Qualifications for Gospel Ministry (1)

This transcript has been automatically generated

At the present moment we’re all barking away with a cold, so I’m sorry about that. What William asked me to do in the 2 studies was to look at the pastorals, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, and to see how they point us to the qualities and the qualifications which are used for gospel ministry. And so I will do that. The best of my ability. What I thought I’d do in this first one was to make some general statements about some negative qualities.

That is, if you’re a person who is like this in a negative way, then you need to change if ministry, gospel ministry, is going to be yours. And so I will do that. I’m only too conscious as I work my way through the pastorals, that this first study, it might be one of those where you say, well, are you sure you’re just not riding your hobbyhorses? And the answer is no, I’m not all that sure. But the way you could cheque that out is to keep reading them over and over again and see if I’ve got things out of proportion.

I’m trying not to do that, and I want you to know that I know that you know that I’m trying not to do it. That is what this introduction is about. Alright, the first— there are 4 things, 4 negatives I want to draw to your attention. And the first one is in 2 Timothy 1:8, not ashamed of the gospel and not ashamed of the apostle. Okay, so have a look at 2 Timothy 2:8.

Is that— have I got the right place? 2 Timothy 1, I mean. 2 Timothy 1:8. Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, etc., etc., etc. Okay, so the first thing I want to draw to your attention is the person who is the gospel minister is not ashamed to testify of that gospel.

It’s a strange thing to say in a way, isn’t it? Because you would have thought that they were like oxymorons. You would have thought, how could you be a gospel minister but be ashamed of a gospel ministry or ashamed of the gospel and the apostle who brought that gospel to you? Well, only too readily is that the case, I’m sorry to say. Let me go back to verse 6 and read on through from 6 to 14 and show you the context in which it comes.

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love— excuse me— and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life. Not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to you to that day. For the work which this man has been called to do, he is now exhorted by the Apostle to stir up the gift that was in him and which had to do with the time when the elders, according to 1 Timothy, laid their hands upon him and here the Apostle did. They had recognised the gift which God had given to him, and they recognised this gift as well as prophesying, that is reminding him about the gift, when they laid their hands upon him for this particular task. For this particular task that Paul is calling to him now, he doesn’t need a new gift.

He already has the gift which is necessary for the work. He needs to stir it up, a bit like stirring up with a poker the fire. So that the ash which is getting in the way falls out, oxygen can get in, and the whole thing can get back and start doing what it was meant to do. He is to stir up the gift which God has given him and which they recognised when they set him apart. Both here and in the study I want to do tomorrow, it’s interesting that Paul addresses the man of God, the person of God, the minister, and talks about it is a good thing if you want to be an overseer of God’s people, and then proceeds to tell the people of God how they are to recognise them.

He tells the person who’s to exercise ministry that such a ministry is a valuable thing, and then he proceeds to tell the church how they’ll recognise him. That is, this gospel work and the gifts for this gospel work seem to be not to be arrived at only personally. Not that I say God has called me to this work. But if you can’t get anybody to recognise the gift, you ought to start to wonder if in fact your call, whatever that might mean, was one you understood correctly. And so they recognised it, and it was this gift they spoke about.

And this gift was not one where he ought to be timid, but that he ought by the Spirit to exercise this ministry boldly.

It is incorrect in my judgement to limit the work of the Spirit to that of sanctification as if the Galatians 6 passage exhausted the work of the Spirit. The work of the Spirit is in love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, gentleness, meekness. It is that. But it also, it is the work of the Spirit Spirit to give us boldness in the exercise of authority and also love which undergirds this work. And he says, and also verse 7, see it, of self-discipline.

You can’t ask others to do what is perfectly apparent to all that you have not been able to do it yourself. And if you wish to lead others, you need to be able to be self-disciplined yourself. That’s something to be worked at. Well, he says that by way of introduction. Do not be ashamed to testify, verse 8, of our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering.

And I want to say it does seem a strange thing that the minister of the gospel will be tempted to be ashamed of the gospel. Well, not so at all. Notice 2 things he says. Do not be ashamed to witness to the Lord. Do not be ashamed of the Lord’s Apostle.

