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Accurately-Handling-the-Word · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

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Speaker 1: We are about accuracy. We're about a lot of things,
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Speaker 1: but we are really strong on accuracy, living an accurate life,
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Speaker 1: communicating accurate information, presenting the information accurately in a way
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Speaker 1: that people can get it. And the training for that
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Speaker 1: is invaluable. It's just invaluable. We've all witnessed dear individuals
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Speaker 1: who are very sincere, but they've not had the training,
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Speaker 1: and you see them struggle to say what they're trying
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Speaker 1: to say or wanting to say, but not having had
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Speaker 1: the training, it just doesn't come across, it doesn't come
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Speaker 1: through clearly. So here at the school, you will learn
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Speaker 1: to think in ways you've not thought before. You will
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Speaker 1: learn a system of interpretation you've not been taught before.
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Speaker 1: It is deliberate, it's carefully thought through, and it's pretty
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Speaker 1: consistent over the years. It's been carefully honed. The reason
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Speaker 1: all of this is important is that people trust us
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Speaker 1: as a minister of the gospel. We're to be trustworthy.
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Speaker 1: My wife is going through spinal challenges these days, and
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Speaker 1: we have talked often, she and I have about the
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Speaker 1: value of trusting her physician. The reason is when he
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Speaker 1: does his work, she's a slow and I'm not in there,
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Speaker 1: which is a good thing. And we are therefore at
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Speaker 1: the mercy of his training and his integrity, and the
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Speaker 1: ability of his mind to work with his fingers and
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Speaker 1: to do in that delicate part of her body, but
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Speaker 1: no one else can do but a neurosurgeon. A physician
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Speaker 1: who doesn't do his work well is guilty of malpractice.
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Speaker 1: An attorney who does not do his work or her
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Speaker 1: work well does illegal work and should be arrested, should
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Speaker 1: be reported. Financial individual who does that kind of work
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Speaker 1: can commit fraud, and we read of it from time
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Speaker 1: to time because they weren't trustworthy. A minister of the
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Speaker 1: gospel must be trustworthy. I read Steve Ardeburn's book called
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Speaker 1: Toxic Faith some time ago, and if you've not read it,
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Speaker 1: you owe it to yourself. It's easy reading, it's good reading.
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Speaker 1: Some of it will disturb you. And the reason I
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Speaker 1: was interested in it is because often we will have
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Speaker 1: people come to visit who have been exposed to toxic
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Speaker 1: religion and they are suffering the consequences of it. They
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Speaker 1: trusted people in ministry who were not trustworthy. They followed
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Speaker 1: the leadership of those who shouldn't have been followed, and
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Speaker 1: they are now suffering because of it. On learning things
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Speaker 1: is often harder than learning brand new truth. Anyway, he
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Speaker 1: writes of this, and I want you to listen to
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Speaker 1: this true story. My grandmother died in nineteen eighty nine.
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Speaker 1: If there were ever a person of strong faith and conviction,
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Speaker 1: it was Nanny all alone. She reared her three children,
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Speaker 1: including my mother, after the suicide of my grandfather. She
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Speaker 1: never gave up, never stopped believing, never lost her faith,
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Speaker 1: for her death was merely a step into a better place.
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Speaker 1: At Nannie's funeral, the minister told of one of the
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Speaker 1: frustrations my grandmother had to endure an audit by the
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Speaker 1: Internal Revenue Service. The IRS went to a lot of
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Speaker 1: expense and trouble to make sure that someone who made
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Speaker 1: every bit of eight thousand dollars a year paid her
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Speaker 1: fair share of income taxes while others were hiding millions
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Speaker 1: of dollars from the federal government. Special agents were hard
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Speaker 1: at work on the case of Pearl Russell, making sure
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Speaker 1: the country would not be short at a few hundred
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Speaker 1: dollars by a sweet old lady who lived her life
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Speaker 1: in Athens, Texas. An issue was Nanny's large deduction for
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Speaker 1: charitable contributions. The government could not believe that a woman
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Speaker 1: making so little could give thirty five some years forty
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Speaker 1: percent to the church and Christian ministries and still have
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Speaker 1: enough money left over to pay your bills. The irs
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Speaker 1: finally backed off when she dug out of the attic.
