His Hands

Introduction: The Parable of the Soils and the Anatomy of a Man of God

0:00 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, October 9th, 1988, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. As we sang that hymn together, you who have any acquaintance with what we commonly call the parable of the sower,

0:22 a parable that we have more usually designated the parable of the soils, you will have recognized that that particular hymn takes all of its leading lines of thought from that parable, underscoring that when the word of God is preached, it is the state of the soil that determines the fate of the seed.

0:49 And that means that the key to the usefulness of what the preacher does this morning lies not in the preacher, but in your own heart. And so let us again seek the face of God that each of our hearts may be fertile soil for the word and that the Spirit will take that word and so implant it that those fruits that God alone can produce will be produced in each of our hearts. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for the reminder of this portion of your word that whenever divine seed is sown,

1:33 it meets with the different conditions of the soil of the human heart. And we would cry to you that our hearts would not be like a well-beaten path, unable to receive the seed only to have it plucked up by the birds of the air, whom you have said are a picture of the devil himself. We pray that our hearts would not be overgrown with the weeds of the earth, the cares of this world and the lusts of other things, that we would not have a mere surface layer of soft soil

2:14 underneath which there is hard rock, an impenetrable shelf of pride and self-will, self-importance. O God, we ask to be delivered from all of these things, that our hearts may be made by your grace, into good soil that will receive the seed and under the influence of the Holy Spirit, spring forth in those fruits which you alone can produce thirty, sixty and a hundredfold. We plead therefore that you will bind the powers of darkness,

2:58 rid us of every condition of heart that would hinder the implantation of your truth, and speak to us with power, we pray, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. In 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 11, the Apostle Paul, in writing to his spiritual son and fellow laborer in the gospel, addresses him with the words, But thou, O man of God, and that phrase, man of God,

3:40 with its tap roots deeply embedded in Old Testament usage, has become in the scriptures and in our usage a special designation of a preacher. We use the term a man of God in connection with one who has been equipped and called and set apart by the Lord to labor in the preaching and teaching of the word of God among the flock of God. But what is a man of God in truth?

4:17 What are the distinguishing traits of one worthy of that sacred and biblical designation, man of God? Well, for the past few Lord's days we have been considering from the scriptures what I have chosen to call the anatomy of a man of God. And you who are visiting with us, may well ask the question, why have I chosen to do this? And the answer is very simple.

4:50 Within the life of this particular congregation, God has given us a peculiar stewardship in the training of men for the function of pastors and teachers in his church. And in the light of that stewardship, periodically we seek to set before these men, the biblical standard of what it is they are seeking to become by the grace and power of God. And it is important to preach this material in the context of the entire congregation

5:29 so that not only will these men themselves have a biblical picture of a man of God, but that those members of this congregation will also have a biblical picture of what a man of God is. So that in their praying, in their interaction with these men, and in their assessment of them, they will be thinking according to the same standard set forth in the word of God. And surely if we have a mandate from the Lord himself to pray the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest, surely we would be content with nothing

6:14 less than men of God being recognized as laborers appointed by the Lord of the harvest to be sent forth to reap in his own harvest. And so as I've indicated, for several weeks we have been opening up biblical materials that have been collated under the heading of the anatomy of a man of God. We've examined the head. We've examined the cultural definition of a man of God.

6:47 And we have seen from the scriptures that it is a head covered with the helmet of salvation filled with the knowledge of the word of God and well furnished with the tools to provide a fresh and biblical ministry for a lifetime. We've looked at his eyes and the scriptures that speak of the eyes of a man of God as eyes fixed on the unseen world of spirituality and the eyes of the human spirit. There's more. reality, the very text read in our hearing this morning from 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

7:21 Eyes that are focused upon the Lord Jesus, Hebrews 12, and eyes perceptive to the true state of men. And so we have proceeded to consider his ears and the three main characteristic of the ears of a man of God, the heart of a man of God, and last week, the mouth of a man of God. Now we come this morning to take up another aspect of the anatomy of a man of God, namely the backbone of a man of God. And in taking up the subject, we shall follow the track marked out by three simple questions.

Defining Spiritual Backbone: Willpower, Courage, and Unflinching Resolve

8:03 What is meant by the term backbone? Why is it essential in a man of God? And then, God willing, next week, the third question, how is such a backbone attained, maintained, and strengthened in a man of God? First of all, then, what is meant by the term backbone?

