Let us turn in our Bibles to 2 Timothy. We want to read three sections this afternoon as we begin.
We will read 2 Timothy 2:1-7.
Thou therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
And the things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please Him who enrolled him as a soldier.
And if also a man contend in the games, he is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully.
The husbandman that laboreth must be the first to partake of the fruits.
Consider what I say; for the Lord shall give thee understanding in all things.
Then we want to go down to verse 14 and continue.
Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them in the sight of the Lord, that they strive not about words, to no profit, to the subverting of them that hear.
Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.
But shun profane babblings: for they will proceed further in ungodliness,
And their word will eat as doth a gangrene: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
Men who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.
Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His: and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some unto honor, and some unto dishonor.
If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work.
But flee youthful lusts, and follow after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
But foolish and ignorant questionings refuse, knowing that they gender strifes.
And the Lord’s servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing,
In meekness correcting them that oppose themselves; if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth,
And they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him unto his will.
The book of 2 Timothy is very helpful to those who are serving the Lord. Let us read one final section in chapter 3, beginning in verse 10.
But thou didst follow my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, patience,
Persecutions, sufferings; what things befell me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: and out of them all the Lord delivered me.
Yea, and all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
But evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But abide thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
And that from a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness:
That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Our Father, we come to You today with this precious Word of God before us, the sacred writings. We have just read that these Scriptures can make us wise unto salvation.
Since we are all servants of God, we ask that Your Holy Spirit would teach us regarding this matter of the Word of God, that You would equip us for every good work through Your precious Word.
We thank You for the Holy Spirit given to us to be our Teacher. Indeed, impress deeply upon our hearts the Lord Jesus as the living Word, as we fellowship together today.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I am here these afternoons to share on this matter of equipping the servant of God. We know that our God does not send out a servant unless He equips that servant for the service.
We know that part of the equipment for every servant of God is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
Yesterday afternoon we spoke of the environment of the servants of God. God’s original intention is that a servant of God would be brought up within the freshness and the life of Christ within the church.
We know that our Lord Jesus is a living Lord. When He is allowed to express Himself in the church, the church is a living church. Out of this living assembly come living servants of God who have great spiritual value.
The Lord desires to raise up servants from such an environment of the church. We spoke to the leaders and elders, and I expressed the fact that we will be judged on one basis: Has our service made the church the school of Christ, the living presence of Christ?
With all of our works and all of our messages, all of that is in vain if the church is not a living expression of our wonderful Lord and Savior.
There is no doubt that the environment of the church affects the servants who are raised up. Even though we could wish that the environment would be ideal for the raising up of such servants, we have to face the reality that we have read today in the Word of God.
At the time 2 Timothy was written, Paul was almost at the point where he was going to be martyred for his faith. Yet he still writes to his young spiritual son, Timothy, speaking to him about serving the Lord.
Timothy is not as young as he was before. He has been serving the Lord for some time. Within this letter, 2 Timothy, there is reflected a background that has become ominous and dark in regard to church life.
Timothy was raised in a living, precious assembly of believers, somewhere in Derbe or Lystra. He had the benefit of training and learning the Lord Jesus by watching the Apostle Paul, Silas, and other workers.
Now Paul was about to pass off the scene, and Paul was trying to speak to Timothy about taking hold of this matter of raising up servants of God in the church.
We read in these Scriptures that there were already many problems in the church. There were those teaching false doctrine. There were those arguing about speculations, theories, and theology. There were some who were compromised in various different ways.
Paul pictures for Timothy what the church appears to be in the present day: no longer the church of first love, no longer the church where the very presence of God was felt when believers met together.
Now, as he says in 2 Timothy 2:20, the church is like a great house. This has reference to size, because many people were being saved in those days. Yet you can sense within his description of the church that something has been lost of its original purity and its original presence of Christ.
In the church, all the members—brothers and sisters—should have been separated unto God to walk in godliness and holy living. But Paul envisions many different vessels in this great house.
Thank God, there are still some gold vessels. Even in the great house today, across the world, there are some gold vessels. These are vessels of honor. They are useful for the Master.
But when you look at the great house, there are silver vessels, earthenware vessels, and wooden vessels. There is a lack of unity. There is a mixture of testimony.
Some in the church are propounding false doctrine. Some are living unholy lives. In the great church, you can pretty much follow anybody you want.
It is in this context that Paul is exhorting Timothy to be faithful as a servant and to see that other servants come along in faithfulness.