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Speaker 1: All the canceled checks to television ministers, radio preachers, and
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Speaker 1: her local church agents did not understand it, but they
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Speaker 1: were convinced that she had given every penny she had deducted.
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Speaker 1: Artibring continues, My grandmother not only gave away almost half
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Speaker 1: of her income, she paid off for carloans, early paid
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Speaker 1: off her house mortgage, and still had enough leftover to
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Speaker 1: bake her special pies for hurting people. Nanny was an
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Speaker 1: amazing woman of faith. It seemed that no matter how
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Speaker 1: much she gave away, she still was provided with enough
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Speaker 1: to live fairly comfortably. What little she could do for God,
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Speaker 1: she did, and she did it because of a real
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Speaker 1: faith in God, not a faith motivated by the id
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Speaker 1: that if she gave she would become rich. She knew
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Speaker 1: she would never have a lot of money. Neither did
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Speaker 1: she give because she hoped to buy her way to heaven.
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Speaker 1: She had taken care of her place in eternity years ago. No,
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Speaker 1: she gave because she wanted to give back to God
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Speaker 1: a portion of all he had given her. Her pure
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Speaker 1: motives set a great example for all who had the
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Speaker 1: privilege to know her and watch her live her life.
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Speaker 1: There was nothing toxic about Nanny's faith. She never gave
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Speaker 1: to a particular minister, but always to the ministry, such
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Speaker 1: as to a children's home or to a project to
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Speaker 1: feed the homeless. When she gave a dollar, she knew
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Speaker 1: how that minister was going to spend it, at least
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Speaker 1: she thought she did. Some of the individuals to whom
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Speaker 1: she gave her money were not so admirable. Their toxic
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Speaker 1: faith robbed my grandmother of the great blessing of knowing
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Speaker 1: her money had been used to further the kingdom of
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Speaker 1: our God. They took her money and spit it on themselves,
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Speaker 1: their big plans and schemes that had nothing to do
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Speaker 1: with my grandmother's desire to tell the world about God's
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Speaker 1: love or to feed the and clothe the orphans. Some
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Speaker 1: of those ministers she so faithfully supported wound up in jail,
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Speaker 1: or divorced their spouses, or were arrested for indecent exposure,
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Speaker 1: or fell into other public sins. They proclaimed a faith
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Speaker 1: on television or over the radio, but they lived something else.
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Speaker 1: They didn't shrink from asking my grandmother and others like
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Speaker 1: her to sacrifice their food money so they could buy
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Speaker 1: jet fuel to fly to Palm Springs for a week
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Speaker 1: in getaway. What they did was dishonest, unfair, and very human.
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Speaker 1: The kind of faith they lived looked radically different from
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Speaker 1: the one they proclaimed on the public airwaves. These unfaithful
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Speaker 1: men and women who spent Nanny's money put more faith
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Speaker 1: in themselves than they did in God. They relied more
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Speaker 1: on their manipulations than on God's provisions. They were more
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Speaker 1: concerned about their own comforts than they were for the
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Speaker 1: people who gave money, or for those whom the donations
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Speaker 1: were intended to help. They were building big empires for themselves,
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Speaker 1: while my grandmother turned off her heater at night so
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Speaker 1: she might be able to save a few dollars and
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Speaker 1: therefore give more. Their faith was toxic. It poisoned many
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Speaker 1: who had trusted them, and it distorted the view of
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Speaker 1: God held by many who watched as these ministers in
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Speaker 1: the media fell from grace as a result, many today
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Speaker 1: believe all ministers are Charlatan's and they're out only to
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Speaker 1: fleece the flock. These cynics have derived a toxic, unhealthy
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Speaker 1: view of faith from the toxic exams amples they saw
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Speaker 1: in the media. Unfortunately, media ministers are not the only
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Speaker 1: ones who poison faith. That's a long story, I realize
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Speaker 1: I normally don't use something that lengthy, but I wanted
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Speaker 1: to drive that point home. Who knows how God will
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Speaker 1: use any one of you in some significant way? And
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Speaker 1: I will assure you with the Bible that you're able
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Speaker 1: to teach with a fair amount of clarity and ability
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Speaker 1: and personality. You'll convince people that you're dealing in the truth,
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Speaker 1: and they'll trust you. They'll really like I trust our neurosurgeon.