We are constantly under temptation, I think, to turn Christ into somebody who he is not. And we will always do that in terms of hoping that we will spread the gospel further. If you look at Christian people, or if you look at people who purport to be Christian, who have abandoned their anchor in the Bible, you will see all the places where we will be tempted to move because they’ve already moved on them. And they will always move in a predictable way, which is they will follow what they see to be public opinion. So they say on the women’s issue.

They are utterly predictable. They say it is impossible in our age to ask people to believe in male headship of family and male headship of family of church. So that gets abandoned, you see, because people can’t believe that anymore. So how will we be able to evangelise them if we actually cut against— across that which cannot be believed? Now against that, will you believe what the Apostle says?

Or will you abandon your Apostle? He says, do not be ashamed to testify of Christ. Alright, now let me put my finger on where I see the other ones. We will immediately be under pressure to say what the Bible says about practising homosexuals to be other than what is true. Because they can’t— that is so unacceptable as a basis, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

How can you expect sophisticated scientific people to believe? So you abandon it, and you abandon it on the basis of evangelism. You see, it’s so more people can believe without finally seeing that the Christ you’re asking them to believe is a figment of your imagination. It doesn’t It doesn’t bear any relationship to Christ at all. Miracles, judgement, heaven, hell, they all slip off the back of the wagon.

So a new Jesus emerges who bears no relationship to the Jesus of the Gospel, and we abandon our Apostle because what he says cuts across what we perceive to be public opinion, what is politically correct. Now, I only say— I only pick out the liberal theologians by way of illustration because they’re so easy to see where they’ve abandoned orthodox Christianity. But you and I’ll be under temptation to be ashamed at that point. We’ll say, if only, if only, if only they hadn’t said this, if only he wasn’t like this. So the Apostle says, if you are going to be a faithful minister of the Gospel, it’s no good you being that if you’re going to be ashamed of the Gospel or if you’re going to be ashamed of the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Do not be ashamed of me or do not be ashamed to testify to the Lord Jesus. And you will have already found yourself under pressure at these points. Because it’s so frustrating to have to be identified with a cause which cuts straight across what most people believe to be part of an educated person’s thinking pattern. Will we follow the world? If you want to follow the world, you’ll have to deal with the fact that you will be different And will you be different and be happy to be different?

And will you be trustworthy to do that? And the Apostle goes on, and why would he be tempted to be ashamed? Why? Because the Apostle is in prison. So he says, do not be ashamed of me, his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the Gospel by the power of God who has saved us and called us.

He says, do not be ashamed of me, do not be ashamed of the gospel. Now he’s saying, do not be ashamed to suffer for the gospel. I wonder, do you think, brothers and sisters, that we’ve glossed over this entire aspect of the New Testament, that those who follow Christ are destined for suffering?

You live in, in this sort of era which has had a great deal of its way of life governed by the revelation of God live in other parts of the world, you’d be regularly under persecution for nothing else than belonging to Christ. The Muslims in Ambon have declared a jihad on anybody who bashes up Christians in Ambon, and they’re floating from all over Indonesia on the jihad to just do them in. That isn’t the lot of Australians. Any persecution that comes my way is relatively insignificant, excuse me, by comparison to that. But there are plenty of Christians in the world at the present moment who for no other reason than that they are Christians are being persecuted.

Now we need to settle in our mind that this is the lot of Christian people and it may well get worse. I think it will get worse. And especially when we will not deviate from the fact that we think that the Gospel is the only way to get right with God. There is no salvation given under any other name. And the more we stick to our guns at that point, the more we’re going to be, I think, persecuted because of our total intolerance at that point.

Now Paul says, don’t be ashamed of that. Fortify yourself with the words of the Lord Jesus in John 15, they hated me without a cause. Keep saying to yourself, you know, I keep wanting to say, look, I’m such a lovable person really, if you only could get to know me. I really am kind and gentle. I’m really a sweetie.

