If you would turn with me in your Bible to the second letter of the apostle Paul to Timothy, I would like to read a few verses: 2 Timothy 3:14.
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.
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, fulfil thy ministry.
And in the same letter, chapter 2 and verse 14:
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.
This afternoon we are going to consider training for the ministry of God’s Word. There is no higher honour than to be the mouthpiece of God.
It is good for us to understand this right at the beginning: the ministry of the Word is not simply to do with mouthing truths or outlining doctrine. It is to be an interpreter and a communicator of the burden that is on the Lord’s heart. That, I say, is a tremendous privilege.
Before we consider the matter of training for the Word of God, we should at least recognise what a high calling it is. I want to do two things. First, I would like to underline one or two, in my estimation, very important principles. Then I would like to say something about the practical side of training for the ministry of God’s Word.
What I have to say is basically to do with those who are really called to a specific ministry of God’s Word. But the principles hold good even for those who, in an open time, share something from the Word of God—perhaps a little word of encouragement, exhortation, correction, or comfort.
The principles are the same whether you are called to be a teacher, to fulfil a prophetic ministry, or to be an evangelist. Whether you are called and given by the Lord to the church in one of these areas of the ministry of God’s Word, or whether it is simply sharing a word in fellowship, open worship, or praise, the principles are the same.
The first thing I would like to underline is this: only the Holy Spirit can gift, educate, train, and qualify the one who ministers God’s Word.
It sounds so obvious, and yet it is not so obvious when we look at Christian work today. We have to say that a tremendous amount of the ministry of God’s Word is somehow unanointed. It is not alive; it is stale, dusty, dead.
The reason is that we have fallen into the trap that anyone who has the gift of the gab can simply minister the Word of God. If someone is a good salesman, we think, “Well, he is a salesman in his normal job—let him preach the Word.” If a man has an academic brain, then why not make him a teacher in the church?
We just take over whatever we feel to be a natural gift and say, “Well, the man is going to do that in the church.” But only the Holy Spirit can gift a man or a woman in this way. Only the Holy Spirit can educate, train, and qualify a person. It is the unique office of the Spirit of God to gift the church with such ministries and to educate, train, and qualify them.
It is not man’s work. Not even the most spiritual servant of God can produce a ministry in another person. I could take ten of you brothers and destroy the church with you by getting you to understand that I can make you ministers of God’s Word—by teaching you to speak as I speak, study the Word, get the doctrine right, and then, like a tape recorder, press a button and pour it all out on the poor unsuspecting flock of God.
But even the most spiritual servant of God cannot produce ministers of God’s Word. Only the Holy Spirit can do this work. Nor can a theological seminary turn out ministers of God’s Word, as most of you have probably recognised.
We tend to think that we can take raw material, put it into a kind of theological mincing machine, switch on the plug, leave it there for so long, and out will come the finished product. I have seen men go into theological seminary who were really on fire for the Lord and come out the other end absolutely colourless.
They have the theology; they have the doctrine. But somewhere along the line, the living nature of the ministry of God’s Word has been lost. Whether it is a theological seminary, a conservative theological seminary, or even a living Bible school, it cannot actually do the work of the Holy Spirit.
I will say something more that will put this into perspective in a moment, but the first thing I want to get over to you is that only the Holy Spirit can do this work. The rest may be valuable when the Spirit is doing His work.
For instance, when the Holy Spirit is gifting somebody in this area of the ministry of God’s Word, then a certain amount of training may be invaluable. A certain amount of education by other servants of God may also be invaluable.
But it is rather like putting someone into musical school who has no musical gift. When they come out and play the piano, it will always be wooden, no matter who has taught them. It will never have that original spark of life which you immediately recognise as something within the person.
If a person cannot sing in tune, you can put them into a singing school, but what can it do? You cannot take somebody who has absolutely no grace at all, put them into a ballet school, and turn them out a ballerina.
In the same way, you cannot put someone into an art school and turn them out a painter—although some of the stuff that comes out today makes me wonder whether that is what they are trying to do.