8:29 And in answer to the question, I'll give both a dictionary definition, but more importantly, several biblical definitions. In Webster's new collegiate dictionary, backbone is defined as willpower, courage, and determination. Its primary synonym is set forth as the word fortitude. Fortitude, in turn, is defined as the strength to bear misfortune, pain, calamity, and the

9:09 And to bear it patiently with firm courage. And then it's very interesting. Underneath the definition of the word fortitude, where the synonyms are listed, backbone is listed and described in that context in this way. Backbone refers to the strength of character and resoluteness that permits one to face opposition unflinchingly.

9:44 Backbone is the strength of character and resoluteness that permits one to face opposition unflinchingly. And then it's interesting that the other synonyms given for fortitude are grit, pluck, and guts. That's in the dictionary. But I believe the heart of the biblical concept that I'm seeking to articulate this morning

10:20 is captured in those words, backbone is strength of character and resoluteness that permits a man to face opposition unflinchingly. It does not say that he will face opposition stoically. Face opposition without fear, without pain, without tremendous emotional trauma. But it does say he will face opposition unflinchingly.

Biblical Illustrations of Spiritual Backbone

11:02 In other words, the opposition will not move him from the path of his biblical duty. And surely the Bible is full of the words, backbone is strength of character and resoluteness. But the Bible is full of illustrations of this quality of spiritual backbone. Again and again, men of God are paraded before us in the biblical narratives as men who omits tremendous diversity of personality, diversity of background and gift and stature, intellectually, educationally, and in all the other variables.

11:42 Why? What? Why? Why did He speak to you?

11:43 in any group of men of God, yet this common denominator is found in every one of them. For example, Moses, utterly without confidence in his speaking ability, so much so that God accommodates his self-confessed inability to speak with any eloquence and makes Aaron his very mouthpiece. What else can we call it but backbone when this man comes from the backside of a desert

12:21 into the very core to the most powerful man on the face of the earth and with nothing but a stick in his hand says to that supreme monarch, let my people go that they may serve me. Amen. Amen. Amen.

12:41 And when that man says, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go, let my people go. And when that monarch shows an unwillingness, Moses throws down the gauntlet and says, in essence, you will let my people go. And then we know the account of the following plagues that again and again come upon Israel and the resolution that is expressed on several occasions of Pharaoh's murderous intents toward Moses. And yet Moses again.

13:11 And again and again appears before this man, oozing with this character trait of spiritual backbone. Take Daniel carrying out his duties in such a way that even a pagan king who at that time stood as prince of all the monarchs of the earth, and when Daniel hears that a decree has gone forth that none should pray to any of the kings of the earth, he says, let my people go. Let my people go. Let my people go.

13:44 Let my people go. But that supreme monarch, he is not flustered. The scripture tells us, as his custom was, three times daily he faces Jerusalem and prays to his God and to the God of his fathers. What was it but this quality of fortitude, of spiritual backbone, this strength of character and resoluteness?

14:13 that permitted him to face opposition, even the threat of his life, unflinchingly. The same character trait was seen in the three Hebrew children when they likewise, in essence, said, whether or not God is pleased to deliver us, we know what our duty is and we're committed to do it if God delivers us well and good. If he does not, we are still committed to the path of duty. Who cannot think of the subject of spiritual backbone and not have his mind drawn to that mighty man of God, Elijah,

14:56 who dares to stand upon Mount Carmel amidst 400 false prophets and not only show them up, but in the name of Jehovah, God of Israel, taunt them and mock them, hour after hour, until God is pleased to vindicate his own name and his glory. Coming into the New Testament, we think of that strange man, John the Baptist, dressed in his hairy garment and with his rough, non-courtier appearance, dares to appear before a heathen king and say to him, it is not lawful for you, to have her.

15:41 And he would not flinch from his duty to rebuke sin, even in a monarch that held within his power in the purpose of God the ability to sever his head from his shoulders. We see the quality in the Apostle Paul again and again. At one point, I can't help but laugh at the picture when Paul longs to go into the arena where the multitudes of people are standing, where the multitudes of people are standing, where the multitudes of people are standing, where the multitudes of people are standing, Attitudes are filled with hatred and with a spirit of desire to take the man of God and tear him limb from limb.

16:19 And it took the restraint of his fellow disciples and fellow workers to keep him from going into such an arena. That's the Paul who in Galatians 2 stands up to the chief of the apostles from Jerusalem, Peter, and rebukes him to his face because of his compromising of the gospel by his activity of refusing to eat with the Jews, eat with Gentiles in the presence of his fellow Jews. But surely Moses, Daniel, the three Hebrew children, Elijah, John the Baptist, John and others,

Christ, the Supreme Example of Spiritual Backbone

16:59 pale into insignificance when we contemplate this grace of, of fortitude, of spiritual backbone. It is seen supremely in our blessed Lord and Savior himself. It is seen again and again in his ministry when knowing that the Pharisees have come, as it were, out of the woodwork from all over Judea and sit waiting to catch him in his words. He dares to face them down in that Passion Week, as we've seen in our studies, as we've seen in our studies in the Bible, as we've seen in our studies in the Bible, as we've seen in our studies in the Bible, as we've seen in our studies in the Bible, as we've seen in Mark's gospel.