Brothers and sisters, this picture of the great house seems to be an adequate picture of the way the church is today. To be part of what is called the church today around the world is a very confusing condition.
The church is no longer focused upon Christ as our life, our center, and our Head. Usually the church is centered around a vessel: Who is the pastor? Who is the worker? Who is the leader?
Some are gold vessels. They preach faithfully the Word of God. They urge repentance among God’s people. They promote holy living. But then there is every other kind of preacher and leader.
Just before leaving the United States, I saw a news show. There was a famous television evangelist a number of years ago who ended up going to jail because of his immorality and other things.
This was perhaps fifteen years ago or more. I just saw a news show that his son has now become a minister. His son has tattoos over his entire body. He has a lip ring. As he talked to the interviewer about how he preaches Christ to street people, he was smoking a cigar.
This is one of the vessels today who has a church. There are many examples one could give. The great house today is compromised.
My wife and I live in New York City. We live less than one hundred meters from a very beautiful Anglican church. Their busiest day is when they have a gay-pride day at the church.
So this great house—what can we say? How can servants be raised up in the great house? They can almost choose what they want to do. If you have a certain charisma, you gain a following of people.
But even in this day of the great house, the Lord’s thought concerning His servant has not changed. He still looks for vessels of honor—gold vessels, vessels willing to separate themselves from all that is evil.
God’s desire for His servants has not changed. The environment for raising up such servants is not as good, and the church is responsible for the environment that we presently have. But today we see by the Word of God that servants are also responsible for being faithful in these days.
When the church goes into decline, God reacts. How does He react? He raises up servants of God. No matter what the climate is, God can overcome, and He raises up true servants of God.
Where there is sin and compromise, God’s grace becomes stronger in order to raise up such vessels of God.
Every moment of recovery in church history has come as God sovereignly raised up some vessel over the wall of the great house with a greater vision of Christ.
Martin Luther was raised up over the wall of the Catholic Church by seeing justification by faith. John Wesley was raised up over the Anglican wall as he understood the work of the Holy Spirit.
J. N. Darby was raised up over the Anglican wall as he saw the body of Christ meeting in simplicity.
Even if the church is in a compromised state, God is still faithful. He raises up faithful servants to declare the whole counsel of God.
We pray that there are some young people here in this place today who can be raised up over the walls of our present situation and bring further recovery to the church in the fullness of Christ.
To Paul, there is no excuse not to allow the Lord to equip you as a servant of God.
Notice in 2 Timothy 2 that Paul says, “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Bishop Lightfoot tells us that what this actually says in the Greek is, “Strengthen yourselves in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
In other words, the grace of God is there for you to be a gold, honorable vessel unto the Lord. But we must be responsible to lay hold of that grace and be faithful.
Paul gives us three vivid illustrations of what it means to strengthen yourself in the grace that is in Christ Jesus: the soldier, the athlete, and the hardworking farmer.
He says that you are like a soldier. The General has called you into service. Now lay hold of that calling. Be a good soldier, with one goal in mind: to please the One who called you into service.
There is grace from God to be an athlete. To be a servant of God is like being an athlete: you must be disciplined. We must take that discipline to follow and serve the Lord according to His rules, and not merely according to our own ways.
Then he says that we should be like the hardworking farmer. It takes great grace to be a servant like a hardworking farmer. There has to be plowing, there has to be planting, and there has to be watering.
By the grace of God, if you will serve and work faithfully, the Lord will produce a harvest. There is no excuse for servants of God.
I used to go to ministers’ meetings in the local city where I lived. These meetings always began with a half hour of drinking coffee and eating donuts.
During that time, there were only two things you ever heard from these ministers. Either they were talking about how many people were going to their churches, how they had to buy new buses, and they were bragging; or they were talking about how stingy the people of God were, how bad their particular congregation was, and what a hopeless situation they were in.
What Paul says is this: If you are a servant of God, you have no excuse. Be faithful for one reason: you want to please the Lord.
If He calls you to be an Isaiah, He may send you to a people who will not listen. You say, “By the grace of God, I will go.”
When I hear servants moaning and groaning, I think to myself—though the Lord is more merciful than I am—He knows my groanings too. But when we are servants of God, if we groan, we should groan directly to our Boss.
Horizontal groaning in the earshot of other people is murmuring. God does not like this. When I hear servants of God murmuring, I say, “You should get out of the business. If you are not happy with your Master, get out.”
