Membership and Biblical Preaching, Part 2

Introduction: The Sobering Implications of 1 Corinthians 3 for Church Building

0:04 This sermon was preached at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey, on August 4th, 1991.

0:12 Now, as we did last Lord's Day morning, I would ask you to do again this morning, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, as I read in your hearing a portion of the Word of God, which has very serious implications for the issues that are now before us in our current series of Lord's Day morning studies. In the midst of a section in which the Apostle is seeking to show the Corinthians the folly of their being divided over the differing servants of Christ that God has sent among them, he seeks to identify the truth. The true function of the servants of God and the responsibilities that they have as workers in God's house. And I read this morning 1 Corinthians 3, 9 through 17. For we are God's fellow workers, that is, we preachers over whom you Corinthians are dividing yourselves, Paul and Apollos and Cephas. We are God's fellow workers.

1:23 Ye are God's tilled land. And then he uses a second figure with which he sticks for the next part of the passage, God's building. According to the grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise master builder, I laid a foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he builds thereon.

1:51 For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble, each man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire. And the fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall be made manifest.

2:26 And he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire. Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy.

2:51 For the temple of God is holy, and such. Are ye. As I said last Lord's Day, so I say again today, the words of this passage read in your hearing are profoundly sober words. Now I know it's not fashionable in our day for people to come to church and be told that they're going to hear sober things.

3:16 It's supposed to make them happy. It's supposed to make them feel good. Oh bless God there are many passages to make us happy and make us feel good. But this is not one of them.

3:26 This passage is calculated to produce a climate of the deepest sobriety. They contain, for example, the warning to everyone involved in the labor of building the house of God. A sober warning in verse 10. Let each man take heed how he builds thereon.

3:48 And then there is the sobering prophecy of a coming day when there'll be a qualitative analysis of every man's work in the church of Christ. The day shall declare a man's work of what sort it is. And then there is the sobering threat that God himself will destroy those who destroy his church, which is his own living sanctuary. These words have great relevance with reference to that which is the present focus of our studies in the word of God.

The Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church: Striving for a Regenerate Membership

4:23 We're in the midst of an extended series of messages entitled, A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church. And in this series I'm attempting to identify, expound, and apply those central biblical issues which have constituted the heart and soul of our life and ministry for the past 24 and a half years as a church. As we approach our 25th anniversary at the beginning of next year, some of us have felt that it was wrong. It is vital to lay bare our foundations and to concentrate afresh by exposition and proclamation and application what it is that has formed the very nuts and bolts, the heart and soul, the lifeblood of this congregation. And so we are doing so in terms of this manifesto which is defined as a public declaration of the aims and goals and principles of a group or of an organization. And thus far we've looked at four affirmations in the manifesto and are presently engaged with examining the fifth. And the fifth tenet in the manifesto is this,

5:45 that we are determined to strive for a membership role comprised only of truly regenerate and genuinely converted men. men and women, and having expounded the significance of the key words of that affirmation, we spent the Lord's Day examining the biblical basis for that affirmation, and now we are looking at those things which constitute the clear manifestations that we are indeed striving for a regenerate and converted church membership. We considered our practice with reference to our children and their membership in the church. Secondly, our practice with reference to the message and methods of evangelism, and then our practice with reference to the examination and reception of new members. Some of you may have asked what were you doing if you were in the previous hour here at the church from 8.30 to 5.30. Well, we have

6:48 had a prayer meeting from 8.30 to 10, but from 10.30 to 5.30 we were interviewing just eight people for membership, 20 minutes out for lunch. Yes, why? Because what I preached to you two weeks ago is not theory. It took that much time to seek to discern if those who have applied for membership have indeed a credible profession of repentance and faith, to see if indeed they have a reasonable understanding. Of the privileges, liabilities, and responsibilities of membership in this church, to see if indeed they have the evidence of a heart commitment to give themselves to the fulfillment of those responsibilities, to enter into those privileges, and to receive those liabilities. And now we are concentrating on the fourth evidence that we're serious about this matter of maintaining

The Fourth Evidence: Commitment to Biblical, Discriminating, Applicatory, Passionate, and Earnest Preaching

7:51 a regenerate church membership. And it is what I've described in these words, our commitment to biblical, discriminating, applicatory, passionate, and earnest preaching. And what you're getting this morning is the last third of last week's sermon. I ran out of time. And so I'll briefly review what we covered and then hopefully finish the last third, which has grown in my own heart over the course of the past week. How do you know we're not just whistling Dixie when we say, we are committed to strive for a truly converted and genuinely regenerate church membership? Well, not only are these other three things plain manifestations of that commitment, but our commitment to a certain kind of preaching is a living witness to the fact that we take this seriously. It is commitment to biblical, discriminating, applicatory, and passionate,

8:56 and earnest preaching. And what we did last Lord's Day was to define the words used to describe that commitment. And we defined what we meant by biblical preaching, discriminating preaching. Remember my grandson not able to discriminate between little dog kibblets and Cheerios, so he ate the dog kibblets. He could not discriminate. And what we meant by applicatory preaching and what we meant by passionate and earnest preaching.