17:37 He takes them on one by one as they send forth their intellectual Goliaths to slay, as it were, this David, and they back down and are silenced again and again. But perhaps nowhere is this element seen more clearly in our Lord than when Luke states very simply in verse 51 of the ninth chapter of his gospel, and it came to, When the days were well nigh come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.

18:20 He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. And the reason I underscored that this grace, this character trait of spiritual backbone does not mean that we should be received up. does not mean that we should be received up. does not mean that we should be received up.

18:37 It doesn't mean that we will be without fears and apprehensions. It doesn't mean that we will be without fears and apprehensions. It is for the very simple reason that in the subsequent narratives about our Lord, we know there were fears. We read in John 12 where he said, What shall I say, Father, save me from this hour?

18:57 There was something in him that had an aversion to the horrible baptism of Gethsemane and Golgotha. We know something. We know something. We know something.

19:08 We know something. the very sketchy record of the agony of Gethsemane, an agony so intense that our Lord, as it were, sweat great drops of blood falling down upon the ground. And there was an aversion. There was the plea, if it be possible, O my Father, let this cup pass from me. And so we must never think of this

19:34 grace of spiritual fortitude, this element in the anatomy of a man of God called backbone, as that which turns a man's whole soul into nothing but tempered steel. It is an entire misapprehension of the teaching of the Word of God to think that this quality turns the entire fabric of a man's soul into hardened steel. We have already looked at the heart of the man of God, and we have seen that it is not only a heart jealously

20:13 guarded, not only a heart that is sensitive to sin, but a heart that is sensitive to men, that is moved with compassion, that feels pain, a heart that can feel the agony of unrequited love, as the Apostle said to the Corinthians, O Corinthians, our mouth is open to you, our heart is enlarged, though the more we love, the less we be loved.

20:47 No standing alongside of and in no way neutralizing the most tender, sensitive heart to God and to man is this quality of backbone, of fortitude, which, as supremely illustrated in our Lord, is in no way inconsistent with that grace of a tender and a sensitive heart. Well, I trust by this brief definition and this overview of several descriptions of biblical characters culminating in a brief glance at what is said of our Lord,

The Indispensability of Backbone: A Miraculous Extraction?

21:32 you have some understanding of what I mean. When I use the terminology concerning the anatomy of a man of God, that he is a man marked by spiritual backbone. Now, secondly, and this will form the heart of our study, why is backbone essential in a man of God? It might be possible to have all of the other marks of a healthy, man of God in the head and in the eyes, the ears, the heart, and the mouth.

22:15 But without this element in his spiritual anatomy, he cannot, in any sense of the word, be called a man of God. Now, I don't mean to be humorous when I say this, but it was reported to me by one of my Australian friends that a young leading cleric in Australia, had the courage to say in his own Anglican communion and fellowship that while he did not believe there was any magical power in the hands of the bishops to convey any special grace when they laid their hands upon men and ordained them,

22:59 for in the Anglican situation with its hierarchy, it is the bishops who lay their hands upon the young ordinands for the ministry. But this man went on to say, while he did not believe there was any magical or mystical power to convey any special grace, there seemed to be a miraculous power to perform an anatomical miracle every time the bishop's hands really laid upon the head of the young priest to be ordained. And he said that power was the power to extract a man's backbone upon the bapt 1949 renderer of the church building. of ordaining him to the ministry.

23:44 Alas, I fear the power is not limited to Anglicanism.

Reason 1: Faithfully Expounding Offensive Public Truths

23:51 For it would seem that there is many a man who bears the title of reverend and has the name of pastor and who is put in the position of a man of God who lacks this essential element of spiritual backbone which is indispensable in a true man of God. Now, why is backbone essential to a man of God? I give you three very simple reasons out of the scriptures. Number one, because a man of God must faithfully expound and apply

24:34 offensive truths in his public ministry of the word of God. A man of God, a man of God, a man of God, a man of God must faithfully expound and apply offensive truths in his public ministry of the word of God. The mandate of a man of God as a steward of the deposit of truth is clear. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 these very perceptive words concerning his understanding of the work of the ministry.