I come from a city where, unfortunately, all our parks have been graced by gifts from various sculptors. I have never seen such horrific things as we now have in some of our parks: lumps of iron, twisted girders, and one thing like a spider on top of the mountain. Every time visitors come, they say to me, “What is that thing up there?”
Now, I do not know what that thing up there is. I have to see it again and again and again. I suspect that someone went into art school somewhere without too much real art in them. Because, to do that kind of thing, as we say in English English, you have to have cheek.
I remember some time ago being absolutely amazed at a young American who painted a scene for a Japanese university, which he called The Epic Battle of some event in fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Japan.
The way he produced this epic scene was to slush buckets of paint all over a huge canvas, run around on it with snowshoes, then take a bicycle and go round and round, backwards and forwards, over it. He sold it for twenty-two thousand dollars.
Everyone in Britain at the time was horrified. But I said that any man who has that kind of cheek, and can charge twenty-two thousand dollars and get it, deserves to get it.
Some of the stuff I see going for paintings today, I could do—but I would be embarrassed to do it. You look at this kind of stuff, which you could do almost as a child, and you just feel embarrassed.
In the same way, we tend to think that if we take raw material, put someone into a Bible school or theological seminary, or place them in the care of some great servant of God, they will automatically be turned out a minister of God’s Word. They will have a ministry of God’s Word. This does not follow.
Only the Holy Spirit can birth in a man or a woman a real, genuine, original ministry of God’s Word. Only the Holy Spirit can train what He has birthed. Only the Holy Spirit can qualify that one when they are ready to begin to fulfil that ministry.
This leads me to the second point: the ministry of God’s Word must come out of a person’s spiritual character and experience.
In other words, the ministry of God’s Word does not just come out of the head. It is not a question of shutting yourself up in a study, studying various doctrines or a certain amount of theology, and then, at a certain moment, pouring the whole thing out on the church.
Living ministry of God’s Word is related to a man or woman’s spiritual character and experience. If they have little spiritual character, their ministry of the Word will have very little depth. If they have little experience, the ministry of the Word through them will have very little impact.
This matter of the ministry of God’s Word is tied to spiritual character and spiritual experience. When we look into God’s Word, we see this all the way through in symbolic form. God says to certain prophets, “Take the scroll and eat it.”
You will remember that in some cases they said it was sweet to the taste and bitter in the stomach. Even John had that experience in the book of Revelation. What the Lord was saying was this: it is no good standing there and thinking that, like a divine tape recorder, you can pour out messages for Him.
The message has to get into you and become part of you. Whether you give the message and then God makes sure that you come to know it in your own experience, or whether you have the experience and then the message comes out of it, the principle holds good: your experience and your character are intimately related to the ministry of God’s Word.
That is why those who are very special servants of God, as far as the ministry of God’s Word is concerned, go through such experiences. God often puts such brethren through strange experiences and leads them in unusual ways so that they may discover the Lord for themselves. Out of their discovery of the Lord comes their ministry of God’s Word.
The third thing I would like to say is that human training is valuable when these essential two matters are present. When it is the Holy Spirit who is birthing this matter in a person, and when it is related to their character and experience, then human training is valuable.
Now I want to turn to practical things. What is the place of study in this whole matter? Well, it is very simple. You may listen to me and decide that this sounds rather good: we do not need theological seminary, Bible schools, or all that study which is so tiring to the mind. All we have to do is have some experiences of the Lord, and ministry will flow out of us.
This is not so. It is absolutely true that ministry will flow out of what the Lord does in you. But at the same time, the Lord will never use someone who is lazy.
If you do not give yourself to study—to intensive study—and if you do not get to know the Scriptures intimately, memorising them as well as studying them, the Holy Spirit will never have in you the kind of material to draw from.
On the one hand, avoid the idea that all you have to do is study the Word and study doctrine, and then you will be a minister of God’s Word. That is one danger.
The other danger is that you merely depend upon experiences of the Lord. “I will flit from experience to experience like a butterfly, and the ministry will just pour out of me and everyone will be blessed.” The place of study is very important.
It is a very funny thing with the Lord—I should not put it like that, but I am only chatting to you this afternoon. You can study and study and study, and then when the Lord gives you a word, it may have nothing to do with what you have studied.
