The Pillar and Support of the Truth

Amen. So this morning we're going to be moving on in the book of Timothy from the qualifications of officers, of elders and deacons. And so we're coming to an end of a section in a book, of a letter. Right at the end of chapter 3, last few verses, verses 14 to 16, these verses are a conclusion, if you will, of the preceding two chapters of Paul's instruction. And his instruction in chapters 2 and 3 have largely been devoted to how the church should be organized and governed. Now some of you might think, well, that's not a very exciting thing. And I say, I hope by the end of our time today, you see why it's very important that the church be governed well and in accordance with what God's laid out through the Apostle Paul here.

In the beginning of chapter 2, Paul started with instructions about prayer. I want men in every city to pray, lifting up holy hands, praying for their leaders that they might live a quiet, peaceful life. And then he moved on to instructions about teaching in the church that women are not allowed to teach or exercise authority in the church. Then there's a long section, all of chapter 3, regarding the qualifications for elders, pastors, and deacons. That's what we've just finished. And so this morning wraps up all of those instructions and it gives us an explanation as to why Paul took time to say these things to Timothy and by extension to us. He also says why it's important for Timothy to heed these instructions. So we're going to start in verses 14. We're going to be reading 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 14 through 16. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true.

I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long. But in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed in the flesh was vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. And so, as I said, this is Paul ending this part of the letter. And he says, I'm writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long. Now, if you remember back to the beginning of our study of this book, you know that Paul left Timothy behind at Ephesus to set things in order, is what he says. I want you, leaving you behind, I want you to set things in order, instructing certain men not to teach strange doctrines and the like.

And so then this letter is Paul's follow-up with Timothy, and it comes quite a while later. It comes ten years later, in fact. And so Timothy's been there. He's been ministering for a while there in Ephesus. And Paul sends this letter to him, and he's telling him, even then, this is how you ought to organize the church. These are the types of things you ought to give your attention to. These are the things you ought to be careful of. This is how the church should be governed. And I'm writing these things to you hoping to come to you before long, but in case I'm delayed, I want you to know these things. These things are important enough that they couldn't wait until I saw you face to face. And so we ought to, from the very beginning, see that the things Paul has said are very important to the church, that they're not just some sort of tertiary things along the side that you can take or leave. The things he said are very important to them, very essential to how they work as a church, how they present themselves, how they're governed.

And he says, I'm writing these things to you now in case I'm delayed. I want you to know these things. What is he supposed to know? Well, he's supposed to know, in Paul's words, how one ought to conduct himself. And so Paul's instructions are meant to teach Timothy how to do his job. His job was to establish this church at Ephesus. And in addition to instructing certain men not to teach strange doctrines, as it says in 1 Timothy 1.3, Timothy needs to know how the church ought to be organized and governed. Apparently that was important in Timothy's day, and it is still the case today. One of the things that I've noticed or have experienced talking to visitors or even to some of you if you've gone to other churches is you go, church, like the way the worship service is here is very different than what I've been in other churches. You'll say, oh, there are different things that we could go through and enumerate what those differences are. Or people, you know, often when I'm in conversation with people out in society, they'll say, oh, well, what kind of church are you?

Are you non-denominational? Are you Baptist? Are you Presbyterian? Are you Methodist? Are you Pentecostal? They want to know, what kind of church are you? And they're asking a question somewhat about your theological commitment, something about the style of worship. But they are also asking a question about church government. How are you guys organized? And so now, since we've joined Evangel Presbytery, I say to them, we're a Presbyterian church. And then I, did you say amen? says the Presbyterian. We're not all Presbyterians here. Oh, there you go. No, we, well, in one sense, we are all Presbyterians in that we're elder rule, but we're not all infant Baptists. So the way that a church ought to conduct herself is of great importance to God. And the reason that we'll come to later in the service Paul gives us is that the church is the pillar and support of the truth.