25:12 He writes in 1 Thessalonians 2 and verse 4 but even as we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel so we speak not as pleasing men but God who proves our hearts. Verse 5 For neither at any time were we found yet using words of flattery as you know. The apostle regarded the gospel as a deposit which he received from God.

25:55 He says in verse 4 we have been approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel. The gospel was not a lump of silly putty which we were free to shape and mold according to our own whims. Rather the gospel was an integrated deposit of trust. We were entrusted with the gospel and as a steward of that commodity Paul says we were concerned not to please men in the conveyance of that commodity but to please God.

26:39 And how is God pleased in the gospel? In the gospel stewardship of his servants. Well he is pleased only when they deliver the deposit of the gospel entire, undiluted without seeking to shave off any of its right angles to extract any of the things that are unpalatable but in the language of 1 Corinthians chapter 4 moreover it is required among stewards that a man be found faithful.

27:15 Now the deposit the gospel is called in Acts chapter 20 the whole counsel of God. Here the apostle in reviewing his ministry of some three plus years at Ephesus says in Acts chapter 20 and verse 26 I testify unto you this day that I am pure from the blood of the Lord of all men for I did not shrink from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God. Paul is confident that his hands are clean of the blood guiltiness

27:59 of any of the Ephesians language with its roots in Ezekiel 3 and the other watchman passages because he said I declared unto you the whole counsel of God and the implication is that left to himself he would have shrank back from declaring certain aspects of that counsel. But he said I did not shrink I did not pair off the rough edges I did not alter nor tamper with the deposit of truth but the whole counsel of God's mind and will revealed to me I have in turn declared to you and that is essentially the task

28:44 of every man of God. He is not free to make up his own composite called his message. Rather he has the mandate of his Lord recorded in Matthew 28 make disciples of all the nations baptizing them and teaching them whatsoever I have commanded you not whatsoever you think is relevant not whatsoever you think will be acceptable not whatsoever you think will fit the mindset of any given cultural context at any given period

29:28 of human history no such mandate was given by our Lord. The mandate is this not only to make disciples among all the nations we are not free to say well certain nations we will arbitrate we will arbitrate we will arbitrate we will arbitrarily declare as being unfit to receive the gospel we have no such right make disciples of all the nations furthermore we have no such right to say well let's dispense with baptism the door of incorporation into the visible community it's an inconvenience and in certain cultures it gets people in trouble like losing their lives and losing their homes and we don't want to inconvenience people so we'll have some other means

30:13 no we are not free to choose our own initiatory ordinance and as surely as we are not free to choose the scope of our endeavor ta ethne all the nations we are not free to designate a different initiatory ordinance neither are we free to change the mandate teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you I have commanded you let me tell you I'm going to make us let me make you you and I I'm going to make you think of yourself as a celestial being as a celestial being

30:57 as man as you are as a human being as you are as you are as you are now but you have already come into the world learned to be a man to be a human being you have come here But whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. You see, the path to greatness according to our Lord does not lie in seeking to reduce his precepts to a common denominator acceptable to all.

31:37 But our Lord has said it lies in a meticulous concern with the least of his commandments, first to obey and then to teach.

31:52 Well, that being so, a man of God feeling the burden of this responsibility knows that he goes forth to proclaim many truths that are utterly offensive, both to unregenerate minds. Those minds in which sin still exerts unrivaled dominion and also opposition from the remaining sin that is yet in the best of believers. For example, I have never yet met an unconverted man, woman, boy or girl who stood up, clapped his hands and said,

32:36 that's the most wonderful thing I've heard. When I have had to. Tell them face to face, privately or preaching publicly, what they are in the light of the word of God. That they are part of a race that fell in Adam.

32:53 That they were guilty in Adam before they had any existence. For the scripture says, through one man sin entered into the world in death passed upon all men for all sinned as in Adam. All die. And in an age of crass individualism and do your own thingism, people do not want to be told.

33:17 Before I had any existence in my own personal life history, God dealt with me in Adam and I, with the whole human race, fell and was condemned in Adam. I never yet had anyone say, oh, that's a wonderful thing. Oh, thank you for telling me that. Nor have I seen them respond in that way when I have told them.

33:39 From the word of God. Psalm 51 in verse 6. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin. Did my mother conceive me?

33:50 When men are told that from the moment of their conception, what is conceived is not only that mysterious, marvelous thing called a human being. But what is conceived from the moment of conception is a sinner. And from conception in the development of that prenatal life on into birth, what is developed and born is a full-blown sinner, tainted and defiled in all of its faculties and parts from conception.

34:31 So that the psalmist says in Psalm 58, 3, they go astray from the womb speaking lies. To be told that there is within every one of us by nature the potential for the most vile, heinous, wretched sins ever perpetrated upon the face of the earth. The seeds of every such sin lie in every human breast by nature.