But it’s without a cause. You see, the opposition is irrational. So if you’re saying, why am I being persecuted because I belong to Christ? Well, I’m saying for the very same reason that the Lord Jesus was. Now, if you cannot live without the adulation of other people, ministry is going to be a very difficult place for you, and you will undoubtedly alter the gospel.

A young man in my part of the world who is an evangelist and very clever communicator Asked me if I’d listen to a couple of his sermons, and I said I’d gladly do that. It shook me. It shook me to see how he was the centre of the sermon all the time, and he was always speaking about himself. And I said in the end, I think, brother, we know more about you than we know about the Lord Jesus when we get to the end of this talk. See if you can preach without ever saying anything about yourself.

Give that a try. That’d be a massive improvement to begin with. But you will not front people with heaven, hell, and judgement if you can’t live without their approval. You just won’t do it. You will turn Christ into another one.

I remember one night at the Oxford Mission preaching on that passage in Luke 12, do not fear him who can kill the body, fear him who having killed the body has got power to cast your soul into hell. And for the slow learners, the Lord Jesus repeats it again, He says, I tell you again, fear Him. So I preached on that. I’ll never forget it. A girl came to me, she was white with rage, and she scared me.

And she said, I cannot bear people who play on your emotions. Well, I said, I really didn’t think I was doing that, but I see that you are very worked up. And she said, why do you try to make me frightened? Well, I said, the question is not have I tried to make you frightened, but is there anything to be frightened of? Frightened of.

For if you’re not frightened of that which you ought to be frightened of, something is radically wrong. Okay, first one: do not be ashamed of me, do not be ashamed of the gospel. Okay, the second one I want to draw to your attention is: do not be afraid of hard work. And to this one, may I ask you if you would go please to 2 Timothy 2:15 and following. May I read it to you?

Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarrelling about words. It is of no value and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.

Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Amongst them, Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. They say the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: The Lord knows those who are his, And everybody who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness. Against the background of reminding people about the truth and warning them against quarrelling over words, avoiding godless chatter, which whatever it is was theological in its content, but it got you nowhere.

It had to do with being clever much more than arriving at the truth. In fact, it diverted people and was the exact opposite to edifying. He says you work hard at understanding and teaching the Bible. Against that background, he says, do your best to present yourself to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. There is envisaged here A worker who does not have God’s approval and a worker who does have God’s approval.

A worker who does need to be ashamed is contrasted with the worker who does not need to be ashamed. And what is the dividing point here? Rightly handling the word of truth. So he is not ashamed of hard work, that do your best is persistent zeal at understanding the Word of God. This is the thing which is to mark this man of God against those who are clever, against those whose, whose teaching gets people nowhere, against those who’ve abandoned the truth and who gangrenously set out to destroy others by saying the resurrection has already come and This man is to do his best in persistent zeal to win God’s approval by the way he handles the word of truth.

It is an interesting word. In the Septuagint, this word occurs twice, this rightly handling. It comes in Proverbs 3:6, you remember, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. It’s the same word, rightly handling, make your paths straight. In Proverbs 11:5 it says, the righteousness of the blameless make a straight way for them.

So this rightly handling is what? It’s like a highway, it’s straight road, easy to find, easy to follow. That’s the thing that makes— marks out the motorway when you get on it. You’re not at 6s and 7s, it’s not twisting and turning all the way, it’s clear, it’s concise, you know in what direction you’re heading. Well, I’m saying if the first part of the negatives is that he’s not ashamed of the Gospel, she’s not ashamed of the Gospel, she’s not ashamed to identify with her Apostle.

That is, I am not ashamed to identify with my Apostle. I don’t find myself saying, oh dear, I wish you hadn’t said that. Oh dear, I wish you hadn’t said it like that. Couldn’t you be British and modify it mainly? That’s a terribly rude thing, isn’t it?

I mean, you would laugh if I said, wouldn’t you be Australian and modify it? You say, heavens no, they’ve never modified anything in their life, that lot. Okay, that’s the first thing. The second one is he’s marked, the man of God, by persistent zeal in seeking to handle the Word of God correctly. Okay, rightly handling the Word of God as opposed to godless chatter.

