At the Impact Bible Conference in 2015, Paul Washer emphasizes the vital importance of adhering to Scripture as the foundation of faith and practice for believers and church leaders. Amidst a drifting evangelical culture, there is a great necessity for biblical literacy and the application of Scripture in everyday life. Both pastors and congregants must take responsibility for their spiritual growth and actively engage in discipleship.

Transcipt:

Well, we’ve been here, and I’ve just been amazed at the sermons that I’ve heard, especially from Brother Jerry. I’ve gleaned so much in the last two sermons; it’s been so helpful for my view of marriage and child-rearing. I’ve learned a lot about finances too while he’s been preaching. I think it’s extraordinary what you can pull away from his two sermons regarding courtship and dating. There are just so many marvelous truths, and you think I’m crazy, don’t you? But see, here’s what you need to understand: without him laying that kind of foundation, you cannot pull principles from the Scriptures, and you cannot live a biblical life. If you want to know how a marriage is to be set in order, well, you’ve heard it in these last two sermons of his; it’s the Scriptures. If you want to know about what you should look for in a mate, it’s in those Scriptures. If you want to know how to be a businessman, it is based upon what he’s been teaching you. We live in something of a—well, evangelicalism has become something of a three-ring circus, hasn’t it? It seems like there’s no authority, no king, and everyone does what is right in his own eyes. We must return to Scripture, and he’s been teaching on Scripture, and I taught on Jesus. But what you have to understand is those two things are inseparable. Jesus made that clear to us that if we loved Him, we would keep His commandments. You see, you belong to Him, and so do I, and the church belongs to Him, and we have no right to regulate anything according to what seems right in our own eyes but everything according to His Word.

One of the reasons I love the Puritans so much, even though I wouldn’t agree with them always, because they’re men and so am I, but the reason I appreciate them is because they honestly sought to submit every aspect of their life to the lordship of Jesus Christ through His Word. If you’re a young man thinking about going into the ministry, I can assure you your usefulness will be determined by how much time you spend in the Word, how much time you spend in prayer. As the apostles said, they would devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word; that is our obligation. Now, I am going to teach from Second Timothy chapter three, so let’s go ahead and turn there.

Let’s start off in verse 14 of Second Timothy chapter three: “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.” Many people have said—and I would agree with it—that Second Timothy is something of Paul’s last will and testament. He’s handing the torch to young Timothy. I believe that’s true, and I also believe that the charge that we have here represents the heart of that last will and testament. He’s telling a young man not only because he’s concerned about that young man but he’s concerned about the kingdom and how the kingdom should advance and will advance. If you notice, he draws his attention to the ministry of the Word.

Always with young Timothy, it’s the study of the Word, the proclamation of the Word. So much of evangelicalism today has been separated from this. How can I say it? So many pulpits are filled with little boys who are seeing faces in clouds, faces that aren’t there. They’re not spending hours in the Word not to give people instruction from inspired text but leading people through the things they feel and their supposedly dream and see and then their own little wisdoms and clichés. What they’re doing is they’re building their own kingdom on the bones of unconverted church people. We can’t have that. Isn’t it unusual that so rarely you hear sermons on the attributes of God? And isn’t it amazing that you can go into churches and listen to sermons for decades and really not come to know the will of God? We’re filled with entertainment; we’re filled with what we think the people want to hear. But that’s not a prophet; that’s not a man of God. He doesn’t go to the people to find out what they want; he goes to God to find out what the people need. And he goes to God in the Scriptures, in the Scriptures, in the full counsel of God, and that’s what we’re going to talk about now.

Before we look at this text, I want to look at the context around it, and there are a few verses that I want to point out that give us an idea of the context around the charge that’s being given. Look in Second Timothy 3:1. The charge is given in the midst of difficult times; in the King James it says perilous times. It can even mean that he’s giving this charge in the midst of dangerous and fierce times. This is not a time of ease; this is a time of tragedy, of persecution, of trouble, where men can not only be belittled for being gospel preachers, but they can be killed for it. And so he’s telling him in the midst of this: don’t back down, Timothy. Don’t back down. I recognize these are perilous times; I’m about to give my head for the cause of Christ, but you don’t back down.

If you look in verses 2 through 5, it’s a time when men are lovers of self, lovers of pleasure, haters of God, and haters of all that is good. Listen to me, and I’m speaking primarily to the pastors, but also those of you who attend church need to understand this: we live in a very carnal age. If you use carnal means to attract carnal men into your church, you will have to continue giving them more and more carnal things in order to keep them. Those who suppose they’re going to plant a church or grow a church by lowering the bar of the gospel and bringing in carnal men, they themselves have now admitted that the people never go from carnality to spirituality. You cannot have an impact on the world because you give the world what it desires. We don’t have an impact; we’re not relevant in this world because we look like the world and speak like the world and act like the world. We’re relevant because we’re completely opposite of the world, and our message is opposite of the world.

Also, in verses 6 through 9, from this group, false prophets and teachers will arise, men of depraved minds and opposed to the truth. I’m astounded today when I look at Christianity and I listen to sermons, how Christless those sermons are, how absent God is from those sermons, and how prevalent and central man is—what he desires, his needs. I used to—and I still do—have compassion for the false teachers and many of the arch heretics we have in the United States in the Word of Faith and prosperity movement. I used to feel a type of unbiblical pity for those who joined them, and then I realized something: when people attend those kinds of churches, they’re not so much deceived; they’re carnal. The preacher is offering them carnal things, and carnal things are what they desire.