Yet the strange thing is this: if you had not studied, I doubt very much whether the Lord would have given you that word. That is my experience. You may study a whole matter in depth, and then the Lord takes you on a totally different tack when He actually gives you something to minister. Nevertheless, the place of study is of very great importance.
I would like to say something to the Westerners—the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin, forgetting the Orientals. There is a kind of mentality in the West, very often, that does not really want to get down to study, because in all study there is discipline.
You cannot study without discipline. You cannot study unless you deliberately put aside time to study. The Orient has always understood, to a certain extent, that study is a discipline and has tended to give itself to that discipline—almost to the point where you have to hold people back because they become so intense in the matter.
But we have to understand that study requires discipline. You do not just waft into study. You do not just float into it. You cannot utter a little prayer in the morning and say, “Lord, now just make time for me to study,” because that is not the way you study.
You have to take hold of yourself in this matter.
The second thing I want to say in this matter of human training is this: getting to know your Bible is absolutely foundational to any ministry of God’s Word.
When I say getting to know your Bible, I mean in every single way. You must start to read your Bible from Genesis to Revelation in a modern version, like a newspaper.
I know this will horrify some of you, but I would get a modern version, such as The Living Bible, and read a whole book in one sitting. You can do it. Do not think you cannot do it. You can read newspapers, watch television, and do other things.
If you read some of these letters or books in The Living Bible, you will find them quite thrilling. You have no idea just how thrilling they are until you read them in a modern version. You have to get to know your Bible.
Many Christians know only certain passages or certain letters. You only have to look at some people’s Bibles and see how they are marked. You can see Ephesians, Romans, and the Gospels. But when you get to the Old Testament, you find whole areas where the pages are still stuck together eight years after they have had the Bible.
This is not a way to get to know your Bible. If you are going to minister God’s Word, there is a whole area of blindness, a whole area shut down for the Holy Spirit. How can He speak to you from Obadiah when you do not even know where Obadiah is? How can He take some lesson from Nahum if you have hardly heard of Nahum?
You have to get to know your Bible. There are different ways of doing this. The first is reading it through without making too heavy a thing of it. Get the easiest version and read through a whole letter.
You will find, for instance, that a little book like Song of Songs could be read literally in less than an hour. Ecclesiastes can be read in no time in a modern version. You will not be able to read through the whole of Psalms in one sitting, so do not try; that is something you have to take bit by bit.
But the letters, the histories, and the prophets can be read through in a modern version, and the same is true of the New Testament.
I am so thankful that when I was first saved, I did not have a Bible. Everyone thought everybody in Britain had a Bible in those days, so nobody bothered to give me one—neither me nor my sister. We were given one little Gospel of John.
We went through that Gospel of John again and again and again for one and a half years before someone realised that we did not have a Bible and gave us one. To this day, John’s Gospel is written in my being. I know where all the parts are in John’s Gospel because I read it and read it and read it again.
I can never overemphasise that, if you want to get to know your Bible, you are going to have to read it right through. People often start on great schemes of reading through the Bible in the King James Version, or another difficult version. They get through Genesis, have difficulties in Exodus, and by the time they get to Leviticus, they have real hiccups.
When they finally get to the genealogies in Chronicles, they are finished. They sink, never to reappear again, and that is the end of reading through the Bible for most people.
You need to get a good modern version. Do not be shocked by it. Some of you may not like The Living Bible, but I personally love it when it says that, when Isaac was born, Abraham threw a party. The older version says that he “made a great feast,” but I like “he threw a party.” I think, “Well, they were just like us, really.”
When David was upsetting King Saul, The Living Bible says that King Saul went to the bathroom. Of course, that is not quite how the original says it. The lovely King James Version says he “turned aside privily.” Who understands that? But everyone understands “he went to the bathroom.” While he was in the bathroom, David cut off the end of his robe. It all makes sense.
Then you think of Elijah as such a very austere gentleman. When he was taunting the prophets of Baal, he said, “Go on, shout louder. Perhaps he is deaf. Or perhaps he has gone on a journey.” In effect, he even suggested that perhaps Baal was sitting on the toilet. That is exactly what he said in the Hebrew.
