What is the priority of the preacher? That's a question that I want to answer this morning as we have our time together. And to do that, I want to invite you to turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4. There are five verses in chapter 4 that I want us to look at this morning. As we answer that question, what is the priority of the preacher? Now, if you're unfamiliar with this letter, this is a pastoral epistle. Paul is writing to Timothy, who is his young protege in the ministry. And he even tells us that he is his son in the faith, so that gives us the information that he led him to the Lord. But 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and also Titus are considered pastoral epistles because they speak on matters that pertain to the church. If you begin in 2 Timothy, in chapter 1, we could probably give a one-phrase title to each of the chapters. In chapter 1, he talks about being bold, not being ashamed of him or of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's chapter 1. In chapter 2, he talks about being strong, being strong in the grace that's in Christ Jesus. In chapter 3, he tells him to be wise. Why? Because difficult days are coming. And then in chapter 4, he tells him to be diligent. to be diligent, and you'll know why in just a few moments why he would say that. Again, these are words that are penned to Timothy, and they're words that are penned to every preacher. This is their primary duty, and you'll see it very quickly as I read these verses. He says, beginning at verse 1, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing in His kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things. Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. This here is a very important passage. Because as I said, it answers the question of what is the priority of the preacher? What is he to focus all of his attention on? Sure, he has many things to do within the church, but what is his main thing? What's the main thing that the churches do? In fact, you could summarize it in two things that the church is to focus in on. One is evangelization. We're to evangelize the lost. We're to bring them to Christ. We're to preach the gospel. We're to go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, aren't we? The second thing is that we are to build up the saints, edify them. And you do that by the preaching and teaching of God's Word. Over in Ephesians chapter 4, it talks about the reason why God gave the evangelists and the pastor-teachers to the church. He talks about apostles and prophets right before that, but there are no longer today apostles and prophets. We do have evangelists and pastor-teachers. And evangelists are basically church planners or missionaries. They go into an area where Christ hasn't been named, and they win people to Christ, and they stay there long enough for God to raise up a leader, to raise up a pastor. And a pastor is there for the long hard. He shepherds the people. But then it tells us in verse 12 what the purpose is. They're there for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. For the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all attain to the unity and the knowledge of the Son of God. So the reason for the priority of the preacher is to bring the church, to bring believers to maturity in Christ. And when you think about that, if you go back to 2 Timothy 4 and you look at verse 2, He says in verse 1, three words. What are they? Preach the Word. Preach the Word. This is not a program for the church. This is not a passing fad for the church. This is the central ministry of the church. This is what the church is to do. This is extremely important. And I want you to see this morning how important it is. He begins there this morning with the command. He says, I solemnly charge you. It could be better translated this way, I command you. The word that he uses there for charge is a very forceful and directive word. It could be translated testify. We find language similar to this in 1 Timothy 5.21 as well as 1 Timothy 6.13. He says in 1 Timothy 5.21, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels. Sounds real similar to that. 1 Timothy 6.13, he says, I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus. So again, this is a solemn, serious command. It is something that Timothy is to obey. It's something that all preachers are to obey. They are to preach the Word. And again, it's a command that is very serious, and he tells us why it's very serious. Notice who it is before. He says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. Now, this phrase, in the sight of God, in the construction that is in the Greek in this verse, it reads back this way, in the sight of God, even Christ Jesus. And the word Lord doesn't appear in the better manuscripts. But what he is saying here that this charge is so serious because who it is before. Who is the one that keeps the preacher accountable? You say the church. Well, they're part of that. But it is the Lord Jesus Himself. You read the book of Revelation. Revelations chapter 2 and 3 that give the messages to the seven churches. How does it begin each time there is a message to one of the churches? It says, and to the angel of the church write. And the word angel is angelos. It could be translated messenger. There was a messenger. And the messenger could be the pastors of these churches. But Jesus has a message for each one of these churches, doesn't He? And He says He holds them in His right hand. And so this charge is very serious because of who it's