9:24 And then, Then, in the second place, I began to demonstrate from the scriptures that such preaching is mandated by the scriptures and is calculated by God to attain that very goal of maintaining a regenerate and converted church membership. And we had only the time to cover the first, the mandate for biblical preaching and its relationship to a regenerate and converted membership. And the bottom line of my argument from the scripture, after looking at five key texts with you, is this. God has chosen to bring men to spiritual birth and to the subsequent converting work of his grace. By the instrumentality of his word, of his own will, we ought forth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures, having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which lives and abides forever. So then faith cometh of hearing, and hearing by anecdotes, and stories, and jokes, with a smattering of the Bible.

10:49 So then faith cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of God. He that hath a dream, said Jeremiah, let him speak his dream. That he that hath my word, that is the wheat to the straw, is not my word like rock in pieces, is not my word like unto fire. Now this morning, I want to complete the sermon by demonstrating the mandate for discriminating preaching and its relationship to a converted membership.

The Mandate for Discriminating Preaching and Regenerate Membership

11:27 The mandate for applicability. The mandatory preaching and its relationship to a converted membership. And the mandate for earnest and passionate preaching and its relationship to a converted membership.

11:42 First of all, then, the mandate for discriminating preaching and its relationship to a converted membership. People are in their hypocrisy, whether conscious or unconscious hypocrisy. If people are to be established in the reality of a well-dressed man. That they're in a state of grace.

12:06 Then the preaching must be discriminating preaching. Preaching as we saw that differentiates between saving faith, the faith of God's elect, Titus 1.1. And temporary faith, Luke 8.13.

12:21 The faith of demons, James 2.19. Mere historical or miraculous faith, as we read of in the case of Simon Magus in Acts chapter 8. And the faith of God's elect, Titus 1.1.

12:33 And when we turn to the scriptures, we find wherever we find experience and of the apostles. And I can only give you a couple of specimens under each of those heads. What of the preaching of the prophets? Turn please to Jeremiah 6 and verse 14.

13:05 For an example of discriminating preaching. In Jeremiah's day, religion was flourishing. Temple worship was the order of the day. The Bible was the order of the day.

13:18 The blood of sacrifices was flowing freely. Any cursory visitor would think surely religion is at a high point. But the problem was that you had multitudes who had a false hope. They were living lives of moral wickedness.

13:36 They had joined their hearts to idols. And there were hundreds of false prophets constantly telling them everything's going to be all right. You're God's people and God's a covenant-making covenant. Keeping God, you have nothing to worry about.

13:51 And so one of Jeremiah's greatest burdens was to discriminate between true and vital religion demanded by Jehovah, the God of the covenant, and the easy religion which was being, as it were, propagated by the false prophets, loved and practiced by the people, and they were comfortable in their sins. And so we read in Jeremiah 6, 13 and 14 and 15, these discrepancies. Discriminating words. For from the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, every one is given to covetousness.

14:26 And from the prophet, even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of my people, slightly saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed.

14:47 Neither could they blush. Therefore shall they fall among them that fall at the time that I visit them. They shall be cast down, saith Jehovah. What's he doing?

14:58 He's discriminating between a well-did-warrant,

15:04 a false based upon false premises, and propagated by false prophets. It's not enough that people say, I am an untrue and a false and a delusive and a damning piece. And he discriminates in his preaching. Between the two.

15:29 Likewise, in Isaiah chapter 1, the prophet cries out in the name of Jehovah, that it is not enough that temple worship be engaged in, in sacrifices offered in new moons and appointed feasts kept. The great burden of the prophet is to discriminate between worship that pleases God and worship that makes God want to vomit. And God says here in Isaiah 1, through the prophet, verse 11, What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices, saith the Lord? I've had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts.

16:08 I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats. When you come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand to trample my courts? Think of it. So much worship, so much sacrifice, the temple courts are being trampled.

16:24 Then a visitor would come and say, Why, religion, it is a high watermark. The prophet says, No. It's the place where God's sick of it. God says, I'm weary of bearing them, verse 14.

16:36 And then he calls out to this religious people, You're polluted, you're vile, you're unclean. Wash you, verse 16, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. What is he doing?