When they signed on, they consecrated themselves. They gave their whole life to serve the Lord. Why do we serve the Lord? Because we love the Lord, because we feel indebted to Him, and because we are grateful to Him.
Do you do that when you teach a Sunday school class? You do not get paid, and you have to buy the cookies and snacks. Do you complain? We all complain. We should repent of this.
We should be happy servants. We truly have the best Boss. He is faithful to us.
Paul says to Timothy, “No excuse. You are a soldier, you are an athlete, and you are a farmer. I have given you grace, and greater grace, and greater grace. Lay hold of that grace.”
In order for us to be servants of value, we must be servants who love our Lord Jesus. Even when it comes to this matter of the Word of God, every servant needs the sword of the Spirit.
For even the simplest duties, we need the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Notice carefully what Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15:
Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.
Why should Timothy study the Bible? To be approved unto God. He wants to please our Lord. So he presents himself; he consecrates himself. Study of the Word of God comes out of consecration.
If you have become bored with reading your Bible, I suggest that you consecrate your mind unto the Lord again and read His Word.
Throughout our lives, we need a relationship to the Word of God. It is vital in our spiritual service. Yesterday I exhorted the elders, the workers, and the older servants to be examples to younger servants of how to serve and how to care for the saints.
Now I want to exhort you young servants of God, and you older servants of God: for us to be equipped by the Word of God, we must be willing to go the way of the cross and the way of consecration.
It is not enough just to listen to somebody speaking a message on a Sunday. It is not enough to attend an occasional Bible study. It is not enough to have a five-minute devotion in the morning.
Today, a workman approved unto God, rightly handling the Word, takes a walk of consecration.
I am amazed when I travel around the world. I see simple saints, many of whom have not gone to high school or college, but they study the Word of God day and night. They have a basic wisdom and knowledge of the Word that surpasses many of us.
This is not a matter of education. It is a matter of relating to a living Word all the days of our lives.
In these Scriptures in 2 Timothy, I want to relate four different levels of equipping by the Word of God. God takes His servant and deals with him by the Word of God on four different levels.
The first level is found in 2 Timothy 3. Let us read verses 15 and 16.
And that from a babe thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.
Here we see the Word of God working in our lives. I call this first level being instructed daily by the Word of God.
At the beginning of this letter, Paul says, “I remember your grandmother and your mother, what faith they had.” Here we see that from Timothy’s childhood he was in an atmosphere where the Scriptures were read, and he was in an environment of hearing the living Word of God.
The Bible says that the Word of God is living. Therefore, when we are talking about daily devotions, we are talking about a living time of devotion.
Is your morning time with the Lord living? His Word is living. If your time is not living, there is something dead about you. We need to let the Lord speak to us through His precious Word.
There is an obedience to the Word of God that is necessary day by day. This is a hearing of the rhema of God daily in your life as you meditate before the Lord.
I do not believe that, in morning devotions, it is necessary to read thirty-four chapters at a time and merely accumulate knowledge. You can read the Bible at some other time during the day.
But when we come to the Lord at the beginning of the day, the Lord is waiting with His Bible open to speak to us. Did you meet with Him this morning? He was waiting for you.
He was not merely waiting to teach you about the destruction of Israel in 722 BC. He wants to speak to you. Here we are talking about the subjective matter of studying the Word of God: allowing the Lord to speak to us.
One of the places I occasionally visit is Russia. Right now many people are being saved in Russia as the kingdom gospel is going forth through the land. I visited two churches, neither of which had been in existence more than fourteen years.
I was amazed to hear the testimony of the saints. They opened their Bible in the morning, and the Lord told them to do something—and they did it.
They read their Bible in the morning, and during the day the Lord brought them to somebody. They witnessed to that person and gave them the very Scripture they had read.
Somebody told them that they could open their Bible and God would speak to them. They were so simple that they believed it, and the Lord leads them.
They read something and feel the Lord convicting their heart. They say, “Lord, forgive me of this.” They read another word and say, “The Lord is instructing me how to live according to a holy way.”
As they read, they receive something from the Lord. We often question the Word. We try to discover a principle in the Word. We reinterpret the Word if it does not fit our particular style of life. But then the Lord cannot speak to us with a living Word.
How many times do you open your Bible in the morning and find that the Lord has something just for you? Are you alive to the Word of God?
A servant of God must be alive to His voice. The Scriptures say, “Today if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
I am not talking about opening your Bible at random every day and looking at something. But however you are reading the Bible and having your devotion, read a section, meditate on it, and let the Lord speak to you before you leave.
