The Purpose of the Pastor-Teacher Gift, No. 1
BD07-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)
We are thinking about the purpose of the pastor-teacher gift
this morning. A little girl
came up to me this week, one of our primary children, and she said, “I
have a teacher who said to me that God sits up in heaven and He marks down everything
wrong that we do, and someday when we get to heaven He’s going to read
it to us. That isn’t right, is it?” I
said, “No, it isn’t. That’s
as wrong as it can be.” I
was just amazed that here this primary has
sat around in Bible doctrine studies and church services and she
realized that god has removed the wall of separation between herself and God, and if
there’s one thing that God is never going to mention again it’s her
sins. The only sin, she understood, that God would
ever mention would be the sin of unbelief of not receiving Jesus Christ
as savior.
I thought that’s very sad that her teacher, who is a church
attender, would not know enough to know that God has removed all the
problem of sin. But this is the
deficiency that we have been currently talking about that we start with as Christians. And
this is the deficiency that Jesus Christ
has made a provision to be filled up within our being. It’s
a marvelous thing to realize that the
mind of a child can be brought into phase with the thinking of God from
the earliest days, and what this can mean in that life. What
a great thing doctrine is. I hope you know
when we use the word doctrine
we are not talking about something that is way out, something this is
provincial and narrow minded, but it is the word in the Greek for teaching. It
is simply what God has said to tell us His
ways and His thinking.
Now we have learned that the satanic attack which for
centuries was directed against the human line through which Jesus
Christ would be born. Then when He was
born it was directed against Jesus Christ himself. (It)
has now, because He has ascended and is beyond the reach of this
angelic attack—being in heaven, this attack is now centered
against you as the individual Christian believer. The Bible
warns you again and again that Satan is going about as a roaring lion
to tear your life to shreds, to make a fool of you, to destroy you, and to make
you ineffective as an ambassador for Jesus Christ. He
can’t stop you from going to heaven but he can stop you from
being of any use whatsoever to God in the days of your life as His ambassador.
So, Jesus Christ was victorious on the cross. He
has moved to heaven. He’s beyond Satan. During the ten
days after Christ ascended and before the coming of the Holy Spirit, all of the strategy of hell was
put to attack upon the individual believer.
Now the Christian has a spiritual deficiency and Jesus
Christ has provided a solution for this. We’ve
been looking in the book of Ephesians chapter 4, if you’ll
turn there again. The book of Ephesians which
has been telling us how God has made provision for this deficiency. We
found in Ephesians 4:10 that Jesus Christ
ascended up into heaven that he might fill all things. And
then this filling of all things has to do
with our spiritual deficiency in the way this word is used. And
we found that in verse 11 there is a key
factor in meeting this deficiency in spiritual things. We’re
told that He gave some apostles and
some prophets. These are two gifts that
after the New Testament canon was completed that we no longer have
apostles and we no longer have prophets. But we still
have evangelists with a unique way of presenting the gospel, and we
have pastor and teachers.
In the Greek language, this is lined up so that apostle is
by itself, prophet is by itself, evangelist is by itself, but then the
Greek combines pastor-teacher as a single gift. This
is what preaching is. Preaching is teaching. If you
want to know that preaching isn’t, just turn on to the
religious radio stations here in Dallas and listen to the guff that goes on all the time under
the guise of preaching. You’ll even enjoy coming
back to Berean Memorial Church and listening for 45 minutes at a time.
The pastor-teacher is the agent who is the provider of the
means to solve this spiritual deficiency. What
he gives ends in a practice of building a spiritual maturity
structure. The word “edification.” And
this is all ahead. We’re going to get into the details on this,
and in detail what it is to be a spiritually mature Christian so that
you are oriented to God’s ways and to God’s conduct in
reference to the plan for your life.
Now this spiritual maturity structure in your soul will
either be erected, which is the only defense you have against Satan, or
it will not be erected, depending on whether the pastor-teacher is functioning
in the local church as he should, and whether you have the good sense to put
yourself in a place where there is a functioning pastor-teacher so that you have
the building materials to meet this spiritual deficiency.
