I've had several times in my life as a young man where I believe that God called me to preach. One was in... It's hot in here. One was in high school and the other time when I was in college. And so I love to preach. I love to bring the word. And my message this morning is very simple. I also want to thank the Osbournes because without you guys, we'd be here alone. Thank you. That would be, I don't know, that'd be interesting. We'd have to, yes, but thank you for being here and it's, we value your relationship and your friendship that we've had over the years. But my message this morning, the main text of it is in 2 Timothy chapter 2, and it's a very simple message, and I like simplicity in life. And I'm going to be reading a few verses in 2 Timothy chapter 4. And the message this morning really is about what do I see as the primary responsibility of a pastor and a preacher. Sometimes in life, I've found in my own life, I get distracted. And I think you guys probably find the same thing. Oftentimes, Satan will distract you from what's really important. Sometimes it's good to go back and say, okay, what is really important? What is the main thing? Because Satan will distract you. Satan knows man. He's been following man for 6,000 years. He knows us well. He knows your weaknesses, He knows your strengths, and He will try to trip you up. And oftentimes, Satan distracts you with things that aren't necessarily bad. Do you know what I mean? I mean, they're bad because they distract you, but they're not bad in and of themselves, but they take you off of what really is important. So as I was thinking about preaching and pastoring, it's helpful for me to really say, okay, what do I see as the primary responsibility as a preacher and a pastor. So I'm going to share that with you here in 2 Timothy chapter 4. And we're going to answer two very, very basic questions this morning. All right. So it's going to be a very simple message. And in 2 Timothy chapter 4, we have Paul Paul talking to Timothy. Now, Timothy was a younger man, Paul was an older man, and there was kind of a mentoring or a discipling relationship happening between these two men. And he says, Paul says in verse 1, I charge thee. That's something that Paul was encouraging Timothy in. I charge thee therefore before God. and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. And there's my message right there. Preach. The word, that simple phrase there. That was the charge that Paul gave to Timothy, preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, for the time will come. And I would submit to you this morning, the time is here. It says, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. I don't want to be people that are in the they. Do you see that there in verse two or verse three? For the time will come when They will not endure sound doctrine. The context here is that the preaching of the word will help us not being in the group of people that are described as the they. That group of people that are not going to endure sound doctrine. Now that's the culture we live in today. That is the world. And I'm not talking about the unsaved people. I'm talking about the church. I'm talking about Christians today. We have gotten so far from God's word that sound doctrine, sound teaching and preaching is foreign in our world today. I'm reminded of what it says in Amos chapter 8. You can turn there. I'm going to have to turn. No, I have the verse written down. So just in case I couldn't find Amos, it is in the Old Testament. But Amos chapter 8, Verse 11, it says this. A verse you've probably heard, you're familiar with it. It says, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." I don't want y'all to be people that are in famine, that are hungry, that are not getting the words of God, that aren't getting good preaching, that are not getting good doctrine. So that's what I see as a pastor, a preacher, is my primary responsibility to you guys, is to preach and teach the Bible. And I think we're going to have fun doing that. We're going to learn some good things. But I want to answer two questions this morning. Now, the message is preach the word. That's pretty simple, isn't it? Relatively simple, but oftentimes when you get into words, what do those words mean? What is the word anyways? It's a relevant question today, isn't it? What is the word? We know it's the Bible. But what is that? What is actually is the Bible? Does that seem like a strange question to you? What is the Bible? And then in the secondly, we're gonna answer this word, what is preaching? We have a lot of misconceptions on what preaching is today, do we not? Have you ever heard someone say something like this? It's something like, if always preach and if necessary use words. Now there's some truth to that. Our life should be different, the way we work, the way we interact with people, that ought to be different. People ought to look at us and see something different in us. But when the Bible uses the word preaching, it's talking about something different. So when I mean preach the word, I don't mean just go out there and be nice to people, although we should do that, and work hard at work and be a good testimony. We should do that. That's not what Paul is talking about here when he's giving his exhortation to Timothy. I think one of the biggest problems in the culture today is this book. And it's ultimately the preaching and teaching of this book. You can go to social media, you can go to all the garbage that's on TV and all the garbage that's on the internet. You can go to all the immorality in our culture, but ultimately it goes back to this word. It goes back to God's word. And because we've gotten away from God's word and the preaching of God's word, we're a culture that is foreign. God's word is foreign. And there's a famine in the land for the words of God. You ought to be able to get truth in church, should you not? I would hope. If you can't get it there, where are you going to get it? I mean, you should get it at homes. Hopefully your parents, and I know your parents are, teaching the Word of God at home. But you ought to be able to get the truth at church. It says in 1 Timothy 3, you don't have to turn there, I'll read the verse. Paul says this, 1 Timothy 3.16, Look at what it says, the pillar and ground of the church. Truth. You ought to get truth at church. And sadly enough, in our culture today, many people go to church. I have had interactions with people over the years, just talking to people about the gospel. I'm sure you have as well. They're in an Episcopal church or a Methodist church, and you ask them about salvation. They have never, ever heard the simple message of salvation is by faith. And that's in a church. And that's the conditions of our churches today. So let me start with the first question here. The first question is, what is God's word? Okay, now that seems simple, right? And I want to go to the foundation of what I believe God's word is, but that's a basic question. Well, what's the answer? Well, it's the Bible, right? Well, what's the Bible then? What is it? What really is God's word? What is the Bible? And it seems like a simple question, but I've also learned over the years that oftentimes Defining terms is important. Have you ever been in a discussion