Transcript

Take your Bibles and let’s go to Luke, Luke chapter 19 this morning as we continue going through the Gospel of Luke. What an amazing, amazing, amazing section of Scripture. You’ve heard me say the phrase numerous times that all theology is local church theology and what I mean by that is God gave the truth to the church so we could grasp it, walk in it, live it out. Now, here’s something that’s important about that: if you as a church family are not genuine about applying the truth, then there is much new truth you can’t grasp or understand. It builds upon itself and there are things that jump out in this text that apply to the church today in such a powerful way, as a matter of fact, applies to the church in any generation, but unless you’ve walked some of it, you don’t get it. So unless the local church is grasping it and trying to walk in it, there is truth they just won’t be able to comprehend and see and you can go to all the seminaries in the world and sit under all the professors in the world and you can dot every “i” and cross every “t” and exegete the text and study the Greek and the Hebrew all you want to but the truth has to be obeyed to be understood.

Well, here Jesus is. He’s come to this climactic point where the time ordained by the Father before the foundation of the world has come. Christ, the one and only unique begotten Son of God, the Savior of the world, comes into Jerusalem. He’ll die on a cross soon and purchase his church and begin setting up his kingdom in the hearts of his children. Here it is, Luke 19, beginning in verse 45. We’ll go through 20, verse 8.

45 Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘And My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den.” 47 And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, 48 and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.

Chapter 20, verse 1,

1 On one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him, 2 and they spoke, saying to Him, “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?” 3 Jesus answered and said to them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me: 4 “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” 5 They reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6 “But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know where it came from. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

We simply entitled this “The Messiah Comes Into His Temple.” The Messiah comes into his temple. Now, again, he’s not coming into Jerusalem and into his temple the way the great vast majority of folks expected him to come. They had studied the Old Testament prophets but they didn’t understand there was a first and second coming of the Messiah. This is the first coming where he comes to purchase a people to be in his kingdom; where he comes to do the work of cleanings the hearts and making righteous the unrighteous so that they could be in his kingdom. And then later he will come again in great glory and set up a physical kingdom in the earth.

But notice, first of all, he comes into his temple and he comes as I. A righteous reformer. A righteous reformer. Now, you’ve heard of the Protestant Reformation, well, the Protestant Reformation is just a movement that God the Holy Spirit, ushered in some 400-500 years ago where men came to understand that the state churches of Europe had lost the faith and lost the Gospel and lost true religion and they said, “We must reform the church back to truth,” and men like John Wycliffe and John Huss and Martin Luther and John Calvin and John Bunyan were leaders in this great reformation of cleansing the church, reforming it back to sound doctrine and back to sound practice. By the way, if you study church history, you’ll note that cycle after cycle after cycle of reformation is needed in the church. There is something incumbent upon us as fallen sinners whereby when God does something, we get in and we make a bureaucracy out of it; we make a system out of it whereby we begin to live for the bureaucracy and the system and not for the God of the system and over and over in church history, we haven’t been able to reform the existing church. True reformers would try to do that and then they would get run out of the existing church and then they would start a new movement. That’s where Baptists came from. That’s where Presbyterians came from. That’s where Methodism came from. And even if you look at those today, if you look with any kind of spiritual understanding in scriptural foundation, you’ll say, “There needs to be a reformation again in Presbyterian life and in Baptist life and in Methodist life.” It never ends.

Sometimes it’s a great reformation, sometimes it’s a smaller one, but here Jesus comes in as the promised Messiah, God incarnate, the Son of God. He comes into his temple and what do you think the first thing he’s going to do is? Form a committee meeting and talk about the new direction they ought to take? He does something, once again, you wouldn’t expect. That’s why I love Jesus. He doesn’t do what you’d expect. Who would have expected? Well, perhaps those people who were watching Jesus – now listen to me – they knew Jesus was a man’s man. He had courage. He had dignity. He had power. He confronted the powers of his day. He reproved and rebuked and embarrassed those guys over and over again. He was a man’s man.