Part of our problem is that we do not obey the Word of God. If we are to be instructed by the Word of God, we must be willing to obey what it says.
When we read a section in the New Testament and encounter the word forgive, we should immediately think, “Lord, is there someone I need to forgive?”
The Lord wants to speak to us directly as we fellowship with Him. When the Word of God is living and abiding, we have a daily dialogue with the Lord through His Word.
This enables us to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts and always have a reason for the hope that is within us when we meet other people in our walk through the day.
If you have heard from the Lord today, you are prepared for anything through the day. This is the first kind of relationship to the Word of God that we need.
I remember when I became a Christian at nineteen years old. I looked around and saw Christians who had grown up in Christian homes and read the Bible every day. I was so jealous of them.
They knew the Bible. They knew all the stories. I did not know who David was when I was saved. I did not know who Abraham was when I was saved.
But I came to the Bible and read it every day. Even though I was ignorant of much of the Scriptures, the Lord spoke to me every day. How the Lord wants to speak to you, no matter how much you know the Word.
Timothy was bathed in the sacred writings from the time he was a child. God would use that to make a servant of value.
Now we have the second level: equipping through the Word of the gospel.
Notice 2 Timothy 1:8-10:
Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God;
Who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,
But hath now been manifested by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
Most of us today—probably almost everyone here—knows the Lord and is saved. But I am especially amazed, when I speak to young people, at how many have a shaky understanding of their saving faith.
They may have received much teaching, but they do not always understand how blessed their salvation is. There is a relationship to the gospel of salvation that you and I need to have: the Word of the gospel.
One of the ways God has ordained for this gospel foundation to be established in His servant is by preaching the gospel to others.
We have gospel meetings where I meet in New York. We ask people to share testimonies for new believers. Sometimes the testimonies are very good; sometimes they are very confusing. You wonder, “Do they understand how they got saved?”
But as we join together in the gospel, the Lord makes real to us the blessed gospel. Working together in the gospel in a simple way is one of the healthiest things the church can experience in its knowledge of the Word of God.
If any of us, as servants of God, get too far removed from the gospel, our knowledge becomes heady and ethereal. The gospel helps us remain basic.
When you share the gospel, you learn the basic actions of the faith. As you share the gospel, it strengthens your own faith.
Sometimes we go out on the street and bring some young people with us. When they hand out tracts or share a little testimony in front of people, immediately they say, “How wonderful is this gospel! I am saved.”
Servants of God need to understand the gospel. What is the difference between redemption and being born again? What is the difference between justification and propitiation?
We learn all these different aspects of our salvation by studying the Word of God. Then we become prepared as servants of God, ready to speak the gospel to people who ask.
As I tell young people, every young person should be chariot-ready. Philip jumped up into the chariot and spoke to the Ethiopian eunuch. It really did not make any difference what that eunuch was reading; Philip could have preached the gospel from any Scripture.
I have a brother who is a gifted evangelist. He used to speak publicly before crowds that heckled him, but he could turn every heckle into a sermon.
One time I was with him while he was preaching the gospel. A young student said, “Well, I’m going to go get stoned on drugs tonight.”
The brother spoke back and said, “But you can get stoned on Jesus. He is the Rock of your salvation.” Forget that example.
Do you, as a young servant, have Bible questions—things that you wonder about? I have a secret: if you will share the gospel with people, they will ask questions, and God will give you answers.
If you want answers to your Bible questions, share the gospel with your friend. If you do not know the answer, you will look to the Bible and ask God for an answer. Then God gives you a living answer.
The Word of God is living; it is not dead. The Word of the gospel is a living Word.
We learn another great secret in our Christian life when we share the gospel with people: the Word becomes relevant to us when we use it. If you have all this knowledge and are not using it or sharing it with people, it does not seem real. But if you are using the things you are learning, they become alive to you.
You may not believe this, but when I was at university, my major was business. I often ask the Lord why this was so. You might also be interested to know that I received only A’s in this subject. When I graduated, I was the number-one student in the business school.
Do you know why I got straight A’s? I will tell you why. Every afternoon, after I went to school in the morning, I worked for four hours in a business.
When I studied labor relations, then I went to work and saw labor relations—or the lack of them. When we studied time-and-motion studies, I went back to the business and made some things go quicker in the office by rerouting the way papers were moved around.
All those big, thick business books on economics and commerce were relevant to me because I was working every day in a business.