And we have to have a connection in our minds that I hope throughout our time today I'm able to flesh out and explain to you in such a way as is helpful to you that the church's ability to be the pillar and support of the truth, of the gospel, is connected to how she organizes herself and how she's governed. That those things actually matter. That we're not free to divorce those two and say, we're all about the truth and we're going to do it however we want. No, actually, this long section, these two chapters in 1 Timothy are meant to teach us how we're supposed to organize ourselves as a church. And I realize you might think, well, does it have to be exactly how you do it? And I say, well, there may be other ways to do it within the sphere of having elders and pastors and who should teach and who shouldn't and those sorts of things. But generally speaking, yeah, this is how you're supposed to do it. Everything we do in the church in terms of

or how we organize ourselves, why we have congregational meetings, why we have bylaws, why you know what those bylaws are, why we have a budget. It's all meant to do what God says here and to obey what Scripture teaches us. You might say, well, they don't have bylaws in Scripture. And I say, I know they don't have bylaws in Scripture. But it's good for us to write down a secondary subordinate set of rules that reflect or are built upon the foundation of what Scripture teaches us. So Paul teaches Timothy how one ought to conduct himself. How are people supposed to organize themselves as a church? Now, there are many things that go on in churches that shouldn't go on in churches. And I'm sure there are things that go on in our church that shouldn't go on in our church. I don't think we're perfect. I don't think we're perfect in the way we organize ourselves. I don't think we're perfect in the way we worship. I just don't think we're perfect. And yet we try to do...

As much as we're able to live in obedience to Paul's instructions here. Now, this is all well and good. I can say we're supposed to be organized according to these passages. Well, what does this passage teach us? All the stuff that's come before. Well, there's a section about prayer. There's a long section about elders and deacons and what they're supposed to be like. But there's a section in the end of chapter 2 that I think is probably one of the most difficult things in our day. Now, what's at the end of 2 Timothy 2? Well, it has to do with who should teach in the church, whose responsibility it is. And the scripture is very clear. It says that it's a man's responsibility, that it's not women's place or calling to teach or exercise authority over men in the church. Now, you might think, well, why are you bringing that up? It's not in our text. And I say, well, the reason I'm bringing it up is because this is the area where how we ought to conduct ourselves is most under attack in our society today. Okay?

That's why I'm talking about it. And nothing I say is meant to be demeaning or oppressive to women. That's not the point. I don't think it's oppressive to women for them to fulfill every bit of what God's called them to. I think it's liberating. It doesn't mean it's easy, but it's not easy for men either to be what men would have them, what God would have them be. And so what I want to do is tease that out a little bit for us. How ought we to conduct ourselves? Well, we ought to conduct ourselves having men be the ones who lead. Because this is how God set up the world. And if we don't do that, I think that we're sacrificing not just how we organize ourselves as a church, but I think that the truth is being exposed to attack. That it's going to be lost as a result. And so these aren't the sort of decisions or the sorts of things we do as a church because we want to. We do them because we see it as our job to protect and to proclaim the truth of the gospel. That's the church's job.

And so if we're going to do that, we have to be faithful to doing things the way God says we should. So is it a big deal who teaches in a church? Is it a big deal that we conduct ourselves according to God's word? And we say, yeah, it is a big deal. It's a good thing. We ought to do it. And I say, you're right, we should. So what do you think of women pastors? You might think, oh, and I say, okay, so are you afraid to talk about it? with people who have women pastors or who are women pastors. I get uncomfortable when I'm around women who are pastors. I'm like, I don't know what to say to you. So I don't want you sitting here thinking it's all easy and for everybody except you. There's difficult times because there's pressure that all of us face about how we ought to do this. There's a temptation to take and to hide the truth. We all face it. That's the truth, and I believe it. Over here. I wouldn't want to offend.

Someone who thinks something differently than me. And what I don't want us to do is to become rude or unnecessarily combative. But what I do want us to do actually is to love and to embrace God's word and its truths unashamedly. And I need this as much as you do. So what's the issue about conducting ourselves as we ought to do? How does this play in with women taking up positions of authority in the church? What are the tropes or the arguments made against it? Well, one thing you might hear is that it's demeaning to women, that it's oppressive to them, that it's not fair to them, that it says that men can do things that women aren't allowed to do, and that's just not fair to them. Another thing that might be said is that it's a stumbling block to unbelievers. We live in an egalitarian society, and that's going to be a real stumbling block to an unbeliever if they were to come in and to see all men teaching and preaching.