with somebody? Mormons are a good example of this, by the way. You talk to a Mormon, they'll use the terms born again. They'll talk about putting your faith and trust in Christ. He died for your sins. They believe in Jesus Christ. You'll all have the tame terms, but you got to peel back the onion a little bit, don't you? To find out really what they mean. One of my favorite, my wife knows this, one of my favorite pet peeves terms is legalism. That's it. I just, I just, You know, because what's a legalist anyways? You know what a legalist is, don't you? Someone who has one more standard than me. That's what a legalist is. That's my humor. But oftentimes we use terms. We throw terms out. Legalism is an example of that. Grace is an example of that. If you talk to a Calvinist, Grace means something different. If you talk about sovereignty, that means something different. So oftentimes, have you ever been in a discussion with somebody and you're talking about something and all of a sudden, as you get back down a little bit deeper, you realize that, yeah, I don't think we're really defining these terms the same way. So I want to go back to the foundation of what I believe God's word is. And so one of the things I want to show you guys this morning is the importance of the words of God, OK? So when we think, if you walk up with someone on the street and you say, what is the word of God? I don't know what, and I'm talking about a Christian, a Christian, what are they gonna say? They're probably gonna say, well, it's the Bible, it's God's revelation to us, it's got the teachings of God, that's true, all that's true. It's got things we need to understand, but you're probably not gonna have many people respond to say that the Bible, God's word, is the very words of God. I bet if you talk to 10 people, you probably wouldn't get one of them. You may get one that would say, no, the Bible is the words of God. It's interesting to me, and that I believe is the foundation. It's one of my foundations, is that God has given us his words, not just ideas. or doctrines or principles. You can read an NIV Bible and get the gospel. You realize that, don't you? You won't have me reading it up here, but you can get, read a modern Bible and get the gospel. And so there is the Word of God in some settings. You can have a preacher preach the Word of God. You can pick up a commentator or a book that talks about the Bible and you can get the Word of God. But when you get back down to the foundation of what the Word of God is, it's the very words of God. And that's in this book. And I'm going to show you. You ought to take some time. I was doing this this morning. You ought to take some time and go through the Bible and just look up the word words. Just you go to these. Isn't it great today? You imagine 100 years ago? It's so easy today to look up stuff and do online searches. And you can just go into Blue Letter Bible or I'm sure 50 other Bible apps and you put the word words in there. And you see all the times the word appears. It appears 548 times in the Bible. It is interesting to me, how did God... I can't say the word without giving it away. But how did the world come into existence? Right. If you go back to Genesis chapter one, the beginning of every day of creation is, and God said. all the day. So you go through them. And God said, and God said, you know what? And I've got it later in my notes, but I'll hit it now. Do you know what Jesus, how Jesus responded to Satan in his temptation in Matthew four? Did he, you think about this. Here's Jesus and Satan. Now Jesus is stronger than Satan. He could have just kind of body slammed him and whatever, and put him out for the count. I mean, he could have done that. I think probably he's stronger, but what does he say? What is, how does Jesus respond to the temptation from Satan. What does he say? He says, it is written. Every temptation, every time Satan comes to him, you can go read it in Matthew four, the response of Jesus says, it is written, it is written, it is written. He always goes back to the written word. And God's written word is most important for us today. And the Bible at its foundational level, I guess the answer to my question, it's the very words of God. That's a foundation. If you don't believe the Word of God is the words of God, that's why people can hold up eight different Bibles and say they're all the Word of God. That's the only way they can do that is because they believe that the Word of God is just kind of like this. If we can cover the nine major doctrines of the faith or 52 major doctrine, which what are those anyways, by the way? I think we know. Intuitively, we understand some of that, but we often talk about the Bible as if, well, there's six things important in the Bible, and as long as these different Bibles cover those things, it's the word of God. When you go back to the foundation of it, the Bible is in my, what I'm gonna show you this morning is the very words of God. The word, words is 548 times in the Bible. I was actually trying to add them up this morning, because obviously it doesn't always refer to God's words. I mean, words is used in many other contexts, but I would say of the 548, there's probably around 200 times that it's a reference to the words of God or the words of the Lord or the words of the prophet, which obviously came from God, the words of his commandment, the words I speak unto you. And I'm gonna read some of these references. You don't have to turn to all of them, but in Exodus chapter 19, it says this, these are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. Exodus chapter 20, this is when God's giving the 10 commandments. And God spake all these words. Exodus 24, as Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and then the people answered and said, all the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. In Exodus chapter 35, these are the words which the Lord hath commanded that you should do them. Deuteronomy chapter 11, there shall you lay up these my words in your hearts. What are we supposed to lay up in our hearts? It's the words of the Lord. It's the words of God. Job chapter 23, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. That's a powerful verse. This is Job in the middle of his trial. It says this, I have esteemed the words of his mouth, talking about God's words. It's interesting in Daniel chapter seven, you know who else has words? The devil has words. It says in Daniel chapter seven, talking about the Antichrist, if you read the context there in Daniel chapter seven, it says, and he shall speak great words against the Most High. Psalm chapter 119, the entrance of thy words giveth light. Do you guys believe that? When you read the Bible, do you believe it contains the very words of God? The Bible says that the entrance of these words gives light. In Matthew 4, I read this verse. Well, no, I didn't read this. I think it's written, Matthew 4, 4, this is when Jesus is interacting with Satan at his temptation. It says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. John 6, 68, Peter says to Jesus, thou hast the words of eternal life. And I've got some more here, but the point, Revelation 1, let me read two more. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy. There's a blessing for hearing and reading the words of the prophecy. This is again, in the context of Revelation. And then Psalm 12, the words of the Lord are pure words. as silver tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord." I love this. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. That's one of the distinctives that we hold in this church. We hold in the preservation of the words of God. And most people don't believe that sadly in our culture today. So the foundation, the simple answer to my question is God's word at its foundation is the very words of God. Go back to Genesis 3. I do want to spend a few minutes here in Genesis 3. It is interesting to me when you go back and study the temptation of Eve and Adam in the garden In Genesis 3, it is interesting, Eve's, shall we call it, misquoting of the commandments that God gave. If you pick that up, and I want to highlight some of those to you. Because they illustrate three things. They illustrate the addition to the words of God. That's the Amplified Bible, that's what I call it. Two, it's the removing of the words of God. And three, it's the changing of the words of God. And that's what we've done to the Bible. We've added, we've taken away, and we've changed. We've just changed things. And in Genesis, I want to show this to you in Genesis chapter three, because Genesis chapter three is, make no mistake about it, Satan trying to get Eve and ultimately Adam to doubt the words of God. Be very careful with a preacher that does that, by the way. Well, you really got to go back to this. Well, really, it's the Greek lexicon. Well, really, the word really means this. Well, it doesn't really mean that. What are they getting you to do? They're getting you to doubt. You're doubting. Well, I don't really know what this says. Maybe this isn't really right. Maybe I need to go to this scholar. Maybe I need to go back to this language or whatever it is. Be very careful of a preacher who gets you to doubt the Word of God, because that's what Satan does. Look at what he says in Genesis chapter three. Now, the serpent was more subtle. than any beast of the field which the Lord God hath made. And he said unto the woman, now God had just said, and he said, and he created, and he created, and he said, and he gave commandments. And look at what Lucifer does, Satan does. And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said? You may not eat of every tree of the garden. Well, yeah, God had said that, didn't he? I mean, except for one, that wasn't totally true. He did tell them they could eat from the tree of life or they could eat from all of them except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the question is, did God say, did God really say that? Are you sure? Isn't that what you hear today? Did God really say that? Are you sure? Are you sure that's really what it means? That's ultimately what Satan was doing here in Genesis chapter three. But look at verse two. I never read this. I was reading a commentary by a man I have a lot of respect for. He pointed this out. He was going through this, reading his Genesis commentary. And look at what it says in Genesis 3, 2. All right. Now go back to Genesis chapter 2, because that's where the commandment, that's where God has told them what they could or could not do. In Genesis chapter 2, It is verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat. And look at what Eve said. We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. Something got missed, didn't it? Did you see it? Freely is taken out, is it not? It is interesting to me that God offers us salvation freely. God is a good God. He offers you something freely. And even here in Genesis 3 verse 2, we may eat the fruit of the trees. No, that's not what God said. God is a gracious God. He is a good God. He offers you something free. It was freely that you had that ability to do that. Now, you may say, well, that's just fine tuning and that's just a fine point. Well, God is a God of grace. We're saved by grace. We have a free gift of salvation. God is giving them something freely here. And Eve takes that out when she repeats the commandment. Do you know, it is fascinating to me, and I don't think this is a coincidence, but the first and last times the word freely appears in the Bible is in the context of salvation in Revelation chapter 22. It says this, and the spirit and the bride say, come, and let him that heareth say, come, and let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life. Freely, God offers salvation. So Adam and Eve were going to be saved by eating from the tree of life. You understand that, right? They were physically of the kind, they needed to eat from the tree of life. That was eternal life for them. It was freely eating from the trees, particularly eating from the tree of life. But when Eve repeats the commandment, she took it out. She took out freely. And then we know what she did next in verse 3. Can you see that the words of God, the point I'm making here with the words of God, changing the words of God in verse 3, And there's your Amplified Bible. That's my joke about. You know, Eve, she was just doing the, she was writing the Amplified Bible, you know, where you just take it and expand it and say three times what needs to be said to make the point. So you have taking away the Word of God in verse two, you have adding to the Word of God in verse three, and then look at what she says in verse four, I'm sorry, at the end of verse three, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die. Now, what did God say over in, He says, for in the day thou eatest thou of, thou shalt surely die. There's no questioning with God, is there? It's surely you're going to die. It's not maybe you're going to die. It's not, well, you know, you're going to die. No, you're surely going to die. And so you see the change happening there in verse four. And I think one of the most fundamental things that we as a church and we as a people can hold to is our commitment to the words of God. And I wanted to go back to Genesis three, because I wanted to show you how it is that the words of God were changed in that passage. It is interesting to me that Eve got it wrong three times. She misquoted God three, go back and compare them. She got it wrong all three times. You know, Jesus was tempted how many times? Three times. And every time he was tempted, he goes back and he quotes scripture. It is written. It is written. It is written. Three times, man fails under the temptation. Three times, Eve misquotes, misunderstands God. Three times, Jesus, when he is tempted, he says, it is written. It is written. It is written. Don't ever think the words of God are not important. Don't ever think changes here and changes there and additions here and subtractions here. Well, that's okay. We're kind of getting to the point. We're kind of getting the main things. There are a lot of things you're not going to get. I'm going to do some teaching here on dispensations and we're going to get into some deep, deep stuff. And you're going to see where words matter. You're going to see, I was doing a little bit of a rabbit trail, but one of the dispensations is the fullness of times. And there's also a reference to the fullness of time. When the fullness of time has come, God will sent forth his