They gather themselves around those kinds of preachers because they don’t want Christ; they want cars and houses and clothing with special labels upon them. They want an easy life; they want to prosper; they want to be something; be somebody. It’s all wretched; it’s the complete opposite of genuine Christianity. Do you know the greatest fear of the true Christian? It’s not even hell. It is being somehow separated from Christ, of not having Christ, of not having the fullness of Christ, of missing out on Christ. That’s why I can tell you, and I tell them sometimes when I’m confronted or I confront this type of teaching, I tell them everything you love for me, I would just as soon send it to hell. What are all these things that are promised us today in modern-day evangelicalism? We want none of it; we just want Christ. We would rather be in hell with Christ than in heaven without Him. We would rather starve to death in the prison with Christ than live in a mansion without Him.

Let’s go on. Also, we see here in chapter 4, verses 3 through 4, that these teachers will find a large audience because men are no longer able to endure sound doctrine, and they accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own fleshly desires. We’ve just talked about that, haven’t we? Men who run to these types of prophets because they want what those prophets have and what those prophets promise. If you’re in that kind of situation, I’ll be very bold with you in the name of love, and I’ll say, get out of there and prove your salvation, or stay in it and prove your condemnation. If that’s the kind of stuff you listen to, it’s because you don’t want Christ. Christ is nothing more than a vending machine to you or a key to make the vending machine that is God work. But we’ll have none of that here; we want Christ; we want Christ.

Also, in chapter 4, verse 13, evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. In verse 12, it will create an atmosphere so despicable that all who seek to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Let me ask you a question—a real question: when was the last time you were persecuted? It says everyone who seeks to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will have the world come against them in some form or fashion. Whether it be a relative speaking wrongly and harshly about you, whether it be problems at work, or people in your school who no longer want to have anything to do with you and mock you.

In this day and age, persecution will also come from those who consider themselves to be evangelical. If you’re serious about holiness—and I’m not talking about legalism; I’m talking about holiness—but if you are serious about holiness, they will sure call you a legalist. As a matter of fact, you should know this: if it is true, as many godly men have said that in the next 10 or 15 years some of us will be thrown in prison, know this: a great majority of the evangelical church, when they turn the key and lock the door behind men like me, they will stand up and say amen. Already we can see it.

There was a time when the term evangelical actually meant something; it no longer means anything. So if you truly seek to live a godly life, there will be a rasp; there will be struggle; there will be some roughage; there’ll be some problems. You’ll have to make choices. I’ve heard so many people say in the West, “You know, we don’t have to worry about persecution.” Well, we don’t have to worry about persecution because we’re not living the Christian life. When you truly live the Christian life, there will be. Now, I’m not talking about going out calling people bad names and inviting persecution. I’m not talking about persecution because of our lack of love or our critical spirit. No, I’m talking about just a genuine desire to follow Jesus Christ that will bring persecution. Those of you who are here, who have surrendered to the ministry, who consider yourselves to be men of God, know this: you are not going to get out of this without suffering. You are going to suffer. And if that’s not what you want and that’s not what you’re going to preach, then know this: you just need to quit. There’s going to be suffering.

Now, I’m going to be speaking mainly right now to preachers—as I said, to pastors. I want you to know this: first of all, I am a very fallible man; I’m a very weak man. And I hope that you will see that I’m not trying to have a critical spirit; I’m just pointing out something that I know that I need to hear frequently, and that I suppose you, being neither better than me nor worse than me, should also need to hear. Also, if you are not a pastor or preacher and you’re a part of a Christian congregation, I want you to understand something: you may be the biggest hindrance to your pastor being the man of God he ought to be.

Now what do I mean by that? Sometimes when churches don’t have pastors, they will call me and ask me to come and teach them about what they should be looking for in a pastor. And I always put up a big whiteboard—the old-fashioned kind—and give me markers, and I’ll be there. So I go to them and say, “Okay, first question: how many days a week do you want your pastor to work?” Seven, six, five, four—how many? Most of them will say, “Well, five and a half, six. Okay. How many hours a day do you want him to work?” Most of the time they get around ten hours, something like that, eleven hours or something. You know, every once in a while, a guy will say twenty-four, and I’ll go, “Okay, let’s just put down ten hours or whatever.”

Now the sermons that he preaches will be influential in the conversion, sanctification, and eternal destiny of your children. Uh, how many hours a day do you want him preparing? Thirty minutes? An hour? Now remember, the souls of your children are at stake. How much time do you want him studying? “Well, I don’t know. Three hours?” “Okay, three.” “You sure you don’t want four? Remember, this is your children. Four hours.”

How much time do you want him before God, interceding for the flock? Five minutes? Thirty minutes? His own devotional life? You see, what we start doing is we see: hey, if I want my pastor to truly be able on Sunday or Wednesday, or whenever, to open up his mouth and bring forth a true word from God, if I want my pastor to actually do biblical counseling and other things, I’m going to have to give this man some time. He can’t follow me around wiping my nose. I need a man standing in the pulpit who, when he opens his mouth, the Word of God comes out. And if you want that, my dear brother and sister in Christ, then you need to hear this as much as any preacher or pastor.

I’m always seeking to protect the elders in my church. I’m not an elder in my church; my wife and I take care of the tables on Sunday afterwards for the meal. I’m always wanting to protect the elders. You let them study; you give them some space; you let them learn; you let them grow—because I need to hear a word from God on Sunday. You see that?