Now you’ll find the same idea, I think, in Titus 2. Titus 2:14-15, he says, who gave himself to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify himself a people of his very own, eager to do what is good. These then are the things you should teach, encourage, and rebuke with all authority Do not let anybody despise you. Well, the only way you can do that is if you can rightly handle the Word of God. Now, can I say that this really undergirds everything which I understand ministry of the gospel to be about?

I remember yonks ago I used to train Sunday school teachers, and we had a set of film strips, and it talked about the principles of teaching. It said the first principle is the teacher cannot teach that which he does not understand. And that is perfectly true. You will have heard teachers who, when they teach, you cannot work out why you hadn’t found that yourself in the Bible. It is so clear, it is so evident.

And you hear others, and when you’ve come to the end, you say, well, I thought I really understood what that was about, but I’m not sure that I understand anything now. And it does seem to me that there is a way that people can study and understand God’s Word so that even I can understand it. And it’s such a joy to hear them expounding the Word of God. You say, of course, of course, that is exactly what it is about. Now he says, against the background of endless theological debate that never gets us anywhere is the man or the woman of God, this workman who works with persistent zeal in understanding the Bible.

Now, since all of you are contemplating gospel ministry, I want to say to you that the measure of your desire to handle the word of truth properly will be seen by where you contemplate training to do this. If you take seriously the fact that you want to be a good teacher of the Word of God, it seems to me to be inane to go and train somewhere where people don’t share that view of the Word of God with you.

I mean, if you want to be a good surgeon, I wouldn’t go and train with a witch doctor in Africa. Neither would I train with a witch doctor of theology. If I want to know how to teach the Bible correctly, I want to go and train with people who’ve got the same view of the Bible as the Apostle, the same view of the Bible as Christ, so that I will know how to do it. Now that option is available to you. I think it’s a terrible judgement that people will choose to go and train where that ministry is not offered when it’s available.

And for whatever reason, it’s beyond me. It’s hard enough to come to terms with the Bible with people who take it seriously. And it is to me a mark of unbelievable pride to think that I don’t need to be taught by godly teachers what the Bible is about. I can do it all on my own. Well, some people have managed to do that, but not very successfully in my opinion.

And for somebody whose formal theological education was badly neglected, you are always trying to catch up. Trust me, you are not where your peers are, and you’re foreverlastingly trying to read and catch up with them. If you are to be a good minister of the gospel, think hard about where you’re going to do your training. And that seems to me to be the only consideration when it comes to training. Where will I be taught the Bible carefully and faithfully so that I will be the better able to exercise in this ministry?

Okay, the first thing is not ashamed of the gospel. And if the college which teaches you the Bible appears to you not to be all that prestigious, I will come back to the first point about not being ashamed of the gospel and not being ashamed of those who love the gospel and who live by the gospel. All right, third thing: not afraid to confront people or to correct them. And to this one, will you go to 1 Timothy 1:3-7?

As I urged you, as I urged you when I went into Macedonia. Am I in 1 Timothy 1:3? Is that where you are? Do you know what happens in the church I go to? They announce the lesson and I start to look it up and they start to read it and I’m still looking it up and I find it and they finish it.

It’s a very good way to make sure I neither read it nor hear it. So, uh, how are you? You in 1 Timothy? You in 1 Timothy? Right.

Why’d you have to turn over so many pages? There’s only one page between 2 Timothy and 1 Timothy. Hands up the people who were reading in Revelation while I was catching up. All right, okay, 1 Timothy 1, is that where you are? My worst nightmare is that I’m reading the lesson in St. Andrew’s Cathedral and it’s Obadiah And I get to the lectern, you know, those sort of great big eagles about to take off, and, and I look up the table of contents and it’s been ripped out.

And I’m doing the slow turn through the Old Testament desperately hoping that the one page of Obadiah will flop open. And you know, I wake up in a cold sweat and I’ve never found Obadiah yet. I always carry my own Bible now. I’m terrified. Okay, and you got— that’s called idle chatter while I look up 1 Timothy 1.