35:05 For the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can plumb? From the depths of that cesspool called the human heart.

35:18 Oh yes, God marvelously restrains much of its outcroppings through the influence of his common grace in society. Within the very actings of the psyche of a given individual through parental influence, I'm fully aware of the doctrine of common grace. And I am not saying that the Bible teaches that every man, woman, boy or girl, is as sinful in his thoughts and words and deeds as he could be. But what I am saying the Bible does teach is this.

35:53 The potential to be as sinful as any man, woman, boy or girl has ever been lies within every one of us. Now people don't want to be told that. That's why a man of God's got their back pwned. Because that is an unpalatable truth.

36:16 That is an unpleasant truth. And yet in the days of Jeremiah, when they refused to tell men the depths of their malady, under the guise that they were the ones who truly loved the people, and Jeremiah was this horrible, renegade, disloyal prophet, subversive to Jerusalem and Judah. Listen to what God says in Lamentations 2.14, Thy prophets have seen for thee false and foolish visions, and they have not uncovered thine iniquity to bring back thy captivity.

36:57 You see, the man who is your best friend is the one who most thoroughly uncovers your iniquity. Because then and only then will you see that your case is so bad that unless help comes from heaven, you've had it. Unless help comes from heaven, you've had it. In the person of the God-man, Christ Jesus, unless help comes from heaven, based upon his substitutionary life of perfect obedience, his substitutionary death under the curse and anathema of God,

37:35 and the virtue of that life and death validated by a literal, physical, triumphant resurrection from the dead, you see all of the central truths of the gospel, are at best good information and pleasantries. But when we have come to begin to take seriously the depths of our malady, take seriously how bad we are, that the carnal mind is indeed enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him,

38:19 neither can he know them. What a horrible state we are in. Impotent and blind, yet accountable and culpable in our blindness and in our rebellion. You see, unless a man is possessed of a God-given spiritual backbone, he will not proclaim, expound, and apply offensive truths in his public ministry of the Word of God.

38:55 Paul knew, then he went to Corinth, that his message would be offensive to all the major segments that he would preach to. He said, When I preach to the Jew and tell them that in this unrecognized by their standards Rabbi out of Nazareth, Jesus, that in that person all of the messianic promises have found fulfillment, that in that one who died in the posture of a common criminal under the Roman government, crucified, this was the great trapstick,

39:40 the great scandalon, the great stumbling block. He said, I knew, the moment I open my mouth and begin to preach Christ, Jesus, and Him is crucified. He said, I knew that to the Jew, that was the great and offensive stumbling block. And when I would say to the Greek philosophers that all of the ultimate questions, who am I, why am I here, what is God like, how can I know Him, that all of those ultimate questions are answered in Christ crucified, who is both the wisdom and the power of God, they would regard me with a sneer.

40:19 That I should claim, that all such wisdom was in Christ. He said, I know the gospel is to them foolishness. So here he comes to Corinth and he already knows that his audience is totally turned off to his message. Half of it is going to say, why this is ludicrous, this is such a terrible offense to us, stop preaching Christ crucified to us as Jews.

40:42 And he said, the other half, they are going to laugh me to scorn and regard it foolishness. But he said, yet, I preached Christ crucified. And he became the power and the wisdom of God to those whom God effectually calls. Why?

40:57 Because Paul had this commodity of spiritual backbone. Now it doesn't mean, you see, that he didn't have fears. Because he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, I was with you in weakness, in fear, and much. Don't get the notion that this quality negates those other realities.

41:25 Yes, he had fears. He was not a stoic. He was not a man that did not feel the pressure of opposition. He was not a man who could look at frowning faces and eyes full of hatred with insensitivity.

41:42 But nonetheless, he said, I preached Christ crucified. Why? Because the spirit of God had worked in him this marvelous element of the anatomy of a man of God, spiritual backbone. And likewise, not only with the proclamation of God's truth, but often it's in the area of the application.

42:07 You see, there are many congregations that would not tolerate anything other than a biblical ministry. And if a man did not expound Scripture and buttress his statements with Scripture and take people through large blocks of Scripture, they would not tolerate him. But they will allow him to say anything in the way of objective exposition of Scripture. But, oh, the trouble comes when seeing the principles in the text, the preacher begins to say therefore and begins to make personal, pointed, tailor-made application to the circumstances of that congregation.