16:48 He's discriminating. There was only one place of worship to which they were all going. They were offering sacrifices by one rule, the Levitical rule. At the right time, by the right means.

17:03 You see, he discriminated between religion and religion. Between sacrifice and sacrifice. Between feast and feast. He discriminated between that which pleased God and that which was an abomination to God.

17:18 And he does it again in chapter 58 with their fasting and their special disciplines of religious devotion. And all the way through the prophets, if the preaching of the prophets was anything, it was discriminating. That's why the prophets were stoned. They were stoned by their own generation and had tombs built to them by subsequent generations.

17:37 Now what Jesus said, You garnish the prophets, the dead ones, but you kill the living ones. Why? Because the prophets were constantly engaged in discriminating preaching. They would not allow people to be comfortable in the forms and rituals of religion if their hearts were not right with God.

17:56 And they made the issue so clear that none could misunderstand until the prophet became, in the words of Ahab, a troubler in Israel.

18:08 Now you see, it is absolutely essential if we're going to maintain a regenerate and converted membership that while in the judgment of charity we address the people of God as the people of God, that we recognize that among them there may well be those who have all the external forms mandated by the scriptures who are in the right place at the right time doing the right thing, but they're making God sick at heart. And if we don't, discriminate! We allow such unregenerate people to exert their baneful influence in the house of God and go down on a slippery slope straight into hell without loving them enough to try to get them to see their true state. No wonder Hosea 6.5 says, I have hewed them by the words of the prophet. The prophet's words were to cut and to hack and to hew and to distinguish and to separate. By discriminating preaching.

Christ's and the Apostles' Discriminating Preaching

19:08 What about our Lord? Well, let me very quickly, without turning to the passages, they're familiar. Think of some of his most noteworthy parables. What is the parable of the sower in the soils but a discriminating parable?

19:22 The seed fell upon the soil and the Lord does not say wherever it sprang up rejoice, someone is saved. He said, oh no. In one case it never takes root, but in three other cases, it germinates. But in only one case, what is a saving response?

19:42 He discriminates between a response that is temporary. They believe for a while and then fall away in the midst of temptation and persecution. They begin to spring up, but then its life is choked by the cares of this world and the lust of other things entering in and bears no fruit. And only in one case did it spring up and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, a hundred.

20:06 What is that? It is not a parable, but a parable which discriminates the various responses to the word, some of which are saving, some non-saving, though all are visible.

20:20 Discriminating preaching by our Lord. He does that likewise with the parable of the faithful and unfaithful servants. Each one is given something with which to trade and one comes and very piously says, I knew you were a hard master, so I hid this talent in the ground. He's called a wicked and an unfaithful servant and he's cast into outer darkness.

20:44 He's damned. He seemed to be a servant of the Most High. He seemed to have an endowment from the Most High. He seemed to be involved in the work of the Most High.

20:54 But our Lord says, all is not what it appears to be. And then our Lord's discourse is, oh, how discriminating a preacher he was. Not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my Father, Matthew 7, 21 and following, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied?

21:16 Have we not in thy name cast out demons? Then will I profess unto them, depart from me, I never knew you. Ye that work iniquity, he discriminating, is discriminating in his preaching. He preached multitudes into his train and he preached multitudes out.

21:34 He followed him until he began to preach about eating his flesh, and drinking his blood. And no man can come to me except the Father draw him. And it says, from that time on, many went back and walked no more. His cloud narrowed down.

21:51 Why? Because he discriminated between a mere fascination with getting your belly filled by miracles of multiplying loaves and fishes, and having your spiritual belly full of feeding upon Christ who would be immolated and hung upon a cross, and whose death would be the life of the world. Discriminating preaching. We find it in our Lord again and again.

22:17 We find it in the apostles. Though they write their epistles and they address the church, the church of God, which is at Corinth, the saints that are in Christ Jesus, at Philippi, at Thessalonica, yet they don't have any silly notion that everyone in the visible church has got the root of the matter in them. That's why the apostle could discriminate as he does in 1 Corinthians 6. He addresses the church, he addresses them all as believers, and yet he says in verse 9, Be not deceived.

22:45 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor idolaters, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Who's he talking to?

22:59 People sitting in the church at Corinth who at one time gave a credible profession of faith and were welcomed into the church, presumed to be regenerate and converted. But now they were living in a lifestyle marked by some of these sins. And what does he say? He doesn't say, Be not deceived.

23:17 You're going to lose a few rewards and be ashamed for 30 seconds when the Lord comes. He says, You're going to go to hell. He discriminates by his preaching in order that that church might not knowingly retain in those who know long the generation and the fruits of conversion. That's why he said in chapter 5 concerning that church member cast out that wicked man.

