The Nature of the Word We Preach

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Well, we come now to our first preacher of the day to get us started on what I am confident is going to be a wonderful day of learning and encouragement.
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Mitch Pridgen is a wonderful brother in the Lord and I remember the first time I met Mitch, he was having a conference with Dr.
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White at his church and we had seen each other on Facebook a few times and when I got out of the car and started walking to him, he came up and gave me a hug and we had never met, but I just remember thinking how sweet a man and he continues to demonstrate that sweet love and care toward me and toward our church and I'm thankful that he has come today to preach the word, so Brother Tom, please.
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As I was, Keith brought me up here yesterday to kind of show us what the setup would be with the microphone and I thought as I walked up there, this is the nosebleed section of the church.
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Ours is not quite this high, so I kind of feel like I'm on a Presbyterian platform somewhere standing up there speaking, but it is a joy to be here with you this morning.
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I'd like for you to take your Bibles and turn with me to a text where we were last night.
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What a tremendous job Brother Charles did.
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I really should just stand up here after his delivery last night and say, ditto.
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I mean, I don't know what could potentially and possibly be added to what he said last night, but hopefully by the grace of God, something will be said this morning that will encourage us and help us.
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I want you to turn your Bibles to 2 Timothy.
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And what I want to do is I want to begin reading, I have to remember to not move so far back from this mic, but I'd like to begin reading in chapter 3, verse 10.
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And I'm going to read through chapter 4, verse 5.
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Now again, as you know, the context of this, the Apostle Paul is addressing Timothy.
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He has issued a warning in the first part of chapter 3 in regards to godliness in the last days.
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Those who will no longer love God's word, but will love everything but God's word.
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And then he begins in verse 10.
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He says, you, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch at Iconium and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
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Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
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But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the men of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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I 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, keruxon ton logon, preach the Word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves, teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wonder off into myths.
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As for you, always be sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
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Let's bow our heads.
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Father, we are so blessed to be together this morning.
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We are privileged to have before us the very Word of God.
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Might you by the work of your Spirit not only open our ears but open our hearts.
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Might you sanctify our hearts this morning that we might receive the Word, that it might accomplish in us your perfect will and your good pleasure for our benefit, but most of all for your glory.
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And I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
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Amen.
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I don't think there's anything, as I kind of survey and know some of you personally that are here, I'm not sure there's anything that I'll say this morning that will be unique.
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If it is, we're in trouble anyway.
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H.B.
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told us that last night, didn't he? Or that necessarily I will teach you anything that you don't already know.
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Many and most of you who are men who fill their pulpits every single week have probably said more than once, many times preached series on the things that I'll be talking about this morning.
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But I guess if I could hope to accomplish anything, it would be perhaps to remind us of some things, why we preach the way that we preach.
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It was not, but just a little over a decade ago, I know this at the end of this morning you might wonder if this is true, but I began my pastoral ministry in March of 1985.
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So that's been a few years ago now, a few decades.
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And for the first roughly 20 years of that 30, almost 31 years of pastoral ministry after coming out of a Bible college where we were taught homiletics and hermeneutics and all the things.
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We were really never in our homiletics class taught the importance of preaching expositionally.
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And so almost for two decades, my preaching focused on topical preaching.
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That is, picking a subject, picking a few scriptures to support the subject, and preaching And then a little over a decade, well over a decade ago now, something began to happen.
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The Lord began to tremendously, to do a tremendous work in my heart and brought me to an understanding of the biblical gospel, what we commonly in our circles call the doctrines of grace.
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No one said, even though I had studied church history and Bible college obviously knew about Calvinism and Arminianism and all the different things of church history.
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No one really sat down with me and began to school me in regards to the doctrines of grace.
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And as I began to give myself to diligent study of the scriptures, something began to happen is that that began to be something God was doing Himself in me.
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In fact, people ask me, what is it that brought you from your Wesleyan orientation, from your Arminian background to where you are today? And I would have to say, the study of God's Word and a commitment to expositionally preach that Word.
