James White - Pandering to Pluralism

Well, for those of you that are just joining us this morning, afresh and anew, I just want to introduce the director of Alpha Omega Ministries and the founder, and a gentleman who of course has made a tremendous impact upon my life, and we are praying that the

Lord will be with him tonight as well. Would you please welcome Dr. James White. Alright, you just sang,

Come Thou Fount. How many of you know what Ebenezer means? One, two, stone of help,

I heard someone cry it out there. That's why when I sing it, and at first it embarrassed my kids when I did this, but now they do it too.

Of course my kids only know songs out of the Trinity Hymnal anyways, but I sing it

Ebenezer, which would be a little bit closer to the Hebrew from which it comes, stone of help or remembrance.

So next time you sing that, now you'll be able to amaze your friends and fellow church members with your great in -depth knowledge of what in the world that hymn was talking about in the first place.

And by the way, it's fetter, like a fetter. We want to be bound together by something more than a feather.

Before I begin, I want to thank a number of people that this book is here, you have no idea how miraculous this book is in the sense that just a few weeks ago

I was in the Philadelphia airport, which in and of itself is a bit of a trial and tribulation, and especially when you're delayed there for four hours, and I was with this very same little unit doing my best to edit and to proofread this particular book.

That's how close we were. I had only finished writing the last few words about two weeks ago, and some folks in this very room were helping me to proofread and to edit this material.

They're some of the geeks with the computers, and we were passing out chapters and sending chapters back, and my goodness, what a project it was.

So especially to Mike Gaydosh, I sent this in to him at like, I don't know, midnight, and the next morning, like at 8 o 'clock in the morning,

I had the whole thing back to me in a typeset format and everything else.

So it's pretty amazing that it's here, and I hope those of you who have picked it up maybe started looking at it.

It'll be a blessing to you, especially if you're a pastor. We have some pastors in our chat channel, and as I would be writing this,

I would post paragraphs, multiple paragraphs in the channel. For those of you who are channel rats, that is not an excuse not to buy the book, however.

And some of them are pastors, and some of them are former pastors that are currently not in the past or in it at the moment, but they really expressed, one in particular expressed his encouragement by some of the things that were being said.

Sometimes pastors who've gone through some difficulties, some hard times, hopefully will find the book to be an encouragement in the midst of those difficulties and hard times.

So I pray that the Lord will bless that. Also, one other thing before I begin my specific presentation, this evening, the tables will be gone, we'll just have chairs set out, and there will be a different characteristic to the makeup of the crowd, shall we say.

And I'm hoping that you're praying for this evening, but I also hope that you realize that this evening is going to be maybe very different than what you're expecting.

If you're expecting an in -depth discussion of Leviticus 18 and 20,

Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 9, 10 and 11, 1 Timothy 1, verse 10, and a few other texts like that, and it's mainly gonna be focused upon Greek and Hebrew and things like that, though I do intend to raise some of those issues,

I think you need to realize that if, how many of you have ever read any of Bishop Spong's books?

Okay, that means, how many of you have never read any of Bishop Spong's books? That's a whole idea, oh, there you go, that also helps to wake you all up, raising all those arms.

And the fact that you hear the name Bishop makes you assume certain things.

You need to realize, in fact I was gonna use this since we're talking about treason behind the pulpit,

I'll go ahead and read this now just so that you have an idea of what we're talking about this evening.

I wanna quote from Bishop Spong, we are living in a time when a new consciousness is arising in which there is a growing recognition that for homosexual people their only sin seems to be that they were born with a sexual orientation different than that of the majority, yet we now know that orientation to be perfectly normal.

It is like other minority positions within the human family, left -handedness or red hair. Minority positions, when not understood, tend to frighten people and in their fear people strike out to protect themselves by rejecting and sometimes killing the different ones.

That is understandable, we know why it happens, but it is evil nonetheless and when it is validated with appeals to God and quote,

God's word, end quote, God's word is almost always put in quotes. It's evil reaches demonic levels, that is where this debate now lies inside the religious institutions of the

Western world, the entrenched fear is that if something the Bible calls an abomination becomes acceptable, then that which makes religious people different will disappear and the defining quote, word of God quote, in the

Bible will collapse, leaving believers unsure about who they are. The battle rages and ultimately the

Bible quoters will lose. When they do, their religion will either change or it will die.

Now Bishop Spong identifies himself as believing in a non -theistic

God, parse that one for just a moment. That means a non -God

God. He does not believe in a personal God. The Trinity is defined as life is good, life is loved, be all you can be.

Now the guys down the road like the be all you can be part that you may have noticed them running around in the uniform, some of you are not old enough to remember be all you can be for the army?