23:42 Well, he wasn't taken in as a wicked man. He was taken in with all the appearance of a righteous man. Many of the Corinthians' hearings,

23:51 one of them gave his testimony, sat with the elders, told them what God had done in his soul, and the elders wept and rejoiced. He said, I understand the implications. I'm ready to be faithful to the stated meetings, personal and private and family means of grace. I'm going to tithe and all their time proved him to be a wicked man.

24:12 Paul said, Kick him out.

24:18 In the preaching that he does through his epistle and at the end of the second epistle, what does he say? He says, You people are examining me and putting me to the test. He says, 2 Corinthians 13, 5, Examine yourselves. Prove yourselves.

24:32 Know ye not your own selves whether Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates. Discriminating preaching. All the way through the epistles, culminating in an epistle like James or 1 John. If we say we know him, he knew there were people in that assembly who came in as righteous people by profession.

24:55 But their patterns were not the patterns of God. Diligent, serious, sincere, universal obedience. If we say that we know him and keep not his commandments, we lie and we do not the truth. If we say that we know him and hate our brother, we lie.

25:12 He that hates his brother is a murderer and no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. That's discriminating preaching. Do you see that? The book of James.

25:21 You say you've got faith. Fine. Show me your faith without any works and I'll show you my faith by my works. Don't you know, oh vain man, that faith apart from works is dead?

25:31 He's talking to a congregation of professed believers.

25:35 Incredible profession. But this screeching is seeking to sort out in the midst of that assembly.

25:46 Bridges in his classic work on the Christian ministry writing to his fellow ministers urging them to engage in discriminating preaching writes as follows. The painter's broad stroke is wholly insufficient to give an accurate likeness. The sweeping terms of saint and sinner bring no intelligible discrimination without due regard to the spiritual characteristics of each division in their more circumstantial delineation. It is only by this minute accuracy that each class will be brought to stand by his own side of the line open before him.

26:27 Misconception, indistinctness or indecision greatly encourages the self-deceiving of the heart on the one side and the scrupulosity of unbelief on the other. Two serious hindrances to the spiritual welfare of our people. He says if we do not delineate by discriminating preaching the difference between the true believer's struggle with remaining sin and the false believer's abandonment to reigning sin will encourage hypocrites and discourage true saints. And it's only by discriminating preaching that marks out the difference in detail.

27:06 The believer says that's me. Yes, I struggle. Yes, I grieve. Yes, I mourn sins known only to God.

27:24 So all struggle with sin is not the evidence I'm not a child of God. It's the proof I am.

27:32 And the man who's been saying everybody's sin, nothing you can do about it and he uses the doctrine of indwelling sin as a cult to justify reigning sin while remaining a professor he needs to be smoked out by discrimination The way who preach will be read all over with the blood of his soul in the day of judgment and his influence in the church will be a curse as long as he remains undetected.

28:01 Do I need to give you more scripture? That discriminating preaching is the kind of preaching that is recorded by the prophets, apostles, and and I give you the words of James in that masterful treatise I referred to last week earnestness in preaching. He says oh what is all to the opening of a sinner's heart unto himself and showing him his unregenerate state? What is this to the conviction of a self-deluding soul that is passing into hell with the confident expectation of going to heaven?

28:38 What is this to show men their undone condition and the absolute necessity of Christ and a renewing grace? How little skill have many miserable preachers in the searching of the heart and helping men to know themselves whether Christ be in them or whether they be reprobates and how little care and diligence is used by them to call men to the trial and to help them in the examining and judging of themselves as if it were a work of no necessity. Then he quotes Jeremiah 6.14 They've healed slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people saying peace, peace when there is no peace.

29:20 Oh what preachers we should be could we drink in the spirit of such a passage. May God impress them on our hearts and lead us to mold our sermons after this fashion. Dear people the day you become weary of discriminating preaching what you're saying is I really be self-deceived and no one is more likely to sink into hell self-deceived than he who thinks it's impossible for him so to sink into hell.

29:52 Discriminating preaching is vital if we're to have a regenerate and convertible membership for in spite of all the care we may give in the initial examination and then the period of trial when we ask you the congregation to come forward if you know anything about that individual his doctrine his life his patterns of thought and behavior that would in any way indicate he's not regenerate and not converted in spite of all that regenerate who converted and it is discriminating preaching that under the blessing of God that may help them to see their true state and bring them to truly possess what they thought they had when they came in and will expose others and show them to be what they truly are until like the multitudes they no longer follow Christ and they leave this place because they cannot stand the pressure and the agony of accurate self-reflection by discriminating preaching that holds up the mirror that is polished and they see their own faces.