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And so I can't blame it on anybody but God for bringing me where He has brought me in regards to understanding His Word.
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And I will tell you it has been the greatest joy, as brothers I know you know this, it has been the greatest joy for over ten years now to open God's Word and begin and preach through God's Word.
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And to do it not just book by book but chapter by chapter and verse by verse and sometimes even though H.B.
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warned us a little bit of this last night, I do perhaps sometimes take a little more time even on sentences and words than I should.
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But in the end it is just so rich when you begin to mine the depths and truths of God's Word how wonderful it is and how I remember Dr.
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MacArthur saying some time ago and Phil Johnson commented on this when he began to edit and put together some of Dr.
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MacArthur's works.
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John said, when I stand in the pulpit to give you the text and to preach to you, you don't know the stuff I have set aside that I am not bringing to the pulpit with me.
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And he often said sometimes when I was writing he said I would ball up my notes and throw them in the trash can and then Phil Johnson later said yeah I would visit those trash cans and pull those notes right back out again and begin to go through them.
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So it is just so you can't bring so much to the pulpit when you come.
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This morning I have been assigned the task of speaking on why, the why of expository preaching and as you saw on the nature of the Word that we preach.
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This text that I just read to you in 2 Timothy is not by any means the only text that reveals to us and can teach us on regards to the nature of God's Word.
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Now what do we mean when we talk about the nature of something? Well you might say the nature is the essence of something, what something is made of, what it consists of, what it is.
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You might even say that the nature could be the attributes of a particular thing.
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And certainly as you look at the Word of God it is unique in many ways beyond explanation.
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And so to think that this morning in the short time that I have with you that I am going to extensively deal with the nature of God's Word would be an exercise in futility.
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But there are some things that I feel like are clear to us in the text that I have read to you that are worth us looking at.
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In verse 1 of chapter 4, Paul issues a charge to Timothy and at the opening of verse 2 he begins with the first of four imperatives associated with that charge.
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He says preach the Word.
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It is from this first imperative that the other imperatives in that verse flow.
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As you are well aware and H.B.
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gave us this last night, the Greek word translated here preach, keruso, means to herald or proclaim and he gave us a good explanation of that.
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In fact as William Henderson says in his commentary, keruso more accurately means, and listen to the significance of this, he says to make known officially and publicly a matter of great significance.
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To make known officially and publicly a matter of great significance.
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As H.B.
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showed us last night when the herald would come into a village or wherever it was he was bringing the message.
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That's exactly what he was there to do was to bring a message, something of great significance.
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Not privately but to proclaim it publicly.
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Now this is especially true in regards to the charge given by Paul here in chapter 4 verse 2 of 2 Timothy.
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What is greater, think with me for a minute brothers, what is greater, what is greater in significance than that which we as men of God have been called to herald? Just pause for a moment and think about what in the world could be of greater significance than what we have been called by God to herald.
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The message we have been charged to preach is a very specific message.
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It is a unique message.
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It is the Word of God.
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Earlier in chapter 3 as I read to you as well of 2 Timothy, Paul called this the sacred writings in chapter 3 verse 15.
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And Scripture in verse 16.
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Now we know the context of that, that what Timothy had taught him were the Old Testament Scriptures, the sacred writings of the Old Testament.
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But I love, and I'll probably repeat this in a moment, again what H.B.
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said last night but that was, he had that understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures so that when the Gospel was brought to him it all made sense.
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It all came together.
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And so the sacred writings in the Scripture.
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This does not mean to merely deliver some religious discourse, but rather to proclaim, to deem, to herald that which is most sacred and held most highly by God Himself, and that is His Word.
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There are two things which God deems most precious.
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Obviously there are a lot of things that God deems precious, but there are two revealed things that He deems extremely precious and we find those in Psalm 138 verse 2.
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For you have exalted above all things your name and your word.
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His name and His Word.
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If I'm not mistaken, the King James Version translates that, that He has exalted above His name, His Word.
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But the significance is that there are two things that God holds extremely precious, that is His name and His Word.
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Now, the Apostle Paul himself called himself a preacher.