42:46 That's when people begin to bristle because what happens is this. You see, as long as David stood before Nathan, and was telling stories, all it did was give David a vicarious emotional outlet. When he heard his lovely little parable about the man that had one little ewe lamb and he loved it and he slept with it and all the rest, and the rich man came along and took his lamb, David was incensed and full of anger. And if Nathan had simply said, well, now I'll leave and go home and pray that the Holy Spirit will apply it, David would have gone to sleep that night mulling over in his mind what a wretched, wretched man that rich man in the parable was.

43:28 But his heart was not smitten until the prophet turned and said, Thou art the man. It was in his pointed application of the truth that the arrow came home to his breast. And so it is in the work of the ministry. It is in the application of the truth that the conscience is smitten and the heart laid bare.

Reason 2: Faithfully Applying Unwanted Personal Truths

43:54 And it is at this point that unless the man handling the word of God has spiritual backbone, he will never be faithful to the preaching of the word of God. And so I say in the first case, backbone is essential for a man of God because a man of God must faithfully expound and apply offensive truths in his public ministry. Secondly, because a man of God must faithfully expound and apply unwanted truths in his personal dealings with the people of God.

44:37 A man of God must faithfully expound and apply unwanted truths in his personal dealings with the people of God. There are many who will tolerate almost anything preached and applied publicly. However, the task of a man of God is not exhausted in his public ministry of the word. Two texts that underscore this so clearly, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, the very chapter in which Paul speaks of his fidelity as a steward of the gospel.

45:15 He goes on to indicate later on in that chapter that he applied and preached that word not only publicly and corporately, but notice verses 10 and 11. You are witnesses in God also how holily and righteously and unblameably we behaved ourselves towards you that believe as you know how we dealt with each one of you as a father with his own children, exhorting you and encouraging you and testifying to the end that you should walk worthily of God who calls you

45:59 into his own kingdom and glory. He says as a father with his own children. Now there is no wise father who does not recognize the necessity of individual tailor-made interaction with his children. And Paul says as such a father in the natural realm, so was I to you in the spiritual.

46:25 I not only preached to you publicly and gave forth generic truths, but as a father, I dealt with each one of you. There was individual tailor-made exposition and application of the word of God. And this is not surprising because in Colossians chapter 1, here the apostle lays bare what is his purpose, his passion as an apostle and a man of God. He says in verse 28, the subject of the whom being Christ,

47:08 whom we proclaim, now notice, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ, where unto I labor also, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily. You see, the apostle must never be conceived of as the man who only labored to proclaim Christ in public settings, in the synagogue, there in the areopagus, in the marketplace.

47:51 But he says he proclaimed and admonished in conjunction with the truth as it is in Christ, every man, teaching every man that he might present every man perfect in Christ. And often, because of remaining sin in the people of God, they do not want anyone to come to them, albeit in love, in gentleness, in graciousness, prayerfulness, and say, Dear so and so, are you aware that there is an evident pattern

48:33 of unruliness in your child? Talk about my country, talk about my ball team, talk about my grandpa, but don't talk about my kids to me. My kids are my domain. I know.

48:47 Well, if you have an unruly child and it's evident to anyone who has eyes that he's unruly, it's the responsibility not only of the child, but of the brethren in general. Exhort one another while it's called today. Brethren, if anyone be overtaken in the fault, ye that are spiritual, restore such a one. But it is the peculiar responsibility of the under shepherds to go to that sheep tactfully, prayerfully, lovingly, yes, grease up the end of the arrow as much as you can, yes, but having said all of that, the moment of truth comes when the issue must be brought into focus, my brother, my sister, you are obviously failing

49:30 in this aspect of the training of your child. And so often the immediate reaction is one of self-justification. It's one of irritation with the person who comes. It's one of resentment.

49:45 There's a pattern in which gruffness, insensitivity, lack of communication is evident on the part of a man. And one of the elders comes, again lovingly, prayerfully, gently, in proper circumstances and seeks to get the brother to see, brother, are you conscious that you are evidently not loving your wife as Christ loved the church? It's evident that you are brusque with her. You demean her.

50:12 I have seen on three occasions the redness creep up her neck and into her ears when you've spoken to her in the presence of others in a way that demeaned her. Are you conscious of this? The bristling. Who are you?

50:25 You see? You see, if a man does not have spiritual backbone, he will not be able to say with Paul as a father with his children, we admonished, we exhorted, we taught, we entreated, we exposed, we rebuked. And so in the work of the ministry, there is many a church where the state of the church is what it is, not primarily because there has been a lack of faithful exposition and application of the word publicly, but there has been the absence of spiritual backbone in the man of God

51:09 to be as pointed and pressing one-on-one as he was in the pulpit. But without that, if an apostle realized his ministry could not see Christ formed in men without that dimension, who are we to think that we will? If he knew that his preaching as an apostle would not win the day without the close one-to-one fatherly input of admonition and exhortation, then we as God's servants

51:50 must recognize the same responsibility. The scripture tells us that he that rebukes a man shall afterward find more favor than he that flatters with his tongue. But you see, he's got to be willing to run the risk of what happens between the rebuke and the afterward. He that rebukes a man shall afterward find more favor than he that flatters with his tongue.