Now, let’s go ahead and ask ourselves some questions. Paul is telling Timothy these things in the midst of a horrendous situation where Christians are being killed, and yet he not only tells him to endure; he tells him to advance the kingdom. This is something that I want you to see. Now don’t be afraid; I’m going to clear this up, okay? I’m going to say something that’ll shock you all to death, and then I’m going to clear it up.

The Puritans were post-millennialists by and large. Now, I’m not a post-millennialist, but they were. And you know what? It was also during their time that some of the greatest advances in missions came about. Did you know that? Do you know why? Because they believed that God would advance His kingdom.

Now here’s what I want you to see: we have developed a mentality as we watch darkness grow that we are somehow supposed to just retreat, that the world’s just going to get worse and worse and worse, and we just need to withdraw and protect ourselves. Well, I’m going to tell you something: you don’t have to be a post-millennialist to realize that’s wrong. Yes, I’ve read the Bible; yes, I know how things have ended, and no, I’m not a post-millennialist. But my point is you and I are not to take a stance that the world’s just gonna get worse. You don’t know when Christ is going to come, and you don’t know when there may be the next revival and reformation, and you and I must stand as men of God and believe that the Word of God that we are preaching—that that Word is powerful—and the kingdom can advance.

There’s nowhere in the Scriptures where it says there can’t be in this century a great revival in New Zealand. There’s no place where it says that China cannot become the next great Christian nation. I’m not telling you at all to change your view of eschatology; I’m just telling you to realize this Word that we have is powerful, and this gospel we have is powerful because the God of this Word and the God of this gospel is powerful. And as preachers, we need to believe that God can do much more in every situation than we can ask or think.

I want you just to look for a man; look at verse 14 of chapter three. In the midst of all this darkness, he says to Timothy, “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them.” In the midst of all this darkness, continue, Timothy, in the Word of God that’s been taught to you. Now listen to me, ministers; this is very important, and no, we’re not going to get through this text today. This is very important; you listen to me: many people start out well, but the starting out is not the key; the finishing is the key. Endurance is the key.

Many people pray, but they do not persevere in prayer. Many people start out with a sound theology and dedicate themselves to having all their methodology in the church to be conformed to Scripture, but then they start looking around them. They start seeing my church is small or there’s a new church in town that is rapidly growing, or they read about some new book that’s been written by some preacher that has a church of twenty thousand, and so they start taking that in and thinking maybe I can adapt that a little bit; maybe I can use this and use that. Don’t do it! Do what the Word of God says and do it faithfully, and if you will do that, if you will simply submit yourself to what is written, at the end of your life you may have a church of a hundred people, but if you have been biblical, you will discover that God has used your church more than the church of ten thousand, and there is much more eternal fruit than what you see in other places.

And I’m going to talk about this tomorrow; listen to me: you belong to Him; you have no right to order your life according to what is right in your own eyes. The church you pastor is not yours; it is His, and you have no right to do anything in that church but what He has commanded in Scripture.

Do you see that? And that’s what he’s telling Timothy: “Timothy, it’s going to be difficult, but here’s the key: endure. Endure!” Why should we endure? For the very reason our brother has preached two sermons on the same topic, basically because we know it’s true. Because we know the Word of God is true. He’s saying, “Timothy, you know what I’ve taught you; you know that it’s the Word of God, so endure. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Do not stray to the right or to the left.” Do you see that?

Verse 5 of chapter 4, again talking about advancing the kingdom in the midst of darkness: “But you, Timothy, be sober in all things; endure hardship; do the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.” The ministry that has been given to you by God: it is yours only because He granted it to you, but foundationally, originally, eternally, it’s His. He’s given you stewardship, and you have no right to carry it out based upon some book of some pastor that has had some apparent success. But everything that you do must be ordered by the Scriptures—come hell or high water. If there’s apparent success or apparent failure, it doesn’t matter. You put your hand to the plow and you guide that thing only according to what is written, and you will be cherished by God.

Also understand this: it’s not the guy that’s known all over the world that is necessarily God’s treasure. Sometimes God puts His best in hidden places, and history proves me true on this one. There’s a philosophical question—a theological, philosophical question that a brother that discipled me, an older man, would pose. He would say this: “Does it make any sense in the divine scheme of things for God to take the finest rose He ever made and plant it in a forest through which no man or angel ever walks? How can such a rose bring God glory?” And I said, “I don’t know.”

It brings God glory because even though no man sees it and no angel sees it, He sees it and glories in what He has made. Don’t buy into this idea that success because you’re asked to preach in conferences means you’re a success because your church is a certain size—that’s rubbish; it’s damnable; it’s straight from hell; it’s not the way of the spiritual man. You be obedient to what is written, and as it says in Daniel, having turned many to righteousness, you will shine like the stars in the heavens forever.

Now, also here’s a question: how can we do all these things in the midst of these difficult times and with these great commands of stewardship that Paul has given us to go on, to advance, to do the work of the ministry? How can we do that? From where does the strength come? You can do that only to the degree that you hold tenaciously to the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God and you dedicate your life to studying it, to living it, and to expounding it or proclaiming it to others. That is your job; that is what you do; that’s who you are.

I’m amazed I read through a secular book actually, and I just read parts of it, but it was very good. It talked about the 500 men who had the greatest impact on the world, and I was amazed at how many of those men—and the author points it out—had defects or handicaps, physical limitations, mental limitations. The argument of the author was this: that it caused those men, because of their limitations in most of the other areas in life, to focus on one thing. They basically said, “This one thing I do,” and they had blinders; they maybe couldn’t even do anything else, but that one thing that they set their heart upon, they accomplished.