The Doctrine of the Pastorate (Pastor-Teacher)
We begin this morning with a summary of the basic points
that constitute the doctrine of the pastorate. What
is he? What is he supposed to do? What is he not supposed to do?
First of all we begin with the use of this word
“ministry.” The word “ministry” is used
in the Bible in three ways. It is used,
first of all, in a political sense. This
is what a lot of our rebellious college students are forgetting, that
God always works through a chain of authority. He
works through a chain of political authority, and to rebel against
that authority and no go through constituted legitimate processes of
dealing with that governmental authority is sin, and it violates the Word of
God. God is anti-revolution. He is a god of
order.
So, Romans 13:4 says, “For he is the minister of god
(speaking of a government authority) to thee for good. But
if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the minister of
God…” There you have the word used in the political
sense. “… and avenger to execute wrath
upon him that doeth evil. No governmental ruler stands, nobody is elected to office except almighty
God says, “You’re in,” and then the people
follow suit. Once that person is in, he is to be respected
as an agent of God.
The word “minister” and the word
“ministry” is used also in
a general sense. 2 Corinthians 3:6
(shows) a general use of this word, “Who also hath made us
able ministers (all we Christians of the New Testament) not of the letter but of the spirit. The
letter killeth. The spirit giveth life.” In 2 Corinthians
4:1 says, “Therefore, seeing we have this ministry (all we Christians—this is the general
Christian role of a minister), as we have received mercy, we faint not.” 2
Corinthians 5:18 says, “And all things are
of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and have given
to us (all Christians) the ministry of reconciliation.” And
2 Corinthians 6:3 says, “Giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed.”
Throughout the New Testament you have this general use where
all Christians are in the ministry. There
is no division of clergy and laity. This is the
universal ministry of all believers. But there is a
specialized use of this word “ministry.” We
have that in 1 Corinthians 3:5 which says, “Who then is Paul and
who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believe, even as the Lord gave to every
man.” In Ephesians 3:7 you have a specialized use
of the word. “Of which I was made (Paul
says) a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto
me by the effectual working of His power.” And
so on. Colossians 1:23 and 1 Thessalonians
3:2 and 1 Timothy 1:12. All of these
refer to a specialized work of the ministry and that has to do with the
pastorate. So, when we talk about the
ministry, we are talking about political, general, and specifically in
this summary of the pastor.
Now there are certain identifying words for the pastor that
you should know. These identifying words
tell you something about what a pastor is supposed to be. First
of all is the term “elder.” In
the Greek it’s “presbuteros.” Now
this means “the old man.” It
is not in the sense of age necessarily. He may be that. But
he is “old man” in the sense that it
connotes maturity. He may be somewhat
young in years but he’s got some spiritual savvy and
maturity, or he has no business being a pastor. It refers
therefore to a certain quality which must precede his being able to
communicate the Word of God.
A second term for the pastorate is “bishop” or
“overseer.” The Greek word
here is “episkopos.” This
word stresses the nature of a pastor’s work. It
means “overseer.” It means somebody
in authority in reference to the work of the ministry. Someone
who has authority to move among the
congregation and make decisions and give direction and lead in the
spiritual phase of that work.
Now this is confirmed by the fact that we have a third
word. And that’s the word “pastor.” In
the Greek it’s “poiman.” “Poiman”
is “pastor” or “shepherd.” And
there is attached to that another word which is “teacher.” And
that’s “didaskalos.” These are combined so that
they mean one thing. Here you have the
idea of a shepherd and a teacher who has the idea of authority, and it
refers to the function of his ministry. He
is to shepherd the flock. He is to shepherd
the flock as a pastor-teacher—not as a pastor-visitor, not as
a pastor-socializer, not as a pastor-maintenance man, not as a pastor-any
number of other things that he could be, which in the course of the ministry
he may on occasion perform those functions. Just
like any missionary on a foreign field. If
a missionary has to get the kids to school, he’ll drive the ox cart
if necessary. But his basic calling is
to be a pastor-teacher, and that’s his business. And
the elder and the bishop, all these
terms, these identifying words, refer to the same person.