son, born of a virgin, born under the law. So, hello. Come on in. Sorry, I had the hose exploded on me when I was walking the horses, so I had to change. Do we need chairs? Yeah, welcome. Welcome. Sorry about that. No, we welcome the interruption. I don't like that, but I'm sorry. I'm Jeff. I'm Catherine. Nice to meet you, Catherine. And young ladies, how are you? Good. I'm Jeff. I'm Elsa. Hello, hello. I'm Ireland. Good. Well, good. Welcome. Well, it's good to have you. I wasn't expecting visitors, so it's good to have visitors. This is our first Sunday. So you're welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm glad you're here this morning. We were talking about the words of God and talking about the word of God and how God oftentimes in the Bible makes reference to the words of God and how important God's words are. It's not just doctrines and principles and those are important. But ultimately, what's very important is the very words of God as recorded in this book. I'm gonna go on to my next question. My first question was, what is God's word? And I said, at its foundation and fundamentally, God's word is the very words of God. But the other thing it said there in 2 Timothy 4, remember the phrase, preach the word. And that's what we're talking about, preach the word. 2 Timothy 4, verse 2. So we talked about the word part of that, but what about the preach part of that? Paul says to Timothy to preach the Word. The word preach appears many times in the Bible. It appears 50 times in the Bible. Preaching is 27 times in the Bible. Preacher is 11 times. Preached is 61 times. So there's 149 times. If you go through the Bible, you can see either the word preach, preaching, preached is in the Bible. So the preaching of the Bible is important. Do you know in Matthew chapter four, after his temptation, you know what the Bible says about Jesus? And I've got the verse here. It says in, Jesus went everywhere preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That's, Matthew 4, verse 17. It says, You know John the Baptist, the first thing he did when he came out of the wilderness? He says, He came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, They were preachers. I love it because they were what I call public preachers. They preached out where the people were. Imagine that, actually going out and preaching where people are. Oftentimes as a culture, it's odd to me, we kind of expect people to come into the churches to hear the preaching, which that's great. We should. We should invite people into our churches to hear the preaching. But many people aren't going to come into the church. Many people aren't going to come in here. We need to take the word out to them. That's where they are. That's what Jesus did. You watch him in his ministry. He would just go out, and Jonah, it was interesting when you read the story of Jonah, it said he walked into the city and he was preaching. He didn't go into Nineveh and rent a building and, well, let's see, let's get some deacons and elders, let's get some structure here, let's get out some flyers and let's get people to come into the building to hear the preaching. He was just preaching. He was walking out into the streets and preaching the Word of God. And we need to take the preaching. That was totally out of my notes. That was free. But what about Bible preaching? When Paul exhorts Timothy in 1 Timothy 2 to preach the Word, what does that mean to preach the Word? Well, you preach by your life. Well, that's true. You do. When I go into work and I work a certain way, I am sending a message. I'm being a testimony. But when the Bible uses the term preaching, it's different. It's talking about some things, and I want to give you some characteristics of what I would call Bible preaching, okay? And again, my message is about what is my responsibility as a pastor? It's preaching the Word. Primarily, it's preaching the Word. We talked about God's Word. What about preaching? What am I to do? When I say I'm to preach the Word, is it my responsibility to come in here and make you feel good? To have a rock concert? Whatever, have lights, strobe lights, and all this stuff? No, it's Bible preaching. So what is preaching? Well, And I'm gonna go with the obvious here, but the first thing I'm gonna say is that Bible preaching is preaching of the Bible. How's that? Now you didn't need to get out of bed and come here this morning to hear that. But it is. Oftentimes the Bible's not preached in our churches today, are they? Is it? In our culture today. It's not a something we should just assume. So Bible preaching is preaching of the Bible. Go to Titus chapter one. I'll read some of these. I've got quite a few references here. I will have you turn to some of them. As a preacher, a pastor, you like hearing people the pages of the Bible, that's good. You know, we don't put everything on the slides, if we have slides. It's good to hear you turning to the Bible, but it says in Titus chapter one, verse three, it says this, but hath in due times manifested his, what? His word through preaching. Bible preaching is preaching of what? His word. That's what it should be. I shouldn't be up here preaching about, I don't know, President Trump and what he's doing or whatever else is going on in the world. And I'm not saying there aren't illustrations, there aren't things that I can bring into a message to bring something home. But fundamentally, the preaching should be the preaching of this book. It shouldn't be the preaching of my opinions, or my ideas, or my philosophies, or somebody else's opinions or philosophies. It should be the preaching of this book. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, it is interesting to me, go back there, that was the verse we were reading in earlier, 2 Timothy chapter 4, It says, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves. What are they heaping to themselves? Who, what is it? Audience participation is okay. It's teachers. Now the Bible says you to preach and teach. And one of the cautions I have maybe for more of you young people is that, and I'll teach as well. We're gonna do some great stuff in a month or so on some dispensations and we're gonna walk through that. And it's gonna be more teaching and stuff, but don't get so focused on acquiring head knowledge of the Bible. That's important. I'm gonna be careful with what I say. But you also need to be challenged and exhorted. Look at what it says there in the preaching in verse two. Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove. Rebuke, exhort. That's what the preaching of the Word of God should do. There's a time to feel like you're being rebuked. You realize that, don't you? You ought not come into a church. My favorite preacher, and I won't share his name because you'll get tired of hearing about him, but he talks about coming in as, he says, you don't want to go to church and come as you are and leave as you were. You get the point, right? You don't want to come to church unchanged. There's a time to be rebuked. There's a time to be encouraged. There's a time that you need to repent. There's a time you need to look at your life and see what's going on and you need to change. But it's to reprove, it's to rebuke. And that's going to happen when God's Word is being preached. If all you're doing is going to church, knowledge can puff up. You realize that, don't you? The Bible says, I think it's in Corinthians, it was written, knowledge can puff up. You can know everything about. You can have the right book. You can have the right view on all the dispensations. You can have the right view on, I don't know, whatever other doctrinal issue you want to come up with. And you can be living like the devil. You realize that, don't you? And I'm not, I am all about knowledge. I love studying the Bible, but be careful that you don't just get filled with teaching and instruction and you don't balance that with good, solid Bible preaching. That was a bit of a rabbit trail, but Bible preaching is preaching ultimately of the Bible. I've got some other references here. You can go there if you want. I'm not gonna go there, but Acts chapter eight, verse four, Acts 11, verse 19. Acts 15, verse 35. It's interesting there in the early church, one of those references says, they went everywhere preaching the word. You ladies can preach, not up here. But there's a place for you to be out giving the word, witnessing, sharing the gospel with people. We don't do that in a public setting. We understand that for in the church, that's a man's responsibility, but you can be out there doing that in your communities with your neighbors, et cetera. So Bible preaching is preaching of the Bible. Bible preaching is spoken. Can I just say that? Bible preaching is spoken. Nehemiah 6, verse 7. When you talk about preaching in the Bible, you have people saying things, okay? In Nehemiah 6, verse 7, it says this, God hath also appointed prophets to preach, saying, there is a king in Judah. And then it goes on with the message. Matthew 10, verse 7, Jesus told his disciples to preach, Saying. Preaching is saying something. Saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Mark chapter 1 verse 7, John the Baptist preached saying. In Acts chapter 8 verse 35, then Philip opened his mouth. If I'm going to preach here, I'm going to need to open my mouth. Sometimes you may not like it. but I'm gonna open my mouth and hopefully, my wife was sharing a thought with me this morning and just how she praying that, and I pray this a lot, that the stuff God wants me to say is said and the stuff that God doesn't want me to say is not said when I preach. And that's my prayer with you guys is that I preach what God wants me to preach. But Acts 8.35, Philip opened his mouth, began at the same scripture and preached. Now that may seem obvious, but not in our culture today. Because there's a lot of things that we call preaching that when you go to the Bible, you see, no, preaching is the spoken word. It is speaking. It is saying something. What's another characteristic of preaching? Bible preaching, we're talking about. Bible preaching exalts Jesus Christ. Bible preaching exalts Jesus Christ. One of the things I pray, pretty much every time I preach, is that people would see Jesus Christ. You don't wanna see me. I'm just trying to be a conduit. I'm trying to give you some things that God's given to me over my life, in my years. But ultimately, we want Jesus Christ to be exalted. Acts chapter five, you can go to that one. Acts 5, verses 41 and 42. There was a lot of stuff going on in the book of Acts in that early church, but Acts 5, verses 41 and 42, it says, and they departed, this was Peter and John, they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. Now that's a powerful testimony. They had just been beaten, okay? and they counted it worthy to suffer for His name." They were rejoicing. But it says, daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and to preach about themselves. No, teach and to preach Jesus Christ. That's ultimately what we preach. We preach Jesus Christ. We preach His Word. And the preaching, biblical preaching should teach that it should exalt Jesus Christ. I've got a couple other references. One is in Acts chapter 17, verses two and three. It says, and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must, needs, have suffered and risen again from the dead, and that this Jesus whom I preached unto you is Christ. He was preaching Jesus. That's what he was preaching to the people. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, for we preach Christ crucified. That's ultimately the message for us today, isn't it? The message for the world, Christ crucified, a savior who came to this earth, who died on the cross, paid the penalty for your sins, rose again the third day. Isn't that the best news you can give to anybody? Is the crucified Christ, we preach Christ crucified. I love what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, verses 5 and 6. It says, For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. That's what the preacher should be doing on Sunday. He should not be preaching himself. He should be preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in 1 Corinthians 2, again, this is Paul, See, Bible preaching points people to Jesus, ultimately. That's what it points people to. Not to you, not to your self-esteem, not to your ego. It points you to Jesus Christ. You know, Jesus Christ is the answer to all your problems. You realize that, don't you? It's not the psychologist. It's not the counselor. I mean, they can help you. They can give you things that may point you in the right direction. But ultimately, every answer to every problem you have is found in a man. And that man is Jesus Christ. That's your answer to your problem. So Bible preaching should preach Jesus Christ. Bible preaching convicts of sin. Bible preaching convicts of sin. That's not something that happens a whole lot. in our world today. Do you actually go to church sometimes and feel convicted about sin? I hope. I hope that sometimes when I'm saying something, or maybe one of the other young men or men are up here saying something, I hope that there's a time where you feel convicted about something. The Bible says in John 16, three, how be it when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. One of the works of the Holy Spirit is convicting. He convicts the world of sin. I've got that reference. I think maybe I don't have that reference. I think it's in Corinthians, but the Bible says the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God has come to convict the world of sin. People need to be convicted of sin. Unbelievers need to be convicted of sin, don't they? How is an unbeliever going to get saved if they don't recognize they have a need for a savior? If they don't recognize their condition as a condition in sin, they're not going to be saved. So Bible preaching should convict of sin. It should convict a believer of sin and it should convict an unbeliever of sin. says in Psalm, I'm sorry, 2 Timothy 2, 4, 2, we read this already, but preach the word, talks about reproving and rebuking. Bible preaching should do that. It should reprove you, it should rebuke you. I already covered that. I preached a message, I don't know, a while back about the church in Laodicea. Y'all familiar with the Laodicean church? There's seven churches there in Revelation. The Laodicean church is the seventh. It's the last church listed. and many people, scholars that read scripture, and you know, I'm kind of a wannabe scholar or