There is a sense in which I guess it is good that you can be a pastor and be multitasking. You just need to be very careful how many tasks you are supposed to be doing, and do you do so many tasks that you do not carry out your primary task, and that is to be a man of God, to be a man of the Word, to be a man of prayer, to be a man shut up to God.

Well, let’s go on. Let’s look now at verse 16. Well, before that, I want to look at something; I just want to bring it up. It’s not part of the main sermon, but it is in the text that I read. I want you to look at verse 15: “And that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation.” I don’t have a lot of sermons that I can preach to you this time. I’m very limited, and this is something that’s always on my heart, and I want to make it known to you.

The world is eating our children, pastors. A lot of children, because of circumstance, must go to public schools and things like that, and so eight hours a day, five days a week, they are bombarded by every lie that we disdain. Then they come home and they’re wrapped up in television and all sorts of other things, and those lies and errors are further cemented. Then they come to Sunday school for an hour on Sunday where they paint a picture of Noah’s ark. It’s pathetic, and we need to stop it. A 65-year-old Harvard scholar cannot understand the Scriptures except by the Spirit of the living God, and a five-year-old child can understand the Scriptures by the Spirit of the living God. We have got to stop dumbing down Christianity.

People say, “Well, we live in a culture now in America where people—they’re only accustomed to ten-minute bites of things, or we live at a time where people’s attention spans are a certain way, or now we are a kind of culture that really doesn’t read.” And so we must adapt to that. That’s Catholicism; that’s syncretism; that’s going out and adapting the church to the culture. Let me share something with you: most of us at least probably most of us come from Europe. Europe, like I was sharing with someone last night, prior to the advent of Christianity in Europe, we were all running around naked, painting ourselves blue, and eating one another. We grunted, and we didn’t read very much; we had big clubs, and we hit people with them.

Yet all of a sudden, European culture comes up with great reading, great literature, great art, the ability for coal miners to sit under sermons and understand them, that today we only preach in the PhD program. You see, Christianity comes into a culture and transforms it. And if you are a pastor, you should be greatly concerned with the fact that you do not submit to culture, but you gradually teach your people to love truth, to understand truth, to use the terminology of Scripture, to understand these words: justification, redemption, propitiation, sanctification. You teach these doctrines; you use these words, and you explain what they mean so that even a five-year-old can understand because they can.

And that’s the whole point here. We need to give them the Scriptures, not that they paint pictures of Joseph’s multi-colored coat. You teach them the Scriptures. That’s the whole purpose of catechisms: teach the children! Another thing—and I’m getting on a rampage here, but like I said, I don’t have much time—do you realize that most young people never sit under the influence of an elder until they’re after college? They’re never taught by an elder; they’re never watched by an elder. Usually, they’re under the authority of some 18-year-old boy with a cool personality and moose in his hair. We have got to bring people back under the leadership—biblical leadership—of a church and those men teaching those children.

Well, let’s see where we were. First of all, let’s look at verse 16. “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” All Scripture, every part of it. And I want you to know something, my dear friend: Martin Luther said it well when he said, “Scripture is not my friend. Scripture cuts me off on every road at every corner.” Do you know one of the things about a Christian? It’s kind of an unusual thing. He loves when the Scripture edifies him. He loves and rejoices when the Scripture builds him up and edifies, but he also loves when the Scripture takes a whip and puts it right across his back because he knows it’s for his own good. He wants the Scriptures. He not only wants to hear who God is, what God has done, who he is in Christ, but he also wants to hear where he’s wrong so that he can be made right.

All the Scripture—not just the part of the Scripture that we like, but all of it—that which confirms us and that which troubles us. I want to hear the truth. Better to hear it now and correct it now than to hear it for the first time on the day of judgment, isn’t it? This is all—the Scripture is inspired; it is God-breathed. As Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, it proceeds out of the mouth of God. As we heard last night, it originated with God and comes to us through men who were moved or carried by the Holy Spirit, God’s providence guarding it in every way. As we’ve heard, it is inerrant; it is without error; it is infallible; it is incapable of error. I am amazed that in evangelicalism today how many times when you press a point the first thing that is said is, “Well, that’s your opinion.” And they don’t realize that they’re cutting the limb out from under them to fall tragically to their death.

If that’s just an opinion, if every time a propositional truth is put forward and the only response of the congregation is, “That is your opinion,” then we’re sunk. We’re sunk. You say, “But there are so many interpretations and all this. How can we say anything else but that’s your opinion?” Do you want to know something? Let me share with you: do you know why there’s so many interpretations? All you have to do is sit down with people who have a conflicting interpretation and ask them how they came to understand the text that way, and you will see that they violated so many principles of hermeneutics that it can’t even be counted.

As a matter of fact, we could heal this whole problem of all these contradictions and major fundamentals of the faith if we just practiced one thing: the law of non-contradiction. That the Scripture doesn’t contradict itself because when you see these various and strange interpretations that are flooding evangelicalism today, all you have to look and say is, “Well, that can’t be true because what you’re saying here contradicts what’s being said here.” The Bible is not that mysterious; it’s not some riddle impossible to understand. Let’s just put it this way: most people aren’t reading it, and those who do oftentimes make a soup out of it by pulling texts from different places totally out of context to make something that they want to hear and live.

You can know God’s truth, and although even in the most united hearts there will be small differences in things, they are not with regard to the great fundamentals of the faith. They are not with regard to that which is necessary to know God through Jesus Christ, to be redeemed through Jesus Christ, and to be pleasing to Jesus Christ. It is all clear.