My goodness, I'm really dating myself, in fact I was, I joined with Pastor King in being extremely offended by Michael O 'Fallon's introduction to Bert.

I mean if that brings the average down to 20 some odd, that would make Brother Parsons about four and because I'm not, okay never mind,

I'm not gonna go there. Anyway, when you define the

Trinity in that way and God is not personal, if you don't believe in a personal God and you don't believe that God exists as a personal being, you are called an atheist, okay?

Or at least a non -theistic spiritual type person or something. So there's obviously a huge worldview difference coming into this debate.

There is no grounds for believing that the Bible is the word of God because there can be no God who can have a word.

So really I have mentioned to many people, I really believe that tonight's debate will be much more focused upon the clash of worldviews than it can possibly be upon specifics of the text because the specifics of the text cannot be authoritative within his worldview.

And so just so you're aware of that coming in and aware of the fact that there's gonna be a very wide range of issues that we will be needing to address.

But since I have encountered many people who have written to me since this debate was announced who have said they were literally forced by their college professors and others to read the materials by Bishop Spong, then hopefully it will be useful to all of you in the long run.

If you'll turn in your Bibles or given the fact that a number of you like me are technologically advanced, click, tap, scroll to Acts chapter 20.

We're not gonna spend a lot of time there, we're gonna end up spending most of our time in 2 Timothy chapter 4 but I wanted to tie these texts together as we consider this morning high treason, the theme pulpit crimes.

There are sadly many in our land today and I'm not sure how many of you have noticed

I just happened last evening while dining on the fine fare of Taco Bell after the service last evening to click on the television and then

I also looked at my news this morning online. And you may know that the head of the

National Association of Evangelicals has resigned over a gay sex scandal. I'm sure we'll hear about that this evening.

And so there's plenty of examples of pulpit crimes that are being produced almost every day.

All you have to do is turn on that one Christian television network, I never mention the specific channel in Phoenix between 20 and 22 but you almost at any point in time, in fact

I mentioned in the book, I was looking for another pulpit crime so I turned on that particular channel and within approximately 45 seconds

I had my next pulpit crime provided to me which wasn't difficult to do because that really large

African -American fellow with the very fine suits was preaching and he is a veritable pulpit crime factory, just amazing.

Thank you, Chris. So anyway, we're going to be, in dealing with the issue of pulpit crimes, my topic this morning is high treason.

You may have heard a few weeks ago that there was charges filed by the federal government against a man who has joined

Al -Qaeda and he is producing English language propaganda for Al -Qaeda against the United States and did you notice that in those stories it was mentioned that he was the first man to be charged with treason in something like 40 years?

And a lot of people didn't understand the concept of treason and that says something about our country today, to be perfectly honest with you.

The generation before my generation understood the concept of treason. I don't know that we do any longer really have the idea of the necessity of being faithful to one's country and receiving punishment if you betray that country, especially when you're within its borders and still claiming citizenship.

But you see, it's that claim to citizenship and citizenship anymore doesn't mean anything to anybody, does it?

I mean, if you're just born with it, it's no majorly big deal and anymore you just give it to anybody who comes along and it doesn't really matter and so citizenship, we still do actually make people actually study things to gain citizenship.

I think we should do that with the people who are born here too, it would be a really good idea, but anyway. If you come someplace else, you've got to study things like the

Constitution and learn something about our laws and how they work and things like that.

But it's also considered to be a morally binding thing to pledge allegiance, for example.

And a pledge, taking a position and saying, I am committed to this, that's a concept that's really lost a lot of its meaning within our society.

Today it's sort of like, well, I pledged, but who really cares? It doesn't really matter. It was sort of illustrated in what happened with Brother Askew and myself, not that we were calling each other the wrong names last night, but we had a written agreement about a debate and it offended me, quite honestly, that someone would sign something and then a few days later say, eh, well, you know,

I've changed my mind. But that's how our society is anymore and sadly, it's the society that informs the church.

Being called and given the privilege of handling the Word of God as a minister of the people of God is a very high calling.

We've gotten the idea that it's a calling that we create for ourselves. There is this idea for many people that, well,

I feel called to the ministry. And I grew up within an evangelical context where that calling was unquestionable.

Now, you couldn't ask, well, why do you feel that you're called to the ministry? You couldn't ask, and any personal feeling, it could be, well,

I was just sitting there listening to the pastor and I just got all warm inside. And you can't question that within certain circles.

That's all you need to have. And it was a real shock for me when

I first started to attend the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. There were a lot of things about going from a large, moving -towards -seeker -friendly type church into the

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. There were a lot of shocks that I experienced during that period of time. And one of them was a discussion with the pastor because he was talking about one particular ministerial academy.