before. It's before the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is He going to do? He says, "...who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom." He's identified as one who is to judge the living and the dead. Now, you can look elsewhere in Scripture, and you find that God the Father granted all judgment to the Son. Listen to this verse in John 5, 26. It says, For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave the Son also to have life in Himself, and He gave Him authority to execute judgment. Why? Because He is the Son of Man. He gave Him that authority to execute judgment. Paul even made this point to the Athenians in Acts 17. This is a verse that you're very familiar with. It says in verse 30, Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. All judgment has been given to Jesus. Every person will stand before Jesus. The Bible says in Philippians 2, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. That will take place. Every person one day will stand before Him and give an account of their life. If they're in Christ, then all their sins was laid upon Him on the cross, right? But if they're not in Christ, They will hear these haunting words, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Now, as you get in verse two, I want you to notice the specifics of the command. What does Paul command Timothy and all preachers to do? It's those three words, preach the word. The word preach is an imperative. In fact, this is the first of nine imperatives or commands, imperatives or commands. And so he uses nine of them in these five verses. He tells us in verse two to preach, to be ready, to reprove, rebuke, exhort. And then we find four of them in verse five, be sober, endure, do, and fulfill. Nine commands that he gives Timothy. Nine commands that he gives all preachers. Timothy is to preach the Word, and how is he to do this? Well, if you take the word caruso for preach, it tells us that the word caruso referred to an official spokesman for the king. Who do preachers speak for? Themselves? No. They speak for the King of Kings, right? The Lord of Lords. The Lord Jesus Christ. And they are to be that spokesman. In fact, Caruso during that time was a spokesman for the Emperor. He would proclaim in a very formal, a grave, an authoritative manner. And when he did this, it was to be listened to. This was a message which the Emperor gave him to announce. What is the message that is given to every preacher to announce? It's right here in the Bible, isn't it? It's right here in the Word of the Living God. In fact, the word here for preach is in a construction that is to be obeyed at once. He is to obey this. He is to do this. This is a sharp command as in military language. If you're in the military, served in the military, you know that when they say to do something, you don't stand around and question it. You do it, right? It's sad that many believers today, they hear something that is very clear in the Word of God, and they stand around and test that command, and they question that command. But God says, here's what I want you to do, and you do it. And it's for your good, and it's for His glory that we do it His way. Amen? Kenneth Weiss says that this should be the pattern for the preacher today. His preaching should be characterized by that dignity which comes from the consciousness of the fact that he is an official herald of the King of Kings. It should be accompanied by that note of authority which will command the respect, the careful attention, and the proper reaction of the listeners. See, not only is Timothy to preach this as an official spokesman for the king of kings, but he's not to hold back. He is to give them all the Word of God. And we find that in the term, word, when he says, preach the word, that term, logos, that's used here is referring to the whole body of revealed truth. He's not to pick and choose what is important or what He thinks important is to share with the people. He is to declare the whole counsel of God. It's the entire written Word of God. The complete revealed truth. You're holding in your hand the complete revealed truth. The Bible. We're to preach all the Bible. Again, not just certain parts of it. Paul gave this command to Timothy over in 1 Timothy 4. In verse 13, he says, until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture. That's why I read the Scripture publicly a few moments ago. Then he says, to exhortation and to teaching. And the idea of giving attention, it implies previous preparation. Before you stand up, Timothy, and read, and explain, and apply the Scripture, you have to have preparation. You have to prepare yourself for that opportunity to read and to share and to preach that passage of Scripture. Listen to some of the passages that Paul said when he talked about declaring all the Word of God. He told the elders at Ephesus in Acts 20 and verse 27, he says, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. He didn't hold back is what he's saying. Here's the Word of God. Here's what you need to hear. I didn't hold back because I was afraid it might step on your toes. You might get offended. Now, surely we have to be careful in how we present, right? I think the other part of presenting Scripture, you have the study of it, but then you have the presentation of it. And I think that's just as much as a gift for the preacher, too. He can spend all this time studying and get all the rich truths out of the Word, but can't share that, has difficulty sharing that, is not really gifted at presenting that. And