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Speaker 1: I don't sit in the waiting room worry worrying over
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Speaker 1: whether he was well trained or knows what he's doing.
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Speaker 1: I trust him when he gets that scalpel or makes
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Speaker 1: that decision on the spine of the woman that means
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Speaker 1: more to me than anyone on this planet. I trust him.
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Speaker 1: I've looked carefully into his training. I've talked with him
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Speaker 1: somewhat at length about his method of a practicing medicine.
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Speaker 1: It's always bothered me a little, that is practicing medicine.
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Speaker 1: And we he and I have laughed about that word,
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Speaker 1: but it is that he's only human and with a
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Speaker 1: as he put it, when he goes through her neck,
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Speaker 1: he works between the esophagus and the carotid artery. And
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Speaker 1: he said, that's the easy surgery. The difficult one is
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Speaker 1: when he goes in through the back of the neck,
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Speaker 1: through the muscles that will later give her intense pain
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Speaker 1: in recovery. To take care of what he thinks right
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Speaker 1: now are some bone spurs where the nerves are hanging
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Speaker 1: up and the pain is horrible. Every day people will come,
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Speaker 1: and those who are not jaded, who have not been
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Speaker 1: turned off by those kind of ministers I just read about,
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Speaker 1: you can call them ministers. They will come and they
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Speaker 1: will believe you. Hear me, Please hear me. They will
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Speaker 1: trust what you say. They don't know Greek, they don't
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Speaker 1: know Hebrew. It's a powerful thing to learn those languages.
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Speaker 1: We teach them here as well as any school I'm
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Speaker 1: aware of, among the seminaries, and some of you will
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Speaker 1: be very gifted linguistically in those languages. And you can
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Speaker 1: manipulate with that. I know, I've sat in congregations where
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Speaker 1: that was done. And then I came to seminary and
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Speaker 1: and learned a little of the languages. And when I
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Speaker 1: went back to the pastor that we had sat under
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Speaker 1: and and pointed out that what he had presented was
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Speaker 1: not with the Greek taught, he looked at me over
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Speaker 1: the top of his glasses and said, don't you ever
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Speaker 1: question me a Dallas graduate. So so it isn't limited
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Speaker 1: to the weirdos out there, It isn't. It isn't. It
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Speaker 1: isn't limited to the to the ones that you know anybody,
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Speaker 1: if you've got to brain cell working, you can tell
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Speaker 1: that guys off the wall, he can't be trusted. But
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Speaker 1: some don't even have the discernment to know that. So
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Speaker 1: will you sit in the classroom here? And when you
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Speaker 1: pay your hard earned money and you give your time
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Speaker 1: and you sacrifice all of that's part of it. By
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Speaker 1: the way, It's designed to be difficult because ministry is difficult.
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Speaker 1: It's rewarding. It's magnificent. No other work I could do
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Speaker 1: and ever be satisfied in. But it is a constant,
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Speaker 1: demanding work, and people won't let up harshest things I've
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Speaker 1: ever read have been written to me, signed in Christian love,
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Speaker 1: and so I know a little of what I'm talking
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Speaker 1: about now. Then, Oh, that was introductory tewod Timothy chapter two.
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Speaker 1: I'm intrigued by verses fifteen to nineteen. As a matter
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Speaker 1: of fact, I've written something in the margin alongside verse
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Speaker 1: fifteen that appears nowhere else in my Bible. It reads
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Speaker 1: my life verse. I'm not big on life verses. I
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Speaker 1: don't have favorite hymns. That to me is like saying
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Speaker 1: this is my favorite child. I don't have favorite verses. However,
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Speaker 1: when I read two Timothy two fifteen, I wrote that.
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Speaker 1: In fact, I wrote it and read, this is what
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Speaker 1: I want to be true in my life. Be diligent
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Speaker 1: to present yourself approved it to God as a workman
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Speaker 1: who does not need to be ashamed accurately handling the
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Speaker 1: word of truth. Has that for a verse that's good
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Speaker 1: enough to go on my granite stone, And uh, it's
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Speaker 1: one I want to suggest for you to get serious
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Speaker 1: thought to. Now we're gonna get serious. Paul's in a dungeon.