Acts 20:28
In Acts 20:17 and verse 28, one verse uses “elder” and
another verse uses “bishop,” and they’re
all talking about the same group of
people. So, it has in interchange. These people are
told, these who hold this office in the local church of the pastor are told in Acts 20:28 exactly
what their business is and what they’re supposed to be doing, and
what it is the business of the local congregation as much as possible to make it
possible for the pastor-teacher to do. Acts 20:28
says, “Take heed.”
Now I want you to understand the background of this
particular passage. The apostle Paul
is on his way back to Jerusalem. He has
been told by Got that this is the end of the line for him. He
is going into imprisonment. His ministry
is going to be cut off. So, he knows that
in reference to the church
at Ephesus, which was a delightful church in his experience, the church
at Ephesus and the leadership at that church is a relationship which is
going to cease. He knows that he
is talking to these spiritual leaders of the Ephesians church for the last time. It
is the kind of meeting that ends in tears. Everybody breaks
up here before they’re through because they realize, Paul says, “I
shall never see you again. When I get on this boat, and I get out of
sight, the next time we see each other is going to be in
heaven.”
So, what’s this man going to say? What’s
he going to leave behind for this
church to whom such a strategic letter as Ephesians was written? What’s
he going to say in this final moment to people he will never see again? Well
it’s interesting that he tells these spiritual leaders,
“Now fellows, I want to say it again what it is that God has called you to do.” “Take
heed therefore unto yourself and to all
the flock (that’s the local congregation) over which the Holy
Spirit has made you overseer, to feed the church of God (that’s the body of
believers) which He hath purchased with His own blood.”
Now anything that you want a pastor to do has to be within
verse 28 or you have no ground for it. Anything
that a pastor is to … perform is in verse 28. And
that’s all you got. The strategic thing is to feed the
flock. Now there are a lot of pastors
who think that means to run a lot of meals, run a lot of church
suppers, or run a lot of programs. But the Word of
God, when it says to feed the flock means to preach the word, to proclaim
the Bible, to give people the materials by which they may build a spiritual
maturity structure with which to meet Satan.
Now I want to show you something about this word
“feed.” This word “feed,” a couple of
grammatical points. It’s in what we call
the aorist tense. That means that this
is the totality of the pastor’s business. If
there is anything else, you couldn’t use this tense. You’d
have to use a different one. This is a
point. This is a combining. This is a point
action. And what does he do? He feeds the flock.
Number two: It is in
what is called the active voice which means that he does it. It
means he has to have a gift of teaching
and he has to have information. You
ought to listen to some of these Dallas religious radio stations and
you’ll get a good example of what it is to talk to people without information. You’ve
never heard such rot in all your life,
and gobbledy gook and confused and backward thinking and travesty on
the Word of God that you can hear on those radio stations. Because
you have people opening their mouths who in the first place can’t teach anything, and in the
second place they don’t have any words to convey.
Well you say, “Well that sounds like an awful lot of
authority. That sounds like an awfully
strategic position for one person to be in.” That’s
right. And that’s why God says, “I’m going to hold that pastor fantastically
responsible for what he did. Now here is one
thing when it comes to the Judgment Seat of Christ that people are going to be on a very
very hot seat, and that is the pastor-teacher because he is the key personality
in all the progress that God’s people make.
This is why when the truth is declared and the truer the
truth is, if that can be the case, you will notice that people do not
attack the truth. They will not say, “Well
here’s what’s wrong with what that person said. Here’s
why the Word of God does not teach that.” They
begin to attack the speaker. It is the pastor-teacher that they attack,
that they have a resentment toward because they realize that he is the
one who is conveying these ideas. He is the one
who is actually the instrument of God and so they attack that person. Like
God had to tell Samuel, “Samuel, when
people call you all kinds of names, when people rise up in furor and
indignation against you personally, when they say things about you
directly, remember that they’re talking about God. They’re
not talking about you, Samuel. If you’ve delivered the truth, you’ve been my
spokesman.”
The last point on the grammar here of this word “feed”
is that it’s imperative which in grammar means it’s a
command. You’re told to do this. A pastor-teacher
has no other alternative than to get up and keep cranking out divine truth.