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In fact, 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 7 and 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 11, he refers to himself as a preacher.
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Not a shame, isn't it amazing as it was said last night that it's almost become a term of derision to be called preacher.
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I remember growing up as a boy, that's pretty much, the idea of a pastor was certainly one that we held, but most commonly we referred to the one who led our church as the preacher.
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And you know, today it seems like, well, people don't like being called that because of the negative connotations I guess that preaching has.
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Don't preach to me, how many of your kids have told you that? Don't preach, I don't like them preaching to me.
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And so the idea of standing up and being a preacher has become unpopular in some circles.
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In fact, I've been given business cards, as perhaps you have, I've actually been given business cards by those who are pastoring churches, those who occupy pulpits on Sunday morning and Wednesday evenings and various times to preach, and on their business cards I've actually had this life coach, I even had one given to me their name and under it Apostle.
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And you'll have all kinds of things, it's almost as if somehow they don't want to be identified with the whole idea of preaching.
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That's an honor, to me it's an honor to be called preacher because it's a reminder of the task and the responsibility and the duty that we are given as men called by God to bring His Word.
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In Colossians chapter 1 verse 25, Paul considered this calling to preach a stewardship, and that stewardship was to do one thing, to make the Word of God fully known.
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In fact, I know one pastor in our area who criticized preaching by making this statement, he said, how dare any man stand before a group of people and dare to proclaim that he's telling them what God says.
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My response was, how dare you stand before people and tell them anything but what God has said in His Word.
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So the Word of God is without a doubt unique, and it does possess essential qualities or we might say attributes that nothing else possesses.
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So while we have men before us, when we stand before God's people and we open our Bibles and we have the privilege of beginning to read it and to preach it, we have something that is tremendously unique.
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There's nothing else like it in the entire world.
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Consider for a moment, consider for a moment what might be rightfully considered the first and most significant attribute ascribed to the Word of God, the Scriptures.
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And we find this in the passage that I read to you earlier in chapter 3, verse 16.
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Paul writes there, he says, all Scripture is breathed out by God.
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So this statement by Paul addresses, I think is the way I'll approach it, addresses the origin of the Word, the origin of the Word.
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So the first of our attributes and the nature of God's Word that we'll look at this morning is the origin of the Word.
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We commonly refer to this as the inspiration of Scripture and so much, in fact over the last several months as I've gone back through my library and resources and pulled out the enormous amounts of books and writings that have been done on the inspiration of Scripture.
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One of the greatest books I've found was an older one done by Benjamin Warfield on the inspiration of the Scriptures.
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But there are other great works that have been done even since then.
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We talk about the inspiration of Scripture.
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The rendering, by the way, of the English Standard Version, which is a version that I read to you just a moment ago as breathed out by God, most accurately carries the meaning of the text.
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Even though inspiration is a good word, inspiration today has an interesting meaning behind it.
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People will stand and sing a beautiful song and we will say things like, oh, that was so inspiring.
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Or someone will do a great job of singing a song or delivering a message and say, oh, they were so inspiring or they were so inspired.
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That's not exactly, however, what this text means.
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In fact, it's not what it means at all.
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The translation breathed out is most accurate in relaying to us the meaning of the text.
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In fact, it's that Greek word theophanistos.
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You know that.
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And it means exactly what the translation in the English Standard Version says.
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God breathed the Word.
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It is as B.B.
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Warfield writes the product.
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I like this.
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I quote him, the product of the creative breath of God, the product of the creative breath of God.
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In a word, he says, in a word, what is declared by this fundamental passage is simply, listen carefully, is simply that the scriptures are a divine product.
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Essential for us to understand that.
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A divine product without any indication of how God has operated in producing them.
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So there's that, their inspiration, the breathing out of the scripture.
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Paul uses the phrase all scripture in reference.
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This is all scripture or every scripture is breathed out by God.
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It is an unequivocal assertion as to the fact that scripture, that is all of scripture, what we call our canon of scripture, the 66 books of our Bible, the 39 books of the Old Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament, every word there is breathed out by God, is inspired by God.