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Speaker 1: He's only got a little bit of time left. I
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Speaker 1: often remind myself when I get into two, Timothy, this
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Speaker 1: is dungeon talk. I've never spent a night in a dungeon,
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Speaker 1: but I've been to the mammartime prison, where, if it
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Speaker 1: is the same one, it was a terrible place in Rome.
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Speaker 1: It was cold, and it was dark, and it was
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Speaker 1: every day was treacherous. He's got Timothy by the collar,
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Speaker 1: pulled up close and he's saying, get this straight. I'm
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Speaker 1: soon going to be gone. You're on Do it right.
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Speaker 1: So I'm not surprised that he starts out with be diligent.
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Speaker 1: Be diligent. Boy. If there's a profession in the world
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Speaker 1: where you can be lazy, it's ministry. You can golf
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Speaker 1: your way all the way through. And I'm not down
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Speaker 1: on golf. I just think the holes are too little,
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Speaker 1: so I it isn't fair. And so if they were big,
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Speaker 1: I'd be interested. But the little tiny holes, that's silly.
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Speaker 1: Put little tiny ball the little tiny hole. No won
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Speaker 1: Everybody cusses that that that plays golf. You be diligent, Timothy.
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Speaker 1: First of all, be a good student of yourself. And
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Speaker 1: as I say that, I remember the words of first Timothy,
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Speaker 1: for where it says, pay close attention to yourself. Toxic
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Speaker 1: ministers have no self awareness. They don't care. They're in
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Speaker 1: it for the money or the glory or the whatever.
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Speaker 1: You Timothy, you be diligent to present yourself approved to God.
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Speaker 1: Diligent workmen. Stay at it. I don't care if you've
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Speaker 1: been doing it for fifty years. Stay at the study,
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Speaker 1: do your own work. Don't get your sermon off the internet.
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Speaker 1: That's sloppy theology, that's lazy preaching. You dick it out.
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Speaker 1: You build a library, you go to the hard work
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Speaker 1: of preparing it so that your messages are original and
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Speaker 1: no one can say, yeah, that's a great message. I
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Speaker 1: heard Charles Stanley do that three months ago, or David Jeremiah,
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Speaker 1: those great guys. You don't need Stanley's or Jeremiah's messages.
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Speaker 1: You need God's message. You be diligent to do that.
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Speaker 1: You'll learn to be diligent when you study here. So
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Speaker 1: the clear picture is, be a diligent workman. Make certain
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Speaker 1: that you yourself are authentic, tried and true. And as
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Speaker 1: you handle the word, handle it accurately. I love that
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Speaker 1: accurately handling the word of truth. Now, what does it
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Speaker 1: really mean? As best I can understand? It has in
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Speaker 1: mind the idea of cutting something straight. It was used
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Speaker 1: three different ways among the Greeks in the first century.
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Speaker 1: If you drove your cart or cherry or whatever across
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Speaker 1: a field, you went in a straight line. If you
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Speaker 1: were a farmer and you were plowing, you plowed a
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Speaker 1: straight furrow. If you were stonemason and you're cutting a
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Speaker 1: block of stone to fit into this wall that you're building,
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Speaker 1: you cut it straight. That's the idea here. And uh,
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Speaker 1: you accurately handle the word when you cut a straight line,
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Speaker 1: as best as you're able to do in the time
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Speaker 1: you have between what God has written, what it meant
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Speaker 1: to the people to whom he wrote it, and now
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Speaker 1: what it means to us who lived today. You something
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Speaker 1: you do that faithfully and regularly, people will love you
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Speaker 1: for it. They are starving for it, and they don't
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Speaker 1: get it most places. The late John Stott writes on
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Speaker 1: it so well listen to his words. I love his stuff.
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Speaker 1: We must daily soak ourselves in the scriptures. We must
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Speaker 1: not just study, as through a microscope, the linguistic minutia
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Speaker 1: of a few verses, but take our telescope and scan
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Speaker 1: the wide expanses of God's word, assimilating the grand themes.