You got 1 Timothy 1? Good. Verse 3: I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay here in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrine any longer, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversy rather than God’s work, which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. The apostle reminds this man, he said, the very purpose I sent you to Ephesus was that you would correct false teachers. He said, since I sent you for this purpose, don’t be backward in doing it. Now it’s so easy to read a verse like that but to skip over the emotional content on it.

You had to confront people who were false teachers of the Word of God. Can I say that that’s generally done with a great deal of unpleasantness? You’d rather not have to do that. And as you read through the pastorals, they are all being exhorted, both Timothy in 1 and 2 and in Titus, to correct false teaching that has come into the church. And they are to do that, and they are to do it with boldness.

Now you may think that this, the particular church, that this is particular and not general. But I don’t know if you’ve noticed, when you get to the last book of the Bible, you get the letters to the 7 churches. And I take it 7 there is, is the symbol for the complete church. There were other churches in Asia Minor he could have singled out, but he didn’t. He picked 7.

And so by the time you’ve dealt with those 7, you’ve dealt with the universe. And what is the universal church like at the close of the apostolic era? Hardly any of them still have the gospel. He says, I know your works, but— and then almost all of them have lost the gospel by the close of the apostolic era. So it leads me to believe that there will never be a time when we’re not confronting false teachers and telling them to stop what they’re doing, seeking to correct them, hoping and praying that they will come to a better mind.

All, all of the time I’ve been in ministry, which is a long time now, you think to yourself, well, we’ve at last got that error corrected, only to discover it breaks out again under a new guise, but it’s the same mistake. Now you see how important this is on the one we’ve already spoken about. The rightly handling the word of truth. You don’t even recognise error if you don’t understand the Bible properly. You might even join with others in it.

But this man is not only to recognise it, the purpose of his work according to verse 3 is that he is to hold false teachers in cheque. I want to say something about false teachers now. They’re a bit like Pharisees in the Bible. They’re given such bad press that you think they’ll be horrible people. Heretics are never horrible people.

They’re always nice, kind, gentle, generous people. They’ve got to be because no one would give them the time of day. Their teaching is so bad and does so much damage. Why do you think they get listened to? They’re always smooth.

They’re always kind. They’re lovely people. You can’t believe that such terrible error can come from such nice people. You see, do set your mind at rest on that. And they don’t always say what is wrong all the time.

You see, they don’t have to. You say, oh, but I’ve heard them say— yes, you might well have too. But the damage comes at this point and that’s where this man of God, this gospel minister, is told he is to rebuke them. He is to correct them. Okay?

He is to take a strong line against false doctrine, against truth. That is, he is to take a line against false doctrine with orthodoxy, and he is to be able to recognise the difference between that which is false and that which is true. And against fables and endless genealogies, he is to contend for the gospel. Against these fables and endless genealogies, he is to know about God’s work, which is by faith. And those, of course, are integrated back with the earlier 2 that I spoke about.

The goal of all exhortation is love, and so in verse 5 he draws our attention to that. These promote controversies rather than God’s work, which is by faith. And the goal of this command, the command to correct, is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience. And a sincere faith.

My experience is that nobody enjoys engaging in controversy.

Some people will do it because they believe the truth matters, and it’s no good hoping when you encounter error that it will somehow go away. It needs to be confronted by the truth and with the truth. And the end goal of that is that people will come to a better mind. Okay? And so I’m saying, if you’re not a person who will do that, you won’t be a faithful minister.

Faithful ministers will be recognised by the fact that they are not ashamed of the gospel, they’re not ashamed of the apostle. They are known by the fact that they’re not ashamed of hard work. Their life is given to this devotion, okay. That’s what they’re on about. They study the Word of God, they believe the Word of God, they want to rightly handle the Word of God.

There is nothing slapdash about their work. They can be trusted at that level, okay. Then thirdly, they are not ashamed and not afraid of to confront error when they find it. Doesn’t mean they’re unkind, it doesn’t mean they’re unpleasant. They are the exact opposite to those things, but they are immovable when it comes to the truth.