I say that there needs to be a lot of practice at that, right? A lot of application to that. Maybe he needs to preach to himself and preach to his kids, preach to his family, preach to his wife, and get them to share back to him what is being presented there. But at the same time, Paul says that he didn't hold back, he didn't shrink, he declared the whole purpose of God. He says in verse 20 of that chapter, he says, I kept nothing back. Kept nothing back. See, when you're proclaiming the Word of God for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, it's more like this. You go to a restaurant, you order your meal, you have the waiter that comes, he brings the food to the table. Does the waiter prepare the food? No, the waiter just brings it to the table. And so we are basically like that. God has already prepared the food. The food is the Word of God. And we're to take that food that has been prepared on that platter and we're to carry it to the table, take it to you, and do not tamper with it. Don't add to it. Don't take away from it. Don't put your little two cents in on it. Don't take away two cents because you're worried about what it's going to do to that person once they start eating it. Right? You take it to them. You deliver it to them. And you just be faithful to do that. I get that like from Jonah, chapter 3, when Jonah finally did go into Nineveh. He was told by God, Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you. I want you to go to this city, and I'm going to tell you what to say. That's the same thing that you find with the prophets. In fact, in Deuteronomy 18, how you tested a prophet as to whether they were a true prophet did the thing that they say come to pass. Did it happen? It's what they spoke about. If it didn't happen, you know what they were to do to them? Stone them. Kill them. They were false prophets. Aren't you glad in a way that that's not going on today? But we have other ways that we have to look at it. We have the entire written word of God. And that is why the church has to be in the word of God constantly. We have to be in it individually in our own lives and the various methods that there are out there today. We have more ways to be in the word that really we don't have excuse with the with the use of electronics. It's really opened up a door for us. I mean, we have cell phones now that are little miniature computers that we're carrying around either in your pocket or on your hip or in your purse. And on there, you can get a free Bible. And if you have trouble with reading it, you can blow up the print. Isn't that wonderful? You can maybe just pinch, you know, a little pinch, squeeze out, and it makes it bigger. Helps us guys that wear these glasses. You know, I use these glasses to see you, but when I look down, I have to look outside my glasses because I don't need them for close up. And I like large print things, too. I have a large print Bible right here. I have a big Bible, and it's thick, and it intimidates me many times when I look at it. And I see those other little bitty Bibles that are like this, and I try to open up and read them, and I can't see anything in those. And I wish I had eyes like that, you know, again, so I could read something that small. I'm squinting and looking real hard at it. But we have all kinds of means and methods now to do that. If you have trouble staying focused and concentrating, then listen to it. You can listen to the Bible now on tape, CD, MP3, listen to it on your phone, listen to it on a tablet, listen to it on a computer. You can have somebody else in the room read it to you. We have all these means to do this, to get the Word in, and I have found in my own personal life that if you do this regularly, every day, just keep doing it every day, even if it's just 5-10 minutes, I love to do it in the mornings when I'm alone, I'm driving to work, I have about a 45 minute drive, I can listen to a couple chapters of Scripture. I like to hear that Scripture acted out too, I like drama. In fact, I like it so much, when my other first crop was growing up, we'd listen to Adventures in Odyssey as we were going places, and I would miss my exit, because I was so into the drama. You know what I mean? Well, they have the Word of Promise Bible, which is a drama-type New King James Bible. It's the entire Bible. You can listen to that, and it's acted out. All the parts are acted out. But it's all Scripture. And it's really good, and I get lost in that too. I find myself listening to it while I'm at the gym, and I get my mind off what I'm doing, I get my mind off the clock, because I'm focused in on what I'm hearing. Well, listen, God tells the preacher what to preach, and I'm not talking about he has an audible voice, he's saying, here, Timothy, preach this. It may be true in that day, but in our day, it's much different. And you know why it is? Because we have the Bible. We have right here what he wants us to say. It is the duty of the preacher to study it and to proclaim it. And that's what he needs to do. And Paul is trying to say that to him. He is to preach the Word. Now notice what else he says in verse 2. Timothy is to be ready in season and out of season when he preaches this Word. Now what does that mean? to preach the word and to be ready in season and out of season. Well, to be ready means to constantly be ready, to stand at hand. You're ready. It's like a soldier that's ready to go into battle. At any moment, he can go into battle, so he's not off guard. He has what he needs for that moment when that call