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Speaker 1: It is blessed, wrote Charles Spurgeon, to eat into the
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Speaker 1: very soul of the Bible until it last. You come
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Speaker 1: to talk in scriptural language, and your spirit is flavored
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Speaker 1: with the words of the Lord, that great writing. And
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Speaker 1: your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord,
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Speaker 1: so that your blood is Biblean. Isn't that great? Next
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Speaker 1: time I'm at the doctor's and he wants to know
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Speaker 1: what type blood, I must say, bibling. See what he says,
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Speaker 1: So that your blood is Biblean, and the very essence
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Speaker 1: of the Bible flows from you. People will love it
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Speaker 1: when you take them into the word, unfold the word,
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Speaker 1: explain the word, and then leave them with the word.
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Speaker 1: And that bibling approach is just in great demand in
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Speaker 1: every generation. It was when I graduated, and it will
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Speaker 1: be when you graduate. It is rare to be at
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Speaker 1: a church where the pulpit faithfully declares the full counsel
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Speaker 1: of God from the Word of God. It's rare. It's rare.
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Speaker 1: I remember when I started seminary. My mother said to me,
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Speaker 1: I hope you will learn, son, while you're at that school.
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Speaker 1: I was a married man, and you think this would
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Speaker 1: come from my wife. It did, so I got both barrels.
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Speaker 1: But my dear mother said to me, don't fill your
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Speaker 1: sermons with a lot of peepat stories. Don't try to
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Speaker 1: be cute and clever. Give them the word of God.
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Speaker 1: That's what we're starving for. Son, Well, am I yelling? Now?
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Speaker 1: A start goes on. Apart from this daily dogged discipline
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Speaker 1: in those good words, Apart from this daily dog get
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Speaker 1: discipline of Bible study, we shall need, in particular to
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Speaker 1: apply ourselves to the passage selected for exposition from the pulpit.
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you my own definition of exposition just
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Speaker 1: a second. We shall need strength of mind to eschew shortcuts.
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Speaker 1: Get this. You won't learn shortcuts at the school. You shouldn't.
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Speaker 1: And I know time is tight, always tight. Sunday comes
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Speaker 1: every three days, it seems, I mean, if the deadline
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Speaker 1: is constant. But to do the work, you don't take shortcuts.
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Speaker 1: We must spend time studying the text with painstaking thoroughness,
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Speaker 1: meditating on it, wrestling with it, worrying at it as
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Speaker 1: a dog with a bone, until it yields its meaning.
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Speaker 1: And sometimes this process will be accompanied by foils and tears.
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Speaker 1: I love it sometime in my study where I'm sitting
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Speaker 1: all alone, as a marvelous place to study. I've got
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Speaker 1: my study here, and in the next room, I've got
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Speaker 1: my full library. I've never had a place where I
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Speaker 1: get put all my books under one roof. It's just
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Speaker 1: magnificent to be up there. I just love it. And
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Speaker 1: I mentioned that I love being up there, and I
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Speaker 1: think this illustration, worrying over it as a dog with
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Speaker 1: a bone. And listen to what he says here. We
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Speaker 1: shall also use all the resources of our library in
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Speaker 1: this work, lexicon and concordance, modern translations, and commentaries. But
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Speaker 1: above all, we must pray over the text, because the
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Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, who is the book's ultimate author, is therefore
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Speaker 1: its best interpreter. Man. That's good stuff. Now, become an expositor.
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Speaker 1: Don't become an entertainer. They're a dime a dozen. Everybody
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Speaker 1: wants to build a quick little church by being an entertainer,
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Speaker 1: so they'll out entertain the guy down the street, and
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Speaker 1: they'll use all the gimmicks to bring in the people.
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Speaker 1: You faithfully deliver the word of God. I've been doing
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Speaker 1: it now over fifty years, and I still had people
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Speaker 1: write me saying I'll never forget those days when we
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Speaker 1: worked our way through John. I'll never forget your teaching
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Speaker 1: through revelation, never forget when we went through Daniel, never
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Speaker 1: forget when you taught us the life of David or Joseph,
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Speaker 1: or Jacob or Abraham. And they'll go on and on,
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Speaker 1: all from the scriptures. All the scriptures very encouraging because
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Speaker 1: I am an expositor, and I learned to do it
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Speaker 1: right here, right here. Much of it I've taught myself.