And they might think, well, what about the women? And here's what I want to tell you about unbelievers. They won't have any problem with it. They won't have any problem if God's at work in their life and he's changing them. Because what happens with an unbeliever, and this is me, is that you come into a church, you've got no point of reference for what a church is, what the gospel is. How church is supposed to go. You realize, I never went to church until I was in my 20s, not once in my life. So when I started going to church, I was a blank slate. I was like, I don't know what all this is about. And so everything you learn, everything you go, oh, this must be how they do things. The Bible must teach them to do stuff like that. And so an unbeliever actually is not going to be offended by what God says. Not nearly as much as Christians are. Now isn't that a paradox?

that the people who have the biggest problem with what God said are not the people who don't claim to believe it, but the people who do. And that means us. We can all go say, yeah, those terrible Christians who don't believe God's word. And I say, well, what about us? When it comes to ministering to someone, an unbeliever, and discipling them and bringing them to faith, I agree that we should remove every stumbling block we're able to remove. We shouldn't make it any harder than it is. And the reason is because it's already hard enough. They already have to decide that they're willing to die.

And that's enough. And they have to decide to repent and they have to decide to take every square inch of their life and submit it to what God says. That's enough. We don't need to add any extra rules to it. We don't need to make it any higher. We don't need to lift the bar up. And yet there will be hurdles for them to get over if they're to come to faith. And that, if they're biblical hurdles, are as it should be. Because that's them having a cost to count. We do them a disservice. We do an unbeliever a disservice if we tell them that coming to Jesus Christ and becoming a Christian doesn't have a cost. We've lied to them. There are some thorny parts of Scripture. There are some difficult truths. There are some parts of Scripture that our society hates. This being one of them, the issues of men and women and who should lead and what is good and appropriate and right. That's something that an unbeliever would have to grow to understand.

And it would be good for them to do it. And it would be good for us not to lie to them about it in the process. And so I don't think it's actually the unbelievers that have the problem with this sort of stuff. It's the believers. It's the Christians. You think, well, what do you mean? How does that work? How are the Christians the ones who have the problem? And I say, well, they have the problem because they've been inoculated, vaccinated, immunized to the Word of God. Any of you guys play guitar? You ever felt a guitar player's fingers? Big, thick calluses. They can't feel anything because they're constantly running their fingers up and down metal strings. And so they develop these big calluses. They don't have sensitivity anymore in the end of their fingers. That's what's happened to most Christians in our day with regard to the Word of God. They're very calloused towards it. They don't say, oh, God said. They say, well, that's not fair. I don't like that. And if I could just say, who cares?

Why does what we think and why is our comfort the ordering principle of a Christian's life? Where in the world did we come up with that? I could spend a good bit of time talking about how we've gotten to this place in our society where Christians are the ones who don't trust and don't submit to God's word. But I'm just telling you it's the case. And if you want to know why I think that is, I'd be happy to talk to you outside the service or the sermon, but I don't want to take time right now to go through it. I just want to assert it and tell you, Christians do not trust God's word. They don't believe it. They say they believe it. And they say that they love it. But when it comes time to ordering their lives around what God has said, they decline and say, no, no, not for me. And I mean you, and I mean me. Okay?

This is a hard thing to hear, but this is you and this is me because you live in this society and you're not being taught or told anywhere. You actually need to submit yourself to God's word. Everything about being in America is to say, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. And that will lead you to hell because you do actually have to do things you don't want to do. And if you value your soul, you will do them, particularly the things that God says. The church today thinks that she has a better plan for preaching and teaching God's word. She thinks she has a better plan for leadership in the church and how it should be done. Has a better plan for how to define and talk about sin. Has a better plan for what to do about sin. Has a better plan for discipleship. Has a better plan for everything. Better than God's word. Better than his truth. Better than the pain of repentance and living by faith. And if you've had to repent in your life of any particular sin,

you understand it just means pain. It means discomfort. It means loss. It means sorrow. It also means peace. And it also means rest. And it also means joy. But not in the moment. It means hardship and suffering and difficulty. And it's hard for me to say because I think I'm just going to exasperate you that you're not going to have the ears to hear that being a Christian is really hard. And to love God's truth and to submit yourself to it is going to be a life of discomfort for you as you hope for the life to come. You say, I want my good stuff now. And I say, if you get your good stuff now, you will have none for the life to come. There won't be any left. And you say, well, no one's ever told me that before. And I say, well, that's because you've been taught not to trust Scripture. But that's exactly what Jesus tells us with Lazarus and the rich man.