comes. He doesn't have enough time to run back to the barracks and find what he needs, right? He's ready right then. He's on the battlefield. He has everything that is necessary for him to fight the battle. Well, the same is true for the preacher. He has the Word of God. He's to be ready in season and out of season. And I've had in my life of 31 years being in Christ and about 20 of them being in the ministry, that I've had at times when I've walked up to church and I've had the pastor that I was serving with to say, can you preach this morning? Okay, well, I don't have time to run home and prepare for something. So to be ready in season and out of season means that you're ready all the time. Now let's break those down to be ready in season and to be ready out of season. The idea of in-season means when opportunity occurs. In those times when it's favorable for the event, favorable for the occasion. You might be in the line at Publix and you might get into a conversation with somebody in the line. The line's long. The lady at the checkout counter, her tape just ran out. I just got to run and get it. And you got somebody else in front of you who wants a price check. Okay, you got some time. You're not in a hurry now, they're not moving you through fast. Or maybe you're at the gas pump, and you're pumping gas, and you're talking to the person on the other side of the pump. And you get into a conversation about Christ, or about the church, and you're swinging it in that direction. That is an opportune time, isn't it? That's an open door, as we would say. But then he says, not only in season, but out of season. Out of season means the opposite, when it is an unfavorable time, when the opportunity is not there. You know what we do sometimes? We pray. Lord, give me an opportunity to share the gospel. And little do we understand that the people around us all the time to share the gospel with. We just have to make the opportunity. We have to do it in times when it's not favorable. And sometimes that means speaking up in the midst of a crowd when something is said that is dishonoring to the Lord. You know, you have to discern if that's a good time. But that's certainly an unfavorable time, I would say. Adam Clarke says, be urgent, whether the times be prosperous or adverse. Whenever there is an opportunity, whenever there is none, he says, strive to make one. Warren Wiersbe says, it's easy to make excuses when we ought to be making opportunities. Right? We need to make those opportunities. Now, as he does this, as he preaches the Word, and as he's ready for the opportune times and the inopportune times, he's understanding that his preaching of the Word is in direct obedience to the command of Christ because he's always in the presence of God. Do you understand that as a child of God? We are always in God's presence. Someone said one time, when you sin, it's like going up to the throne of God and doing your sin right there. Well, we're always in God's presence. He never leaves you. He never forsakes you. We have that promise of Scripture. We're always in His presence. And so as he preaches the Word, he tells him, look at verse 2. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. And then he's going to tell him why he needs to do this. Because there's coming a time when they're not going to put up with that. So you've got to be faithful. First you've got to reprove. That's often translated convince. It's the idea of reproving, rebuking. The word itself means to put to shame. A.T. Robinson says it means to give honor or to give blame. Basically what you're doing when you're reproving is showing someone that he's done something wrong. And you're summoning them to repent. And that's what even Scripture refers to as admonishing one another. Believers are to do that. When you see a believer that's in sin, first you're told, according to Matthew 7 in Galatians 6, to look at your own life, make sure you're not in sin. Matthew 7, judge not and you should not be judged with the measure that you judge will be measured back to you. In other words, he begins to say there, when you look at a brother's life or a sister's life and you want to get that little speck out of their eye, make sure you don't have a two by four beam protruding out of your eye. In other words, you've got to judge yourself first. And you've got to go in a manner that is gentle, Galatians 6.1. Yeah, go in a manner where there's no offense. If you're going over there so you can give your two cents, don't go yet. You got to get that stuff out of your heart. That's not the right time to go. And I remember a situation that occurred not too long, it was a few months back, where a situation came up and this person needed to talk to another person and I was kind of somewhat related to it because I was the boss. And I said, listen, I know you need to talk to this person, but right now I can tell is not the time. for either one of you. There needs to be some cooling off. We do that with our kids, don't we? Sometimes we send them off to the room and we say, you know, you go sit in your room a minute, mom and daddy will be back there with you. And the whole point of that is to cool off, to think about what you're about to do, to think how you're going to talk about this situation. Well, the same is true here. You're doing the same thing here. Timothy is to reprove in those moments where there needs to be reproof. Then he says rebuke. Now, reprove and rebuke, they're very closely related in meaning. Reproving may have more to do with affecting the