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Unequivocal assertion of the fact that all scripture.
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All of it is the product of a specifically divine operation.
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Second Timothy 3, 16 carries the same meaning you'll recall is Psalm 33 verse six.
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And I love this Psalm.
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He says, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth, all their hosts.
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There we see the authority as I'll address later of God's word.
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And then there's Isaiah 55, 11.
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So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.
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It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
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We need only look as far as Genesis chapter one to see this in action.
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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep.
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And God said, God spoke and all that we see, time, space, matter, everything that we witnessed today came into immediate existence by the very word of his power.
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Not only does he create by the word of his power, but he sustains all things by the same power of the word.
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So these two examples are clear.
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The breath of his mouth that is the word and that goes forth from his mouth, the word.
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It's not Paul alone that addresses the divine origin of the word.
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The apostle Peter as well, as you know, in his second epistle, chapter one, verses 19 through 21 addresses the same issue.
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There he refers to the scripture as the prophetic word or the prophecy of scripture or, and the prophecy of scripture.
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So while Paul writes of God breathing the scriptures and Peter of men carried along by the Holy Spirit, both are clear declarations of the same thing, that the word owes its origin to the very breath of God.
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It is in fact God's word.
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What one might ask, does this have to do with why we preach the word? Why is it necessary that we, I mean, I feel as though I'm, as I'm standing here, I'm thinking as I'm speaking to you, boy, am I preaching to the choir? But one might ask us, well, why, you know, well, it can be, it can be inspiring, can't it? It can be encouraging.
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It can be edifying.
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It can be educational.
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I mean, is it really essential that we somehow believe that its origin is in God? I mean, couldn't there just be great guys that, in fact, that's been one misinterpretation of inspiration as that men would merely write and that God would breathe on the word.
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And that's not true, that God would breathe on the word of men.
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So why, why is it essential that we understand that this aspect of the origin of God's word, does it matter? What about it matters? I would argue that it does matter.
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It does matter.
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If we preach anything, listen, anything other than the word, we are in effect heralding that which did not originate with God, but owes its origin to some other source.
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If we fail to open the Bible and preach the Bible, to preach the word, and we preach anything else other than that, we are preaching that which has another source.
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Now today there seems to be, in fact that source usually would be man, and or even worse.
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But today there seems to be no shortage of preaching, and I use that word lightly in this context, that focuses on personal revelations and the like.
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Occasionally when I am bored or I want to get my mind off some physical pain that I might be experiencing, I watch Christian television.
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And if you were to do that, you would, if you flip the channels as I'm sure some of you have done, and you pass all these different networks that are there and the things that are being said, these proposed prophets, self-professed prophets that are standing there preaching and giving you their revelation.
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If you didn't know better, you'd almost think that God was schizophrenic by the different ridiculous things that you're hearing.
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There's this propensity, this inclination of men to herald their own revelation.
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When a man who calls himself a preacher stands before a congregation and says something like this, I know no one here has ever heard this, let me tell you what the Lord has said to me or has shown me.
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That should serve as an immediate warning that you are about to hear something that did not originate with God or from God.
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Personal revelation and personal words are not at all in the scope of Paul's charge to preach the word.
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He didn't stand up and say, preach your revelations.
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Preach your interpretations.
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Preach your ideas or your notions or whatever it might be.
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The charge is clear, to preach the word.
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To preach the word.
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The word we preach is that which owes its origin to God alone.
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Listen brothers, please listen.
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To leave the scripture in our preaching is tantamount, tantamount to desertion from our calling and I might even say treason against the one who called us.
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Do we look at it that way when we are given the responsibility of standing before people every single week and some of us multiple times a week to bring God's word that we have been given a very serious charge.
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My goodness, did H.B.
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bring that home last night.
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How much more serious of a charge if you look at verse 1 when he explained that to us last night.
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That Paul is just not saying because you owe me Timothy, this is what you are to do.
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But I invoke God and Jesus Christ and the things that H.B.
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showed us last night from verse 1 in regards to the charge that he is issuing.
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In fact James R.