Lazarus sat begging for crumbs, having dogs licking his wounds. But the rich man, he had all of his comforts. And he had all of his peace. And he had all of his rewards before he died. And you say, well, if you tell people that, who's going to become a Christian? And I say, only the people whom God is at work in. Because there's a cost to it. It means you have to change. It means you have to grow. It means you have to say no to your desires and to your sin. And it means that when you won't say no to it, somebody else who loves you will say no to you and say, you can't do that. Who are they to tell me that? And I say, they're God's minister to you to say that to you. That's who they are. But they'll only say it to you if they love the truth. I remember when I was coming to faith. I'd never been to church before. I lived up in Chicagoland and I was going to this big mega church. A dozen services every weekend. Thousands and thousands of people.

And I wasn't a Christian, but I was going to church, and I had a girlfriend. And our relationship was inappropriate, and everyone in our small group knew. And nobody said anything. At all. No one said anything. Like, you guys shouldn't be living like that. I'll tell you, I was miserable the whole while, because that's what sin produces in you, is misery. It's not joyful like Hollywood would have you believe. It's actually miserable. And no one said a word to me until after we broke up, after many months of pain and agony. And then they all say, we're so glad you guys broke up. That relationship was so terrible. And I was angry because I'd been living in hell for six months and nobody had enough love and enough faith to tell me why. Okay. Then I kept going to that church, continuing. I thought, well, I guess, you know, I should have known better. And then I get myself into another pickle.

And I've got to decide whether I'm going to tell Vanessa, who's my wife now, whether I'm going to tell her about this stupid thing I've done, terrible, wicked thing that I've done. And I don't want to. Who wants to tell someone they care about that they've done something that's going to cause the person they love pain? I didn't want to tell her, but I had the sense that I had to tell her or that I was going to have to lie the rest of my life. And so I did what any Christian ought to do. I said, hey, pastor, can we sit down and can we talk? Do I have to tell my girlfriend about this?

This thing. And his answer should have simply been, yes, and now. Would you like me to come with you? Because it's going to be very difficult. That's what he should have said. But instead, we talked for a half hour or 45 minutes, and the sum of everything that he had to say to me amounted to, if you've really repented of your sin, and you really aren't going to do it again, I don't think that you have to tell her because it would destroy the trust that you have in your relationship. Now that, is the worst advice you could ask for. Because there was no trust and no honesty in me at that point. And what he was telling me was, it would be better for you to lie, to build a relationship, to fall in love, to get married, to have a family, and build it all on this lie with this skeleton in the closet that you have to bear by yourself for the rest of your life. Because it might destroy the trust in your relationship if you told her.

And somebody should have told that man, you have no business being a pastor because you have no regard for the truth of God and you have no love for his people. Your desire to be liked and loved and approved of has overcome any commitment you have to what God actually says. And this is the state of the church today. So how did we get there? How do you get to a place where a pastor tells you to lie to your girlfriend about some sin you've committed against her? How do you get to that place? Well, the truth has not been supported. The truth has not been protected. And the truth has not been proclaimed. That man has never met the God of the Bible and trembled before him going, these people are going to die. I'm going to die. We need Jesus because we're real sinners. He's never had that experience. And as a result, he's unfit to be a pastor because he doesn't have any ability to love people and to minister to them in there.

In their sin. So how ought we to conduct ourselves? Well, the low hanging fruit is to say we ought to simply do what God says. We ought to have men doing the work that men ought to do. And we ought to have women doing the work that women ought to do. In the church. The men should be teaching. The men should be preaching. The men should be elders and deacons. The women should be teaching Bible studies. They should be... organizing all kinds of help and support and hospitality in the church. The older women should be teaching the younger women how to do all kinds of stuff, how to be a woman. That's what the women should be doing. That's it. And it's a lot, and it's very necessary work. How many of you young women think you know how to cook? How many of you women who are older, when you got married, came into marriage thinking, I know how to cook and take care of a family? I know how to do laundry. You need women to teach you these things.