The Mandate for Applicatory Preaching and Regenerate Membership

31:05 So there's the biblical man. There's the mandate and the relationship of discriminating preaching to a regenerate church membership. Now I want to pass on and demonstrate the mandate for applicatory preaching and its relationship to a regenerate church membership. And here again I very cursorily pass over specimens of the preaching of the prophets of our Lord and of the apostles.

31:31 Remember now discriminating preaching is preaching to go back to the illustration of the jacket that tells us there's a difference between the sleeve the body the lapel and the yoke of the jacket. That's discriminating preaching. It just doesn't say here's a jacket look at it and put it away. Discriminating preaching helps you to understand the parts.

31:51 Applicatory preaching takes the jacket and all of its parts and puts it on you and lovingly forces you to wear the truth to feel its pressure on your own spiritual shoulders to feel its threads upon your own spiritual shoulders. That's what applicatory preaching is. Well what about the prophets? What are the prophets if they are not applicatory preachers?

32:16 Take for example the prophet Amos. He stood and starting as it were in the outer ring of the nations and moving in to Israel and Judah he says yea for three for four things God has a controversy. And then he deals with the very aggravated sins of each of those nations by the way he names specific. He doesn't say yea for three yea for four God's upset and you all know what it is so let's pass on.

32:45 No he didn't do that. He didn't piously say I don't want to usurp the role of the Holy Ghost. I'll let God make the application. I've heard that sickening sham evasion of cowardly preachers for years.

33:01 I don't want to usurp the role of the Holy Spirit. Now what they mean is I don't have the courage nor the love of men's souls to put me with the jacket on them so that none can wriggle out. They hold up the truth and say I leave it to the Holy Ghost and all the while the Holy Ghost says unleash preaching. Ezekiel got inside the head of his hearers and they probably wondered who had us wired with something that sent out impulses of our mental electrical thoughts.

33:33 Listen to him in Ezekiel 18 What mean ye that ye use this proverb Ezekiel 18 2 saying the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge. He says what do you mean by this proverb that's being mumbled around your ranks when you gather on the street corner and you go off for a picnic and you sit and talk about the state of things in Israel and this little proverb is being bandied about what mean ye by this prophet he gets this parable he gets inside their head and then he explodes the fallacy of it and he doesn't stop there he knows that they're mumbling another one and so he says in verse 19 yet ye say wherefore doth not the father bear the iniquity the son doth not bear the iniquity of the father when the son hath done that which is lawful and right and hath kept all my statutes and done them he shall surely live he says you say this but in reality this and these are the ways of God in truth applicatory preaching look at Haggai he summons the people he says what are you doing building your beautiful and sealed houses while the house of God lies in waste and then he goes into great detail and he gives all their flimsy rationalizing excuses he'll pay you've got history go home and pray about it

35:00 important in the building your houses now that's applicatory preaching had he stood up and piously said you have distorted priorities at this point in redemptive history they'd say oh wasn't that a lovely sermon but if their hearts weren't broken they'd go home and say who in the world he telling us mucking about what we do with our money and when we build our houses that's legalism show me a commandment hmm ever hear that language before anyone who preaches applicatory preaching will get it no new thing under the sun Malachi does the same thing he says you're robbing God and you say where in have we robbed God he anticipated their objection he said I'll tell you where you robbed God in tithes and offerings he said would a governor and a father accept what you give to God and then he got specific and told him about bringing lame sacrifices taking the cast off of the flock instead of the best of the flock he didn't fool around in vague generalities and what was true of the prophets is true of many people get all messed up in their understanding of the sermon of the mouth because they don't understand what our Lord is doing rarely does our Lord speak in vague generalities or in what we might call general principles he does occasionally for example Matthew 7 12 as you would that others do unto you even so do ye also unto them for this is the law and the prophets that's a great general moral principle it is better

36:29 to give than to receive a saying not recorded in the gospels but spoken by our Lord and recorded in the book of Acts Acts chapter 20 but for the most part Jesus always took the principle and fleshed it out in a concrete example for example all the way through the sermon of the mouth he says you've heard that it was said that is this is the tradition of the elders and of your official teachers surrounding the law of God but I say unto you and what did he do he clothed it in the specific in the concrete he that would compel you to go one mile go within two he that would smite you on one cheek turn the other what's he doing he's taking the principle of non-retaliation not standing on our own rights and he's fleshing it out in concrete applications that bit them and pinched them where they lived because in that situation with the Roman government in power the Roman soldier had the right to conscript anyone under Roman rule to be his personal porter and just the sight of a Roman soldier made the average Jew want to spit and grind his teeth and one of them comes up and says here carry my duffel bag up to the next three blocks Jesus said instead of retaliating you say sir are you going six blocks I'll carry it for you all the way through that's what Jesus is doing Matthew 23 he doesn't say whoa unto you scribes Pharisees hypocrites you're a bunch of sham religious people and I trust the spirit of God will show you