And you basically had to preach. You had to provide evidence.

You had to demonstrate that you could teach and speak and that your character was of such a level that you fulfilled the requirements found there in 1

Timothy and Titus regarding the eldership. And if you couldn't preach or teach your way out of a paper bag, they basically said, son, thank you very much for coming, but you're not called to preach.

And I just found that shocking. I was, oh, that's, oh, wow, that's weird. And then I went to the scriptures and, yeah, that's what they said.

It's a high calling. God gifts men to be able to minister the word of God to others.

It's not just something that you just decide one day, you know what, you know, I'm not doing real good at this secular job thing.

I think I'll become a minister. That way I only have to work one day a week. That was a minister that just said, yeah, just wanted you to know that.

It's a high calling. And since it is a high calling, that means treason against that calling is a tremendous pulpit crime because it not only affects the individual who commits it, but it's a treason against God, it's a treason against the church, it's a treason against the people of God themselves, and it can have tremendous consequences.

We've been looking at Acts chapter 20. I wanted you to notice something before we go over to 2 Timothy because they're very closely related.

After what we heard from Pastor King last night, after that section, and I believe that he went down through verse 28 or so, beginning of verse 28, it says,

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And from among your own selves, men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Here talking to the Ephesian elders, men that he himself had undoubtedly preached to, had been involved in their conversion, he had been involved in their calling, their being set aside.

He knows he's never going to see them again as he will tell them and they will respond with tears and he has deep desire that this church in Ephesus would be a strong church.

He knows it's centrally located. If there's a strong, healthy church there, then the word of God is going to spread all up the

Lycus River Valley and into Asia Minor and it's very important in his plans for the evangelization of the whole world that the church at Ephesus be a strong church.

And we see in the book of Revelation that it was, even though the tendency that we have seen even in our own day had taken place amongst them.

They were still quite orthodox, but they were losing their first love as the book of Revelation reveals to us.

And so he calls the elders and he warns them that difficult times will come.

And the reason why we see treason on the part of those who stand before the people of God, very few people, very few, some do

I realize, but very few and really the saddest examples, people don't go into the ministry with a desire to become heretics.

Most people don't go into the ministry with a desire to be a traitor to their call.

I see a lot of young men as they're being trained for the ministry and they have good motivations by and large, but it is the constant grind, it is the constant pressure that is a part of being an elder in the church of God that so often, if there is not a solid foundation, erodes away what foundation there is, the result being then that collapse and that treason, that traitorous attitude that develops.

And Paul warned the elders, he said, there's going to be difficult times and there are a few things more difficult than what he says is going to happen.

He says, I know savage wolves are going to come in amongst you. They're going to arise from your own ranks and there are a few things more painful to the man of God than to see someone that you once fellowshiped with now standing as not only your enemy, but the enemy of everything that is good and righteous and they're drawing disciples after themselves.

We see the same picture in 1 John, John has to struggle with that infant church because those who have gone out from us, they used to be part of us, they used to be

Christian leaders and we know today how difficult this is. We know today how difficult it is to give a meaningful apologetic and a defense to faith when you can find anybody who calls themselves a

Christian who will say anything. There's no position, there is no heresy too wild that you will not find someone today who will call themselves a

Christian and who will promote that heresy. We all know that. And we all know how frustrating it is to be involved in trying to proclaim

God's truth in our society and we're talking with someone at the water cooler and they say, well yeah you say that, but Dr.

So -and -so says this, Bishop So -and -so says this, I just read his book.

And how frustrating that can be to us to have to deal with the multitude of voices that are out there.

Paul says they will arise from amongst yourselves, they will not spare the flock. Now notice please what

Paul's solution to that problem was. He doesn't say after this warning, this is going to happen, you need to be on the alert, verse 31, you can never take a vacation from defending the faith, you can never take a vacation from being on the alert and aware of the fact that there's danger lurking for the church.

You can never become lulled into complacency and at that point, what does he say to the

Ephesian elders? What does he commit them? Does he say make sure to follow after the successors of Peter?

Does he say there's going to be continuing revelation in the Book of Mormon, just wait for that to come along as if that would really help these guys out very much.

He says, and now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance amongst all those who are sanctified.

That's what he commits them to, is to God and the word of His grace. And while we might want some sort of mechanism whereby we can just automatically get rid of all heretics and everybody's going to be exactly on the same page, that is not

God's will for the church. The church will face struggles and difficulties and every generation is going to struggle with these things and that includes those who stand behind the pulpit and lead

God's people. They will have to be in the forefront of the battle. And that is the parallel that I want to draw to 1

Timothy. I actually want to begin in 2 Timothy chapter 3, so why don't you move there with me, however it is you go about getting there.

