All that being said, with that short review of the last two or three weeks of of preaching along these lines. I'm going to ask you this morning to turn to a text that you're going to say, oh, pastor, this one again? I mean, I must have preached from this passage at least several times over the past few years. I know I preached a sermon on this passage called Preach the Word not just a few months ago. But let's turn to 2 Timothy now, chapter 2, and I'm going to read to you I'm sorry, it's not chapter 2 at all. It's chapter 4 and there's a misprint in my notes. We should fix that before that goes out. I'm reading the notes and I knew that it was chapter 4 because as I said I preach from it often. Chapter 4 of 2 Timothy. Beginning with the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy that says, I charge you. Paul is giving a charge to a young pastor of a church. The church at Ephesus, which by the way, is a great city of the ancient world. Great metropolis, well populated. And young Timothy is being given a charge. to preach God's word there. And so the Apostle Paul says to him, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom preach the word be ready in season and out of season convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but according to their own desires because they have itching ears they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Our Father we ask that you would attend us by your spirit to the reading of the word and blessed Lord and also Father to the exposition of this word by your servant I pray O Lord that you will watch over us, forgive our sins, make us ready receptacles to receive the truth that you have given us from this text and we pray in Jesus name, Amen. And so beginning at verse 3, let's look at what it says, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. Now I have to tell you, The they he is speaking about is the church. It is probably not the world. It is probably those who have come together and professed to be the church. They. The world isn't hearing any doctrine. It's those who are coming together in Christ. Paul is giving us here a charge to protect the church. And so he said, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. So what's he saying? Get some sound doctrine out there now. You know, a long time ago, I remember hearing something on a radio ministry locally. And it was actually Dr. John O'Brien. I'll never forget it. He said, the truth that we neglect to teach will be as heresy to the next generation. It'll be new to them. It'll be unknown. They'll see the truth as heresy. Neglecting the truth is a serious infraction against leadership in the church, to neglect the truth of God's word. Theologian Wayne Mack said, truth not systematized is jeopardized. In other words, we have to come to a place where we take the truths of God's word and collate them into things like creeds and confessions and things that state emphatically with proof texts and with some skill the very things that were taught in the scriptures. And so we have these tools at hand to bring together all these great truths. from the Word of God. And we have to be careful not to neglect these things. Now, I've preached from this text before, perhaps several times. I've probably quoted from it many times. And whenever I've referred to it, it was usually to declare Paul's charge to Timothy to preach the Word. That's usually what I focused on. Preach the Word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching. And that, of course, is the overarching thrust of this passage. That the word must be preached. That it must always be preached. That it must always take the form of arguments against falsehood. It must take the form of proclamations of truth, but also of arguments against falsehood. And so the apostle says convince. He gives us three parts of preaching here. Convince, rebuke and exhort he says. Preach always in all seasons, convince, rebuke and exhort. So part of preaching is convincing. Convincing people what? Of my ideas? No! Convincing people that the text says something specific and that that specific nature of that teaching can be drawn out and compared to other like texts to give us a principle of or a doctrine or a conclusion that we've come to about a particular teaching in God's word and so the apostle says convince it must be a corrective exercise as well preaching should correct some things in us and so the apostle says rebuke and he says rebuke as a corrective of doctrine and therefore of world view when we come to Christ we come with a lot of false ideas and so the preacher has to rebuke us We come with a lot of bad behaviors, and so the corrective of rebuking is of doctrine and of worldview, but it's also a corrective of ethics and principles, of godly virtue, and a corrective of sinful behaviors. And thirdly, the apostle adds the charge of exhort. to his disciple, the young pastor Timothy, so that Timothy does not become a mere taskmaster with arguments and condemnations, but rather he must besiege others with excitations, fulfilling the role as encourager to men, reminding them of their privilege in Christ, and that they have found a better way, you see. Yet at the same time, the preacher must remain an impregnable wall against those who stealthily suppose to recreate the Word of God and by extension, the Church of God. And make it more suitable to their tastes, their fashions, their own lusts and desires and not God's. So a preacher must encourage the disciples under his care to recognize that a life of faith is a worthwhile and profitable life. Friends, that doesn't mean it's easy, but a life of faith is a worthwhile and profitable endeavor. In fact, there is no greater profit, even in eternity, than to have lived a life of faith in this life. It can also be a hard life at times. And so Paul exhorts the young preacher to endure afflictions. He presupposes the coming on of afflictions. Presumably afflictions that inevitably accompany a life of vociferous authoritative proclamations. The life of a preacher is not an easy life. It is a life of continual spiritual warfare. And so