whatever, but we'll look at that church in Laodicea, and they'll say it's kind of indicative of our culture today. And it's the, we all know the term, it's the lukewarm church. You know what it says about the church in Laodicea in verse chapter three of Revelation? It says in verse 17, why don't you turn there? This is a condition I don't ever wanna be in. as a person, as a believer. It says in Revelation chapter three, when it talks about the church in Laodicea, it says this about them. There's some different places you can be at in your life. You can be Rebelling against God. And you may know. You may know that. You're not where God wants you to be. You know you're not where God wants you to be. You don't care. You're going to do what you're going to do. Okay? That's one place you can be. You can be at another place where you're walking with the Lord. God's dealing with stuff in your life. You're dealing with it. You're growing in the Lord. You're where God wants you to be. But then you can be where this Laodicean church. You know where they were? They thought they were fine. They thought everything about them was fine. They thought they were rich. They thought their walk was fine. They thought everything was good. And God looked at them and his commentary on them was, you're poor, you're wretched. I don't want to be there. I don't want you guys to be in a church where you're not getting at least the opportunity to hear preaching that convicts you, that challenges you in your walk, that moves you on to grow in your walk with the Lord. Because I don't want any of us to be in the place where we actually think that, man, I'm just fine. I'm fine. It's good. And God is looking at us and saying, you're not fine at all. You're poor. You're wretched. That's the commentary here on the on the on the church in Laodicea. So Bible preaching should convicts of sin. Bible preaching oftentimes calls for a response. When I read those verses earlier in Matthew chapter three and four about John the Baptist and Jesus, what did they say? What did they tell them to do? They said they were preaching repent. That calls for a response, doesn't it? If you're repenting from something, right? You're walking a certain direction and repentance is what? It's turning around and going the other direction. So Bible preaching causes you to change. You know, a lot of preaching today is designed to make you feel good. You come to church, the pastor says some really nice things, maybe 15, 20 minutes, because the attention span after all, I actually heard the attention span is like 12 seconds now, or no, is it eight? Somebody was telling me that we've actually gone below the goldfish as far as attention span as human beings. I don't know how they figured that out, but that's what someone told me, that our human beings' attention span, because of everything, we're distracted all the time. Every second we're distracted with something. I don't know how I got off on that. But Bible preaching calls for a response. It causes us to look at our lives and it should cause us to change. It should cause us to respond in some way. John the Baptist said to repent. Jesus says to repent. You can go back to Isaiah 1, verses 16 and 17. Isaiah tells them to get right. You know that preaching is God's mean to save the lost? Do you realize that? The God's way of saving lost people is through preaching. It says in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 21, it says this, but after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness. The world looks at preaching as foolish. You realize that, don't you? Please God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. It is the foolishness of preaching that God says is designed to save people. When you preach and proclaim the word, you go back and study history. You go back and look at the great revivals of when Jonathan Edwards would get up and simply He would just read his Bible, read his message, sinners in the hands of an angering God. And people would just pour a response. Why? Because the word was being preached and they were being convicted about sin. So Bible preaching is God's means to save the lost. You know what it says in Romans chapter 10, verse 17, faith, which is required for salvation, faith alone in Christ alone. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by what? The word of God. So you need to hear the word of God to be saved, don't you? I mean, you don't, because I think you're all are saved. But for someone who is not saved, faith comes by hearing. Hearing, so what do you have to hear? You have to hear the word of God. So preaching is meant to save lost people. It says in Psalm chapter 19, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. Well, Bible preaching, and I'm going to get in trouble here, but Bible preaching is negative in a world where no one's supposed to be negative, right? We're all supposed to be, I was gonna go off on a rabbit trail, I won't, but no, this is in my notes. Bible preaching is negative. I was gonna go back to Genesis, but I'm not gonna do that right now. So Bible preaching is negative. It was Jonah chapter three, verse four. What was the message of Jonah? God loves you and he's got a great plan for your life and you just need to think more highly of yourselves and just, you know, go meditate, whatever. What was the message? It's 40 days and you're toast. God's gonna burn, he's gonna destroy Nineveh. You need to repent. That wasn't a very positive message, was it? I mean, if you're in the crowd, you're thinking, oh my word, fear, anxiety, what do I need to do? That was not a positive message. Matthew chapter three, when John comes on the scene, one of the first things he talks about is he talks about burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. That's hell, talking about hell. One of the most common things that Jesus talked about in his earthly ministry was about hell. If we love people, should we not tell them there's a hell? Shouldn't we? I mean, if I really believe my neighbor is gonna go to hell, which I do, if I don't go to them either There's only probably two, well, there's three reasons, I guess. One is I don't really believe salvation is only by faith, so I don't believe I have a unique message to give them. Two is I just don't care. That's possible. And three is, I'm embarrassed. I don't wanna give him a negative message. I feel bad, whatever. But if we love and we believe in hell, shouldn't we tell people about it? I've heard pagan people actually, unsaved people, actually admire believers who witness and share their faith. Because they're like, if you really believe what you believe, you should be telling people. If you really believe that I'm gonna die and go forever to hell, if I don't accept Christ as my saviour, you should be telling me that. They may not accept it, but Bible preaching is negative. Paul says in Romans 3, there's none righteous, no, not one. That's not very good news. No one's righteous. No, not one. There's not one righteous person who is acceptable to God. That's not a positive message. It says later on, it says there in Romans 3, they're all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. That's a great message. You're gonna get a lot of crowd. You can preach that message. You're all unprofitable. You're