You may think we are straying from the point. No, not really. I am trying to get over to you the fact that you need to read your Bible. Do not read it only in the old version. The older version has its place for real study, but for reading through and gaining a bird’s-eye view of what the Lord is saying in a particular book or letter, you need a modern version that is not taxing on the mind.
You are reading through the Word of God so that you are not missing anything. You are getting to know the Word in its wider scope.
The second thing I would say is this: choose one version as a really good, accurate study version. The King James Version is as good as any in many ways, but its language is old and difficult.
The American Standard Version of 1901, which I use, is one of the most accurate versions ever produced. I personally do not think much of the Revised Standard Version, and I certainly do not think much of the New English Bible either.
The New American Standard Bible is difficult to read publicly—it is too pedantic—but it is a very good version for study, especially in the Old Testament. Even in the New Testament, it tries to deal with some of the difficult constructions, such as “whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
I would say: get that, or even the New International Version, which is a very, very good version when it comes to study. You need a version such as that for your study Bible.
Always remember that the sacred Scriptures were originally given to us in Hebrew and Greek. I know that some people feel that the King James Version should never be tampered with. I understand their feelings, particularly because of the beauty and rhythm of the King James Version.
It is a marvellous version for memorisation because God gave those translators a rhythm that has helped people memorise whole portions. But I do not subscribe to the view that it is the only acceptable version.
You have often heard about the old lady who came up to a preacher who had used the Revised Version and said, “Why did you not use the King James Version? It was good enough for Saint Paul; it is good enough for me.”
The point is that all versions are translations, and translations are always translations. Take the version you find most helpful, most accurate, and easiest to study, and keep with that.
There are two things I would like to say about studying the Word of God. One is theme study. Take themes—many different themes.
Take, for instance, the theme of the Lord Jesus. Go right through the Scriptures and see whether you can find the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus opened the understanding of His disciples in the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. As you go through, can you find the Lord Jesus?
Take another theme: are there actual manifestations of the Lord Jesus before He was born? Or take salvation. Go right through the Scriptures and find where the promise of salvation first appears. Follow the word “salvation” through the whole of Scripture. Add another word: redemption.
There are so many themes. Take the house of God. Take the glory of God. What a tremendous thing it is to discover that the first time the phrase “the glory of the Lord” actually touches the earth is when the tabernacle is set up. That must surely have tremendous meaning.
When you take thematic studies, beginning with the first time a matter is mentioned and then following it all the way through, you begin to understand things. But resist the temptation to rush off to the next meeting and give everything that you have discovered.
That is not ministry of God’s Word. What the Lord is doing is revealing things to you. All that you are discovering and beginning to see is settling down within your own being and heart. It is material for the Holy Spirit to use in the days to come.
Then there is another kind of study: analysis study. That is taking certain words and really investigating them. What do they mean? What did they mean in the original?
Sometimes you can study a character. Take the life of Abraham: what can I learn from the life of Abraham? Take the life of Jacob: what can I learn from the life of Jacob? What is there in the Old Testament? What is there in the New Testament? What do I learn from this life? These are analytical studies. You are getting to know the Bible.
The place of the original languages may perhaps be only for one or two of you. There is a place for learning the original languages, especially if you have a bent that way.
Sometimes youngsters come to me and ask, “Should I learn Hebrew?” I always say, “Absolutely, since that is the language you are going to talk in heaven anyway, you might as well get to learn it down here.”
If they ask, “Could I learn Greek?” I say, “Yes, of course, if you have a bent that way.” But if it means your whole life will be taken up for four or five years immersed in Greek and you come out rather lifeless, then I would say do not go into it.
There is value, especially if God gives you a more special ministry, in understanding something of the original languages.
Is there any place for specific Bible-school training? I think you must see from what I have said that, in the busy lives most of us live, it is not easy to put aside time to really study.
The larger and younger your family is, the more problems you are going to have in this matter. Especially if, as Dana pointed out this morning, you have just been given a better position in the firm you work for and they expect you to do even more work.
In some ways, I sometimes think there is a place for specific training, where a person could opt out for a while from normal life and give themselves to a period of training.