a preacher of God's Word, the handlers of God's own precious thoughts, That's what a preacher is. A handler of God's own precious thoughts. He handles them. He labors in them night and day. And they convict His soul as well as those people He's called to preach to. And so as a handler of God's own precious thoughts that in His supreme mercy He chose to share with men Such a preacher must be diligent to preach. To preach of those great and precious promises and God's ability to deliver on those promises. And yet he must preach against many things. Established behaviors of a certain culture. Cultural acceptance of sinful things. Even when such things are widely accepted. Even when standing against such things puts the preacher in the place of standing alone. As so many of the ancient prophets had to stand alone. As John the Baptist stood alone. You know as I read the life of John the Baptist. He stood there alone proclaiming his message. And he lived alone. and he was killed alone in a dungeon cell for the very exercise of convincing, rebuking and exhorting his fellow Israelites and you know we tend not to think of John as such a man of great love but that's what he was he gave his life for the purpose of preaching and literally gave his life right to the end and he did it alone now granted he had many followers but when it came time to rebuke a public official and be jailed and then finally beheaded for his troubles, he was quite alone. Now I have of late not so much been preaching for something but rather against something as I've said, but preachers have to do both. There's a dual responsibility of the handlers of God's own precious thoughts to exalt those thoughts as absolute truth and to skillfully cast down arguments that pretend to put forth godly teaching. Now I've been sounding an alarm of late that a new quote new, I don't think the emerging church movement is new at all. I don't find so much really unique in it at all. And it almost offends me as a historian for someone to say this is something new. It really is not new at all. It is plain old fashioned relativism. from as far as I can see it. But it's a new movement within the church threatening the purity of the church and the understanding of truth within the ranks. The so-called emergent church movement has given us much to think about and much to be wary of. The very idea that men who profess to be the teachers of God's word to the people of God will dare to question every article of faith every established truth, every godly principle that's been essential in the building of God's own temple in the earth is reason enough to sound an alarm to all those who love the church of God and rely on the gospel of God to declare the truth of God. We've made it part and parcel of our ministry here to show continuity with the great and revered movements in church history and to proudly attach ourselves to them as to a long chain of godly professors of the faith, and an unbroken chord of faith that comes down to us from the very beginning. Since Cain challenged acceptable worship practices, since Abel died for his faith, since Adam searched for the way to the truth of life, we are not looking to be seen as something new on the scene. We're looking to be seen as something old, something time-tested, something attached to the great movements of history. We are not saying that the great movements of history like the Reformation are without their faults or without their sins or without even their great sins or their great sinners. But yet all of the men who have carried the gospel with them were sinners. And some very great ones. David comes immediately to mind when I think of this. We're not trying to sanctify every act that a John Calvin or a Saint Augustine did. We are merely saying they were great contributors to this long chain of declaring God's truth in a skillful and accurate way to God's people. And they built something for the generation. These are great men upon whose shoulders we want to stand. We're not standing alone as though the church begins with our new and precious movement. New and precious in our own sight maybe, but certainly not in God's sight. So we do not wish to appear on the scene as something unique, or something new, or something that's not been seen before, or something self-styled, or something popular. We appear on the scene as God's own local church that finds our very identity in the traditions that have gone before us. We don't wish to begin again as though the church is something new. Some new idea of God's for the 21st century. But rather we wish to connect ourselves with something old. Not new and improved, but tried and true and grounded in faith. Founded upon Christ. walking and moving and having our being in the very palm of the Holy Spirit. Not a new spirit, not the spirit of the age, not the spirit of the moment, but the Holy Spirit that was from the very beginning. The Spirit whose face was hovering over the face of the waters. of a world that was yet without form and void. The same spirit that takes us all back to the second verse of the entire scriptures. That's the spirit we're tied to. Not a new spirit, but an old spirit. These last 14 years, I've made it my mission to proclaim the Church of God as the dear child of God. And to exalt the Church of God as the Blessed Bride of Christ. a refuge from the depraved desires of a dying world, to assure that it remain a safe haven for converted souls in the earth, a place of fellowship where believers may come gladly together to hear the Word of God, to have the Word lifted to a place of highest honor and esteem, to show the preeminence of the Word, the preeminence of Christ, the preeminence of our triune Godhead, and to witness the power of the Word at every session through the easy pulling down of strongholds, the skillful casting down of arguments, and the proud tradition of denouncing every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and we cannot do this with this modern, minimalistic view of salvation. We have to dig deep into the Scriptures. As deep as the writer of Hebrews who said in Hebrews 