This precious Word is made relevant to you when you are using these things. In my limited experience, I think the Chinese are the greatest theorists I have ever met. If you were graded as servants according to knowledge, I think all of you would have a blessed future.
But if serving is dependent upon using the knowledge you have, that is another matter. When we compare ourselves with many brothers and sisters in mainland China, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.
The gospel is a living gospel, but you must use it for it to be relevant.
Now we come to the third level of the Word of God. We find it in 2 Timothy 2:15. Out of our consecration, we become students of the Word.
Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth.
Thank God, in your salvation the Word of God laid hold of you, brought conviction to you, and you were saved. Then, as a Christian, you came before the Lord in your early morning time. You read the Scripture, and the Scripture spoke to your heart.
By the Lord’s faithfulness, His Word is laying hold of you. Now you must lay hold of the Word of God. This is how God proves His servants: through the discipline of studying the Word of God.
This discipline is essential to a servant of God. It is not just for those who are going to preach or teach the Word of God in public. It applies to all of His servants.
The Lord has to lead you in your study of the Word. There are various courses of study you might undertake. Many people find correspondence courses very helpful in studying the Word of God. Other people have an informal course of study.
There are those in our local assembly in New York who are interested in serving the Lord and studying His Word. Our brother Christian Chen has graciously put together a course of reading and study through various books and materials that help a person understand the Word of God.
Brother Chen has also written a book. It is the only book in Chinese I have on my bookshelf. It has an English translation section which mentions helpful commentaries and books to read on every book of the Bible.
It is a very good little book. To be a student of the Word, it is good to read some books and hear some recordings by those who are teaching the Bible.
But in 2 Timothy 2:15, Paul refers to a living study of the Word. Paul is exhorting Timothy to a context-intensive study by the Holy Spirit.
When the Lord leads you to study a book or a subject, and you really study it because the Spirit has led you, it will bring you to a higher spiritual level.
At the right time in your life, the Lord will open some Scripture to you and give you understanding through applied study.
If you look at the context in 2 Timothy 2, you see that Timothy is having to deal with a controversy. Among the various problems were two men teaching that the resurrection had already taken place.
It was time for Timothy to go to the Word of God and gain an understanding of the resurrection that had Scriptural substance behind it.
Remember, Timothy only had the Old Testament. But he went back to look in the Old Testament. Because he knew the Lord, he could see Christ revealed in the Old Testament.
In this particular matter, Timothy had to look for references to the resurrection in the Old Testament. These men had argued that the resurrection had already come, and by this teaching they robbed Christians of the blessed hope of the resurrection that is yet to come.
Timothy is told in this passage to rightly and accurately teach the Word of God on this matter of resurrection. As a bondservant of the Lord, he was not to quarrel with these arguers and false teachers, but gently teach them the truth and pray that the Lord would give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth.
There are so many things that Christians believe today which have no substance in Scripture. It is not enough for you to say, “The preacher I know says this is not true.” You must study for yourself and come to an understanding of these things.
Timothy would study the Old Testament. He would see the predictions of Christ and resurrection. He would see the predictions of our own resurrection. He would spiritually grow through this experience.
We need to grow in our objective understanding of the Word of God if we would be servants of God.
As we assemble together week after week, we soon come to understand whether the Word in our midst is weak or strong. By strength, I do not mean that the preacher is good.
We need a balance in our diet of the Word of God. There are some who preach the gospel. There are some who have studied and can bring us objective understanding as teachers. There are some who can bring us a living rhema of something they have heard from the Lord.
That is when we are rich in the Word—when we receive the fullness of the Word of God.
But if we only have one speaker, one person speaking all the time, that is not fullness. Sometimes people say that our brother Stephen is meat of the Word. Sometimes people say that I am ice cream. I wish I were that tasty.
But I do not think you want ice cream every time. You also cannot have meat every time. There needs to be something led by the Holy Spirit, where there is a full provision of the Word of God.
This is something that concerns me very much when I visit assemblies. I attend the Sunday morning meeting, and some brother shares a message way up in the sky. Then they have a Bible study on Thursday night, and everybody sits around and asks, “Well, what do you think?”
We hear everybody’s opinion and what happened at work that day, but we do not get substance. In some assemblies, I do not even know if they really study the Word of God.
Do they know the basic foundation of the gospel? Do they know the mystery of Christ?
This brings us to our fourth level of understanding and relationship to the Word of God. We see no direct reference, but we see it hinted at in chapter 4.
