us glorify the master whose rod and staff have comforted them.
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It's all about the word. It will always be about the word. And so long as I am the pastor of Heritage Church, we will always preach the word.
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Would you pray with me? Father, we love you and we thank you for your word and we ask that you would help us to apply it to our lives and that you would help us ultimately to love the one whom the word is about and to see him as gloriously and exalted as he is and to bask in the gospel that he has purchased for us.