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White correctly refers to this, if you haven't gotten that little book, it's a good book to have, in pulpit crimes.
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He addresses that as being pulpit crimes.
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We stand in the pulpit, I don't use that word we, that pronoun necessary to include any of you here, I'm not trying to indict anybody, but we stand in pulpits and we are often guilty of that.
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Replacing the word of God with personal revelations, personal ideas, personal words, etc.
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And by doing that brothers, it's a blatant assault, a blatant assault on God Himself.
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And the apostle Peter assesses the effects of such action by so-called preachers.
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In 2 Peter 2, verse 2, I remember doing an exposition of this and spending an extensive amount of time expositing 2 Peter.
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Because while he was in that day dealing with false prophets and earlier false prophets, in our day we are dealing with false teachers.
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He says in 2 Peter 2, 2, he says, because of them, speaking of the false teachers, and you might say false preachers, because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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And then he addresses the end, their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep.
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So here he gives you, he assesses the effect of preaching that which does not originate or has not originated with God, that is His Word, that the truth is blasphemed.
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And do we not see that today? Isn't it amazing? You can open the, well it might mean that to you, but it doesn't mean that to me.
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That's simply your interpretation.
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I had the privilege, I guess it's a privilege, I've been a high school teacher before, I've been bi-vocational, was bi-vocational for roughly about a third of my ministry.
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And I am a, by education prior to becoming a Christian, I was a science major, a biology and marine science major in college.
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And so I've had the privilege of teaching high school students science over the years.
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And I've also had the privilege of teaching a Christian school where I was given 27 seniors every morning, five mornings a week, to teach them critical thinking and the Bible.
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And I would oftentimes be challenged by those, some students who would say, well that's just merely your interpretation or your understanding.
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I had one young lady, her name was Samantha one morning, and I had said something about there's no other way but Jesus Christ to salvation and we were talking about that and she raised her hand and she said, I believe that's just too exclusive.
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I think that's too exclusive.
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And so I opened the Bible and I turned to John chapter 14, verse 6, and I said, well let me just read this to you.
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And she says, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
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And I remember, I'll never forget, looking at her when I finished reading that text to her and she looked right at me without blinking an eye.
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And she said, well Mr.
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Pridgin, that's merely your interpretation.
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It's merely, what do you say at that point? I just moved on.
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There's really not much you can say at that point.
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But the way of truth will be blasphemed when we preach anything other than that which has its origin in God.
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And for those who do, there is a judgment and Peter addresses that.
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It's because of the Word's divine origin that everything Paul, everything else Paul has to say about the Scripture in 2 Timothy 3.16 comes together.
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All the other attributes, all the other attributes that are given to us here, owe their existence to the origin of God's Word.
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So let's look further at what Paul has to say concerning the Word, which becomes the why we preach the Word, or the nature of the Word we preach.
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So look again with me.
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Just go back up from chapter 4, back up to chapter 3.
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And let's put our attention for the rest of the time that I have with you, just a few more minutes, on what Paul has to say here.
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And again, I want to reinforce, as you well know.
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There's just no way in 40 minutes or 45 minutes you can extensively address all the attributes of God's Word.
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We could go to Psalm 19, Psalm 119, and preach for weeks and weeks and weeks on the essence and attributes of God's Word.
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But Paul narrows it down a bit for us here.
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Look at what he says.
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He says, all Scripture is breathed out by God, and notice this, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
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Just for the sake of my time with you this morning, that's where I want to camp for just a moment.
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Thinking that if it does anything, it may spark in us or stir in us a desire to dig more into those things.
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But let's look.
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Even though what Paul says here precedes his declaration of the Scripture's divine origin, it can be rightfully seen as an essential attribute of the Word of God.
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Paul writes in verse 15, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.
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Notice this, this precedes his inspiration or his origin.
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He says in verse 15, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
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Let's look at what I believe to be a tremendous attribute of God's Word.
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It is able, number one, to make you wise for salvation.
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Only the Scripture, only the Scripture can make one wise for salvation.