37:58 oh no he got specific he says you go into widows houses and you fleece them and you take advantage of them monetarily and sexually you take the law of God and you add all your rules and regulations and you bind burdens too heavy to be borne but you don't even live by your own rules Jesus got specific applicatory preaching and what is apostolic preaching look at the day of Pentecost Peter's facing the crowd that was there shouting crucify crucify me he says you by wicked hand took him and slew him you talk about applicatory preaching he didn't say somewhere on God's planet that sometime there were some evil people who did a naughty thing when they crucified the Lord of glory I'd like you to go home and think about that he says a man of God approved among you by mighty signs and wonders you by wicked hands crucified and slew him God raised him up made him Lord in Christ now when they heard this they were stabbed in the heart you bet they were stabbed in the heart where are you going to go when someone names your name in the indictment points his finger at you and what is true of their preaching is recorded in Acts is true of their epistles Paul says in Galatians 5 the works of the flesh are manifest and you all know them pray that God will help you never to indulge in them no he says the works of the flesh are manifest which are these adultery fornication idolatry after he's all done he says in such like I haven't completed the list

39:28 what's that but applicatory preaching what is the whole of first Corinthians but applicatory pastoral preaching now concerning this household of Chloe told me that you guys are all full of divisions now I got to deal with it for three chapters he deals with it now concerning this now concerning that what's that but applicatory preaching doing it by means of a letter but straightforward honest confrontation of issues in a specific way but not only with dealing with sin but with applying the promises helping people to know their privileges he says don't you know that you were buried with Christ and raised with Christ sin can't have lordship over you you died with Christ you were buried with Christ you were raised with Christ don't you know that you're going to judge angels don't you know don't you know you see the applicatory preaching is not only in the denunciatory and in the area of conviction but in the area of comfort and consolation and encouragement to the people of God it is always concrete specific and detailed the Bible knows nothing of preaching which merely floats truth in the abstract before the eyes of the soul as we saw last week it always brings it by in thunder heads out of which burst lightning jagged lightning with points that struck the heart and the

40:57 consciences of the hearers you say how does that relate to a regenerate membership well very simply in this way if you have the true people of God they long to have their specific sins pointed out specifically that they might deal with them concretely because they want to be holy they don't pray Sunday morning oh God use the preaching to make me more holy and then grit their teeth when their sins get pointed out thank you Lord I never knew that was sin thank you for the Sunday school class Lord I didn't see that my failure to carry through on an issue marks me as the slugger who won't roast that which he took in his hunting Lord you've shown me an area of sin oh God have mercy on me and you've already run to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness why because there was specific applicatory preaching validating you're the real thing you are according to John 3 one who is walking in the light who comes to the light that your deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God but if you're a hypocrite you don't like that because it says he that doeth

42:04 unproved and that's why people get restive and eventually many times leave this ministry they can't stand the applicatory preaching that will not leave them floating around in vague generalities and it shows that the root of the matter is not in them now I'm not saying everyone who's left us is lost I didn't say that but I am saying many leave us because they're hypocrites and the preaching pulls their mask off and drives them out and the day that ceases to happen God have mercy on us and this pulpit becomes just a place where there's nice lovely well structured responsibly laid out exposition of the word of God that increases your Bible knowledge and makes you feel good God have mercy if applicatory preaching is not part until the Lord Jesus comes again it's a fascinating story in the life of Gilbert Tennant one of the Tennant brothers who ministered with such power in this general area back in colonial days and Whitfield after hearing Tennant whose own personal ministry underwent a radical transformation in a period of illness his preaching had been orthodox experimental and Calvinistic but it lacked the

The Mandate for Passionate and Earnest Preaching: Rooted in General Revelation

43:33 pointed application and right in the very area where Tennant was preaching in English Freelingheisen was preaching in Dutch and there was a great revival and while Tennant was sick Freelingheisen corresponded with him and said my brother I believe you'd see what I'm seeing if you get out of your vague generalities and start to apply the word of God specifically to the consciences of your hearers and God gave to Tennant a new sense of the awesome issues of eternity and he took the exhortation of his brother and when he came off not his blood brother but his brother in the Lord and in the ministry and when he came off that sick bed he began to preach with close searching application so much so that Whitfield said all who hear this man must either gnash their teeth or be converted because the preaching was discriminating and applicatory and would to God that would be true of my preaching and the preaching of any man who stands in that it be marked searching application to the heart that hypocrites may be exposed to themselves and that the true people of God will be confirmed and in the validity of their hope and confidence that they are the true people of God then I come thirdly and finally to the mandate for passionate and earnest preaching this is where some I'm sure think well pastor now you're projecting your own personality into the sermon no I'm not friends I wouldn't preach this