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Speaker 1: Having gotten out with just a bag of tools. I've
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Speaker 1: kept them sharp. I've forgotten stuff like how old I
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Speaker 1: am and how long I've been doing it, and what
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Speaker 1: other people may say or think. I am not an
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Speaker 1: envious kind of person. I don't worry about someone else's success.
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Speaker 1: I just do what I'm called to do. And it
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Speaker 1: wound up on the radio, of all things. I was
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Speaker 1: amazed at that. It's wound up in books, of all things.
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Speaker 1: And the amazing thing is some people buy them and
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Speaker 1: actually read them. I didn't set out to write books.
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Speaker 1: I didn't set out to go on the radio. I
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Speaker 1: set out to go into the Word of God and
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Speaker 1: to be a workman who presented myself approved of God
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Speaker 1: accurately handling the Word of truth. That's it. That's the goal. Now,
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Speaker 1: then my definition of exposition just wrote it out. I
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Speaker 1: don't have a I don't have it on the screen.
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Speaker 1: I don't okay, I don't know how to do screens,
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Speaker 1: So I just know how to I know, I know,
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Speaker 1: I know, don't write me. Exposition is in three parts
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Speaker 1: as I see it. Exposition occurs one when the Bible,
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Speaker 1: When the Biblical text is carefully studied and clearly understood
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Speaker 1: and interestingly explained, that's first part. Second, when it remains
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Speaker 1: the central focus of an tension during the delivery of
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Speaker 1: the message. And three when it is illustrated and applied
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Speaker 1: in keeping with today's real world needs. That's exposition. Staying
30:14
Speaker 1: with the text is essential if you expect to be
30:18
Speaker 1: an expositor, makes certain that your comments square with the scriptures.
30:25
Speaker 1: That's accuracy that you use terms anyone can understand, even
30:31
Speaker 1: the uninitiated. I'll tell you about one just a second
30:34
Speaker 1: that we have recently at our church, And that's clarity
30:38
Speaker 1: when you speak in words that anybody can understand, remaining
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Speaker 1: sensitive to your audience, which means you're connecting all the
30:48
Speaker 1: while you're remaining real and unguarded and when necessary vulnerable.
30:55
Speaker 1: Had a great big guy come down front at our
30:57
Speaker 1: church or three sundays ago, I mean he was he
31:03
Speaker 1: was big, and uh, I never quite know well what
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Speaker 1: to expect. And he walked up and he said you chuck.
31:12
Speaker 1: I said, yep, I'm chuck. He said, uh, come here.
31:17
Speaker 1: So I walked over and he began a hug that
31:22
Speaker 1: almost got me in to see a neurosurgeon after him.
31:31
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, and he said with tears, I
31:38
Speaker 1: love you man. I go, oh, my gosh. I just
31:50
Speaker 1: got out of prison, had tattoos all over at the
31:54
Speaker 1: Galley's living with standing right by him. I love guys
31:58
Speaker 1: like this, he said. You kept me alive in solitary confinement.
32:04
Speaker 1: That said, real stuff. This is ministry. This is the
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Speaker 1: product of ministry at its best. You just can't buy
32:13
Speaker 1: this kind of moment. Now. I put my hands on
32:17
Speaker 1: his shoulders. He said come here, and I thought, okay,
32:24
Speaker 1: you will go again, and he uged me again. He said,
32:31
Speaker 1: you just wouldn't believe my past. I said, I don't
32:33
Speaker 1: care about your past. I like your present. I like
32:39
Speaker 1: where you are. He said, man, my life has been transformed.
32:47
Speaker 1: He couldn't find the words. I think he said, transform
32:50
Speaker 1: And he said, when I was sitting in solitary, he said,
32:55
Speaker 1: I was able to have a Bible. They let him
32:57
Speaker 1: have a Bible, and I was able to pray and
33:01
Speaker 1: believe it or not, I was able to listen. And
33:04
Speaker 1: I never missed your broadcast every single day, every day,
33:10
Speaker 1: every day. He said, you know what I loved I said,
33:14
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm listening. And he said, I
33:19
Speaker 1: loved it that you just told us what it says
33:24
Speaker 1: and what it means and how we can live like that.