What I find sad is that so often the so-called Bible school does not apparently fulfil its objective. I have met so many who have gone through theological seminary and said to me, “You know, I do not know what I did learn there.”
I remember, when we had students in our house in Britain, one or two who had been through seminary said to me, “I learned more in half a year here than I learned in three years in seminary.” But we should not think that specific training is absolutely wrong.
I would like to say something about aids to study. To me, these are the essentials.
First, a concordance. Most believers are divided between Strong’s Concordance and Young’s Concordance. Both of them went mad. It is an amazing fact that both of them went nuts as a result of producing their concordances. I do not blame them.
It is rather like the monk who reduced the Scriptures to chapters and verses in the fifteenth century. He went nuts as well. However, we have to be very thankful for Young and for Strong and the work they did.
Strong’s Concordance is a more complex way of looking up a word, but it is generally considered the best in the end. By a concordance, I mean one that gives you the original language—not merely a concordance that tells you where an English word appears.
You need a concordance that lists the various Hebrew and Greek words under which the English word is used. Most concordances are based on the King James Version. The British Revised Version of 1881 and the American version of 1901 are not far enough from the King James Version to be useless in this matter.
But a concordance is very, very important if you are really going to study your Bible in depth.
Second, you must learn how to use cross-references. Please do not all come to me, because I could not do it, and I am sure Stephen would never ask me again if I told you all to go to him.
Nobody will ever be able to study the Bible properly without knowing how to use cross-references. It throws tremendous light on a passage when you can take a cross-reference from one Scripture to another and see whether that other reference sheds light on the passage you are studying.
Third, a very important Bible aid is a Bible encyclopaedia. Do not get one of those huge, many-volume sets. Get a really good one-volume Bible encyclopaedia.
You will have to ask Stephen about this, because I do not know what they publish on this side. I know that Fausset’s Bible Dictionary is still published, I think. Fausset was quite a remarkable old gentleman and obviously really knew the Lord.
It is not up to date, but it would be no great loss if you had Fausset’s Bible Encyclopaedia and one of the latest works as well, with the latest archaeological discoveries and other things that might help.
A good Bible encyclopaedia is important. When you read “denarius,” what is a denarius? No cross-reference is going to help you, nor is your concordance. When you read “shekel,” some of you may wonder what a shekel is. Or when you read about the temple tax, what is the temple tax? You need a Bible encyclopaedia for such things.
Fourthly, there are commentaries. I want to say something by way of warning about them. Over the years, I have advised anybody who has come to me about commentaries to be very careful, because commentaries are like spoon-feeding somebody long after they should be feeding themselves.
You can get into such a lazy state of mind that you look at the commentary and ask, “What does Brown say?” or “What does Matthew Henry say?” If, God forbid, Matthew Henry made a mistake on a certain point, then everyone who follows him automatically makes the same mistake.
I like the kind of commentary that tells you the structure of the book, something about its origin, its date, the problems of its dating, and its authorship. I am talking about conservative scholarship now, not modernistic scholarship.
The IVF used to produce a very good one-volume commentary for the whole Bible. It gave me at least what I wanted to know, and then I was able to read the text and look things up elsewhere.
I think that is much better. You have to do your own work. You have to get to understand what the Lord is saying in a letter, not merely find out what somebody else has said about it.
When you are old enough and mature enough in the Lord, you can read any commentary. You can read a thousand commentaries once you are mature enough in the Lord to discern shrewdly what is good and what is not good. But when you are very young in the Lord, you can swallow the whole thing, and damage can be done right at the beginning.
Fifthly, I would like to say something about other books. There are some marvellous books that can help you.
I do not know the American scene so well as far as books are concerned, but there are certain classics which span both sides of the Atlantic—English-speaking classics that can help in getting to know your Bible.
I think of F. B. Meyer’s Characters of the Bible. I do not think Bible characters have probably ever been better handled. It is very simple; you could read a chapter before you go to bed. Yet, for an introduction to Bible characters, I find it tremendous.
I think of some of Campbell Morgan’s books, especially his synopsis of the Bible, which is quite helpful in many ways. There are, of course, many others. I am only giving a few examples.