45:03 if I didn't believe the Bible clearly teaches that passionate and earnest preaching is warranted by the scriptures and it has a deep relationship to the maintenance of a regenerate and converted church membership and I rest my case on two pillars it's rooted in a simple fact of general revelation that is what is open to all men whether they ever see a Bible or not and that which is validated by the uniform witness of special revelation that's this book alright what's the pillar of general revelation it is this hear me carefully now it is a simple fact that men are believed in direct proportion to their perceived belief in their own message and the urgency of its substance men are believed in direct proportion to their perceived belief in their own message and the urgency of its substance and as I prayerfully considered how to illustrate this so that your own conscience from general revelation will say it's true it's true I cannot gainsay it this is the illustration that came to mind suppose in the next thirty seconds the back door should open very slowly quietly most of you wouldn't even know it you're looking up here a few

46:32 toward the back might see it in your peripheral vision and down the aisle would come a man kind of walking in a very strange way with his arms floating about sort of half singing and chanting this place is on fire this place is on fire this place is on fire what do you think would happen I think most you would look around for the nearest deacons and be assured that they'd haul him out you'd say some guy's high on drugs got

47:06 out of his tree I doubt I'd witness a congregation rising up as one man and heading for the exits why he's saying the words this place is on fire this place is on fire but the manner in which he communicates it convinces you he doesn't believe what he's saying right come on get on my side right suppose another man came through the door very serious but he had a

47:41 that downstairs at this very moment a fire is raging some of your please no humor no laughter some of your children are in great danger I would urge you please to do all you can to vacate these premises immediately thank you what would you do a few of you might say hey maybe there's some validity to it but again there'd be no rush to the exits it'd be a bit of uncomfortable spirit and I'd have to decide what to do but I'd tell you if 30 seconds later those doors burst open and down the aisle came a man blanched white with dread crying out the building to get the children out please you wouldn't even wait to sniff and see if you smelled fire you saw in that man the marked fiction that the building was on fire you wouldn't stop to test it you'd get out of this building and if we found out later he was a clever actor he was a nut you'd breathe a sigh of relief and come back in but he'd move you out of this place and what was the difference it was

49:10 not the form of the words in the three men it was the manner in which they were delivered right your own burning building one with her arm disturbed and you say ma'am what are you doing here I have a child in that building who's trapped and can't get out you don't believe a word she says right next to is a woman in your heart why same words you perceive in the one an earnest belief in what that's my first pillar nature is not negated by grace grace lays hold of nature and sublimates and brings into its service nature

50:29 and therefore in preaching a man is believed passionate because he has a message on which talk the issues of eternity and hell and the open heavens from which the wrath of the almighty will have their own signals in terms of every man's distinct personality in terms of the diversity of lung power and voice power and natural animation and I give all to allow but then it's not only validated by general revelation I trust I've convinced your judgment

The Mandate for Passionate and Earnest Preaching: Validated by Special Revelation

51:59 it's validated by the uniform witness of special revelation you turn to the prophets and what did God tell them to do get up into a high mountain and say cities of Judah and how could anyone get people to behold

52:20 to be earnest and passionate go on to my peace sins Jeremiah so that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people why he said all of us have won the day perhaps if my two eyeballs become too rivulets they'll believe that I'm in earnest oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain instead of our Lord they marveled Matthew 728 for he spake not as the scribes and their Pharisees but as one who had and whatever that authority was surely bound up in it was his blood earnestness and his holy when he said according to John on the last day that great day of the feast verse 37 of John 70 any man one cannot imagine a man our Lord on that significant feast day

53:47 saying to men dying of soul thirst anybody thirsty come to me and drink it's incongruous it is and so when the apostle is writing to the Corinthians he says in 2nd Corinthians 5 and verse 11 6 and verse 11 oh Corinthians our heart is open to you he says in Philippians 3 18 I told you often and I tell you now even weeping they are the enemies of the cross of Christ his tears and the salty stains were on the parchment received by the Philippian church why he believed his own message and that's why earnest and passionate preaching is so essential if we who preach do not really believe in the possibility of self deception that many are going to say Lord Lord that many are going to rise to eminence in the church only to be damned if we don't believe in enough and to apply and to go after how will others believe it if we who preach do not believe that without holiness no man will see the Lord how will you believe it if we do not really believe that he who believes is justified and believe it enough