5.12, you ought to have become teachers yourselves. A minimalist approach to scripture ought to be an embarrassment to Christians. Instead, it becomes a badge of honor today. And yet we heap up teachers who will not teach. We heap up for ourselves teachers who simply refuse to teach. So it's our mission to revel in the ministry of the Word and to marvel at its power as a sharp, two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and then to wonder at it as it fulfills its role as discerner of thoughts and intents of the human heart. It's the call of every reformer past and present to recognize the signs of the times and the danger that our gospel is in. You know, I want to tell you something. There's something unique about our time. And as far as I can see, it's technology only. It's technology. It's the fast way we get information. Notice I didn't say the fast and effective way that we download truth off our laptops. Information is a world away from truth. And so today we are in the age of misinformation. And as far as I can see, if we want to look to the uniqueness of our age, fine. Then locate it right there in the way we get our information, in the way we communicate, in the way we transport ourselves around this globe at unprecedented speeds and with greater regularity than any other cultures that existed before us. But when you come right down to it, the way people, the need for truth in a human heart is the same as it was for Cain and Abel as it is for us. Nothing's changed about the human heart. And so all throughout history, each reformed movement called for the same kind of diligence to preach the word as I'm calling for now. It's the call of every reformer, past and present, to recognize the signs of the times, the danger that our gospel is in. During the Great Reformation, the great reformers called for the same alert in a similar situation where the gospel itself was in danger of being lost to us. Consider Calvin's commentaries on this very verse in his 16th century concern where he writes, from the very depravity of men, Paul shows how careful pastors ought to be. For soon shall the gospel be extinguished and perish from the remembrance of men. I think we are in just such a time where the gospel is all but extinguished and perished from the remembrance of men. And he says, that's the danger if godly teachers do not labor with all their might to defend it. And he goes on, he says, but Paul means that we must avail ourselves of the opportunity while there is any reverence for Christ. As if one should say that, when a storm is at hand, we must not labor remissly, but must hasten with all diligence, because there will not afterwards be an equally fit season. You know, we are still in a time, as his time, where there is still some reverence for Christ. You know, Daniel and I were talking recently with some people we do business with, and they were just two men. One of them is a Mexican immigrant, a citizen of the country. And the other one was a black gentleman from Dorchester. And we were talking to them about their faith. I just brought it up out of nowhere. And each of them talked about their particular view of faith. their particular view of religion. And I got this from my Mexican friend. He said, you know, religion and spirituality are two different things. And I know he thought himself quite wise to have said that, you know. I know he thought himself quite unapproachable now. I mean, he's made this clear distinction. And what he's implying was, I only have religion. But he has this greater thing, this deep spirituality. And I asked him, I said, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life and none shall come to the Father but by Him? And he said, no, I think we have spirituality, we have any number of ways to look at this. I said, you mean to tell me you were brought up probably in the Catholic Church because of your Mexican heritage and you don't know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life? You don't have any respect for Jesus Christ? He said, of course I do. So you see, I still had an inlet. I still had an approach. For some reason he still had some regard for the name of Jesus Christ. He wasn't willing to cast him off or to denounce him. He just wasn't aware of what Jesus Christ really taught. And the other guy, the young black man from Dorchester, was from a Baptist heritage. And I asked him if his mother was a Baptist. And he said that she was. And I said, why am I always right when I say that? And I told him, I said, you really have to come to terms with Jesus Christ. He started telling me about his life. He started telling me he lives in Brockton, and he doesn't really live there, but he shacks up there with his girlfriend, you see. But he likes to keep his place in Dorchester in case things don't go so well. He can just leave and go back to Dorchester. And I said, what does your faith inform you about that kind of living? And of course the other man was there to defend him. He can do anything he wants as long as he's got this obtuse spirituality thing that he couldn't define or couldn't label. But as long as I invoked the name of Jesus Christ, both of them had still some reverence and some regard. And that's where our society really is today. Nobody really, or very few people, really want to speak really badly of Jesus Christ. But yet, when you stand there, and you show them in the red prints in your Bible what he said, they have to be confronted with the dilemma. Do I accept the Christ of the Bible, or do I reinvent a Christ after my own liking? You see, that's where we are. And so Calvin saw that in his day. And he said, what Paul means is that we must avail ourselves of the opportunity to preach the gospel while there is any reverence for Christ left. Lest the gospel be extinguished and perish from the remembrance of men. Consider John Gill in the 18th century. also speaks of a gospel that is on the wane and in danger of disappearing. And his commentary on these verses are this, and I quote, he writes, It is a blessing to have pastors and teachers after God's heart and who preach