There’s another point. That is (number
four) the leadership and the authority of a pastor. 1 Thessalonians 5:12. This is also
tremendously resented in some local churches. That the pastor
is the top authority in the direction and in the leadership of the work. I
remind you again that the congregation can
remove the pastor, but while he is in authority, while he is in office,
he is the authority within that congregation. 1
Thessalonians 5:12 says, “But we beseech you brethren to know them who
labor among you (the pastor-teachers) and are over you in the Lord and
admonish you.” They didn’t take this office for
themselves. They are in this position because God says you do it.
Hebrews 13:7 says, “Remember them who have the rule over
you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God, whose faith follow,
considering the end of their manner of life.” Verse
17 of Hebrews 13 says, “Obey them that have the rule over
you.” These are tremendously strong words: obey, rule. “Submit
yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give
account that, they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is
unprofitable to you.” Now do you
know what he’s going to give an account (on)? God
is not going to say, “How nice a person was Sam Jones in your
church, pastor?” What God is going
to want to know is, “How much was Sam Jones able to develop a
spiritual maturity structure in his soul?”
Now maybe Sam Jones didn’t. Maybe he
went negative in his response to God’s Word and so he got no
place. But did you give him the material
by which he could have built a spiritual maturity? I
remind you again that you can think of the
greatest person that in your estimate is the finest saint that ever
lived, and remind you that you can be just like that person in your standing of
spiritual achievements and accomplishments with God. This
is no exclusive calling. It is the extent that you develop a spiritual maturity structure in your soul.
But you have to have something to do it with. It
is tremendous to see this happening in a youngster. This is one thing
we’re going to do in camp this week. We’re
going to try to alert these kids to where the world is moving, and to where
their country is moving; not because they’re going to change it; not
because you’re going to change it; but because we have to understand when somebody rises up.
For example, if you want to get somebody’s ire up, just give
them the doctrine of warfare series. I have had more gnashing of teeth and … remarks come feeding
back on that because this touches the quick. This is the most
sensitive point in the mind of a disoriented conscience because the
humanism, the do-goodism, the human viewpoint, and the desire to do human good so
possesses even Christians who have no spiritual maturity structure
within their souls, that to think that God has these principals for a national
entity’s defense, and that God is blessing those who obey this and will bring a
nation down that disobeys it, just as this nation is going down, which I
suppose it inevitably must for it cannot continue as the leader of the western
world from prophetic viewpoint. People who
can’t believe that God is going to act like that will rise up in furor. Over
against what? Over against the fact that somebody is speaking with authority.
Do you realize that this is what they hated about Jesus
Christ? And they made fun of him. They said, “Who do you think you are, you
cocky arrogant character? You come along here and try to teach us and tell us you’re somebody with
Abraham more than we are? They abused the
person of Jesus Christ as being some know-it-all, some conceited character of arrogance. Why? Because He
spoke the truth with authority. And He didn’t get up and be a mealy-mouthed
preacher who apologizes and says, “I’m sorry that I
have to tell you this, but this is what God says.” That’s
no pastor-teacher who apologizes when almighty God has spoken. Instead,
you should say, “This may hurt a little bit but I’m sure glad that we’ve got some
right information so that we can get straight.”
Now there’s something else in the doctrine of the
pastorate. There is a right pastor for a
right church. Therefore, the leading of
the Lord is vital so as to avoid misery in the ministry. Misery
for the congregation and misery for
the pastor. Now God is always
going to bless His Word. Let’s
understand that, even if the wrong pastor is delivering it. You
can have the wrong pastor and if the Word is delivered, God’s going
to bless. So, that’s not the final
confirmation to say, “Well I’m the right pastor for
this church because God blesses the Word here.”
The wrong pastor can’t do all the things that are necessary
for the well-being of the congregation. He
is not able to move in the flock and survive. When
you have a wrong pastor in a wrong church you have a short
pastorate. When you have
churches that are forever switching pastors, you have a pretty good indication that
if they’re switching pastors every two-and-a-half or three
years, you have a pretty
good indication they’re getting a series of wrong pastors for
the wrong church. And you have a pretty good
indication that there’s something deeply spiritually
defective in the church itself that it keeps switching wrong pastors because God
doesn’t go around making mistakes like that.