1 Timothy chapter 3, he's talking about difficulties that will come.

He said, you've seen Timothy and of course, one of the reasons I love 2 Timothy is it is an epistle written to a beloved fellow worker in the faith.

It is written at the end of Paul's life, he knows he does not have much time left and when you write in that context, what you write reflects your highest priorities and your deepest concerns.

If you knew you only had a short time to live, what you would write to the people most dear to you would not be fluffy things about the weather today.

You would share what is most definitional of your worldview and your concerns in your heart and that's what

Paul does in writing to Timothy. He has already exhorted Timothy, Timothy seemed to have a little bit of a timid streak.

He seemed to have a little bit of a retiring nature and so he's had to exhort him to be strong, to rely upon the

Holy Spirit, to be bold in his proclamation, don't be coward by the face of men,

Timothy. And he's reminded him, just think of the persecutions, the sufferings such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions

I endured and out of them all the Lord rescued me and now Timothy, now that you're going to be in the forefront, if I've experienced these things, well,

Timothy, verse 12 says, chapter 3, indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. He's giving

Timothy a real rosy picture of the future, isn't he? Don't worry Timothy, everything's gonna be easy for you.

The church is gonna have an infallible leader and we're gonna get to, you know, define everything easily and all's gonna be simple for you,

Timothy, no, he says, evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

But you, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

And of course, we have that classic text, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching.

Of course, I like the phrase, breathed out by God or God breathed, better than inspired. It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and training in righteousness.

The man of God may be perfect, adequate, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Now to our primary text,

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate, they will collect for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

High treason, to stand before the people of God, to claim to be an ambassador for Christ and what does an ambassador do?

What is the charge of an ambassador but to proclaim only those words that he has been authorized to proclaim?

An ambassador does not have the right to change the message on the fly. In fact, the very authority that is his is only commensurate with the accuracy of the message that he delivers.

He has no authority in and of himself, he is not the one who sent him, he is not the king, he represents the king, but his authority comes from the accuracy of that representation.

And when the king has told him, go deliver this message, it may not be a popular message.

And the ambassador may realize that when he goes to deliver that message that there is going to be frowns and in fact his life may be in danger if he delivers that message accurately.

But his authority is bound up in delivering the message that has been entrusted to him.

And that is what the minister must understand. We live in a day where there is a tremendous fear of the face of men.

What does that mean, fear of the face of men? Does that mean people are trembling in fear that someone might frown at them?

Well, it's not really enjoyable when people do that, but that's not really what I mean. There is a desire for acceptance.

There is a desire to see people smile and to have people shake your hand and pat you on the back and say, that was great,

I appreciated that. And we want that from as many people as possible.

And so today in our land there are entire schools of teaching that will tell you exactly how you can build the largest church and experience the greatest success in ministry.

There are fads that come along and once you get, as Michael Fallon has pointed out, as old as I am, you start seeing a catalog of these things.

You start seeing enough of these fads going by. When you're young, you don't have enough history to really start getting a grasp on this.

But when you start getting into your middle age, you start going, you know, here comes a new thing.

And the big thing just a few years ago was this, and then I remember the real big thing back in the, I remember big things back in the 1970s.

And they're not the big things anymore. Fad after fad after fad, and we were assured that all those previous things were blessed by God and they were based on God's word, you see.

But they don't last very long. You try to get everybody excited about them and they first come along, everybody's excited and then they just sort of, and you're looking for something new.

Any of you ever been through something like that in your churches? Oh, I'm not talking about anything you don't know about, huh?

These fads come along and you grab hold of them and they'll tell you that there's certain ways that you should proclaim the word, there's certain words you should avoid and certain other words that you should use.

We need to affirm everyone, isn't that a beautiful word? I affirm you, brother.

And we need to make sure to be very inclusive. Isn't inclusive a beautiful word?

It's so much more beautiful than exclusive. I mean, we don't want to be exclusive, except we want to have the exclusive good show and bring people in for that, but so we want to be inclusive and very accepting and open and all these warm buzzwords that are flying around today, which generally don't have a whole lot of meaning, they just mean whatever we do is right because we think it's right.

The ambassador does not have the right to receive a message from the king and then go, okay, now

I know the king's a little on the old fashioned side. And I know that the folks that I'm supposed to deliver this to,

I know what they want to hear. And so I'll keep the substance, I'll talk about the king,

I'll say some nice things about the king, but you know, this message is just too harsh.