according to the word of God. These feed men with knowledge and understanding, but it is a curse upon people when they are left to choose teachers after their ears' lusts. having itching ears always desirous of new things as the Athenians of old, which we've just studied from Acts 17, right? Or loving to have their ears scratched and tickled with smooth things that are pleasing and agreeable to natural men and carnal minds as the purity of human nature. We love to hear of the purity of human nature. We love to hear what Gil writes here, the power of man's free will, the excellency of his righteousness, the merit of his works and the like. Now this being the case, he writes, okay, Calvin in the 16th century said that was the case. Gil in the 18th is saying that's the case. he said this should not discourage but rather animate ministers of the gospel to preach it for should they desist in all likelihood the gospel would soon be gone they feared for the disappearance of the true gospel because of a fear to preach it against the prevailing winds of culture you see we have Isaiah A prophet of old, some 700 years before Christ, who writes really the very same thing when he says, this is a rebellious people, lying children who will not hear the law of God. Who say to the seers, do not see. And to the prophets, do not prophesy to us right things, speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits. Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. He's seeing the same trend some 2,700 years ago. And let's not forget Jeremiah, a hundred years or so after Isaiah. who wrote this, return oh backsliding children you see they'd already fallen into this place where the gospel had disappeared and he's beckoning them to return backsliding children says the Lord for I am married to you I will take you one from a city two from a family I'll bring you to Zion I'll give you shepherds according to my heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding God wants us to have shepherds according to His heart, not according to our hearts. Our hearts are not right. God's heart is perfect. And so from this passage we see that the prophet has already accepted that the people of God have chosen shepherds for themselves. Preachers who tell them only what they want to hear. And so it's nothing new in our time that this is happening. It's nothing new. And the charge is the same. The charge of Jeremiah. to seek preachers after God's own heart. And how do you know they're after God's own heart? Because they simply will not preach apart from the written text of God's word. That's why. They found all their comments and thoughts and arguments in it. And they let the text inform the culture and never let the culture inform the text. Which is always the struggle, you see. Isaiah had the same trouble. Calvin saw it in his time, Gill in his time, and so here in the first century as in all these other times Paul warns Timothy of this tendency in man to despise what is sacred and it always comes down to the same thing and that is that men choose consensus over authority the majority opinion over the clearly revealed declaration and as always it is a depraved and sinful tendency one that preachers have need to address plainly authoritatively and without regard to the seasons of man and the fashions of man's societies. So we come to verse 3 and the apostle says this, they will heap up for themselves teachers. Or rather we come to the second part of verse 3. They will heap up for themselves teachers. They will turn their ears away from the truth. Friends, if there is one thing unique about our time, it is not that we heap up for ourselves teachers. It is the ability to quickly heap up for ourselves as many teachers as we would like. I dare say, it's almost an infinite number. A wise man once said, friends, that a sure sign of mass confusion is a growing number of experts. Show me a person who is zealously searching out teachers, and I'll show you a man who is trying to justify himself. Because, you know, I'll tell you a little anecdote. We had a situation where we had homosexuality right in the church. right here in the church. And when it was confronted, it was in with a married couple and it was confronted by me, I brought up all the teaching that I could. that I thought they could deal with in these sessions and I tried to show them that this wasn't just something that was acceptable before God, something he could look the other way at. This is a heinous lifestyle that God despises and commands us to repent of. But you know, it was very easy for them to go on the internet and find a whole bunch of references from a homosexual group that take the scriptures and give us different interpretations of them. You remember the section of the scripture, I almost hesitate to say this on Sunday morning, but I think it's necessary. You know the scriptures where Jonathan and David exchanged armor? In other words, he takes on his armor and he takes his? In other words, your battles are my battle. And as two men, as two brothers in the Lord. I'll die for you. Your battles will be mine and I'll die for you and you'll die for me. And this website focused on the fact that they undressed in front of each other. And did a whole teaching on it. Very compelling teaching on that. And other things like that. And you know, because these people wanted to see that in scripture, that's eventually what they saw. They heaped up. theories of teachers, commentators, to help them foster the errors that they hold, as the Amplified puts it. Show me a person who's zealously searching out teachers and I'll show you a man who's trying to justify himself. And it's the same in all generations. Men love the truth until it reveals them. The Amplified Bible renders the verse this way, it says, For the time is coming when people will not tolerate or endure sound and wholesome instruction, but having ears itching for something pleasing and gratifying, they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold. James warned of this tendency in man, but comes from a different angle. not the angle of men choosing their