There are books that can be a very real help. If you are going to minister the Word, do not be afraid of the ministry of others.
I am so thankful for T. Austin-Sparks. He has a very difficult style, but the value of what he gives and presents is undying. I think also of Watchman Nee. His style is much easier.
We could never overemphasise the value that there is in such ministry. Then I think of Dr. Tozer’s books. I cannot imagine that anybody could read any book by Dr. Tozer and not be challenged and provoked to go deeper with the Lord.
There are so many others that it would be silly to try to name them all. I almost feel hesitant even to mention names because of all those we leave out. But all I am trying to get over to you is this: here are aids to your study.
The main thing is to study the Word, just as the main end of the ministry of the Word is to preach the Word. When people preach their theories about the Word, it is always dangerous. When people preach only their own experience, it can be dangerous. We are told to preach the Word.
In the matter of the ministry of God’s Word, we need to come to terms with the simple fact that although the Holy Spirit is the One Who births this kind of ministry, trains it, and qualifies it—and although it is essentially related to a person’s spiritual character and experience—nevertheless, human training is valuable when these matters are present.
I would now like to say something about the different types of ministry of the Word. As I see it, there are three main types of ministry, together with the kind of smaller words we might give in fellowship around the Lord’s table or in a time of fellowship.
The three main types of ministry are:
There are also words of exhortation, encouragement, comfort, and correction.
In teaching, you can say the same thing a thousand times in a thousand different places, and it can remain alive and living, provided the servant of God is walking with the Lord, alive to the Spirit of God, and abiding under the anointing.
A servant of God can say the same thing a thousand times, and it can be as living on the thousandth time as it was at the beginning. That is teaching, because teaching is, to a certain extent, repetition.
I do not mean necessarily repetition within one message, although that is often so as well. I mean that the teaching ministry is the enunciation of principles, truths, and such things.
Prophetic ministry differs greatly from teaching. You may prophetically give a message that God has anointed for a particular time and a particular people. Then you try to give it again in another place, and if the Lord has not told you to do it and has not brought it to new birth in your heart, it is as dead as doornails.
Some people have been used of God in a living and powerful way to give a prophetic word, and then they think, “I will give that at such-and-such a place,” only to discover that it has died on them. You cannot do it.
The very nature of prophetic ministry is that it is directed by the Lord for a particular situation and particular people in that situation.
This does not mean that a prophetic burden God has given you will not be communicated again and again. But my experience is that it has to be reborn every time. Whether you give it ten, twelve, or twenty times, it has to be reborn in your heart.
You have to know the kindling of the anointing upon that matter. You have to know in your heart, “That is what the Lord wants to say.” That is prophetic ministry.
Prophetic ministry is, in my estimation, the most costly of the ministries.
Then there is evangelistic ministry. I do not know why those who have evangelistic ministry always seem to have this hankering in their hearts to go into teaching.
I find this one of the greatest tragedies amongst the Lord’s people today: men with a real evangelistic gift, who have lived in that evangelistic ministry, go into teaching, and they always get into trouble.
They have an anointing for an evangelistic ministry of God’s Word, but they may not have an anointing for a teaching ministry of God’s Word.
Evangelistic ministry is simple, direct, contemporary, and illustrated. It is marvellous when a person has such a gift. I wish every fellowship represented here had such a gift—an original gift.
Can you imagine the multiplication that might take place in so many areas if there were such a gift?
Then there is another kind of ministry, which I would bring under exhortation, encouragement, comfort, and sometimes correction—not necessarily in a heavy-handed way. It can simply be realignment.
Sometimes the Lord gives a word to a brother, and he brings a little word in fellowship time—perhaps about the centrality of the Lord. The whole assembly, fellowship, or company of God’s children in that place is realigned.
The word is so alive and so under the anointing that it is almost as if the Lord has realigned the whole fellowship that had become a little off course and brought it back into line.
Do we not need exhortation? We need that marvellous ministry by which we are encouraged to go on with the Lord, encouraged to serve the Lord, encouraged to endure, and encouraged in so many other ways. We need it in these days.
Finally, let me make a few more practical points about the ministry itself. We have spoken about study, which lies behind it, and about types of ministry.