55:16 to feel the excitement and wonder that no sin will rise up in the day of judgment to any believing sinner who is hidden in the righteousness of Christ if we don't believe that enough for that to percolate through the soul and give a thousand demonstrable communication of passion and earnestness to others how do we expect others to believe it so I say we're determined to have a regenerate converted church membership and one of the ways we pursue that is to determine that those who as a regular course are in this pulpit are men whose preaching is marked by being biblical for the word is God's saving instrument discriminating because men must know their true state applicatory men must not escape from the truth but they riveted to their pews by that truth earnest and passionate men must know if nobody in the world believes the truth the preacher does I again commend to you in closing the words of James Angel James nothing can be more true he says nor can any truth bearing upon the subject of preaching be more momentous and he's referring to the fact that first of all preachers must be holy men for of all the curses which God

56:46 ever pours from the vials of his wrath upon a nation which he intends to scourge there is not one so fearful as giving them up to unholy ministers but now listen to him here's where his biblical mindset carries him a step further it will be a dark and evil day when personal godliness takes second to curing anything else in those who enter the ministry but still there is something else needed in addition to natural talent to academic training and even the most fervent evangelical piety and that is intense devotedness which is synonymous in his work with earnestness it appears to me that this is the one thing more than any or all others that is lacking in the modern pulpit and that has been lacking in most ages of the christian church and then he quotes from the british quarterly review no ministry will be really effective whatever may be its intelligence which is not a ministry of strong faith true spirituality and deep earnestness strong faith true spirituality deep earnestness then james angel john angel james goes on to say i wish this golden sentence could be inscribed in characters of light over every theological

58:15 professor's chair over every student's desk and over every preacher's pulpit condensed into that one short sentence is everything that needs to be said on the subject i feel as though every syllable i have to write were superfluous if all our pastors students and tutors would let that one sentence take full occupation of their hearts possess their souls and regulate all their conduct and here's the sentence for a ministry to be effective it must be one of strong faith i believe therefore have i spoken true spirituality the truth has first been preached to my own heart and deep as men who believe we're committed to it now you as a people you know what it is and you know what it ain't and you have a stewardship to do three things to pray that you will love that kind of ministry two to pray that god by the holy ghost will give you grace to perceive any erosion in that kind of ministry and number three to cry to god to raise up men to perpetuate that ministry when some of us have gone back to dust may god give you

Conclusion: A Call to Prayer for Such Preaching and Preachers

59:42 grace if you value your souls and the souls of your unborn grandchildren for if this church is to maintain the regenerate and converted membership it will do so as this pulpit is marked by biblical applicatory discriminating and earnest preaching and the holy ghost alone can make such preachers and give us such preaching let us pray our father we thank you for the sufficiency of holy scripture that we need not wonder and then wander about in carnal nonsense as we wrestle with the question what kind of men should preach to us and how should they preach to us we thank you that scripture is the sufficient rule of faith and practice and how we thank you that you've spared this pulpit over the years from being filled with mere bible talkers men who sauntered up in a casual way leaned their elbow on the pulpit and chatted with us and oh god we pray that whatever the differing personalities whatever the various channels these things will cut through a man's redeemed humanity may it

61:12 be evident to all of us that indeed you have sustained and maintained in this place a biblical discriminating applicatory earnest and passionate ministry that this membership might indeed be a regenerate and converted membership that this membership would not be comprised of mere formalists people who love orthodoxy but hate holiness of heart people who want a convenient respectable reformed religion but who don't want every area of life reformed by the word of god oh lord have mercy deal with us lovingly and relentlessly tracking us into every avenue of our consciences into every dark corner of our hearts both with your searching word and with your word of comfort seal this word we pray and if some have seen their state today and realize that they do not love such preaching because they do not love you and do not love to be holy and love to have their sins dealt with lord help them to be honest with what they've seen and rather than run from you run to you and pray that you would give them a new heart oh father bless your word now and even for generations to come we would be bold to plead for those who will be the watchmen upon the wall in years to come should our lord jesus delay his coming make these issues so plain to

62:41 them that their eyes will be keen to discern the slightest erosion may they with a holy vengeance rise up against it and determine that by your grace these biblical perspectives will be maintained at any cost oh god we've asked much of you but you're a great god able to do exceeding abundantly above all we've asked or could even think according to the power that works in us may your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place and may jesus christ be glorified in this place until he comes to take all who gather in it to a higher and better place we ask in his worthy name amen