teachers, but of men or women choosing to become the teachers of God's Word to God's people. And he gives this warning, my brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we'll receive a stricter judgment. And so you see, going astray from the Word of God is sinful enough, and it's punishment fearful enough. But to lead others to such a path is to heap sin upon sin in the sight of God. Friends, I am very confident that so long as I stick to the teaching of the Word of God, to the great men who have defended the Word of God, link myself with those traditions, I will never be in fear of suffering the punishment for being a false teacher. Never be in fear. Not in the next life. Friends, our society makes it an evil to tell a person that they're headed the wrong way. God makes it an evil not to tell them. You know, I remember a situation back before our church was founded. I was a young Christian. I was attending a church. I was very close to my pastor. We were good friends. We had a young gentleman come in. He entered into the church. He was a very, very well-taught Younger man if the time we both enough young early 30s. He was about my age. We became pretty good friends He knew quite a bit more about the scriptures than I do and I learned quite a bit from him I even have some books that he gave me back then lexicon and Greek interlinear New Testament I learned a lot about it. I learned began learning Greek in those days from this man well came to find out that the reason he was in the church is that he was separated from his wife and And well that's alright, that's a forgivable thing, of course you take counsel and you try to repair those things. But during the midst of this time, because he had these gifts, he saw himself as a teacher. And he began getting involved in Bible studies, he began getting exalted as a teacher. and it was offensive to some and he would go to some people's houses and he would teach to them and he would drop in on me and teach me things unsolicited he was always teaching and pushing his teaching on other people and finally one day I said to him I said you know you are really gifted but you have some serious sin issues to deal with and as we talked about it I mean he was separated from his wife because he actually beat her up His words to me was, I took her by the throat, he told me. The man had continually been involved in sin, in adulterous relationships, fornication with other unmarried young ladies. He was in terrible sin. And this all came out over time, you see. And so one day we were at an evening service and I had said these things to him. I have to tell you, after this time we really never were very close friends again at all. But I'll never forget this time I was in the church sanctuary and I was pushing a baby carriage. I don't remember which of my boys was in the carriage. Karen says it was James. He's in the baby carriage. and I'm walking along and I see him walking and I'm walking with the pastor and we're talking about the service that he had just preached and I see the gentleman walking over to me and I'm thinking oh boy he's going to tell on me he's going to tell the pastor what I said to him that he's a sinner in need of repentance that he's a fornicator an adulterer and that he needs to deal with that before he ever considers being a teacher in God's church and I'm standing there with my pastor who is generally a very easy going guy, didn't like a lot of confrontation and things like that and I thought for sure I was going to get nailed and he came over and I was standing there with my pastor and he said, pastor I have to speak to you And he said, oh, what is it? And he said, I'm glad you're here with Dan, because Dan called me a fornicating adulterer. And I'm telling you, I stood there holding on to that baby carriage, and I looked down, and I heard Pastor Ken say to him, that's what you are. And he says, what? And he says, you told me that's what you were. I'm not judging you, but you told me that's what you were, right? So what's the problem? And I looked up and I thought, vindicators. You know, now, I don't know if I was right or wrong or did it in a right way or a wrong way, but I'll tell you, that secured my faith. If I was unable to point out the obvious that a man in that kind of lifestyle should not be teaching God's people anything and dropping in on young families to teach them, then I don't know what I would have relied on in my young Christian walk, but when Pastor Ken said that, I was really, well not pleased, but at least pleased that I wasn't going to get it at that point in time. He left the church, he went to another neighboring congregation around here, and guess what? Became a teacher there. became a teacher. A very short time and I hadn't heard from him much after that. The pastor started talking and the next day I know he wasn't around. Don't know what happened to him. Lost touch. But, you know, our society makes it an evil to tell a person that they're headed the wrong way. God makes it evil not to tell them. We read from Hebrews, beware brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. And listen to what he says, exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Exhort one another daily. In fact do it, do it regularly, do it quickly. And never do it with a heart to exalt yourself. Do it with a heart of concern for the other person's going down the wrong road, you see, the deceitfulness of sin. There's an ancient principle of responsibility put upon men for the souls of their brethren, and it seems it's a thing that's lost on many in our day, but it was not lost on the Apostle Paul in his day. Consider this principle from the prophet Ezekiel, where Ezekiel hears from God, and God said, Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel, therefore hear a word from my mouth and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but listen to this, but his blood I will require at your hand. In other words, you're your brother's keeper. And the flip side of the principle is also written, which says this from Ezekiel. If you warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul. It's