The reason this is this way is because nobody could survive
in the local church, among the best of Christians. This
is why the pastor has to know, when
people walk out the door and say, “Oh that was a beautiful
sermon,” he has to
be careful not to believe it, or he’ll go home and start
reading his press notices and begin to believe what he hears.
He has to be like the Lord. When they were
going up and saying, “That was a beautiful sermon. Beautiful.” The
Bible says the Lord knew what was in man. He
didn’t need anybody to tell Him. He
knew that the same people who were saying,
“Beautiful sermon,” the minute He began touching
upon things that struck home
for them of which they were guilty and they needed change, then they no
longer liked him. They may no
longer like anything about him. That has happened
to me, believe it or not, too, and I’m tremendously likeable. Don’t
get carried away with your press
notices when you’re going into the ministry.
Here’s another thing to remember. A pastor is
totally the product of grace. Anybody here ever
been invited to surrender to preach, like God was putting a gun against your head? There
are services; when a pastor wants to really
make a good impression he has a spiritual commitment service. He
gets people really moved and he says, “Alright
now I want all of you young people who are ready to put your lives on
the line for Jesus Christ to come forward.” In
camp you have a variation. You give
everybody a stick and you build a big fire and then they all come up
and they throw their stick on the fire to show they’re going to commit
themselves to the Lord. All this gimmickry and
gobbledy-gook to make some kind of weird move to show that
you’re really for God.
But the only way people can be for God is to have bible
doctrine, not because they make some kind of dramatic outward move. And
a pastor is totally the product of the
grace of God. 1 Timothy 1:12 says, “And
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me in that He counted me
faithful, putting me into the ministry…” That’s
how Paul got into it. “…who was before a blasphemer.” Now
Paul wasn’t a very nice personality before he got into the
ministry—a persecutor and injurious. “...
but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was
exceedingly abundant with faith and live which is in Christ Jesus. This
is a faithful saying and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of
whom I am chief. Nevertheless for this cause that
I obtain mercy. That in me first Jesus
Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them who
should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting.”
Paul says, “I was the chief of sinners, and if God would
save me and use me in the ministry there are none of the rest of you
who are that bad that He wouldn’t do the same for you.
Then you have Ephesians 3:7. All of these
indicating there is no ground for thinking that God has
rewarded you. There are some kids who grow up in a Christian home. They grow
up in a Christian surround and then they’re called into
ministry, and they think, “God has called me into the ministry because
I’ve been such a spiritual pureblood all of these years that I was growing up.” Now
the only way into the pastorate is by being oriented to who and what God is, and having no illusions about
yourself. If God has called you into the ministry, the compliments of people may deceive you into thinking that
there was something special about you that brought you into it, but you were
nothing, and God was everything. In His grace and
His sovereignty He put His finger on you and said, “You I
want in the ministry.” He does the same
for each of us even if we are not in the professional, so to speak, pastorate
ministry.
That being true, you can’t get (tied) into knots about
anything or anyone. If there’s anything
a pastor has to have, it’s a relaxed mental attitude. There
is no place for him to be all torn up
about what people think and what people say about him. He
has to understand what his calling
is. Now this is something where God has
placed him. There are things
that offend him and he has prejudices, but these are not the things that he should
be majoring on. The thing he
majors on is the Word of God.
And finally, number seven: There are some
general Scriptures about the pastorate. Colossians
1:23-29 says, “If ye continue in
the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of
the gospel which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature
that is under heaven of which I Paul am made a minister, who now rejoice in my
sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions
of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake (which is the church)
of which I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me
for you to fulfill (the Word of God).” That’s
why I was made a minister, Paul said, to fulfill the Word of God to you. “Even
the mystery which hath been hidden from
ages and from generations but now is made manifest to His saints to
whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among
Gentiles which is Christ in you, the hope of glory; whom we preached, warning
every man; teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect
(a spiritual maturity structure in the soul) in Christ Jesus. For
this I also labor, striving according to the working which worketh in me mightily.”