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Because it is the Scripture that possesses the power to bring one to salvation.
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We need only, as H.P.
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said last night, to look back to Romans chapter 1, where Paul says he is not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is what? It is the power of God for what? For salvation.
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And then Romans, again later on, Paul continues to talk about hearing and believing.
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And that they cannot believe unless they hear.
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They cannot hear unless someone preaches to them.
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So the Word of God possesses the power to bring one to salvation.
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Not some cleverly devised story nor emotional bent that I might bring to a congregation or to people to try to persuade them to give their lives to Jesus Christ.
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Let me tell you something, just kind of interject something personal, I want to be very careful here not to spend time on this.
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I was reflecting back on this earlier in the week in regards to my own salvation experience, which I have very, I am very cautious of taking the time to interject this here.
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But I remember I became a Christian by the grace of God in January of 1979.
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However, a year prior to that, I was in an evangelistic meeting that I had been invited to go to with a large nationally known evangelist in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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And very emotionally moving message.
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Not much word, but stories, emotional things, who was able to get hundreds, if not probably even over a thousand people to the altar.
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And then told another, and had everybody weeping and everybody emotionally stirred because of this story, and then immediately snuck in there, getting you to pray this prayer after him.
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And I left that meeting that night, being one of those that were brought down to the front, I left that meeting that night thinking that I had had a salvation experience, only to learn a year or more later, just slightly a year later, when I was actually sitting under the preaching of God's Word, really the preaching of God's Word, that during the middle of that message of the preaching of God's Word, something wonderful happened.
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I don't even, I tell this story and my congregation laughs and the people I share this with laugh, because I tell them the reason that I was even in church that morning was I wanted to get a free lunch for my grandmother that afternoon.
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And somewhere in the middle of the exposition of God's Word, the conviction of God's Spirit hit me.
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And immediately I was confronted with the righteousness of God, and simultaneously, not even separate from that, but simultaneous to that, my shortfall in living up to or attaining that righteousness.
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And at that moment, the only thing that I could do was what I had heard as a boy to do, call on the name of Jesus Christ.
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What was the difference a year earlier and a year later? The emotional experience, which was motivated by that which had its origin in something other than God, in stories and the likes.
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The latter, which was the real thing, resulted in the faithful preaching of God's Word that convicted my heart and brought me to true, saving faith in Jesus Christ.
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Because only the Scriptures, only the Scriptures possesses the power to bring one to salvation.
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Genuine and effective evangelism is the result of faithfully and accurately preaching the Word of God.
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Just a few weeks ago I was on the way to church on Wednesday evening, and there's a bus stop right out in front of the Walmart on a major thoroughfare in Daytona.
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And it's always filled with people, not just people waiting for the bus, but homeless people seem to congregate there with their signs asking for contributions and things like that.
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I noticed an African-American young man standing there with a bullhorn.
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And I go, oh, I know what he's doing.
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And so I roll my window down as I'm sitting at the stoplight and I'm listening.
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And I'm telling you, brothers and sisters, I'm telling you, this man was preaching God's Word.
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He wasn't telling stories.
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He wasn't trying to emotionally persuade anybody.
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He was just right on the mark preaching the Word.
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I wish I had not been in traffic.
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I would have jumped out and stood on my hood and said, preach! Which is exactly what he was doing.
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Effective, genuine evangelism can only take place when the Word of God is faithfully and accurately preached.
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On this matter, again, Dr.
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MacArthur comments, quote, the source of truth regarding eternal life is Scripture and only Scripture, end of quote.
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The truth of Scripture invariably brings a genuine Spirit-prompted person to salvation.
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Those who question the effectiveness of expository preaching, and I get that all the time, is that the only way you preach? Those who question the effectiveness of expository preaching in regards to evangelism miss the point altogether.
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Paul says in Acts chapter 20, he did not shrink, listen to what he says, I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
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Again in Colossians 1.25, Paul speaks of making the Word of God fully known.
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In verse 28, he continues of Colossians 1, teaching everyone with all wisdom, not his own wisdom, but the wisdom that comes from God through the preaching of His Word, teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature, perfect, complete in Christ.