Paul exhorts Timothy:
I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
Preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts;
And will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.
But be thou sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry.
Sometimes in our church life together, everything seems to be all right. But a problem is about to occur because people want their ears tickled. People want to follow after their own feelings about things.
Timothy was charged by Paul to preach the Word in season and out of season. This begins to touch the last level of study of the Word of God that I want to mention.
There is a level of our relationship to the Word of God that has to do specifically with the mystery of Christ. This is the prophetic aspect of the Word of God.
This is not a ministry that happens immediately. The Word of God must abide in you. You must be a student of the Word of God, and you must have been obedient to the Word of God.
Then this living Word of God begins to dwell in you, and the Lord Jesus within begins to reveal Himself in the various seasons of church life.
Every assembly goes through seasons. Blessed is the assembly that has a man of God who can speak at the right time.
You learn the season of an assembly by praying in the assembly. Certain burdens arise. We sense a burden that the Lord wants to speak. Who is able to speak in that season?
When I went to Bible training and took a class on preaching, we had a well-known preacher come and speak to our class one day. He said, “Here is what I do. I take one month of vacation in Florida.”
During that month in Florida, he would look over the calendar for the coming year. He would mark down when Easter came, when Mother’s Day came, and all the special occasions.
Then he would find a Scripture sermon for every special occasion. He would pray and think, “What do I want to speak this year to this group?” By the time the month was over, he had outlines for all fifty-two weeks.
Maybe he was an amazing mystic who knew the times and seasons before they happened. But this sounds like man’s plan to me.
We need a prophetic Word spoken to our assembly in season. When people are beginning to turn away their ears from the truth to listen to other things, we need to be willing to preach out of season the truth of Christ in order to bring them back.
This is not only preaching. Sometimes a person sensitive to the seasons of the Lord is able to speak in a prayer meeting regarding a burden.
In other words, the Lord gives you a burden. He draws you to His Word, and He clarifies it as you wait before Him—what to speak to the assembly.
This takes a deeper understanding of the Word of God, and it also has to do with the life of the Lord within us. Tomorrow afternoon we want to share on being equipped by the life within.
I want to conclude by bringing before you this matter of the Word being living in your lives.
I thank the Lord when He raises up a vessel of honor in the assembly. When the word that servant gives is living, how wonderful it is. The whole church praises God when we receive something from the Lord.
The Lord’s desire is that there would be a number of people apt to teach in the body of Christ. Then we can have fullness.
Again, we need to allow younger servants to be exercised in their ministry. This involves much patience.
A little while ago in our assembly in New York, praise God, the group was growing quite a bit. We had a number of visitors who came every Sunday.
One visitor reported to one of the brothers that they only liked it when Brother Christian shared, or when Brother Dana shared. They did not like the other brothers.
They liked the diet of Chinese food and ice cream. But actually, in our assembly, other brothers share more than Brother Christian and myself. The Lord is blessing us as these young brothers exercise their ministry.
But this was not good enough for the visitors. They only wanted the special speakers.
We had a brothers’ meeting one Sunday because this issue had grown into murmuring among the visitors. The brothers discussed what should be done.
Then our brother Christian spoke. He said, “What are we trying to do here? Are we trying to please the visitors, or do we want to build up the body of Christ?”
The visitors are welcome to come, but we are not here to speak merely for that. We believe the Lord can speak through brothers. We want to see other brothers raised up.
That was the end of the argument. Brother Christian may speak once a month, and I may speak once a month. Meanwhile, other brothers are developing in ministry.
Maybe some visitors are disappointed, but most of our diet should be rice anyway.
May the Lord raise up servants of the Word of God—servants who can wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
May He raise up servants to whom the Word of God is living: living to them in the morning, living to them when they share the gospel, living to them when they study the doctrines according to Christ, and living in their lives, ready to come forth in season or out of season.
This is a useful vessel, approved unto God. Where is the starting place? Consecration. Give your life to the Lord. Give your life to be a student of the abiding Word of God.
Let us pray.
O Father, thank You for giving us Your precious Word. Forgive us when we have shared it only as the letter or as dead doctrine. Wrestle with us by Your living Word.
Divide soul and spirit by Your living Word. Breathe upon Your living Word with inspiration as we read it in the morning.
We want to be people who have the Word of God hidden in our hearts. Turn our eyes to love this precious Word.
We want to confess together:
Beyond the sacred page,
We see Thee, Lord;
Break Thou the bread of life.
We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.