And so I want to try to soften it a little bit. Now I know almost everybody in this room, we're pretty much all on the same page.

And you're sitting there going, yeah, yeah, can't do that, no, can't allow that to happen. The worst examples of this

I've seen always come from people who started off on the right road, with the right motivations.

And if you've never been there, you need to understand the pressures, the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly pressures that come against people.

And especially in our context, we're talking about making sure that we preach the entirety of the word of God.

And when you do that, you're going to offend a lot of folks, because there's a lot of folks who want to play religion, but they don't want you to be reminding them of their sin.

And when you proclaim everything the word of God says, you eventually can get around to their pet sins.

And especially if we haven't guarded the flock, and we've been inviting folks in with really bad, fake sheep suits on, but with big fangs and drooling looking at everybody else, eventually their true nature is going to come out.

The sad thing is, if we haven't been protecting the flock, now all of a sudden they're in positions of leadership, and now we've got a real problem.

Because now we get to the word of God, and it brings conviction, and all of a sudden there's just, well, there's some real problems, there's some real difficulties.

The pressure is there, and faithful men who are trying to stay consistent with the word of God, cannot help but look down the road and see that just a little compromise might double or triple the size of my church.

Do I really have to emphasize that? And you know what, once you start thinking along those lines, you can find scholars galore to back up your backing up from the truth.

I see this all the time, and it's so sad. When someone will come up to me at a gathering like this, someone will email me, and they'll say, you know, this particular doctrine, this particular teaching, is it really all that important?

I mean, are we really certain about this? And sometimes it'll just be little things.

And I've seen real little things develop into, is it really all that important to believe in the resurrection, or the deity of Christ?

You say, oh, no one would ever go that far, oh, believe me. It can start with such little things, such minor things.

But once you start down that road, the first time it's hard, the second time it's a little bit easier, and the third time it's a whole lot easier.

And where do you stop? Where is the comfortable stopping place?

I read quotes like what I read earlier, and people go, that's not even,

I can't even see how it's related to Christianity. That's true. But there are people who believe that, and there are people who believe that today who once believed what we believe.

If that doesn't bother you, you're not awake yet. We need more coffee, or is that a

Red Bull? That'll really get people going. You're not listening to me if it doesn't bother you when you see apostasy.

Apostasy is real, by the way, Calvinists happen to believe in it. That doesn't mean Christ failed. But there's all sorts of stuff in the scripture about people who were once amongst us.

That text in 1 John has come to mean more and more to me over the years. They went out from us so that it might be shown that they were not truly of us, for if they were truly of us, they would have remained with us.

You really take that text apart, and you see that John did believe that Christ does not lose any of his own, but he also recognized and had experienced the reality of the fact that we can't see into the hearts of other men.

We can't see into the hearts of other women. And apostasy is a serious thing, and it damages the church.

It damages the people of God. It damages their confidence. Apostasy is the experience of every generation of the church.

Every generation experiences those who collapse, shall we say, and give in to apostasy.

High treason, what does that mean? Well, it means someone who knew what they should have said, but for all sorts of different reasons, all sorts of different reasons, they've given in.

Look at 1 Timothy 4 .1 again. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus.

I want to say something to the elders who are here this day. I'm not going to ask you to put your hands up. It was for me,

I think, certainly a night I remember when I was ordained to the gospel ministry, and certainly

I remember when I became an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. It was a tremendous thing to ponder those requirements for the eldership and to feel so utterly unworthy.

And it was a tremendous thing to stand before the people of God and to have them recognize me as an under -shepherd, as one that they see in me the gifts of God and that they are saying, we will listen to what you have to say, we will function as Christ has told us to function as the people of God with you as one of our elders.

And I remember what that feeling was, and I'm sure you do too. But really, the audience before which we should tremble the most is to recognize that the charge we have is a charge given to us in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus.

When a person stands before the people of God handling the word of God, their first concern should be that everything they say, everything they do is being observed very closely.

It's not like the situation where the ambassador can go far away from the king, and so if he edits the message, the king may or may not know about it.

Our king is omnipresent. And we herald that message in his presence.

So what high -handed treason can it be when knowing what the message is and knowing that we are in his presence?

We think ourselves so wise and so insightful that we know better how to proclaim it and we know better how to phrase it than he himself.

Or what a coward are we if in his presence we fear his creatures more than we fear him?

I say to you that the vast majority of pulpit crimes prove to us that both those behind the pulpit and those in the pews do not believe that we are truly in the presence of God.

He's a faraway master. And while in our theology we will acknowledge that God has knowledge of all things, if we really felt, if we were really convinced of his nearness, of his presence with his people, that which we pray for, don't we always pray for that in almost every service?