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You see brothers, when we exposit the Word faithfully and accurately, carefully, handling the sacred trust given to us, we can, in fact I would add, should anticipate people coming to true saving faith in Jesus Christ.
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We should never resort to tactics, to techniques, and compromise the Word of God.
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Tactics and techniques may at times appear to produce results, but immediate results do not always equate with true evangelism resulting in true conversions.
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Such a compromise is, in my estimation, a lack of trust in the sufficiency of Scripture to be the very instrument of the Holy Spirit.
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That this very instrument the Holy Spirit will use to convict a person of their sin and bring them to true saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Look at what Paul says here next, and I've got to move quickly.
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He says, by virtue, he says, I'm sorry, and profitably, he says, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable.
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Notice that word, and profitable, profitability.
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Number two, profitability.
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By virtue of the Lord's, the Word's divine origin, we would expect it to be profitable, amen? That is useful or beneficial.
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Any laborer, any laborer is only as good as the tools he is given to work with.
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You may be the best carpenter in the world, but if I give you a two by four as a hammer and dental floss as a saw, you're in trouble, no matter how good you are.
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A laborer is only as good as the tools he is given to work with.
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To the preacher, the Word of God serves as the indispensable tool of our trade.
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The Greek word interpreted profitable here carries the idea not only of profitability, but also of sufficiency.
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Just as the Scripture is sufficient to bring one to faith in Jesus Christ, which was our first point, it is equally sufficient to meet a person's spiritual needs, regardless of what they may be.
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What would ever lead a person, what would ever lead a person to believe that something other than that which has its origin in God could ever be effectively and eternally profitable? Don't fool ourselves, please.
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As preachers of the Word, we have been provided the most effective tool, the most effective tool to do the work we are commissioned to do, the Word itself.
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He did not say just go preach and then leave it as an open-ended charge.
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We are told to preach the Word, there is the tool.
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He says here is the charge, preach, and then he completes that charge by saying here is the tool, the Word.
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Preach the Word, use the tool I have given you, the tool that has its origin, owes its existence to me and its effectiveness to me.
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And when you do that, you can expect it, you should expect it to be profitable, to be beneficial to those who we preach to.
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Why would we ever consider abandoning it, brothers, why? Why would we ever consider abandoning the preaching of the Word? May it never be so.
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In regards to the matter of profitability, Paul gives Timothy four ways, very quickly, four ways, and I am not going to expound on these because H.P.
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did a fairly decent job of that last night to say the least.
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But he gives four ways the Word is to be used and will be useful.
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Look at what he talks here, he says, teaching, he says all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
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Teaching simply, not to insult your intelligence this morning by any stroke of the imagination, but teaching, that is imparting understanding of God's revelation.
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We have been given that responsibility.
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Paul talks about toiling, I mean, just the labor, and he does it with as agonizing work to him.
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That is, it is worth teaching, imparting understanding of God's revelation to those who we are teaching, those who we are preaching to.
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Then there is reproof, which can be seen as refuting errors in doctrine and conduct, which is the negative aspect of this.
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The reproof is more the negative, refuting errors in doctrine and conduct.
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Then there is correction, which is the positive aspect of it, that is setting one straight again.
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We reprove by pointing out the error, and then we correct by teaching the truth, by telling them what the Word of God says.
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And then fourth, training in righteousness, which is taking the Word and living in a way that is pleasing to God.
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You'll note, following Paul's charge to Timothy to preach the Word in 4.2, he repeats virtually all the four ways that we just read in chapter 3, verse 16, as being the things preaching the Word should accomplish.
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Thirdly, and I'm almost done, so you have number three, authority.
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Authority.
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And here I'd like to apply this attribute of God's Word to what I've just addressed under profitability or sufficiency.
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When we teach, when we reprove, when we correct and train, what is our source of authority? What is our source of authority? Well, I'm the pastor.
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You're in trouble if that's what you deem to be your source of authority.
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Well, whatever.
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But we have no authority apart from the Scripture.
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Get that.