How many of you men think you know how to manage a house? How to lead a wife? How to manage a budget? How to develop a career path and work hard on it? Oh yeah, sign me up. I know how to do all that. Most men kind of are like bobbers floating along a river. They're not attached to anything. They don't know what to do. So we need the men to teach the men and we need the women to teach the women. Why is this important? Well, it's important because the church is described by Paul here as the support. The pillar in support of the truth. Now, what's the truth? The truth is the message of the gospel. And when I say the message of the gospel, I don't mean some truncated little story about Jesus dying on the cross. I mean the truth, the gospel, as everything that Scripture teaches. That's the gospel. Okay? That's the gospel. And the church's responsibility is to protect that truth. To protect that truth against lies. To protect that truth from being hidden.

and stowed away somewhere, the church's job is to proclaim that truth. But for us to do that, for me to do that most especially, I have to love the truth. I have to know the truth and I have to love it. And I have to be willing to tell you what it says even when I know you're going to be faced with the question of, am I going to submit to that and agree to that or not? But the maintenance of God's truth and the proclamation of God's truth is... absolutely necessary. I want to read to you a couple of passages, verses, where Paul is talking about this thing. In 1 Thessalonians 2.4, he says, just as we've been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. This is the word that keeps coming up. When it comes to the truth in the gospel, the words entrusted and guarding or protecting. This is always what's needing to be done with the truth.

Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. In 1 Timothy 1.11, earlier in this book, he says, According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. 1 Timothy 6.20, he says, Oh, Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge. And in 2 Timothy 1.14, again, he says, guard through the Holy Spirit which dwells in you the treasure which has been entrusted to you. So what is the church? The church is the place where God has placed his treasure. And his treasure is his word. It is the message of the gospel. It is the salvation of sinners. The church is who has that message. Nobody else has it. And it's the church's job to protect it. Okay? To protect it. Now how do you protect it?

Well, first you have to see what's in danger of being stolen. If you were going to try to protect something, you could put it in a museum. If you had something of great value, you could put it in a museum and not let people touch it and not let people get near it and put it behind real thick glass. And you could maintain it pristinely so that no harm ever became of it. But that's not the sort of protecting we're talking about. And I think the church, especially Reformed churches who like theology and who like doctrine and who say we care about these things, I think what we want to do is we take up protecting the good deposit as protecting those battles and that memorabilia from fights of yesterday. The doctrines of grace. You guys notice I don't talk a whole lot about the doctrines of grace here? It's not because I don't believe them. And I don't have anything opposed to teaching them. But what I think is that that's not where you...

I don't think that's where the truth is in danger today. That's not actually what I think the problem is. I don't think Satan and our society are after you at the point of the doctrines of grace. I'm happy to talk to you about it, to teach you about it, and show you what the scripture says about it. But that's not going to be helpful to you in the way that I say, if I take what's actually in danger and say, this is what is in danger and this is what you need to work to guard in your own hearts. And this is the truth you need to understand so that you can minister to those who don't know it yet.

What truths are those? What truth do we need to guard today? What truth do we need to proclaim today? Well, I started to get at it already talking about men and women, husbands and wives, sons and daughters. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? How in the world are you supposed to lead a family? How are you supposed to provide for it? What does it mean for a wife to have a gentle and quiet spirit? These are the truths that are under attack today. For me simply to say that, the world would come back and say, who are you to say what a woman should or shouldn't be?

And what she should or shouldn't want. What if she doesn't like domestic things? I'd say, well, what would you say to a man who said he doesn't like to work? Oh, okay. Say, you'll have to learn how to like to work because that's what you need to do because you're a man. Well, it's hard and I don't care for it. And I'd say, well, that's not the end of the story. That's just the beginning. And I'm glad that you've acknowledged your sin and now we need to repent of it because we're Christians. So could we say the same thing to a woman? I don't like domestic things. I don't like to cook. I don't like to take care of family. I want to do my own thing. Yeah, I think we should say the same thing. We should help her to see the beauty of it and the goodness of God's design and his intention and his will for them. You say, that's very oppressive. And I say, no, it's not. It's simply not. The happiest women I know are the women who give their lives to doing what God's called them to do. And the most disappointed, bitter, angry women are the ones who believed the lies when they were young.