I know, I lead the pastoral prayers at our church normally. And I pray,

Lord, we can do nothing outside of your spirit. Be pleased to meet with your people or what we do is emptiness.

It's empty words. Lift up our hearts. As the psalmist said, open our eyes, protect us from the dullness that so easily takes over our minds.

This is what we pray. Do we not believe that he will hear? Look at what's going on in the evangelical church today and ask yourself the question, do these folks really think that the

God of Isaiah 6 is in their presence? Or is the

God that they are worshiping so humanized, so familiarized, so much made our buddy that there is no concern for holiness.

There's no concern for the fear of God. There's much about this,

I solemnly charge you. I solemnly, what does it mean to do anything solemnly anymore? I mean, for most folks in our generation, what does solemnly mean?

Sad. So we're supposed to go to church like this.

That's what solemn is. Solemn is what you are at a funeral. So that must be what church is supposed to be like.

We have no concept to do something in a solemn manner. We take life so flippantly in our culture and that has come into the church.

That mindset has come into the church. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus.

That is the charge we received and when we gather before God, where is the sense of holiness?

The solemnity of what we do? Preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.

May I suggest to you that one of the greatest factors that leads to treason, treason, unfaithfulness to the message that's been given to us is it's not fun to reprove someone.

It's not fun to reprove someone. And especially the fact is that when you reprove someone else, you've heard the old saying, but there's truth to it, when you point one finger, there's three pointing back at you.

And if there's all sorts of sin and apathy in the elder's life, it's not a whole lot of fun to reprove others.

In fact, it's something you try to avoid. A whole lot easier to preach on something else today anyways.

And when you're in a church long enough to find out who's in it, which is one of the major problems we have in a lot of churches today, how long was that pastor here?

I'm not sure. Didn't get to know him. He never even started getting his mail at his house before he was gone.

You know? It's pretty scary when the pastor's office starts using one of those electronic things to put his name in it so you can just type in a new one real fast or it just scrolls by.

Pastor or whoever. It's a real problem because once you're in a church long enough to get to know who people are, then you start finding out that if you're going to be faithful to the word of God, there's some things you need to reprove in someone's life.

Reprove, rebuke. Those are not warm, fuzzy words. The fact of the matter is it's a whole lot easier.

Even though you know that the king has said, do this, it's a whole lot easier to go,

I want to make everyone like me. I want everyone to leave feeling so affirmed, warm.

That works in our society, folks. I'm going to name names, hope you don't mind. Joel Osteen is great at this.

I see his books everywhere. They're on all the shelves in the airports right now. He's smiling at folks.

I watched the very first service in that massive, what was it?

Was that Target Center? What was it? They played basketball in there, so there was lots and lots and lots of people. I watched that first.

That big old globe turning back there. I'm not really sure what that is all about, but anyway. I was listening for certain words like sin and repentance.

I didn't hear them. I heard all about God's wonderful plan for your life. I heard all about how

God wants you to be prosperous and successful and everything else, but I didn't hear anything about the fact that to be prosperous and successful might actually mean that you go through all sorts of trials and tribulations because God defines prosperity and success differently than the world does.

Didn't catch that part. You'll make millions doing that. You'll end up on the

Today Show and Larry King and everything else if you do that, but that's not reproving and that's not rebuking, and that's not really exhorting either, and God has not called anyone to deliver one quarter of the gospel.

That's not preaching. We would never accept that, for example, within the context of our families.

I've used the illustration before. You say to your teenagers, clean up the backyard, vacuum the floor, and then we'll go out to dinner.

What does a teenager hear? Go out to dinner. Isn't that what teenagers hear?

It's a very selective filtering system. It doesn't seem to go away, actually, until they have their own kids, and then all of a sudden, mom and dad are really smart.

I remember when my parents became extremely intelligent. It was right after my son was born.

Up until then, they just hadn't been all that wise at all, but then all of a sudden, boom. We would not accept.

If I told my oldest son to say to his younger sister to do these four things, and he only delivers the message of one,

I would not say to him, you did well. Well done, thou good and faithful teenager. Well, actually, he's almost 21 now.

He's not a teenager anymore. I wouldn't expect anyone to see that that was obedience.

It wasn't obedience. It was disobedience. Oh, I told him one thing, but I said four things, and yet somehow we think

God is pleased. When we say

Jesus a few times and sort of put a little religious veneer on our pop psychology and call it preaching, it's not.

God's dishonored by it. What's more is you're not showing one wit of love for the people to whom you're speaking either.

I know the world says, oh, we need to be loving, and I'm going to hear that tonight, let me tell you.