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We have no authority apart from the Scripture.
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What the Word of God has to say, other than what the Word of God has to say, we have no authority.
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Our authority extends only as far as the Word of God we are called to preach takes us.
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That's been very liberating.
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It's been very liberating to come to the realization of that great truth.
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When we preach the Word, most Christians listening to us will admit that we are speaking with authority.
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Oh, they might not always like what they're hearing, but when you preach the Word, they will admit, if they're honest and confess, that they're hearing the Word of God speaking to them, and in doing so, with this inherent authority.
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As Wayne Grudem writes in his Systematic Theology concerning the authority of Scripture, Scripture means that all the words in Scripture are God's words.
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It goes back to His origin.
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As we see here, there is an intricate and inseparable link between origin and authority.
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All Scripture, that is every word of Scripture, owes its existence to God and carries all the authority of God.
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Therefore, it's sufficient to accomplish everything God purposed it to accomplish.
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We need not think that merely giving a discourse on a particular passage or text constitutes preaching with authority, the authority of the Word.
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Proper exegesis and interpretation is essential to truly preaching the Word with all of its authority.
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That's a whole other subject.
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Developing clever applications, clever twists to a passage.
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Let me show you something in this passage no one's ever shown you before.
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Run.
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Run.
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Developing clever applications and twists to a passage or text carries no authority whatsoever.
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If we do not have, by virtue of our labor, that is studying the text, truly studying the text, immersing ourselves, as some have said, in the language of the text itself, in the context of the way it was delivered.
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If we do not have, by virtue of our labor, in studying the text, the true meaning of the text, we do not have that which God intends to communicate.
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We simply are not preaching His Word and cannot expect it to carry any authority.
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As preachers of the Word, we preach the Word because we are convicted and convinced that the words of Scripture are indeed God's words.
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Brothers, why? And I've said this earlier, and I'm bringing this to a close.
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I have a captain of a major airline in our congregation, and oftentimes I say something like, Brothers, I'm trying to find a place to land without crashing, and he always perks up and looks at me like this.
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I've said this to you before.
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Brothers, why would we ever abandon, sadly, as some have, the faithful exposition of His Word, and consequently lose the authority of the Word that alone possesses the power to truly convict men of their sin and bring them to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and ultimately, as H.P.
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said last night, to bring them to maturity in Christ, which is the process of sanctification.
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It not only has the power to save, but it has the power to sanctify, to continue our salvation through the end to our glorification.
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It's not just preaching the Word to get you saved.
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It's continuing to preach the Word that God might use it in the process of sanctifying us.
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That is, to bringing us to maturity in Christ.
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In a little book called The Guide to Expository Ministry, Dr.
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Dumas, or Dan Dumas, I'm sorry, writes in his introduction, he says, When God speaks, creation obeys.
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When He spoke the universe into existence, it happened.
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When He speaks into the cold, dead hearts of sinners, listen, a new creation appears.
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When preachers exposit the Word of God and announce that Jesus is the Christ, the church is built.
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Whenever God's Word is proclaimed, something comes into existence that wasn't there before.
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What a great encouragement to preach the Word.
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This is the authority of the Word of God.
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We're not called to improve on it, we are called to preach it.
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Called to preach it, to proclaim from our pulpits what God has already delivered in the Scriptures.
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When the preacher, the expositor presents a biblical text so that its original meaning is expressed, then there is authority.
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There is effective results in the lives of the hearers and we should anticipate and expect that very thing.
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Amen.
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Let's bow our heads.
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Father, again, what a sobering charge we consider to preach the Word.
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When we come to an understanding of the nature of that which we have been charged to preach, that Your Word and Your Word alone owes its origin to You.
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Its sufficiency is found in You.
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Its authority is found in You.
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The change that it brings in our lives has everything to do with You.
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May we continue, Lord, to be ever faithful in obeying the charge to preach the Word unashamedly, without compromise, fully anticipating, with great expectation that that Word will not return to You empty, but will indeed accomplish all that You purpose and intended to accomplish for Your glory.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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Thank you.