Another thing that I want to say about that is so many people talk as though the Scriptures were the reason why there is error. It’s almost with the idea of, “We’re not going to study the Scriptures very much,” or “We’re not going to talk about doctrine because it’ll just lead to fighting.” Christianity is a doctrinal endeavor, so to throw away doctrine in order to carry out a doctrinal endeavor is somewhat of a contradiction. You must live your life based upon the truth, and that truth is not as hard as you would think. Just read it.

Another thing that I want to say— for those of you who are pastors: sometimes when I’m preaching about reformation or I’m preaching about the gospel and how the gospel is not being preached in America, many people, especially when I was younger, would look at me and say, “And just who are you?” I’m 53 now, but when I started I was quite young, and I would say those things and just who are you? You’re saying that the gospel we preach is not biblical, that the invitation we give is not biblical? How old are you? Thirty-two? Was wisdom born with you? Did it die with you? Who are you? Here’s what I want you to see, pastor: let me share with you. You must be a student of history. You see, because if there was some Word of Faith preacher up here right now saying a certain thing, and I came up after him and totally contradicted everything he said, if you asked him, “Why do you preach that?” he would say, “Because what my Bible says.” And if you ask me, “Why do you preach against what he’s preaching?” I’d say, “Because it’s what the Bible says.”

Now we can begin to look at each other’s hermeneutic and the way we study; we can look at the grammar, everything else. But here’s something that’s very powerful: when all is said and done, let’s go back through two thousand years of Christian history. And if the men and women who loved and cherished the Scriptures and had a high view of Scriptures are all in agreement with regard to a certain doctrine and they don’t agree with you, then who’s probably wrong? Only the Scriptures are infallible.

But when we come to our interpretation of the Scriptures, what should we do? We should look around us—not at the liberals and not at other people who have a low view of Scripture or a low view of God—but we should look around us and go to those men and women who have a tremendously high view of Scripture and ask, “What does the community say?” And then we need to go back through church history because we realize that our modern-day contemporary evangelicalism can be somewhat corrupted by cultural influences. So let’s go through 2,000 years of Christian history and ask ourselves some questions: what have men of God believed down through the ages?

It would be amazing if you just went back 150 years and took the gospel that was preached in most sound evangelical churches and compared it to the gospel that’s being preached today. You’d see something almost completely different. So I want to encourage you that the Scriptures are inerrant; the Scriptures are infallible, but they are not this mysterious thing that you cannot know. Believing that words mean what they say, believing that grammatical structure cannot be twisted into a thousand different ways, and trusting in the fact that God’s providence has worked throughout church history, we can get a very good compass of where we ought to be.

So, pastor, you need to recognize that. You need to be a student of the Word, and you need to be able to take what you have studied and the conclusions you have made and compare those conclusions to the greater part of church history. Compare your conclusions against those men who had such a high view of Scripture.

Let’s go on. The Scriptures are inerrant and infallible because they proceed out of the mouth of God. Now, I want you to look at something. You and I are prone to error; you and I can make mistakes—all types and kinds of mistakes. How can you and I be sure that our lives and our ministries are acceptable to God? Should we compare ourselves to other people? Should we commit the fallacy of the church in Corinth? We compare ourselves by ourselves, and Paul said you’re not wise doing that. How do you know your ministry is really pleasing to God unless you lash that ministry down to, “Thus saith the Lord”?

How can you know that the way you’re leading your church is pleasing to God unless you are only doing what God commands you to do in the Scriptures? How can you know that your life, your marriage, your parenting, your relationship with your parents—how can you know that anything that you do is pleasing to God unless you know “Thus saith the Lord”? Because your opinions, your ideas, your nuances, and your feelings—they’re not inspired. But the Word of God is. And we can only have confidence that when we stand before Him that day, our ministries will remain if we have been careful and cautious to form our ministries around what is written.

Tomorrow, I’m going to talk more about that. Throughout history, at least since the Reformation, there has been a great debate between the regulative principle and the normative principle, the principle that we should only do in God’s church what He has directly commanded, and the other principle is this: we can do in God’s church whatever we want as long as it’s not prohibited. Do you see that? This way is a much safer way, and yet evangelicalism is basically defined by this other way. So many things being done in the church have nothing to do with Scripture, and that’s why it is so important to look at this and say it is inspired; it is infallible; it is inerrant, and I am not. Therefore, I fear and I will cling to God’s Word.

If you were to set me right here, and all of this was a field, and I needed to move from here to the other side—to the other wall—knowing that if I do not I will be killed, I will die. There is some tragedy that will hit me; I must move from here to that other wall. I’m going to dash like a madman. But then if you tell me before you take a step, know this: that the field is lined with mines and one false step, you’re gone. Now I’m going to be paralyzed with fear. I know that if I stay, I will die. I know if I run across the field, I’m more than likely going to hit a mine and I’m going to be blown to pieces.

But then if you give me an infallible map, now I have confidence to move—two steps forward, five steps to the right, six steps forward. Now, one step to the left, cross your right foot over your left, and move now in a diagonal direction. I’m going to have a lot more confidence, aren’t I? Do you not fear your own capability of error? Do you not fear your own lack of wisdom? You’ll march the church to the sound of a drummer not knowing whether the drummer is from God or not.