not even safe to not warn of wickedness in a brother. Paul recalls this responsibility of the prophet, the man set by God to instruct his people. And when the Jews of Corinth oppose the gospel of Christ, Paul recites this principle to them. He said, your blood be upon your own heads, I am clean. From now on I'll go to the Gentiles. He was well aware of the principle of being his brother's keeper. So the warning of Paul to Timothy is that they are approaching a time when men will no longer heed sound teaching, but that's no time to retreat into silence. Seems to me we also live in such a time when men will say to the preachers, do not prophesy right things to us, speak to us smooth things. Sadly, it seems to me there are all too many teachers heaped up upon the churches that are all too willing to speak according to the itching ears of a wayward society. If only the preachers of the world, great and small, would remember that no matter how many ears are present in the hall, they only preach to an audience of one, then it is only that one that it is necessary to please. So this is not a call to harshness, or unnecessary roughness, It's merely a call to discernment, to preach what a particular body of people need to hear. To move them closer to righteous living before God and the world. We live in a society today, the churches included, that simply do not tolerate rebuke or correction of any sort. Even of established evils that persist openly among us. Where are all the sermons against fornication and adultery in the churches today? while these things are so prevalent. Where are the sermons against divorce and betrayal? Where are the sermons against the things that contribute to all these things? Cohabitation, people living together outside of marriage, very common thing among professing Christians. It's well tolerated in the churches, as are many incidents of adultery and fornication, especially among the young people. Homosexuality is all but completely accepted in many church venues and is even being redefined by some emerging church leaders. It is being said by some of these leaders of this movement that the homosexuality of the Bible that God clearly condemned is not the same type of homosexuality that many practice today. There's different types. And it's trying to be shown here that what God condemned in the scriptures in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah was not the monogamous love relationship between two people of the same gender. It was promiscuous homosexuality only that he condemned. Imagine rewriting the scripture to that extent. Promiscuous homosexuality and pedophilia these emergent church leaders say is what God's really talking about in those sections of the scripture where he condemns it as sin and the monogamous loving couples of whatever gender are acceptable to God keeping up for ourselves teachers to help us foster the errors that we hold The sad fact today is that we're well supplied with teachers who will never say what needs to be said and are more than happy to say what yearns to be heard. And so the boldness of many preachers has gone so far as not only to neglect dealing with the reality of sin, but to redefine clearly sinful behaviors as good and righteous behaviors. You know, wasn't it Isaiah who said we come to a time when it is so evil they'll call evil good and good evil. So homosexuality is good and calling it evil is evil. And it switches around you see. So the prophecy becomes true that the apostle warns of saying and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. Is the church of God to become merely a fable? a kind of spiritual camelot or a brigadoon that appears for a season and disappears for a time? I too bemoan the fact from time to time that there seems to be so many who will gladly accept the counterfeit church and the counterfeit Christ, and are so reluctant to accept the genuine article in each case, reveling in the reality that the genuine Christ has no need to change his image. The genuine church, no need to seek a new gospel with a new image and new rules. The genuine church isn't trying to become new. It's trying to become real. and what the Bible defines it to be. Paul himself bemoaned the defection of those whom he loved and trusted, but he never bemoaned his calling to remain faithful. Preaching the uncompromised gospel to a few of the faithful, if that's all he could gather together. And he closes this letter to Timothy with these words. He says, Demas has forsaken me. Having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica, Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia, only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you for he is useful to me for ministry. You may remember that Paul and Mark had a falling out in the book of Acts. Well, here it seems that that's being repaired. And he's made some amends with Mark. Alright? And that is the Mark, John Mark of the Gospel. And he says, Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come, and the books, especially the parchments. And then he says this, Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. You also must beware of him, for he has greatly resisted our words. At my first defense, no one stood with me, but all forsook me, he says. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. In other words, all of them forsook me, but I could not find it within myself to forsake the message that I came to preach. The message is greater than the messenger, and his comfort, and his friendships, and the consensus that he receives from the world. also I was delivered from the mouth of the lion and the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his heavenly kingdom to him be glory forever and ever amen our heavenly father we praise you and ask you for the strength oh Lord to be such receptacles of the word of God that we will not compromise it Lord not for the sake of this present evil world and their desires and father not for our own desires we pray you will make us a glorious church oh lord without spot or blemish before you we pray in Jesus name amen