52:18 But it's that interim between the rebuke and the afterward where you run the risk of the distance. And it breaks your heart, you see, because the steel backbone doesn't give you a steel heart. And you sense when that person looks at you, there isn't that look of delight. Used to be when their eyes would meet yours halfway across the parking lot.

52:42 Immediately their eyes would light up. Now your eyes meet theirs and suddenly they glance away. You feel that. You say, Pastor, you notice those things?

52:55 Mm-hmm. Just like when the little kids who run up week after week and get in line for their hugs, when they start getting old enough to know that all that they've heard in the preaching is beginning to make demands upon them and it's beginning to draw a line and they're beginning to count the cost and they know they can't have Christ and the gospel and everything they've heard and have the world and all that's pulling for them. No longer do they line up for hugs. They don't even line up to say hello.

53:29 They avoid you like you had a bad case of body odor. No longer is there a look of delight in their eyes and you feel it right here. What's happened? The offense of the cross has entered.

53:44 And then when you seek lovingly, not in a way that embarrasses them, to take them aside and press the claims of Christ because they're fighting God, they fight everything that's connected with God. And who is more connected with God in their eyes than the man of God? And so you're going to get it. And that's why you've got to have spiritual backbone because you must faithfully expound and apply unwanted truths in personal dealings with the people of God.

Reason 3: Faithfully Implementing Unpopular Administrative Truths

54:15 And without spiritual backbone, sin will destroy the souls of men whose sin will only be dealt with by faithful one-to-one dealings between the sheep and their shepherds. But then thirdly and finally, the man of God must have spiritual backbone not only because he must expound and apply offensive truths in his public ministry of the word, expound and apply unwanted truths in his personal dealings with the people of God, but because a man of God must expound, apply, and implement unpopular truths

55:00 in the administration of the house of God. He must expound, apply, and implement unpopular truths in the administration of the house of God. The task of an elder is described in its manifold descriptions in the New Testament. Among many of them is 1 Timothy 3 and verse 5.

55:28 If a man knows not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? And here the task of the elder is likened unto that of one taking care of the house of God. This is why in Hebrews 13, 17 and 7 and 24 elders are called rulers in the house of God. But now remember, their rule and their taking care is never legislative.

56:04 They do not make the rules. It is purely administrative. God has made the rules. That's why Paul could say to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 3, 14 and 15, he said, These things I write, hoping to come unto you shortly, but if I tarry long, that men may know how they ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

56:33 And the behavior mandated in that epistle is not negotiable. It is not up for grabs. It is how men ought to behave. And so I underscore again, the man of God has no legislative powers but administrative.

56:52 But he does have administrative authority to see that God's house rules are recognized and obeyed in God's house. And this whole subject as we trace it through the scriptures is one that breaks our hearts to see that again and again it was the defilement of God's house that brought the wrath of God upon his covenant people. And the Lord Jesus did not in any way neutralize the disposition of the prophets, but rather in that vivid description of the first cleansing of the temple, we see the gentle one, the one who said,

57:35 I am meek and lowly in heart, making a scourge of cords, and then with unusually vigorous verbs, John describes him driving out the cattle, overturning the tables of the money changers, driving out the money changers themselves. Had you appeared in Jerusalem on that particular day, and you had heard nothing or knew nothing of Jesus of Nazareth, and you saw a man with holy fire in his eye and a whip in his hand, driving animals helter and skelter, turning over tables, you would have said, a madman has been let loose. But he was not a madman,

58:18 it was the Holy Son of God who said, you've turned my father's house into a den of robbers. Take these things hence. And then it says, the disciples remembered the word, zeal for thine house has consumed me. And that zeal for the house of God has always been God's zeal.

58:41 And God's house now is His church. 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 16 makes it plain that every church that is worthy of the name church is a temple, a sanctuary, a dwelling place of God. And in His own house, God alone has the right to make the house rules. And He has told us how we are to approach Him, how we are to worship Him, not in the details of what hour and in what kind of building and with what hymn book, no, but in terms of the great issues of what it is by which

59:24 we are to draw near to God. What are the means by which we worship Him? What are the means by which He draws near with blessing to us? The whole maritor, the simplicity and purity of worship, the centrality of preaching, the biblical standards, the standard for church officers, the relative roles of men and women in His house, God has spoken.