33:29
Speaker 1: I never heard that in my life. So he said,
33:32
Speaker 1: I know I love Jesus. And I thought, I am
33:36
Speaker 1: so glad, so glad, because he'd be one mean motor
33:42
Speaker 1: scooter if he didn't have Jesus. And he would say that,
33:50
Speaker 1: and I said, I want you to be come back
33:53
Speaker 1: off and I want to see more of you. And
33:56
Speaker 1: we made plans to get him a little study Bible
33:58
Speaker 1: and all that. He was so wonderful to be with.
34:04
Speaker 1: He was so real. That's the kind of guy I
34:08
Speaker 1: want to touch with the message of the scriptures because
34:13
Speaker 1: you get him compensed, Well, you've done something, and you
34:20
Speaker 1: know what God did it. I don't even know him.
34:24
Speaker 1: Great thing about radio. They don't even know what you
34:26
Speaker 1: look like. That's usually a turn off when they finally
34:30
Speaker 1: meet you. But when you're just out there and they
34:36
Speaker 1: hear a voice and they connected with the teaching of
34:39
Speaker 1: the scriptures, they link it up. Guess what I learned
34:46
Speaker 1: to do it right here at this school. Now. Before
34:52
Speaker 1: I started my studies here, I was very sincere, and
34:56
Speaker 1: I love Jesus. I was close to the navigators, a
35:00
Speaker 1: lot of scripture memory, a lot of their stuff. But
35:02
Speaker 1: I have a real system, a method, and you learn
35:08
Speaker 1: a method so that you don't do what Paul warns against,
35:13
Speaker 1: avoid worldly and empty chatter. It leads only to further
35:17
Speaker 1: onun god in this and the talk spreads like Yangren
35:23
Speaker 1: and he names a couple of guys that have blinked out,
35:26
Speaker 1: and then he says, nevertheless, the firm foundation of God
35:30
Speaker 1: stands having the sea of the Lord knows those that
35:33
Speaker 1: are what a privilege to be able to study at
35:38
Speaker 1: a place that takes the Bible seriously and teaches it accurately,
35:45
Speaker 1: so that you can be trusted even when they don't
35:49
Speaker 1: even know what you look like. My very first place
35:53
Speaker 1: of ministering as a senior pastor, if you could call
35:56
Speaker 1: it that. I was just a pastor there and was
36:01
Speaker 1: in New England, and one cold wintry day I decided
36:06
Speaker 1: I would go down to Harvard Cambridge. Snow was about
36:11
Speaker 1: knee deep, and I was determined to find the cornerstone
36:16
Speaker 1: of Harvard. I doubt that most of you have ever
36:19
Speaker 1: stood there and read it. I never had so a
36:22
Speaker 1: little background. And I finished with this. John Harvard sixteen
36:30
Speaker 1: oh seven to sixteen thirty eight. He died when he
36:34
Speaker 1: was thirty one, Okay, joined the Puritan immigration to the
36:40
Speaker 1: New World, settled in Massachusetts, and became a member and
36:45
Speaker 1: teaching elder of the Congregational Church at Charlestown. In his will,
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Speaker 1: he left half his estate with a library of about
36:58
Speaker 1: four hundred volumes, to the new college that had just
37:02
Speaker 1: been established founded by the colony in sixteen thirty six.
37:10
Speaker 1: The General Court of Massachusetts named the college after him.
37:15
Speaker 1: They called it Harvard College. That was in sixteen thirty
37:21
Speaker 1: eight thirty nine, and with the aid of his legacy,
37:25
Speaker 1: buildings were erected. This is what the cornerstone says, Harvard,
37:34
Speaker 1: after God had carried us safe to New England, and
37:38
Speaker 1: we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood,
37:46
Speaker 1: reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled a civil government.
37:55
Speaker 1: One of the next things we longed for and looked
37:58
Speaker 1: after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity,
38:06
Speaker 1: dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when
38:13
Speaker 1: our present ministers lie in the dust. How's that for eloquent?