A message has to be born. The Holy Spirit has to bring a message to birth; He has to conceive it in the womb of a person’s spirit.
If you are not walking with the Lord, alive to the Lord, and in union with the Lord, how can the Holy Spirit conceive such a message? It is very, very important.
Sometimes people ask, “How is such a message born?” There are a thousand ways in which a message is born.
I have had messages born in my heart when I have been thirty-five thousand feet up in an aircraft and being served a meal. Suddenly, I found something born in my spirit, and I nearly choked on my meal while I thought, “Good gracious, Lord, how wonderful that is.”
I have learned from experience always to note down very quickly what the Lord gives you at that point. I take a napkin, an old letterhead, or anything, and write it down immediately.
Sometimes I have had it in the bath. Can you imagine? Is not the Lord amazing? Suddenly, in a bath, He gives you a word. Sometimes I have had it while shopping or while out with the dog. Suddenly something is conceived in my heart.
Sometimes it comes while I am listening to somebody else. That is not filching something from them. But when it is living ministry, I have always found that living ministry begets living ministry. I remember Mr. Sparks saying that years ago.
As you listen, something is born in your heart—perhaps on another tack, but it is born in your heart.
Some people think that the only decent way a message can be conceived in a servant of God is when they are closeted away for hours and hours in prayer. I have nothing against hours and hours of prayer.
But I have to tell you that our soul can very often get in on the act. When I was younger in the Lord, if I had been asked to speak and I had to get a message, I would get so worked up. I would shut myself away, plead with the Lord, and become more and more intense.
I discovered a very interesting thing: the more intense I became, and the more drawn out I became in appealing to the Lord, the less a message came.
I understand that, when it comes to birth, the best births are always when you are relaxed.
I found that the best thing to do was simply to lie down. This may sound terribly unspiritual to you. I am not saying the Lord would do it with you, because you may not be intense as I am in this matter.
But nowadays I say to the Lord, “All right, Lord, this thing is coming up. You want me to give this word. I am just going to lie down. I am there. You can bring it to me. You know very well that I am ready to pray, ready to study, and ready to do all the other things. But I am not going to get into such a state that my soul gets into the act and frustrates Your reaching me with Your Word.”
There are so many ways the Lord can bring a message to birth in a person’s heart—anywhere and at any time. Just walk with the Lord. That is the key. Walk with the Lord, be alive to the Lord, and have a living experience in the Lord. He will bring the message to birth.
What about the development of the message? Here is a marvellous thing: sometimes the Lord brings a message to birth in your heart and, for a while, it goes under a cloud. It does not develop. Sometimes He develops it almost immediately.
I have known times when I waited upon the Lord for hours with some conference in mind, and the Lord gave me nothing. Then suddenly, within a few minutes, He gave me all five meetings at once. I am not saying He would do this with everybody; this is the way He does it with me.
It comes so fast that it is like a dictation sheet. I cannot get it down quickly enough. I think, “Lord, just hold off for a while so I can get the whole thing down.”
Do you know what the danger is in development? Adding what the Lord has not said.
This is a terrible danger in the ministry of God’s Word, and it is why so many ministries die. Having received something from the Lord, people begin to explore everything in the Bible encyclopaedia and commentary. They pile more and more on top of what the Lord has said until, in the end, the poor souls who hear them do not know what the Lord said in the first place.
They have the whole of the Sermon on the Mount from beginning to end, with all the structure and many points here, there, and everywhere, whereas what the Lord said may have simply been, “When thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father Who is in secret.”
But once you have given the whole sermon—how it came about, where the Lord was, everything about it from beginning to end, and all the various matters—the message God originally gave you has been buried. Nobody has got the message. We have added so much that we have killed it.
The last thing I want to say in this connection is that you need faith. You will never have anointing on the word you give unless, finally, it is given in faith.
I find that the Lord’s ways with me are probably different from His ways with you, because temperamentally and personality-wise you may be different. But this is what the Lord often does with me.
I have now become used to it, so it does not bother me anymore. Years ago it brought me out in cold sweats. The Lord would bring a fog upon me—literally a spiritual fog—just before I ministered.