And the last thing I want to say is that they are not shaken by results. And to that end, will you go to 2 Timothy 4? Because what is envisaged in 2 Timothy 4 is designed to frighten the socks off anybody.

It begins with this long exhortation: In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his coming. Kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, encourage, and with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers, to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. It is just about beyond me to conceive this sort of scenario. It does not to you. Here is the man told what to do when nobody wants to listen to him anymore. This man of God is told what to do when the congregation desert him.

Uh, they don’t want to hear the truth anymore. They, um, they won’t put up with sound doctrine in verse 3, they suit their own desires, they’ll gather around them a great number of teachers who say what their itching ears want to hear. You can’t think of anything to drive the minister of the gospel bananas more than this, could you? I don’t know if you know this or not, but most ministers of the gospel that I know are genuinely concerned for people that they’ve got charge over. They pray for them.

They long for them to see Christ formed in them. They can’t bear it when people walk away into error. And a great deal of their effort and energy is spent in correcting error, wherever and whenever it comes up in the congregation. But imagine you’ve given your life’s work to something and people walk away in droves. Just walk off.

They say, no, no, Bill Bloggs down the road, you don’t have to believe that to be a member of that congregation.

Friends of mine in a church in the United States, I, my theory had always been that people joined the church because you could be religious without having the gospel. And you had no difficulty whatever in that congregation. And suddenly a minister arrived and their worst fears materialised. The gospel caught up with them and they hated him. They made his life a living misery until they finally kicked him out.

They made a terrible, terrible mistake. They got a godly minister and their life— they didn’t have a peaceful moment from that day onwards. He just kept preaching the gospel steadily to them. And this scenario is like it. They have turned their ears away from the truth, verse 4, turn aside to myths.

But what is this man to do in this situation? He is to keep his head. Well, I’m glad he said that because I think I’d have gone completely off my brain. Don’t you think you’d have gone off yours? Keep your head in all situations, endure this hardship, do the work of an evangelist.

He’s to start all over again. He’s to build another church. He’s not to lose his confidence in the gospel. He is not shaken by this, however hard it might be. He’d have to be a masochist to be enjoying it.

But no, he doesn’t falter with the gospel. He keeps preaching that word when he feels like it and when he doesn’t feel like it. And he doesn’t tailor the message. Correct, rebuke, encourage with great patience and careful instruction. Why?

Because there is no other ministry to take to. Make full proof of your ministry. Keep doing it. I think you’ll find the same sort of parallel passage in 1 Timothy 6:11. It’s almost identical with it.

And, but you, man of God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses and in the sight of God who gives life to everything, and of Jesus Christ who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made a good confession. I charge you, to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of the Lord Jesus, which God will bring in his own time. God the Blessed, the only Ruler, the King, the King, the Lord of hosts, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see— to him be honor— command that those who are rich, etc., etc.— what is he to do?

He is to flee from things which will not help him, and he is to pursue righteousness and godliness, and he is to keep at it. He is, in a sense, to make full proof of his ministry. Now, there are some parallel passages in Titus. You might look at Titus 1:13 and so on, that this is the lot of the gospel ministry. Verse 3, he is to do it with longsuffering— that is the nature of it— and doctrine, the means whereby he doesn’t is the truth.

Now, against the background of us seeing— and you probably come from churches which exercise large ministries with lots of people at them— it may well be that in the exercise of the gospel, people do not want to hear what you’ve got to say. And we have friends who’ve been in that situation, and it is to me amazing that they have stayed faithful to the gospel and they’ve stayed faithful to the preaching of the gospel. 2 of them that I can think of offhand were tipped out of their churches by godless people and God opened up other ministries for them, but that has not been done except with a great deal of heartache. And not only a heartache for them, but a heartache for their friends who supported supported them with their prayers and their encouragement. And I’m saying, if you are shaken and, and you say, well, I can’t bear the prospect of that situation, well, I’m saying I think gospel ministry is probably not for you.