You’ll start your marriages with none of God’s truth, maybe some silly book of Christian psychology that you read and nothing more. You’ll start all kinds of major endeavors in life, but you will not lash yourself to the Word with fear. You’re not doing right. You see, I can talk about inspiration all day long, but it really doesn’t matter unless you fear to be without His wisdom, unless you cling to His Word.

Now, another thing that I want you to see here that is so very, very important: He said all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable. The word is useful, beneficial; it can even be translated in some contexts as advantageous. Sometimes when I’m talking about maybe I am giving a lecture or something on the law, I like to do that because usually there’s someone who goes, “You’re just trying to put us in bondage.” Really? I always ask them this question: “Exactly what law in the Bible puts you in bondage? Keeps you from doing what you want to do? Is it the one that says you shall have no other gods before me? Does that kind of wreck your life and limit you? If it does, what does it say about you? Is it the one that says you shall not take your neighbor’s wife? That’s really cramping your style. Is it the one that says you shouldn’t lie? Is it the one that says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?”

You see, I don’t understand this new move in even some reformed circles to antinomianism, to being against the law. I know there are legalists; I know there are all sorts of critical people with tight narrow spirits who just want to devour other people. That’s not what I’m talking about, but I find the law of God to be a delight. I find His commands to be advantageous, to be helpful.

I have a dear friend who, after Princess Diana passed away tragically, preached a sermon, and it wasn’t a mean-spirited sermon; it was a mournful sermon. But you know what he did? He just traced her life, and he demonstrated—not in a way to attack her, but he demonstrated to his congregation every divine or biblical principle that she had violated that led up to the moment of her death where her life was cut short.

The Scriptures are advantageous. They’re given by a God who loves His people enough to send His Son to die for them. Now brothers and sisters, I know you’re like me. I know sometimes it’s hard to be disciplined to read God’s Word. But I don’t care. I don’t care when you tell me it’s hard. Here’s what you need to understand: some people think that there are some people who read the Bible a lot and saturate their lives in the Scriptures because it’s their gift and it’s just easy for them. Some people think that there are men who pray and have a ministry of intercession and they do so just because, well, it’s their gift and it’s easy for them. I haven’t found that person.

Everything is hard, and when you learn that, it is very, very helpful. It is hard to discipline yourself to deny the flesh and take up the Word of God, take up your daily reading, to follow the Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s in their dedication to knowing the full counsel of God’s Word. It’s difficult; it was difficult for him; it’s difficult for everyone; it will be difficult for you, but it is absolutely necessary.

It is difficult to pray; it is—at least intercession is difficult. But it’s necessary. It’s necessary; there’s no way around it. I’m sorry. Even preaching won’t help you. You must go to the Word yourself. You must discipline yourself for this because it’s the only inspired text; it’s the only sure word that we have; we have nothing else. We must build our lives upon it, and it is useful. It’s not out to get you; it is good for you.

And as you develop the mind of Christ, as you cultivate the mind of Christ by saturating your mind in the Word, you will find more and more that the Word of God is a delight; it is a light that restores the soul. Now, in the time that we have, I want us to look at a few things: how is the Word of God profitable? Well, we see here, first of all, look at what it says: it is profitable for teaching. You know, Amos talked about a famine of the Word of God in the land, and a famine of the Word of God is far worse than a famine of bread. A famine of the Word of God in the land—when I walk into a church and the preacher gets in the pulpit and says, “This morning I’m just going to share from my heart,” I get up and walk out because I don’t care what’s in his heart!

I could care less what’s in your heart, sir! I am in need of a word from God. In my church, the elders have deemed it necessary—and I can say this without bragging because I’m not an elder—but they have deemed it necessary that our Sunday morning service begins with one hour of corporate prayer. That one hour of corporate prayer is not dedicated to praying for China or for the needs of even people in the congregation. It is one hour of corporate prayer simply crying out to God, “You must be among us today. You must manifest Yourself in the worship; You must manifest Yourself in the preaching of the Word.” We need You at the table. You are a God of all fullness; we are all empty; You must come to our aid!

You see, it also took our elders about two years to teach the congregation how to pray as a congregation. Do you see? He says, first of all, let’s get back to our text—it’s profitable for teaching. There is a famine of the Word of God in the land. There is. And my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

Fruitfulness—how many harvests of fruit have been lost, destroyed, have rotted in the field because of a lack of knowledge? How many marriages have been destroyed because of a lack of knowledge? How many churches made into nothing but another imitation of Laodicea because of a lack of knowledge? How many children gone awry because of a lack of knowledge?

Where there is no vision, the people perish. And I’ll be honest with you: if I hear one other preacher stand up and use that text to promote a building program, I’m literally going to get a fight right in the middle of church. That’s not what that means; follow me, because where there is no vision the people perish—that’s not the context.

What the text is actually saying: where there is no revelation of God’s law, the people run unrestrained. That’s what it means. And what is the way of curing it? The Word of God being preached and men being taught to live the Word of God and women being taught to live the Word of God and men and women being taught to raise their families in the Word of God: teaching, teaching.

Let me say something here. People often ask me, because basically all I do is missions, what is the most needy, most unreached people group in the world? Are you ready? Women! I don’t know if you know this, but God created women with a brain. Now, women have known this for a long time. Why is it that even in some solid biblical circles when men get together, they have a conference on the attributes of God or sanctification or the deity of Jesus Christ, and women get together for some kind of conference and it’s this: “If the world gives you lemons, learn how to make lemonade”?

That’s not what you need, dear sister! You need just as much theology as your husband. You need just as much truth as your husband. You need to know how to exegete the text just like anybody else. You can only live a strong life as a virtuous woman based upon the knowledge of the Word of the living God. Do you see that?