mind, with helping a person understand what he believes or is doing wrong. Rebuke, on the other hand, may have to do with the heart, and that's bringing a person under the conviction of guilt. Freyberg says in his Greek lexicon, the word means to warn, to strongly admonish. The third word is exhort. Exhort. This is the word parakaleo. It comes from a wide range of meanings in the New Testament. It comes from calling out to someone to admonish. Parakaleo is where we get a word that's used for the Holy Spirit. He's called the paraclete. It's the same kind of word. Para is a preposition. It means to come alongside. And whenever you're dealing with a person, you come alongside them. You don't come alongside them with one hand around them and the other one around their neck, ready to strangle them for something that they've done. No, you've humbled yourself. You've made sure that you don't have this two-by-four beam protruding out of your own eye, right? Because you're going to get the little speck out of their eye. And so you're checking yourself out first. And then you're going to them. You're coming alongside them. And you're going to reprove and rebuke and you're going to exhort And in this context, it means to admonish, but it carries the idea of encouraging. Warren Wiersbe again says, preaching must be marked by three elements, conviction, warning, and appeal. To quote an old rule of preachers, he says, he should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. If there is conviction but no remedy, we add to people's burdens. And if we encourage those who ought to be rebuked, we are assisting them in sin. Biblical preaching must be balanced. And you hear the balance in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 14, which says, We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. And that leads us into the next part of what he says here. You're to do all of this, Timothy, preaching the word, be readying in season and out of season in those times that are opportune, those times when it's inopportune. You're to reprove and rebuke and exhort. And you're to do this with great patience and instruction. Great patience and instruction. Patience is important, isn't it? How many of you pray for patience? I see some of you afraid to raise your hand, but I see a couple of you raising your hands. Well, maybe I could help you on some of that, because how you learn patience is trials, troubles. James chapter 1, right? See, those who didn't raise their hands are saying, yes, I understood that, I knew that. But at the same time, you're going to have trials. You just don't know when they're going to happen. But you're going to have them. In this world you have tribulation, John 16, Jesus said to the disciples. So we're going to have it. So going through that, we need the patience. Patience with people, patience with ourselves, patience with this trial that we're going through. And this is true here. In fact, the word that he's using is not the word patience, it's the word long-suffering. Long-suffering. It's a state of an emotional quietness in the face of an unfavorable circumstance. Think about that. Emotional quietness? Wow, trials get us all worked up. Get us all riled up, don't they? Trouble gets us all riled up. Makes us uneasy. Stresses us out to the max. And here he is saying that when Timothy preaches and he reproves and rebukes and exhorts, he's to do this with great long-suffering. He has to have this emotional quietness in the face of an unfavorable circumstance. What's the unfavorable circumstance that could occur here? Well, if you're reproving and rebuking and exhorting, what if it doesn't go the way you want it to go? What if that person doesn't want to be reproved and rebuked and exhorted? What if they turn on him? Doesn't he need this great patience? Certainly he does. And then he says, and with instruction, instruction refers to teaching. Didache is the word. It's the act of teaching. So when you exhort with someone and you do all of these elements that he's saying to the preacher here and to Timothy, he's saying, listen, you've got to do it with patience, but you also have to teach through it. You've got to teach them through it. That's really the understanding of discipline. When we discipline our children, many times people hear the word discipline and they immediately think spanking. Well, spanking is part of it, but that's not all of it. You've got to instruct. You've got to teach. but they'll never understand why they're even getting the spanking. All they know is the moment that they did something wrong, but you want to teach them through that wrong, don't you? So they don't repeat that. So again, this here is the foundation to preaching. Reproving, rebuking, exhorting. It's only through careful teaching of the Word that those tasks can successfully be carried out by the pastor. An unbeliever, he will not be convicted of his sin and come to salvation apart from some instruction of God's Word about his lost condition, about his need for saving faith in Jesus Christ. Nor will a believer be convicted of his sin and brought to repentance and restoration apart from the work of the Word. The Word of God is at work in every believer. In the terms of website language, when you come to a website that's being put together, sometimes a little page will pop up and it'll say, under construction. Well, I think that's a sign it could be hung around all of our necks. We are under construction. Aren't we? He who has begun a good work in you will complete that work in the day of