not worth anything, you're all unrighteous. But it says in Revelation chapter 20, God will judge every man according to his works. And anyone who is not found in the book of life will go to the lake of fire. That's negative, isn't it? But you know what? Because I want to be positive too. I don't want to be all negative, you know. Just kidding. Bible preaching is positive too, isn't it? Don't we have a good news? Don't we have a good message? I mean, yeah, sometimes people need to hear the bad message first. They need to hear about their condition. They need to hear that they're without hope, without Christ. They need to hear about their sin so they're ready to hear the good news. But Bible preaching is positive. You're going to get some positive things as well. When Jesus comes on the scene in Matthew chapter three, I'm not going to get into the dispensational elements of all this, but what does he say? The kingdom of heaven is at hand. The king was there. He was on the earth walking around. The kingdom was at hand. That was good news. It was good news for a Jew, was it not? The Jews were oppressed. They were persecuted by the Romans. They were under their rule. That was good news. The promised Messiah, who had been promised from the Old Testament, now was there, physically present. That was good news. So Bible preaching is positive. Romans chapter three. Why don't you go there? I'm not going to read all these to you and I'm going quick. I don't need you to turn to all of them, but Romans 3, there's good news in Romans 3. Right after the passage I just read that said there's none righteous, no not one, all of sin, everyone's unprofitable, they've all gone out of the way, it says that early in Romans 3. Look at what it says in verse 21. But now, isn't that good? But now, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. That's good news. being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believed, for there is no difference." That's good news. There's no difference in the eyes of Christ. You realize that? I don't care how bad you've been. I don't care what you've done. The bum, the murderer, the rapist, the whoever it is you meet on the street, they all come to God on equal grounds. They all come to God acknowledging their sin, understanding the gospel, and God's righteousness is available to them. That's good news, is it not? We have the best message in the world to give to a lost and a dying world. So Bible preaching is negative, Bible preaching is positive. I love this. Bible preaching is plain, okay? Now, I have read books and I have listened to preachers. And when there's a preacher that's going on and on and I'm having a hard time, I mean, I wanna be careful, because I'm not saying you need to, sometimes a preacher says something, maybe you don't quite understand what he means, but there are people that get up and say stuff, and you just don't know what they're talking about. And they're very vague, and they're very, well, I don't know what he's saying. My wife gave me this book about a year or two ago, I read it, and it was like, I don't know what this lady's saying. I don't know if it's right, I don't know if it's wrong. I guess that's the Bible, maybe it's not. It was very confusing. Bible preaching is plain. You ought to understand what the preacher's saying. You ought to understand the message. If not, maybe you should consider someplace else. It says in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 12, it says this. You can go turn there, 2 Corinthians 3. I hear some of you wanting to turn there. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 12, seeing that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. Deuteronomy chapter 27, I'll read this one to you, verse 8. And they shall write upon the stones all the words of the law, very Plainly, the preacher should be clear. Now, I don't mean, I'm not saying you're never going to, I'm not saying that if I make a point in the message, you should leave and never come back. Come and talk to me about it. But as a general, you should be able to understand basically what the preacher is saying. It shouldn't be confusing. It shouldn't be uncertain. God is not the author of confusion. It says in 1 Corinthians 14, this is the famous passage on tongues and prophecies and all that was going on there in the church in Corinth, but it says this, If you don't know what I'm saying up here, That's an uncertain sound. How are you prepared for the battle? You're not prepared for the battle. If you come in every week and, well, I don't know what he's saying. I don't know what he meant by that. Well, he was off on this this week. There ought to be much plainness of preaching. And you guys, I don't, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's a pet peeve of mine, but You go to a Christian bookstore. There is more junk in a Christian bookstore. I'm not saying you can't find good stuff there. I'm not even saying you can't find a book that's lousy and get some good things out of it. I'm sure you can. But a lot of that stuff, it's not plain. It's psychology. It's confusing. It's a lot of nonsense that you don't need to be filling your minds with. I got enough. I got enough stuff in this book that I don't know much about. Frank, be honest with you. There's enough stuff in here I haven't studied. Unless it's trying to read, you know, Oprah Winfrey's opinion on whatever, which is bad. Even some Christian folks, guys, you got to be careful. Some of the stuff that's out there, but Bible preaching is plain. It ought to be clear. You ought to understand what's being said. I'm almost done here. Bible preaching is bold. We ought to be bold. You go back to the book of Acts, you're going to see in Acts 9, starting in verse 27, It says this, but Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared unto them how that he had seen the Lord, this is of course Paul, had seen the Lord in the way and that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. He preached boldly. And in Acts chapter seven, when you see Peter there preaching, he was preaching with boldness, was he not? In John 7, but lo, he speaketh boldly. We ought to be bold as Christians, shouldn't we? I know you get nervous when you're witnessing to people. I realize that. I do too. But we ought to have boldness. We have a wonderful message. We have the very Christ living within us. And we ought to be bold as we preach and as we give the word to people. Acts chapter 14, long time, therefore I abode they speaking boldly in the Lord. Acts chapter 18, and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. These Christians, if you read the book of Acts, they had a lot of boldness. We should be bold in our preaching. I should be bold in my preaching as well. And lastly, When it comes to Bible preaching, Bible preaching should be done everywhere, and I like this. It goes back to my earlier point, is don't just preach God, preach the Bible in church, preach it everywhere. And I'm gonna read some references here for you, but it says in Matthew 10, 27, Jesus says to preach upon the housetops. That's good, you can get on your roof and preach. Jesus preached in their cities in Matthew 11, verse one. They preached in the next towns in Mark chapter 138. He tells his disciples in Mark chapter 16, verse 