So he goes into the temple, first of all, A. exposing and removing the worldly. Now, that’s what happens in organized religion, the world begins to come in. Now listen to me, are you listening to your pastor? Worldliness just doesn’t only mean we bring sin in and begin to get comfortable with our sin like drinking and smoking and gambling and dancing and fornication and adultery and homosexuality. The church is letting all that come in for sure and under the guise of grace and love, they’re saying, “Oh, we’re just going to love each other,” and it’s a blasphemous raping of the true doctrines of grace and love but that’s what they’ll cover it all over. Now, that’s worldliness coming in and they had that in this day too, by the way, but listen, the greatest form of worldliness is religion built on ritual and good works. Are you hearing me? The greatest type of worldliness is when religion goes from grace through faith in Jesus Christ to some form of works or ritual whereby we tell men, “In your strength, in your fallen worldly strength, you can clean your life up and God will accept you somehow.” Of course, the Jews in this day were steeped in works and ritual and the traditions of men whereby they hoped if they dotted enough “i’s,” crossed enough “t’s” and jumped through enough hoops in their ritual and religion, that somehow God was going to be pleased with them.

So Jesus comes in, he sees all the worldly corruption. Look at what he does in verse 45, “Jesus entered the temple,” his temple, “and began to drive out those who were selling.” Now, just a word or two about the temple. The temple without a doubt was the most glorious building in the city. One could even argue it was the most glorious temple or place in the entire world. One scholar said one wall of the Temple Mount complex would be 4 ½ football fields long. It had scores of these massive marble pillars, each pillar made out of one single chunk of marble and polished to a high shine and sheen. Impressive and imposing and glorious. It was this massive imposing structure. Do you know that the Temple Mount covered 35 acres? Thirty-five acres of buildings. I don’t know why, but I just hadn’t thought about it that way. It was this giant thing with all these huge, solid white, marble pillars.

But there was a problem, God intended that its purity was more its glory than its wealth. Not the physical structure but the hearts of the worshipers was God’s main concern. Jesus, the one true promised Messiah, comes into Jerusalem, he comes into his temple and he comes to rule. That’s why he takes authority immediately. The other Gospels record he turns over the tables and drives out the moneychangers with a cat-o-nine-tails. That’s a whip with nine strands of rock and stone in each strand. And he just took charge and took over and ran them out. Wow. The temple, you see, instead of being a place where men could seek and commune with God, that is from pure hearts, had become a place of buying and selling and commerce. Instead of spiritual consecration, it was a place of commercial covetousness.

The moneychangers were there. Now, the moneychangers were there and they had a good role but they perverted their role. Their role was since there was only certain currencies that you could use to buy a sacrifice for your sacrifice to the Lord, you had to have your money changed from the wrong currency to the right currency and they began to make a lot of money off of this. One scholar said in this day a person could actually hire a proxy. A person could go to the temple for you, change the money for you, buy a sacrifice for you and present the sacrifice in your stead and your heart could be a thousand miles away from God or loving God or serving God. You were just “going through the motions.” That’s what this had become, so temple worship had deteriorated. Jewish worship had deteriorated. The worship of God in Israel had deteriorated to a heartless ritual and superstition and Jesus said, “I’ll have none of it.”

He said, “You’ve turned this place that supposed to be,” verse 46, “My house is supposed to be a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a robbers’ den.” Strong words. I’m telling you, Jesus was a man’s man. He didn’t pull any punches. He didn’t say, “Let me be meek about this. Let me be patient about this.” He just went in and flat laid it on the line. Wow.

He saw them using the temple sacrificial system to take advantage of worshipers and to make a profit, probably an exorbitant one, and to dishonor God in every way they possibly could, but the real robbery, the greater still robbery was not the robbery of charging too much interest and charging too much for the sacrifices by these moneychangers as they would sell sacrifices to these people to present to God, the real robbery though was the robbery done to God when people come before him with cold, unregenerate, heartless ritual and do not love him and do not know him from the heart. That’s really the point Jesus is making and is not the issue in today’s religion? It’s the same. Nothing has changed.

A couple of good cross-references here. 1 Samuel 15:22, Saul has gone through the motions of obeying God’s order but Saul’s heart is not to honor and worship God. You see, you can dot all the “i’s,” cross all the “t’s” and be the greatest working churchgoer and God be totally displeased with your life and that’s where Saul was. Samuel the prophet goes to Saul and Saul says, “I did everything God said.” Samuel said, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD?” You did some of the ritual right, Saul, but your heart is not with God and to honor him and obey him. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.”