Jesus Christ. Amen? He is at work in us. We are not who we should be in terms of matching who we are positionally in Christ, whom God has saved us to be, That is what we call progressive sanctification. That's something that every day we're coming closer and closer to Christ and being made in his image. So Timothy is to preach the entire counsel of God's Word in both favorable and unfavorable times. And he is to help his members understand that when they're wrong, he has to bring them under conviction by the Word of God. And then he has to encourage them to right behavior. And he is to be patient and let the Holy Spirit do his work. He is not the Holy Spirit. that he should be filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen? In doing all of this. Now, he tells him in verse 3 why he needs to do this. Why he needs to preach the Word the way that he just said in verse 2. Because he says, the climate's going to change. He says, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. Verse four, and we'll turn away their ears from the truth, and we'll turn aside to myths. The climate's gonna change. And the idea of time here, for the time will come, is talking about seasons, a period of time. It's not talking about chronological time. It's talking about epochal time. The word was used in chapter 3 and verse 1 in the phrase, perilous times will come. And verses 2 through 7 tell us what characterized those perilous times. Look there, just flip over a page in your Bible. He says in chapter 3 and verse 1, but realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. What will characterize those difficult times? He says men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these." This is what's going to mark the times. And so he's telling him, in a climate like this, you still have to be faithful to preach the Word. You still have to be faithful to reprove and rebuke and exhort and to do this with great patience and teaching. Because this time is coming where they're not going to endure. And the word endure means to put up with. They're not going to put up with sound doctrine. Sound doctrine is healthy teaching. The word sound means healthy, and the word doctrine just means teaching. They're not going to put up with this healthy teaching. They're not going to tolerate it, to use a word that's used a lot in our culture today. They're not going to tolerate it. And probably a good example of this, and I'll just allude to it, is in 1 Kings 22, where you have the king of Israel who hated the prophet Micaiah. And the reason why is because Micaiah always spoke the truth to the king. He didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. He told him what he needed to hear. Now, which would you rather have? Would you rather have somebody tell you what you want to hear, or tell you what you need to hear? I'd rather have somebody tell me what I need to hear. And don't beat around the bush in getting to that point. Just tell me straight. And yes, I would like someone to be gentle as they do that because the sting of the word is enough. I don't want to have to deal with the sting of the tone either. Just tell me plainly what God is saying here. It's even over in Titus 2.1. Titus was told, but as for you, speak the things that are fitting for healthy teaching. So he's saying here, this season's gonna come, and they're not gonna put up with healthy teaching, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they're gonna accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. They're going to accumulate for themselves the kind of teachers that they wanna hear. Again, going back to what you wanna hear, what you need to hear. Well, what they want is the kind that's gonna just tickle their ears, instead of getting the teachers that they need to hear. This is going to happen according to their own lust, their own desires, their own cravings. Kenneth Weiss says, those who set themselves against Pauline theology are dominated by their own private personal cravings, and those cravings consist of the desire for personal gratification. Warren Wiersbe says they have desires for religious novelties. And this again is going to happen because they want their ears tickled. And if anything you understand from Paul, he didn't tickle anybody's ears, did he? Listen to 1 Corinthians 2.1 and then verses 4 and 5. He says, When I came to you, brethren, I didn't come to you with superiority of speech. I didn't come to you of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. And my message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. That's the way he came. And because of their itching ears, again, they want to have people that stand up and tell them good little sermons so they can walk out and feel really good about themselves. What you really need, because the church is really more like a hospital, you need a cure. But first you've got to be told about your disease. And what's the disease? Sin. And so I'd rather be told about my sin and then to hear about the cure. How am I to deal with my sin? I have to deal with this flesh every single day. How am I to live every day in a way that will please God? First, I need to come to the cross of Christ, don't I? I need to come to Jesus Christ and give Him my life. I need to repent of my sin and embrace Him as my Lord and Savior, because He paid for my sin. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So I need to come to Jesus. Because if not, I'm going to have to pay for my sin. And what's the wages of my sin? What's the wages that I earn? Just like on a job, you earn wages. So what's the wages of my sin? It's going to be death. And the Bible says to fear the second death, because the second death is hell. We're all going to die, unless the rapture occurs first. There'll be some living, certainly, at the rapture. But aside from that, we're going to die. Aren't we? These physical bodies can only handle so much. We don't live to the age that they did in the Old Testament, do we? They lived up into the eight, nine hundreds. You know, the average, I think, is what, around 80 now. And many of you have outlived that, praise God. My dad made it to 81, I think it was. So he says, because of their lust, because of their itching ears, they're going to accumulate the kind of teachers that will tell them what they want to hear. John MacArthur, he says, instead of receiving sound doctrine, such churches fiercely rejected, wanting rather to have their ears tickled with unbiblical notions that raise their comfort level, justify or overlook their sins. They also reject as unloving anyone who presumes to hold them accountable to doctrinal beliefs and moral standards they deem outmolded or old-fashioned or outdated and irrelevant. Consequently, the preacher whom they least like to hear brings the message they need most to hear. And so it's important that we hear the kind of truth that we should hear from the word, because look what's going to happen. He says those that want to have their ears tickled, they're going to pile up the kind of teachers that will tickle their ears according to their own lust. Verse four. And they're going to turn away their ears from the truth and they're going to be turned aside to myths. Turn aside to myths. The word myths, muthas, is fables, tales, lies. That's what they're going to turn to. And they're going to be in trouble when they do that, aren't they? But then he says in verse five, but you, Timothy, you need to be sober. That means to be watchful. You need to be watchful. You need to endure hardship. Endure hardship. Paul went through many hardships. In 2 Corinthians 11, he talks about those hardships where he says that he was in more imprisonments. He was beaten times without number. He was often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've spent in the deep. I've been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers in the sea, dangers among false brethren. I've been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure. How about you? Any of them, anything you've been through? Any of us been through any of these things? He suffered. And he said in 2 Corinthians 11, 28, he suffered daily for the churches. That daily pressure. So you've got to endure. You've got to persevere these trials and these hardships that come from people. And then he says, do the work of an evangelist. He doesn't tell Timothy that he is an evangelist. He just says, do the work of it. And what is the work of an evangelist? It goes back to preaching the Word, doesn't it? Proclaim the Gospel. And then he says, fulfill, make complete your ministry. Fulfill your ministry. There is a passage in Colossians 1, beginning at verse 25, if you want to look at this, that I've looked at many times, reminding me. as a minister of Christ, of what my mind and my heart is to stay fixed on. And he says, here Colossians 1.25, Paul says he was made a minister according to the stewardship of God, bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the Word of God. That is the mystery which was hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested in His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power. So what is the mission? What's the mandate for all preachers, for all churches? Well, it's to preach the Word, to be ready regardless of the climate, convincing, rebuking, exhorting with the Word by being patient with the hearers, knowing that the time is coming when they will no longer desire to hear, but will raise up teachers who will teach to satisfy their own desires. And I pray, Lord, that that wouldn't be true here. Amen. Well, let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word this morning and the privilege that you've given to us to study it together. We pray, Father, that we would see and understand that this is to be the priority of every church and every preacher and everything that is done. It is to be for the proclamation of your Word. And Lord, I pray right now for anyone in this room, Lord, who has heard these words, Father, that they hear and see the priority of the preacher. claim the word and really see the mission of the church, to make disciples, to lead others to Christ, and then to take those who come to Christ and to teach them the word of God, so that they can grow up and be mature in Jesus, and that they too can repeat the pattern and the process. Well, Lord, this morning, as we reflect on these truths that we went over this morning, I pray as we evaluate our own hearts, that we ask the simple question, are we in Christ? Have we fully embraced the gospel? Have we been redeemed? Have we been saved? Have we received that free gift of eternal life that you have offered? Can you tell us the conditions on which we are to receive it? And that is we have to repent and believe. So Lord Jesus, I pray that you would grant both faith and repentance this morning to that person or persons in here that doesn't know you. We thank you for these truths that we've looked at this morning. We thank you for what you're going to continue to do through this morning. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.