What does it mean to be loving? Again, using the illustration of our children, what does it mean to be loving?

Is it loving to allow them to just do whatever they want to do? Is it loving, you know, when they go out and they start driving?

How many of you in this room have lost approximately 10 years of your lifespan teaching any of your children to drive?

Yeah. Was there ever a more helpless feeling of panic in your life than to sit in that right side seat with a kid that's 15 years and 7 months old behind the wheel of an automobile?

I honestly, I'm actually 31, and it will be one of those things that I remember till my dying day.

It was horrible. And my kids this day will tell you, you know, coming up to every corner, there goes

Dad's hand up to the thing, and his foot's going down the floorboard. Part of that is because, and it was partially my own fault, within 30 seconds of getting into the car for the first time with my son, he ran into a

Dodge pickup. So from that point onward,

I experienced extra angst in that particular experience. It was, without a doubt, it was a terrible thing.

And I had to keep, my kids did not enjoy the fact that I kept pointing out dangers to them on the road.

They didn't like that. Okay, Dad, okay. Realize, son, you know, we're in the right lane, and people love to pull out in front of you, and they don't see you, and you have to drive defensively.

And trying to explain what driving defensively is to a teenager is not the most easy thing in the world to do. And they wouldn't like that I would have to keep repeating things.

Of course, if they had stopped doing those things over and over again, I wouldn't have to be repeating things over and over again. Okay, I've got issues, sorry.

Had to work that in there, Phoebe, sorry. But you know what?

I had to tell them those things. If I love them, and myself, and wanted to survive, but if I love them,

I'm going to tell them those things. And in fact, the day they get their license, I'm not going to stop telling them those things.

Even if they don't like it. And fortunately, even though we all recognize that, and we laugh, and I spent some time on that so you could get in with me.

Yeah, yeah, we're all on the same page. Why don't we realize that about the preaching of the Word of God? Why do we ignore this?

Why don't we recognize that this illustrates for us not only the fact that we should support those who stand before us, we should encourage them, we should encourage them to convict us.

We should encourage them to preach the whole counsel of God, even when that means we ourselves will be reminded, and we will be made discomforted by the ministry of the

Word. Let me tell you something, if you're in a church where you never experienced conviction in the ministry of the

Word, I'm not sure you're in a church. I'm not sure you're in a church.

That's one of the reasons why. I'm not saying that everybody has to preach in the same way, but I'm one of those folks that does believe in doing verse -by -verse exposition, because I've seen too many folks who get into the topical stuff, and they just happen to always miss some of the most important topics that their people need to hear.

Because those of you who are in the ministry know, there's Mrs. Figglemeyer in the back, and if you ever touch on certain topics, you're going to have her little bony finger shaking in your face as she's going out the door.

But Mrs. Figglemeyer also happens to be well -heeled, and boy, that building project wouldn't do too well if Mrs.

Figglemeyer went down the road. And don't think that doesn't cross people's minds, because it does.

Now, you might say, well, high treason, that's a tough word to use, tough charge to make.

What other term could we use, given the majesty of the person whose message we say we're proclaiming?

There's all sorts of motivations that lead to it. Sometimes it's a slow process.

Sometimes, because it's a process that's been taking place in a denomination for a long period of time, it's so gross and so obvious.

The fact of the matter is, time will come, and this is a time we live in, when men will not endure sound doctrine.

Endure sound doctrine. Think about that for a moment. Why is that something that needs to be endured?

Why would Paul use that language of someone? You see, if you're not right with God, sound doctrine is something you have to endure, because it brings conviction.

You don't like it. You want something else. They don't want to endure sound doctrine, so they want to have their ears tickled.

They want to hear something that's really nice. They want to be made to feel good about themselves, even though they know there is sin in their lives.

I want to feel warm. I want to feel loved and accepted. Well, any acceptance that leaves you on the path to hell is not acceptance at all.

It's a band -aid on a cut on your jugular, and that's eventually going to lead to some major problems.

They want to have their ears tickled, and they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.

They will hoard them up. They will collect them, like trading cards. It's a term used of people who would hoard things to themselves, and they would gather their riches or their little collections of things to themselves.

That's a description of people who call themselves Christians. They will collect false teachers, and they'll collect them on the basis of their own desires, not the

Word of God, not faithful preaching, but what I want to hear. How did

Paul know what it was going to be like in our day? How did Paul know what television and radio would provide in giving a platform to people to simply become popular on the basis of teaching in accordance with what people desire?

They'll turn away their ears from the truth. We have a good group here this morning.

Let me tell you something. There are false teachers today that could pack out this entire park if they wanted to.

People don't want to hear the truth. It takes the Spirit of God to change your heart to where you want to hear the truth.