And then when they got older and they realized they weren't as happy as they were told they were going to be, it's too late for them to change it because they can't have kids now. Then you think, not all women want to have kids. And I say, that's too bad. They should. They should want to give their lives for it. So these are the truths that we need to protect. And you think, well, that's going to, you know, if I were to say something like that to one of my friends or one of my coworkers or one of my classmates, all hell would break loose.

I'd lose my job. I'd get called in the HR department. I'd lose my friend. They'd be furious. They'd unfriend me on Facebook. It would be bad. And I'd say, well, that's what lets you know what truths need to be guarded. The ones where you go, uh-uh, if I do that, that's going to be a problem. And the reason is because the church is the pillar and support of the truth. It's our job to present the truth, to proclaim the truth, not to hide it. It's not simply for me to tell you and for you to look at me and say, yes, that's good. And I agree. And we're all in agreement. What would be good is if we said, well, what am I going to repent of because I believe it? Each one of us in this room, each one of us in this room has something to repent of when it comes to interacting with the truth of God. Every husband has something to repent of. Every wife has something to repent of. Every single man has something to repent of. Every single woman. Every child.

When they come into contact with the truth of God, they say, oh, I see this thing and I'm supposed to change. If the church won't protect the truth, and if they won't proclaim the truth, then they're useless. They're not worthy of the name and title Church of Jesus Christ, Church of the Living God. And we should have no affection for them. You should have no affection and no desire to... To support and uphold something that isn't doing their job. If you had a business and you had an employee who wasn't doing their work, you'd say, we need to fire that guy. We need to get a new one who will do what they're supposed to do. And the same is true with the church. At this most basic level, if the church is the household of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth, your baseline commitment as a Christian ought to say, I won't go to church somewhere that doesn't tell me the truth about what God says.

I will not do it. And you have to realize that in saying that, you're saying, I'm going to be offended sometimes. I'm going to be told things that I don't like, that hurt, that I don't agree with. To contrast my experience in the church up in Chicago with another church, with regard to my own sin, I once had a pastor tell me with regard to my history with women. And my dating and all of that. He said, I just want you to know, if you wanted to date my daughter, I wouldn't let you near her. And I don't care if you're a Christian or not. The testimony of your life at this point is just a wake of destruction of every woman you come into contact with. And I wouldn't let you near her. And I'd known the guy for three months. Probably had half a dozen conversations with him over the course of three months. That's what he said to me. And I loved him for it. And so I wrote him a letter. And you know what I wrote in the letter?

Because he said, I think you and your girlfriend need to break up. Last thing I wanted to hear. I went into the meeting asking what we needed to do to get married, and I got told you need to break up. Because it's not what I expected. So I wrote him a letter the next day, he and his wife. And I thanked them for their time and their counsel. And I said, you know, what became clear to me in our meeting and talking about it afterwards was that you loved Vanessa. enough to say something like that to me. But what was more clear to me was that you loved God and you feared God more than you loved her or feared what I might think of you. It was clear to me that your top priority was that God's word would be honored. That's what was clear to me. Because you were willing to say something that was true of me, but very painful to hear. And I loved him for it. And I still do to this day. And that needs to be our disposition toward the truth.

That when it cuts us and when it hurts us and when it's painful, we need to be thankful for those ministers who bring that pain to us. Because that's the pain of repentance and that's the pain of growth. And healing does come from it. And so we ought to think of the church as being like a ship full of precious cargo. And that everyone on the ship is tasked with protecting that cargo. ensuring that it gets to where it needs to get without damage and without loss. They have to make sure the ship doesn't sink. They have to make sure that pirates don't come steal it. They have to make sure the captain knows where it's going. And that's the work of a pastor. That's the work of preaching. So that's my job. And if I go off the rails and don't do that work, you should come tell me you think I'm going off the rails and I'm not doing that work. Okay?