38:22
Speaker 1: And how's that for heartbreaking? A bar they've drifted It
38:29
Speaker 1: was a place originally planned to train the minister, like
38:34
Speaker 1: this place, like where you're going to sit. Interestingly, about
38:41
Speaker 1: ten miles from that old church that I pastored in Massachusetts,
38:48
Speaker 1: there's another church that was fighting for survival. Had an
38:53
Speaker 1: interesting history. The man who had been there for several
38:57
Speaker 1: years was a fighter, and he absolutely took people on
39:06
Speaker 1: and the church, little by little just emptied it. Sheep
39:11
Speaker 1: were beaten up, mistreated, and ultimately ultimately he left in
39:18
Speaker 1: a handful of people that were still with him left
39:20
Speaker 1: with him, and they called another guy who came his
39:26
Speaker 1: first Sunday. There were maybe a couple dozen people at
39:30
Speaker 1: this little church, and you had to get there early
39:33
Speaker 1: to get a back seat. So they were all in
39:37
Speaker 1: the back. So he took the puppet and he dragged
39:42
Speaker 1: it down the middle aisle. It's true story. And he
39:46
Speaker 1: set it up two rows from the back, and he said,
39:49
Speaker 1: you won't come to me, so I will come to you.
39:54
Speaker 1: I'm going to shepherd this flock, and I'm going to
39:56
Speaker 1: teach you the word of God is best I can.
40:02
Speaker 1: I have no fight. I'm a shepherd. I'm not a fighter.
40:07
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna teach you how to teach yourself and
40:12
Speaker 1: feed yourself the word of God. He didn't announce that
40:17
Speaker 1: he would need to do this, but Sunday after Sunday
40:20
Speaker 1: began to drag that pulpit back toward the choir loft,
40:25
Speaker 1: until finally the church is packed and he's bumping up
40:30
Speaker 1: against a packed choirloft. Place is full, and the church
40:37
Speaker 1: became a kind of a beacon of hope in that community. Interesting,
40:46
Speaker 1: same building, same Bible, two different people, both Dallas graduates. Sorry,
40:58
Speaker 1: thankfully one knew what he was doing, and he understood
41:03
Speaker 1: what it meant to present himself approved as a diligent
41:08
Speaker 1: workman and also to accurately handle the word of God,
41:17
Speaker 1: all the while loving the people. And it was a
41:21
Speaker 1: beautiful thing to get to know him. I was young
41:26
Speaker 1: and just in the process of making every possible mistake
41:30
Speaker 1: you could make in ministry, I was making it. And
41:35
Speaker 1: he was so gracious, and what a model he was.
41:40
Speaker 1: I am honored to be able to speak today, and
41:46
Speaker 1: to think that you would listen so carefully is a
41:50
Speaker 1: real expression of sincerity. And I thank you. Think before
41:58
Speaker 1: you come here, but when you come, make this your
42:04
Speaker 1: life verse wherever God may use you, however he may
42:10
Speaker 1: choose to use you for however long, let's go. It's
42:16
Speaker 1: a long journey from Earth to Heaven, and it's rugged, Lord,
42:22
Speaker 1: and that shouldn't surprise us. Your son was on this
42:27
Speaker 1: old Earth for thirty three years, and he got beat
42:31
Speaker 1: up those last three and a half years, more than
42:35
Speaker 1: most could even imagine. But he finished the task. He
42:43
Speaker 1: left us with the plan, He modeled it beautifully, and
42:47
Speaker 1: he trained a handful of men, all of whom were
42:53
Speaker 1: very human, and they turned the world upside down. You
42:58
Speaker 1: still want to do that, and we love you for that.
43:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for not expecting perfection from us, but for
43:08
Speaker 1: calling us to do a rugged task and yet to
43:12
Speaker 1: do it well and always for your glory. We love you,
43:17
Speaker 1: Lord in fact, the word we use and we adore you.
43:24
Speaker 1: We adore you, our great God, because of Jesus in
43:31
Speaker 1: his name, we serve you, and we pray. Everyone said amen.
43:40
Speaker 2: The preceding message accurately handling the word was copyrighted in
43:45
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, and the sound recording was
43:48
Speaker 2: copyrighted in twenty nineteen by Charles ARSLINGDAAL Inc. All rights
43:53
Speaker 2: are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use
43:58
Speaker 2: is strictly prohibited. Two