People will turn their ears from the truth, even religious people, and they will turn aside to myths as long as they don't bring conviction of sin.

Well, in closing, but you, but you. Remember when

Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders? These people are coming, but I commend you to God and the

Word of His grace. He says to Timothy, men are going to be deceiving, being deceived, but you remain steadfast.

And now, Timothy, there are going to be those false teachers who will prostitute themselves.

They will commit high treason. They will pretend they're representing the king, but instead, they're actually listening to what you want to hear.

They sort of stand in the back. What do people want to hear? And then they craft their message so as to create their own popularity.

But you, Timothy, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Oh, my goodness. We could go down the hall right now, and I bet you anything, our army recruiters will tell us that probably would not be the best means of recruiting people to your position.

Be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Booyah! Yeah. Who's going to do that?

Should we be in danger that the ministry will disappear? No. Be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Who's going to find joy in that? The person who, because of the presence of the

Spirit in his life, believes that the proclamation of God's Word as the prophet said was like a fire in his bones.

People will come up to me after a debate, for example. Young men, I want to do what you do.

How do I get into apologetics? And I just keep a bucket of cold water right behind me.

And I whip that baby out, and I say, if you can do anything else, do it.

People think that's strange. First of all, it's because people don't see the years and years and years where, you know, we struggled long with almost nothing, and they don't see all the preparation that goes into those debates, and they don't see all the difficulties of regular ministry in life and all the rest of that stuff.

They only see that one little bit, and that's just a small portion of it. That's part of it.

But you see, the reason I do that, it's real simple. If I can discourage them from doing it just simply by throwing a little cold water at them, they're obviously not called to do it.

It's not a fire in their bones. A little cold water, it better not put out a fire that's been placed there by the

Spirit of God. So I'll be very honest with them and say, you're only seeing a little part of it, and if there's anything else that you can do and honor

God in your life, I think you ought to think about that first. But when

God places within the heart of an individual His Word and its desire to minister to His people, then

He will give to that person the kind of consistency that you'll look at a passage like that and go, yeah, yes, fulfill that ministry.

Because remember last night when Pastor King was speaking, we read from Acts 20. The Apostle Paul talked about fulfilling his ministry, and where did he get it?

That was granted to me, that was given to me by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a gift.

A high calling, but it's a gift. Those are the ones who will never commit high treason.

Those are the ones who will be faithful. Let me say to all of you, if you're not in the ministry, but you're in a church with a faithful minister,

I hope you're praying for that man. And I hope you put feet to your prayers.

You know what I mean by that? Every time that man is in the pulpit, unless you're about to puke your guts out, you better be there.

Please, people, you minister to your elders when you are consistent in your attendance to their preaching.

You have a ministry before God to those men who have labored to prepare the word of God for you, and when you, for reasons that simply aren't biblical, are not there.

Their ministry is made more difficult. They are distracted. They are not encouraged.

You have a ministry to them. I'm not just saying come up to them after every single sermon and pat them on the back and just try to be

Mr. Jolly Person, but when you're there and you are prepared to hear the word of God and you're attentive to the message, you have no idea the ministry you have to those who minister the word of God to you.

And when you do share a word that demonstrates you were listening and that you want to be obedient and that you are thankful for the ministry of the word of God, you don't know how encouraging that is.

Consistent attendance upon the word of God is not only vital for your growth, but it is a means by which you serve

Jesus Christ by encouraging His servants in their ministry of the word of God.

I know I just put myself in the Paleolithic age. I know I just made myself a throwback to a long forgotten time, but yes,

I'm saying being consistent in the teaching and ministry of the word of God is one of the most important things you can do.

You pray for that man. You encourage that man. You stand behind that man because if you have someone who is preparing the word of God, they are studying and they're ministering to you, you are blessed.

You are blessed. And you have a calling before God to fulfill that ministry.

So pray for them. Minister to them. They will bless you as they minister the word of God to you.

Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this time and we thank you for your word and we thank you for your servants who bring the word of God.

Help us to encourage your servants. Father, help us do so so they may not be tempted to treason, they may not be tempted to compromise your truth.

And Lord, if there be some who have been tempted and maybe have started down that road, would you, in your mercy and grace, restrain them, revive their desire to minister in such a way that they have only one audience before them and that they desire to be faithful to the ministry and to the word that's been entrusted to them.

And indeed, Lord, for those who have been so blessed as to have faithful ministers of the word of God, may we pray for them, encourage them.

May we prepare our hearts as we go into worship so that we might be prepared to hear the word of God.

And may you encourage them and help them to stay steadfast. Bless them, Father.