Because I'm going to come to you if I think you've gone off the rails and you're not doing your work. And we ought to do this for each other because we love God and we love his word. And we know that it's the only message and the only hope of salvation for us and for anyone else. Okay? So we need to have that commitment that your love and affection and isn't Dave a nice guy doesn't eclipse your commitment to the word. Because my commitment to you and my love and affection for you will not eclipse me causing you pain to bring you to repentance. When I was preparing for this, I often read, after I've written my sermon, the last thing I'll do is I'll read Calvin's sermon on this text, just because I'm curious. His sermons are so different than his commentaries. And so I read his sermon, and one of the points that he made that was very helpful to me is he says, you know what God should do with people who don't honor his word? He should just remove all of their preachers. And in fact, that's what he does. When there's a lack of commitment to God's word, one of his judgments against

against a group of people is he'll remove faithful preaching from them. They've wanted, they've accumulated for themselves men who will scratch their itching ears. And so God's judgment is have what you want. And he removes faithfulness from them. Now it's a funny thing for Calvin to say it because he's a reformer and he's in Geneva and it's just heaven on earth. At least that's what we think of it. It wasn't, but that's what we think of it. And what he says to his people, lest they become proud, is he says, Yes, we take pride in the fact that we have the gospel preached to us here in Geneva, but what of our country and what of our land? What good are we if we just sit here and hear this? He said, I wish for my part that I never had to preach to you again because you don't listen and you don't honor God's word the way you should. And I think it would be appropriate for God to remove the gospel witness from you because you don't do what the scripture says. You don't obey God. And this is what he says to his people.

How do you think they responded? How would you respond? How would you respond if that was being said to you? Do you think that'd be terrible? And I say, okay, then that's your call to action. If you're committed to truth and you're committed to trusting the Bible and taking God at his word, then live like it. Live like it. You say, well, my husband's never this and my wife's always like that. And I say, no better time than right now. Repent. Commit yourself to the truth. If you won't do that, then you don't love the truth. And I want you to love the truth. I want me to love the truth in a way that says, I'm going to repent of my sins and turn away from my wickedness for the sake of Jesus Christ and for his glory. That's what I'm going to do. And that's what I want you to do as well. 2 Peter 2.1 says, Putting aside all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, all the things that stumble us, like newborn babies,

long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. That ought to be your desire. You ought not to go to a church that doesn't tell you the truth. You ought not to vote men in to be elders or deacons who won't love the truth and minister it to you. You should talk to your friends and neighbors about what you love about church and why they should come to your church or why they should find a new church when they live in Oklahoma or wherever it is. You want a church that tells you the truth. What else should you do? You should pray for men, for God to raise up men to tell you other people the truth. It's the desperate need of our day. Trump's not going to save you. He's not even going to help you. Not with your soul. Not with your sin. The desperate need of our day is faithful men who will tell us the truth. Who love God's word and who fear him and who...

care more about his holiness and his righteousness and guarding the good deposit that they've been entrusted with, that's what we need. Okay? That's what we need. That's what our friends and our neighbors need. I don't want God to remove his presence from us, his lampstand, his kindness. And we all say, I don't want him to either. And I say, okay, so what are you going to do about it? Because the flame is going out in America. You have to see that. Are we just going to sit idly by and enjoy the rest of our lives, mostly of us, the adults? Our kids are going to face a lot more difficulty than we are. Are we just going to sit idly by and ride this wave all the way to shore, hop off of it and say, well, sorry for the guys on the next wave? Or will we, as God's people now, commit ourselves to the truth of God and submit ourselves to it and call other people to do the same? Will you pray that God will raise up other men to do this work who are willing to suffer for it?

who are willing to sacrifice for it, to be able to have the privilege of building God's kingdom and being entrusted with this treasure. That's what we ought to want. That's what you men ought to aspire to. I said, I don't want to be a pastor. And I said, you don't have to be a pastor to do this. You can be. Some of you ought to become pastors. Whether that's God's calling on your life or not, you ought to love God's word and his truth, and you ought to treasure it and protect it and not be ashamed of it. Because God doesn't take any delight in those who are ashamed of him. Jesus says, if you're ashamed of me and my words, I'll be ashamed of you before my Father in heaven. And so we have to be committed to and love his truth. Let's pray.