Teaching isn’t just what you need. You women need to be reading the Scriptures. You need to get a hold of a really good systematic theology and read that thing so you can learn how to develop non-contradictory thinking. You need truth, dear sister! Your children need truth. They need doctrine. Sometimes people ask me how it is that after all these years, I seem to burn with so much zeal even today, and I always tell them: doctrine! Doctrine!

Theology! “Well, I don’t want none of that theology stuff.” Really? Chaos means ‘God logos,’ a word or discourse. So what you’re saying is you want all the benefits of Christianity, but you don’t want to hear one discourse or learn one discourse about God? That doesn’t sound right to me. “I don’t want none of that doctrine stuff.” “Oh, you want all the benefits of Jesus, but you don’t want to hear His teaching?”

Christianity is a truth religion. It’s not a mystical religion; it’s not founded upon sentiment or feelings or some so-called prophecy from some man who ought to be a chicken farmer rather than stand in a pulpit. It’s not. Christianity is based upon the truth of God’s Word. And if there are any chicken farmers in here, I apologize.

We need men like Ezra. Pastor, are you like Ezra? Ezra—a man that came before the glories of the New Covenant promises, and yet he set his heart to study the law of God, to obey it, and to teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel. What a beautiful description of what you and I should be!

How would I want your people to describe you? How would I want my friends and church to describe me? A man, maybe not eloquent, maybe not brilliant, maybe not clever, but to say this: he was a man who set his heart to know the law of God, and he set his heart to obey it. It’s one of the reasons why I think the Great Commission is partly based on this text. Why? Because Jesus said, “Teach them to obey everything I commanded you.”

To obey the Word; to live it; to teach it. Dear pastors, dear preachers, listen to me: the power of a life well lived—that it’s not just teaching; it’s living it. And if all your business in the ministry keeps you from being obedient to Jesus Christ in every aspect of your life, then something’s wrong. For example, when I hear a minister say, “I cannot do the things you’re telling me with regard to my wife and children because of the ministry,” do you know what he’s saying? He’s saying that the law of the Lord is not perfect. He’s saying that God is commanding him to do something in one aspect of his life that makes it impossible to carry out the will of God in another aspect of his life. But the will of God is perfect.

We are to teach it and to set our hearts to teach it, to be diligent, to present ourselves as workmen who have no need whatsoever to be ashamed, who accurately handle the word of truth and preach it to God’s people. That is what we need.

And then he goes on and talks about not only teaching but what else does he say? Reproof. Reproof. Men do not want to hear that they are wrong. Men do not believe that they are wrong. It is part of the minister’s task to tell them that they are wrong. Now we must not do it with a quarrelsome or critical or loveless spirit, but we must tell men they are wrong. I see so many men today—so many men that are in bondage to cowardice. Their ministry is so full of bondage because they fear men.

You cannot be that way. At the same time, when you see men in the wrong, it ought to be love that motivates you—love for God, love for them. But another thing that I want you to see when you see them wrong, it does no good to quarrel with them. They will not heed to your quarreling; it’s just vain. But what must you do? This word here indicates the idea; it’s almost like the work of a prosecuting attorney that goes in and gathers all the evidence against a certain person and then presents that evidence that cannot be denied. That is one of the tasks of the minister.

I remember when my mother—she’s gone on to glory now, but when she was struck with cancer, the doctor knew she was a hard-headed woman. That she would argue; she would fight; she wouldn’t want to go through the treatments. And I so appreciate this doctor when he walked in. He was loaded to fight bear; he was. He was loaded; he had stacks and stacks of papers, and he said, “Miss Washer, here’s why you must undergo treatment, and here’s why you must undergo.” And when he finished with her after about 45 minutes, she just sat there and said, “Well, I guess I’m cornered. There’s nothing I can do to treat.”

We’re to do that. We’re to do that at times in our ministry; it’s part of preaching. I tell you what: there are a lot of guys coming out that are really good expositors, but they just stop at teaching. They teach and walk away from the pulpit, and that’s it. You’re happy because you exposited the text correctly. That makes you happy? You shouldn’t be. You should only be happy unless men are transformed. It’s not about you; it’s about God getting glory out of the transformation of His people. And in order to see transformation, you have to point out error.

You do. You must do it in love, and you must be willing, if you’re going to point out error, to help them. Because the next thing here—it’s not just reproof, but for correction. The word actually means that if you have an expensive vase and it falls off the table, to take it and set it back up again. The word was also used in a military context when all the soldiers were marching and one of them grew tired and fell down. The other soldiers pick him up. You see, it’s not just enough to tell people they’re wrong; you must tell them what to do to be right—how to live.

It’s not just tell them to put this off, but it’s also put this on. I remember one time when I was a brand-new Christian; I’d been a Christian for about a year, and I went to hear Leonard Ravenhill preach. After he preached, some other guy got up and started preaching that wasn’t really supposed to; I think the pastor just got real excited, jumped up, and started preaching. And he preached for an hour and a half more, screaming at us about how we ought to walk in the Spirit.

Well, I was a new believer, and I was in total agreement. We need to walk in the Spirit. The only problem is I didn’t know what that meant. So after he committed to an hour and a half of yelling at us about how we ought to walk in the Spirit, I walked up to him and said, “Pastor, Brother, whatever we’re supposed to call you, I was a new believer. I said, ‘I agree; I want to walk in the Spirit. What does it mean?’” And he went on a tirade for about 15 minutes. I was just standing there, and this older believer was standing behind me, who, after listening to his answer, had had enough and kind of pushed me to one side and said, “Pastor, you didn’t answer the boy’s question. You told him he needs to walk in the Spirit if he’s going to be pleasing to God, but you seem to lack the ability to tell him what it means.”