59:49 He has not been silent. He has said, as in all the churches of the saints, let your women keep silence in the churches. It is not permitted to them to speak. And in the context it's clear He's not forbidding women speaking one to another, speaking to the Lord in praise, speaking in the context of a natural authority structure of the family that's projected into the Sunday school.

60:17 It's evident in the context He's speaking of the whole matter of the exercise of God-given gifts, of authoritative proclamation of the Word. And yet we are told, look, God bless so and so. She was a woman preacher. God blesses so and so.

60:34 She is... My friends, our rule of action is not what God may do in His sovereignty.

60:41 It is His Word, plain and clear. And God's house rules can only be defied at the expense of bringing the frown of God upon His people. And while the seminars proliferate which supposedly answer how to get the church out of its malaise and out of its doldrums and into blessing, could the path be just as simple as coming back to the Word of God and saying, O God, we're determined to implement Your house rules at any cost. Lord Jesus, go through this temple and all that Your eye finds

61:24 that is offensive to You, drive it out and give us grace to keep it out. And the whole matter of the implementation of discipline, accountability, these are the issues that a man of God must be prepared, not merely to preach upon from the pulpit, but I chose my words carefully, he must expound and apply and implement in the administration of the house of God. I think of my dear friend in that little Baptist church in that little town in Louisiana

62:08 that has rocked along for 125 years in that community, and for at least the past 50 years, it has had no impact on the community, it's caused no problems, no one's bothered it, it's bothered no one. But when the pastor and the deacons were determined that membership would begin to mean something and began to cull from the membership everyone who was not walking as a visible disciple, present in the services, manifesting a credible profession of faith, showing submission to the word of God not perfectly, but purposefully, all hell has broken loose upon them.

62:49 Letters to the local newspaper, slander, opposition, lies. Why? Because a man like Nehemiah, whose heart was stirred for the state of the condition of God's house, that pastor is determined that God's house rules will be implemented in his own house. And I bless God for that living witness of spiritual backbone.

63:22 I say to you men in the academy, it is at this point, perhaps more than any other, that the measure of your own spiritual backbone and its strength will be tested. Because on the one hand, people with their native proneness to superstition somehow want to be attached to the church, they feel somehow if I get totally detached from the church, I'll be vulnerable and exposed to something or other. So there is a superstition that wants them, oppresses them to have some affinity with God's house. But because they know nothing of a heart transformed by the grace of God and committed to the rule and law of God and in love with the Son of God,

64:07 there is no commitment to a life of serious obedience. And once you begin to attempt to implement biblical order in a congregation comprised of people who've only known that superstitious affinity to a religious club, you will see how much you need spiritual backbone to determine that God's word will obtain rule in God's house. So this is why I say in your hearing this morning that this element of the anatomy of a man of God is so essential. He must have this aspect of spiritual grace, the backbone of a man of God.

Conclusion: A Call to Prayer for Backbone

64:50 Without it, he will have a ministry that is marked by compromise, a ministry that is silent on truths that desperately need to be preached, a ministry that may never extend into the close one-to-one intimate dealings with the sheep which they so desperately need, and one that will back off from the possible disruptions that will come from the insistence that Christ's rule in his house be implemented. God willing, next week we're going to examine from the scriptures where do you get such a backbone. But I would close this morning and urge you as the people of God

65:35 to pray that the Lord in this place will raise up men who not only have the kind of head and eyes and ears, and mouth and heart we've described from the scriptures, but that God will give them the backbone of a man of God. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for your holy word. We thank you that it is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our pathway.

66:12 And we thank you for the record of those to whom you gave this grace of holy fortitude. Above all, for that grace, manifested in your beloved Son. We thank you that he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And because he set his face, we now have a Savior.

66:36 We thank you that he did not turn aside when there was great fear and aversion, when there was the agonizing prayer, if it be possible, let the cup pass. But we thank you for his resolution to drink the cup that we might this morning call you our Father. We pray for those among us who have never seen the depths of their need of our Savior. O Lord, give them eyes to see their need and eyes to behold his glory.

67:11 And may they this day repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and find the offered and promised salvation in him. We ask for us as your people that each one of us in our respective spheres of responsibility and duty and relationships would be given that measure of spiritual backbone which we need in order to fulfill the will of God according to the Scriptures. We plead with you, Lord, that you would remove from us vacillation and timidity and compromise and cowardice and all of those things horrible things that keep us

67:54 from holding to our course of duty no matter what the cost may be. Seal then your word to our hearts, we plead, as we ask these mercies through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.