You can add 1 Timothy 2:24-26, 2 Timothy 3:1-9, and Titus
1:6-9. All these are general scriptures
on the functioning of the pastorate.
Ephesians 4:12
Now we come to the key that we’ve been moving toward in
orienting our thinking to the place of a pastor-teacher, and
that’s Ephesians 4:12. For there we have
in this verse, and we’re going to just start it today. In
Ephesians 4:12 you will notice that you have the word “for” three
times in that verse. There’s
a relationship between these that you must understand or you miss the
whole point of this verse. Ephesians 4:12
says, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ.”
In the Greek language, these are not all the same word. The
first “for” is this Greek word
“pros.” The second two
are “eis.” The relationship
that is indicated by this
switch is this: That the pastor
is called to perform number one. But number
two and number three cannot take place in the life of a believer unless
number one is performed. Number two and
number three are dependent upon number one.
Now we’re going to spend a couple of weeks going into detail
as to what’s involved in these “for… for… for” here. We’re
going to start with the first one. If
a pastor-teacher fails in this first one
which is preaching Bible doctrine, explaining the Word to people. If he fails here then the Christian cannot
experience number two, he cannot experience number three, and Satan has
him neutralized. This is why it is such a
grave matter when a pastor is not functioning as an instructor in the
Word. When he is too preoccupied and too
burdened down with other things so that he cannot produce from the Word
for the people.
“For the perfecting of the saints.” Let’s
look at this word “perfecting” because
that’s the first thing a pastor is supposed to do. “Perfecting.” What
does that mean? Now right away you can do two things. You can say,
“Well, let’s see, I’ve been around
churches for a while. I know what seems
to be good for Christians, what seems to be good for a local church, what seems to be bad, good
things to do, things we shouldn’t do.” A
pastor is supposed to teach people how a local church can go along and work
smoothly. You can think of all kinds of
ideas as to what you think constitute perfecting the saints.
Well we’ve got to go back again because we interpret
grammatically, historically, on what the Word says in its original
language and on the background of the time in which it was written. We
have to look at what the word means. The
word is “katartismos.” This
is a very significant word because what
it means is to equip for combat. If
you are going to take a group of men and prepare them to fight in Vietnam
against a Communist enemy, what you would be doing is taking these men and giving
them “katartismos.” You
would be equipping them for combat. You would be
giving them equipment, weapons, gear of one kind or another; you’d
be teaching them how to use it and how to take care of it in order that they might be
transferred to a staging area and from the staging area into a field of
combat.
That’s what this word interestingly enough means. What’s
a pastor supposed to be doing? Well we’re not training you, first of all,
for physical combat. We are training you
for some kind of combat. We’re training
you for combat with Satan in the performance of the Lord’s
work. A pastor is supposed to be equipping the
people for spiritual combat.
Ephesians 6:10-18 – The Full Armor of God
Now this word is explained in more detail in Ephesians
6:10-18, and I want to read it. Here’s
the process of equipping: “Finally
my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His
might.” Now right away
you have to take up the
doctrine of the filling of the Holy Spirit, to be strong in the Lord
and in the power of His might. “Put on
the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil.” And you cannot
put on the whole armor of God
by going out and making some personal resolution that you’re
going to be more faithful to the Lord, or making promises to God. The
armor of God is the Word of God. So, you’re right back again to somebody
dispensing the truth of the Word.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but our combat
is against principalities (these are angelic groups), against powers,
against the rulers of darkness (evil angel groups) of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take
unto you the whole armor of God.” Ahh,
there’s the problem. It’s
true that you can go to most any church and you can hear part of the Word. Many
places you’ll certainly hear the
gospel. But you have Christians who are
walking around with pieces of armor on, and great big chunks of them
fully exposed to mortal blows from the enemy.
“Take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to
stand in the evil days and having done all to stand. Stand
therefore having your loins girded
about with truth.” Whose truth? That’s
another word for divine viewpoint. That’s
the only truth we have. And where do you
get it? From reading inspirational books? From listening to
inspirational sermons? No, you get it
from somebody who gets up and
treats you like you are an intelligent being whom God has made with
capacities to learn what He thinks.