And so they are my 4 negatives: not ashamed of the gospel, not ashamed of the not afraid of hard work in the Bible, not afraid to confront and to correct, not shaken by results. In a former life, when I was the youth director in the Diocese of Armidale, training Sunday school teachers was part of my lot. And because many of the Sunday school teachers in our part of the world, I suspected, were strangers to the Gospel, all our Sunday School Teachers Conference used to end up with an evangelistic address which I gave. There is— I’m always greatly moved by that, that marvellous essay in Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students where he talks about the qualifications for the preacher. And you remember that?

What is the first qualification? The first qualification for the minister is Guess. He should be converted. That’s the first qualification, should be converted. An unconverted preacher of the gospel is like a blind professor of optics, says Spurgeon.

And then he says, like a deaf professor of music. Although I don’t think I want to pursue that since Beethoven was himself, wasn’t he, stone deaf? Yeah, so there’s that awful storey about how he was conducting and the orchestra was not playing the bit that he was conducting. Didn’t— he finished and they finished afterwards. He couldn’t hear it.

At this point, there is a short gap of just a few seconds in the original recording.

I remember a lady came to me at the end of one of the conferences. She said, well, if that’s the sort of person you better be, you’ve got to be, I better resign.

I said, no, I think, no, I said, there’s another alternative, isn’t there? She said, what, what, what is that? I said, you could change. You could become Christ’s person today. Make all the world of difference to how much you enjoyed it.

Make a power of difference to the kids. I’d do that if I were you. But I say if you can’t do that, I would resign. Now if you say, well, strike, this is not my lot, this is not my lot, this is not my lot, I’m saying you might like to make it a matter of prayer that God will give you these. See, I take it these things are said because they’re attainable, don’t you?

I don’t think the Apostle is saying to this man, this impossible thing, it’s a sort of an ideal I’m holding up, do the best you can. Do you think he expects this man will work hard at understanding the Bible? Do you think he’ll be persistent in his zeal to rightly handle the Word of God? Do you think he’s expecting when he urges this man not to be ashamed of the gospel nor to be ashamed of him that he’ll come good? Yeah.

Do you not think when he urges him to confront error and get it corrected, he’ll do it? And even against this terrible scenario when the whole places falling apart around you, that he’ll keep on with the gospel. He expects him to do it. So please don’t be like the Sunday school teacher who said, oh well, if it’s going to be a life like that, it’s certainly not for me. I’m saying you might like to, you might like to just entertain for a bit the alternative.

And I would make these a matter of prayer. I’m— that is exactly what I find in my minister in the church where I go to Sunday by Sunday. He’s not ashamed of the gospel. You can trust him. You bring a friend along any week.

You don’t have to ring him up on the phone and say, I’ve got my brother Jim coming on Sunday. You can trust him. Doesn’t matter what Sunday I bring him. You can trust him. And I tell you what, it’s a terrific help for my evangelism.

Nothing unnerves the personal evangelism person more than one day you say, where am I going to take them if they come to Christ? Wherever will I take them? And I’m saying, my bloke, I know where to take them. He’s not ashamed of the gospel. He’s not ashamed to identify himself with the apostle to the Gentiles.

You’re not on tenterhooks that he’ll suddenly pull the plug out on you one day. He’s not like that at all. He shows evidence regularly that he’s working away at the Bible. He shows constant evidence of that. He will rebuke evil where he sees it, and he’s a charmer, and he does it in a way which I wish I could.

But you’re not left in the faintest shadow of a doubt that the errors he is putting his finger on are damaging, and if you entertain them, you will damage yourself. And he has involved the congregation in making complaints about church leaders who are in error. Bless him. Now, I don’t know what he’ll be like if the whole congregation walks out and leaves him, because that hasn’t happened, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Me if he didn’t go on and plant another church somewhere.

Now I want to say that gives you massive confidence when that sort of ministry goes. And if you’ve ever sat under those where all the time you’re groaning because a Sunday school child can see what is being taught week by week is stupid beyond belief, if you’ve ever sat under that sort of ministry. You say, then I will pray that I’ll swell the numbers by another one of those who are not ashamed, who are not afraid, who will do these things. Okay, well, there you go. Do with that as you will.