And I would suggest that if you’re going to tell people to do something, you also know enough of Scripture to tell them what it means and how to do it.

And pastors, that’s for us. It’s not just telling people they’re wrong; it’s telling them how they can be right. The church today needs reformation. The church today needs revival. And how’s that supposed to happen? It needs correcting. How is that supposed to happen? Well, let’s go back in church history. How has the church ever been reformed and revived? How? I’ll tell you: through a rediscovery of what is written.

I am so tired of these Charismatic and prosperity preachers and Name It, Claim It, Word of Faith preachers talking about revival that has hit the land. You don’t have revival if you don’t have holiness. You don’t have revival if Jesus Christ is not front and center. You don’t have revival. We need revival; we need reformation. And from where will it come? It has always come from one singular source: men rediscover the Word of God.

And this is not just for the pastor; it is also for you men who have families, wives, and children. You must rediscover the Scriptures. You must be a man of the Scriptures, and you must teach your children the Scriptures. You must! You want me to really make you uncomfortable? Okay, listen to this: If I walked in here right now and said—now don’t raise your hand because I want to get a fight—and I said, “Okay, how many of you men—you’re all saying, ‘Man, we’re biblical; we’re a biblical church; we’re biblical men; we’re biblical’.” All right, how many of you men are intentionally, purposefully discipling your wives?

How many of you men are intentionally and purposefully discipling your children? I mean purposefully, enduring, consistent with a plan—you’re discipling your children. Now, when I do that in a church, a lot of the time what I’ll have is men going, “I mean, I’ve seen him smile; nobody does that.” So let’s say now I look at you and go, “Well, I’m the new pastor, and since none of you are discipling your wives and none of you are discipling your children, we’re going to cancel all the women’s meetings; we’re going to cancel all youth discipleship; we’re going to put an end to Sunday school and everything else. It’s over.”

Then what would happen? I’ll tell you what would happen: you’d stand up and start yelling, “Crucify him!” You would dismiss me as a pastor, and you would go throughout the whole town telling everybody I don’t love women, I don’t love children, I don’t care that they come to know the Lord or anything.

Now look at you. You know what I would say to you? You hypocrite! For the sake of your own traditions, you know the commandments of God. God never commanded you to have a Sunday school or women’s groups, even though they are not bad; they are good. Don’t think I’m talking against Sunday school. But my whole point is this: if a church provides for the training of your wife and the training of your children, they’re helping you live in sin if you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, which is washing your wife in the Word, discipling your wife, nurturing your wife so that she prospers in the faith, and doing the same thing with your children.

And if you’re not doing it, you’re unbiblical, and you have no excuse whatsoever. And your church is helping you sin by taking over a task that belongs to you.

Now you know why I preach in a lot of churches once. Think about it, though. You would crucify me if I took away all your children’s groups and everything. But if I were to ask you if you’re being obedient, you’d laugh. So what God has actually commanded in Ephesians 6 and Deuteronomy 6 and so many other places throughout Proverbs, you see, brothers and sisters in Christ, sometimes we need to be reproved and we need to be corrected.

And then there is training—training, training—a constant, continuous discipline, a lifestyle of reading the Word, hearing the Word, seeking to obey the Word. And then when we see sin, we pick ourselves up and start all over again. We try to figure out how did that happen, why did it happen, what did I violate, what did I do wrong, where am I out of God’s will?

Now I want to end just by saying to you, parents, this setting forth this thing that pastors are to do—teaching, reproving, correcting, and training in righteousness with the Word of God—this is the same thing in your family. Parents, teach your children what does God say. When my children are out of line, I reprove them with what God says. To correct them, I use the Word of God. And then train them.

You see, as a parent, it’s just like being a pastor: I have no authority of my own. I just don’t have authority because I call myself the parent, and I’m bigger and stronger than my children. The way I deal with my children is the same way I would deal with the congregation. I don’t stand there as the authority saying, “This is what I’m telling you to do,” but I kind of stand with the congregation and with my children and say, “Did you just hear what God told me and you? Do you understand the command that God just laid upon me and you? He’s the authority.”

And in our teaching our children, in our teaching our churches, we always have that crystal clear. And let me tell you something, especially you young people: to sit under biblical preaching is one of the most dangerous things you can ever do. You see, if I preach heresy or your pastor preaches heresy, then he will be judged; he will incur greater judgment, won’t he? And you’re free. If he preaches heresy, you’re free from it; you’re not bound to it; it’s heresy.

But if your pastor preaches the truth, you’re bound to it, and you will be held accountable for it on the day of judgment if it is the Word of God. You see, we don’t have authority because of our calling; we don’t have authority because of our appointment; we have authority only to the degree that we correctly interpret and clearly proclaim the Word of the living God.

And if a pastor does do that, you ought to sit there and listen with fear and trembling. Now, as I always do, I only got like a tenth of the way through my notes. That’s why I just should never have these things. But I want you to listen. There’s enough here for you to deal with tonight, isn’t there?

All right, let’s pray. Father, I pray that You would grant us, Lord, grace; that You would give us the gift of an ever-increasing fear of the Lord; that we would reverence You and reverence Your Word and walk according to it. In Jesus’ name, amen.