I would lose all the clarity I had, and then I would begin to get worried. “I have to face the people. I cannot think now. What was it that I had?” I would get my notes, but when I looked at them, they seemed so dead. I thought, “Oh, they are so dead.”
I have gone through this a thousand times; I am not exaggerating. I have been tempted to think, “Forget it. The Lord is not in this. You are going to stand up there and give them dead meat.”
Then I think, “It was the Lord Who brought this to birth in me, and it is the Lord Who developed it. I am going to go ahead in faith.”
That is why, before I speak, I always say, “Lord, You have an anointing for me and for these hearers. I take it by faith in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Then I go ahead.
I find that the Lord is always there in living quality when it really is Himself. I have discovered that this is the Lord’s safety mechanism for a person like me, because I have such a fertile imagination and mind.
If I had clarity at the last moment, I would add a whole lot to the message, and the Lord would say, “What did you say all that for?” So the way He does it is to put me in a kind of cooler just before the message. This effectively stops me from adding anything to it.
At the last moment, I can only give what He has given me.
Two other things: be yourself. Do not try to be me. Do not try to be Stephen. Do not try to be anybody else.
Imitate our faith. Imitate our commitment. But do not imitate our eccentricities. I do not think Stephen has many eccentricities, but I have plenty. Please do not imitate mine.
There are some amazing eccentricities among preachers. I have seen them in my life. I have always been very observant.
I remember one preacher when I was a boy. He never looked at the congregation. He always had his head straight up. One wondered whether it was the angels he was teaching. It was always difficult to listen because he had his head fixed in that position.
Some theological seminaries tell us, “If you are fearful of the congregation, preach just above them.” So you get people always preaching to some imaginary congregation up there. I find it very disconcerting when a preacher never looks at you.
I like a preacher to have a look at you now and again. I have known people faint and be carried out while the preacher did not even know, because he had his face fixed up there. The whole congregation could have died of the plague, and he would not have known.
Be very careful of some of these things. I remember another preacher who had been taught to preach with his body. This was a very big thing at the beginning of the century: you were to preach with your whole being.
Unfortunately, he had the most enormous hands I have ever seen on a man. They were just like turkey plates. When he came to a very important point in his message, he would wave these huge hands. We would look at his hands, and we lost his whole message.
There are so many strange things. Sometimes we are told to vary our tone. When I was first saved, there was a preacher in the church who was known as the headache preacher.
He had been taught to modulate his tone so that people would not go to sleep. They most certainly did not go to sleep. When he came to the most important point, he would drop his voice suddenly, and the whole congregation would lean forward trying to catch what he was saying.
My dear friend, be yourself.
If God has given you a monotone for a voice, I have a suspicion that you are not destined for the ministry of God’s Word. I am sure the Lord would never want to send the whole church to sleep.
But vary your tone; be yourself. Remember: God cannot be Himself in you until you are yourself in Him.
So I bring this little time on the ministry of God’s Word together. I believe it is a tremendous thing to be called to the ministry of God’s Word.
It is a lifetime of education and training. I do not think we come to the end of our training and education even when we are many years old in the Lord and have many years of the ministry of God’s Word behind us.
We are always learning and learning and learning, being educated and trained. But I think it would be a tremendous thing if God could take our time together, especially with some of you young men, burden you in a new way, and bring you into some living discipline of His in the matter of the ministry of God’s Word.
Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we just commit ourselves to You. We pray, Lord, that You will raise up ministers of Your Word—true ministry of Your Word, not merely something formal or institutional, but something, Lord, which is the result of Your working in our lives.
Lord, we appeal to You. You said that if we see the fields white already unto harvest, we are to pray the Lord of the harvest that He will thrust forth labourers into the field.
We appeal to You, Lord, that You will, in these days when there is such a famine of the Word of God, thrust into the field labourers who will be able, Lord, as it were, to fulfil the ministry You have given them.
Lord, hear us, we pray, as we commit ourselves to You. You are so faithful; You are so wonderful. Once You have given such a ministry, Lord, You also give the grace for it to be fulfilled.
And that is what we give You praise and thanks for this afternoon, in the name of our Lord Jesus.