But don’t think you’ll slip into those things unless you do make them a matter of prayer. How about I pray right now?

Our Heavenly Father, we are committed to those who are contemplating lifetime ministries of the Gospel. Please help us to gladly identify with the Lord Jesus, his death and resurrection, his coming judgement. Please help us not to be ashamed of our Apostle nor of anything that you say. Help us to be bold to confront error in the church and winsome to confront those who are outside of Christ. And please help us to stay faithful to you.

We ask this for Jesus’ sake. Amen. Amen. Word of prophecy. Testimony perhaps?

Chorus? Chorus, brother? You wouldn’t want to hear it. Dale, Dale. Confronting error, I mean, if I do that all by myself, like, I’ve got— I’m not that confident to do it.

I guess what I noticed there was Paul was telling him to do it. Is there a place for sort of having, you know, confirming that My line on exegesis is, can you find anybody else who’s ever thought about this in the whole history of theology? If I haven’t been able to find anybody, it slows me up momentarily. But I’ll comb through commentaries, doesn’t matter how screwball it is, if I can find anyone to agree with me, I think I’m probably right.

I’m saying if I— some errors are so blatant that you don’t have to worry about that. And the primate in Australia is denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I don’t think you really need to be a genius to work that out, do you? I mean, I think that is, especially in the light of this morning, I think that is fairly important, don’t you? I think too that The other ones which I think are very subtle indeed, they look to be so Christian.

You see, if you hear the gospel and you’re never warned about judgement, never, you say, what is wrong there? Why is this so? Well, I would think if I hear an evangelist regularly and we never get a word about judgement, I think I’d like to take that up with him quietly, wouldn’t you? I’d like to do it gently, but I’ll do it anyway.

Um, it’d be nice if I could do it in a way which he would find easy to receive. I think the errors touching the Gospel often are blatant, um, and I spoke about that in the first one. You say, well, that is exactly the opposite to what the Bible is saying. Now I think some other errors, my gripes say with the Alpha Course is that there are so many good things being said but I think it pulls the plug out at the point of trusting God. It keeps constantly giving you alternatives.

Now I wouldn’t rush into print on that without I’d talk to my friends about it. I’d certainly want to say, you know, does this not appear to you to be defective at this point? And, but it’s got to be done. If you don’t do it and if you don’t teach negatively saying, this is what I’m saying and in saying this I am not saying this, I am not saying this, I am not saying that. Sometimes people think you forgot to put the negative in.

You say this, oh, it can’t possibly mean that. But you’re saying, this is what I see to be the truth and this and this and this is not. And generally people are saying, oh well, if that’s what you’re saying, I think you are a complete pain in the neck. Okay, but I don’t think it’s obtuse, the errors, and certainly the errors he was talking about weren’t, were they? They denied that the resurrection existed.

That’s the errors they’d got into. Well, I would have thought you’d be able to see that. Okay, did I understand your question correctly? Yeah. Anyone else want to have a go?

Yeah. How much are these to be characteristics of us ministers of the gospel all the time in our workplace or wherever else? And how much are they to be, um, just characteristics of a full-time Christian leader? Um, well, I would say that you’ll be exercising ministry in some sort of capacity already, won’t you? You might be exercising it only over yourself where you’re self-teaching the Bible, okay.

A lot of ministry is exercised there. You might be exercising it over a Sunday school class somewhere. You might have a small group somewhere where you’re exercising it. But most people are exercising ministry. It might be to your family, okay.

And I’m saying, but especially to those who are over the family of God are these instructions given. But if ministry is at every point, then they’ll be good at every point. Okay, did I get your question correctly? Yeah, I often don’t. I often answer ones I wanted to answer anyway.

You know, I don’t like that question, but here’s an answer for you. Some people write me answers like that in the Bible college where I teach. They say, I don’t know anything about this, but I do know about And the other thing which is so nice about the kids in the Bible college, they write little letters to you at the end of their answers, like, I know this is not all that good, but if you’re in a bad mood, put it on the bottom of the pile and come back to it later.

I always say, no, I’m in a really good mood and it is still a lousy answer.