“And having on the breastplate of righteousness.” How
do you get righteousness? By going positive
toward what? Toward the Word. You’ll
never be righteous until you have the
Word and you can go positive toward it. “And
your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace.” You can never be an ambassador until you know
what the gospel is and you can tell it to people and you can tell them
what they need to do with it.
“Above all taking the shield of faith.” That’s
positive volition. “…with which ye will be able to quench all
the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit which is the Word of
God.”
I’ve mentioned to you before that one young woman wrote me
and said that she reviewed her own life and her certain level of
indifference toward the Word of God as she sat in this very circle of believers from
time to time. Her indifference struck home to
her when it finally came home to her what her negative responses had
cost her. She said, “I am afraid my sword is
not too sharp with which to withstand Satan.” She
couldn’t have been more accurate in her evaluation because
that’s exactly what the Word says. How many
Christians really run around and they’ve got a sharp sword in
their hand which is the Word of God.
Some Sunday nights, I have in the back of my mind, of having
just a service where we do nothing else but we just put up a subject
here, and we say, OK, “justification,” or “old sin
nature,” just to see what the
congregation can say, “on the old sin nature,” this
is true. And how many things we could list from a
group of believers that they know about the old sin nature. You’ll
soon tell who’s got dull swords and
who’s got sharp swords.
You can find it quickly enough when you come into spiritual
combat. You take your little sword out
and you make a swath and you miss Satan completely because your
judgment is so far off, or he out-maneuvers you, and pretty soon you look at yourself
and say, “I can’t believe this. Here
I am in an act of sin and I can’t believe this. I
thought better of myself. I was sure I was better than this. And
you’ve got a dull sword. To the extent that you are
ignorant of the Word, you’ve got a dull sword, and there is
no hope.
“Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit which
is the Word of God.” Verse 18 says, “Praying
always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching
thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all things.” We
are not out of line. We as pastors are not out of line when we
stress upon you that there is a legitimate place for you attend prayer. There
is legitimate occasion for you to be engaged in personal as well as corporate prayer because God says,
“This is how I work. And I move the work ahead as you
pray, and I let it lag as you do not pray.” And
I’m not talking about the numbers racket. I’m
talking about spiritual maturity progression on the part of the people of God.
Now to whom is he to do this? The perfecting,
the equipping for combat of the saints. And the word
“saints” of course stands for those who are in Christ. That’s
positional truth. The congregation is to be directed as a group of born-again people so that
they have the Word of God on which to operate. You
can translate it this way: And incidentally,
because it uses this word “pros” here, this is a
preposition which connotes face-to-face. So
if I have anybody here who says, “Well I don’t have to come
to church—I’ll listen to the tapes,” you’re out of line. God says that the
instruction is in the context of the local church
within a group that is gathered, face-to-face, pastor to congregation. And
it is not one-on-one. That is, it is not my investigating what you think.
We couldn’t have privacy if you weren’t in a group
here. Right now some of you have
listened and you have said, “That’s good. I believe that. I
accept that.” But some of you
have said, “Well I don’t
know. There’s that old line again. I’m not
too happy with that.” And you can go
negative. But God says, “You must be private in your
response to me.”
When you have children, they are not private. They
are your business. One lady said, “I heard you say that in
church and I found some things. When I started acting that way I found some things that I needed to know about
my kids that I didn’t know before. But now I
have quit pretending that they have privacy because they were kids. I
now realized that they had privacy. What
they thought and what they were doing
and what they were saying and where they were going was my business. And
it was my business to find it out. If
I had to be J. Edgar Hoover to do it, I
had to find it out. It is the parents
who have little insight and discernment who don’t play that
role.
Face-to-face with training and equipping the saints for
combat. And we’re going to pick it up
and go from there on how we proceed to do that equipping and then how
the two strategic points beyond this are tied to it. We’re
going to go into detail on what it is to produce human good so
that if you just get near it you’ll smell it without ever
seeing it. You’ll know that it’s human good just by the
odor of it. What it is to produce divine
good. That’s what all this is leading to.
But if number one breaks, if that pastor breaks down on you
for the equipping of the saints. You’re through right there.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1971
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