15, go preach to what? Every creature. It says in Luke 4.18 that the gospel was being preached to the poor and the captives. It was being preached in every house in Acts chapter five, verse 42. In Acts chapter 10, verse 42, Peter says they were commanded to preach unto the people In 2 Corinthians 10, it was the regions beyond you. Galatians 1, verse 16, Paul says, I was commanded to preach him among the heathen. John the Baptist was preaching. I like that. John the Baptist must have been one cool. I bet when you get to heaven, he's going to be one gnarly looking dude, you know? I mean, he ate locusts and stuff. And, you know, I imagine he had like these little grasshoppers coming out of his beard and all when you saw him. He was probably a gnarly dude, but he was preaching in the wilderness. Jesus preached in the synagogues in Matthew 9. He said he preached in the country around Jordan in Luke chapter 3. He says he preached in every city and village in Luke chapter 8 verse 1. Our preaching should not be limited to a Sunday morning 45-minute, 50-minute message or whatever it is. It ought to be done everywhere. We ought to be preaching the Word when we go out into our towns and our villages and our cities. It says in Acts chapter 4, you know when they were persecuted, the church was persecuted? They were scattered. It says they went everywhere preaching the Word. So there are some qualities and some characteristics of Bible preaching. I wanna give you one more verse here before I close. It's found in 1 Thessalonians. It goes back to my first point, 1 Thessalonians. Why don't you turn there? You all are strange people. You realize that, don't you? You're strange people because you want to learn the Bible. You want to learn the book. And most people today, unfortunately, in our churches are pretty satisfied. We're pretty content. We're pretty fat and happy. And you all are weird. You want to learn the book. That's a good thing. That's a compliment kind of meant in a strange way. But 1 Thessalonians chapter three, There's a powerful word. So what is the responsibility, one of the responsibilities of someone who's listening to preaching, of the Word, someone who's listening to preaching of the Word? It says here in 1 Thessalonians 2, I came across this verse maybe six months to a year ago, and it was very impactful to me. It says this in verse 13. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which he heard of us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. I totally believe that if you believe and receive the word of God as the word of God, it'll be more powerful in your life. than if you feel like you're holding a book and you believe a book, but you don't believe it's the Word of God. It's gonna make a difference. When you read your Bible, when you're listening to the preaching of the Word of God, receive it as such. Believe it's the Word of God. Receive it as the Word of God. And as Paul says here in 1 Thessalonians 2, he says, it will work effectually in you And I think part of what he's saying is you're believing in this being the Word of God. And I think that's important for you as people, as you listen to preaching, as you listen to the Word of God, receive it as believing it is the Word of God. Receive these words as they are the Word of God, not as the Word of men, but as God. And the Bible says that will effectually work in you. And then my other challenge is to be Bereans in the verse in Acts where it's Paul commended the Bereans and people, because they were like the Bereans who went back and studied the word on their own. So be Bereans as well and be students and be believers of this book. So preaching the word, that was my message this morning, preach the word. That's my responsibility. That's what I see as a pastor, is to preach, to give you the word, to teach and preach every week. And we're gonna do some good things here. We're gonna have some fun. I have a outline here of what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna, talk about for at least probably a couple of weeks on what does it mean to be in Christ. So one of the most powerful messages I learned probably about, I don't know, 15 or 20 years ago, this was a powerful message outside of salvation itself, was who I am in Christ. What does the Bible say about you? Oftentimes in the Christian life, we focus so much on what we're doing, what we're doing, what we're doing, what we're not doing, what we're not doing, what we're not doing, And we've boiled down our relationship to God to things that we do and don't do. And we feel like we're not measured up. We feel like we fall short. The Bible says some things about who you are in Christ. And it's very powerful. We're going to talk about that. And then I am going to do a series on dispensations. That's going to be tax season. I'm a tax guy, for those who don't know that, and I'm busy in tax season. So I'm going to do a series on dispensations. I'm also going to cover Genesis 1, 1, and 1, 2, the gap, that whole thing there. I'm going to go over that. I told my wife last night I've already got two or three messages on that. I've got a couple of messages on dispensations. You are gonna learn a ton. You will learn, I have learned a ton. It is amazing what you can do by looking at a word in scripture, and anybody can do this. Go to the blue letter Bible, whatever, look at the word in scripture, and look how it's used through the rest of the Bible. It will open your eyes. It'll make you see things you've never seen. I did that this morning just with the words of God. But we're going to, and then that's probably going to take us through tax season. Dispensations, just as a, I was going to throw out a little challenge just to say how many dispensations do you think there are? The problem with that question is it's not totally fair because good men have different numbers, somewhere between seven and 10, if you're dispensational in your theology. So I was going to give out a little prize, you know, Babe Ruth bars for the Osmonds. If you can actually, you know, kind of get closer, you know, problem is you got to kind of get in Mr. Trout's mind and, figure out, because there are good men that say there's eight. There's good men that say there's nine. I've even read good men that say there's 10. So anyways, but I'm going to talk about that, take probably a couple of months to go through each of the dispensations, try to help us understand what's going on in scripture. We are dispensational as a church. We do believe there's distinctions between the church, between Israel, and you'll see those distinctions played out in various ways. There was even a different dispensation for Adam and Eve. We talked about a little bit of that. of what they did there in Genesis, but there's a different dispensation. So we're going to talk about that. You're going to learn a lot. And I think you're going to be blessed. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thankful that we can be here this morning. Father, we love you. And I'm thankful for each person who came this morning. And it's a blessing to me, just the people would want to hear me preach and just come here and just fellowship, sing, and just spend time together, Lord. We love you. And just bless the rest of this day in Jesus' name. Amen.