Psalm 51:17, the sacrifices of God, they’re not turtledoves and pigeons and goats and bullocks that you might buy from the sellers in the temple. That’s not what God’s really looking for. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” God says, “Yes, you’re to bring the sacrifice I’ve ordered you to bring but that sacrifice is to express the content of a heart broken over your unholy sinfulness and that you need God’s provision outside of yourself to atone for your sin. But Jesus said, “I’m seeing any of that,” and in a rage, in a righteous indignation, with his own hands he turns over the tables and drives out those moneychangers and says, “This place is to be a place where men find God from the heart and you’ve turned it into a place of profit and commerce and heartless ritual and superstition.” Some churches pray, “Lord, we need Jesus to show up.” Are you sure? Are you sure you want Jesus to show up? Are you sure?

These moneychangers and sacrifice sellers in Jesus’ day were not primary seeking his glory but their own glory. Their hearts were not set on God’s honor and the building of God’s kingdom, but wickedly they used the temple and the temple service for personal profit. They robbed God and abused their fellow men. Now, I’m going to have a lot of applications throughout here and here’s an application for pastors and church members. Pastors today must humbly stay repentant of all temptation to minister for material profit. And church members, this is men and women, must constantly stay repentant of using their church membership for sales and advancement in their business. If that happens, praise the Lord, amen? And the Bible does state and teaches clearly that pastors ought to be supported generously and joyously by those they serve faithfully to and that the pastor is even to look forward to being taken care of. The Bible talks about that the soldier doesn’t serve as his own expense. A man plows with hope to receive from his work in the field in parallel to the way the pastor feels so that’s not wrong but for the pastor to put his finger in the air and calculate, “What’s going to help me at the next finance meeting is evil and wickedness.”

Also, is it not true when we think about our individual conversions that when Christ comes into the temple of our hearts he drives out the old that he might bring in the new? Indeed, he changes our hearts from a robbers’ den to a house of prayer. There is a real application here for churches today, carnal churches in particular. When Jesus shows up at a church, the first thing he does is purify it. When Jesus comes to church, the first thing he does is purify it. He exposes and removes what’s not of him.

Many, many, many years ago, we had a conflict in our church here. I know it’s hard to believe we had some of those but we had a couple. Well, actually they weren’t conflicts, they were like WWIII is what they were. And someone outside of our church heard all the rumblings of all that was going on and the ugliness and the fighting and the stuff and they asked one of our godly ladies and said, “What’s going on down there at your church?” She gave the best answer I’ve ever heard, “Everything that can be shaken is being shaken.” In other words, everything that’s not anchored in truth is going to fall off. Doggone, I believe she was right.

When Jesus comes to church, first he purifies it. Everything he touches, he purifies. You see, Jesus is the original Reformer. Oh, our churches today so need the reforming presence of Jesus Christ. When I did the funeral service yesterday, I usually ride with the undertaker to the funeral, to the graveside and ride back with him. I rode with a gentleman who’d been in the funeral home business for approaching 40 years and I said, “I’m just curious, how have things changed?” He said, “Well, one change we’ve really seen in the last several years is the great increase of cremations,” which by the way, I don’t have a position on that. The Bible doesn’t give me one so I don’t have one, amen? Are you there with me? If the Bible is not clear, hallelujah, do what you want. Burn granny if you want to. Whatever you want to do. Boy, that sounded terrible, didn’t it? I didn’t really mean it that way. I just mean that it’s just up to you. But here’s what else he’s saying, he said, “It’s not just the cost factor,” he said, “I’m finding people don’t like to deal with death.” Death seems to rattle this generation. The quicker and the easier we can get the reality that one day we’ll die behind us, that’s what they want. Do you know why this culture increasingly doesn’t want to deal with death? They have no hope beyond this life. They see nothing beyond this life.

I said, “Tell me, what about the services? What are preachers doing today?” He said, “Well, a lot of times there is not even preachers anymore. Very often the service is just ‘a celebration of a person’s life’ and three or four people get up and just talk about the guy’s life or the lady’s life.” I said, “What about preaching about sin and the judgment of God and that Jesus saves us from that and there is hope, there is a resurrection?” He said, “Nobody is preaching the Gospel much anymore at funerals.” People just stay away from that.

Look, do you want to know why our country is where it is today? Because the pulpits are weak. The doctrine is weak. The truth is not preached. The Gospel is not thundered. The world and the culture and the country can’t go down the tubes like this unless it starts right here at this desk. We need the powerful purifying presence of Jesus Christ in the church today.

The first thing he does is purify and clean it up but like these people, they love themselves, they love their lust, they love their sin and they didn’t love Christ so we’ll find as the pages unfold in Luke very quickly they begin to turn against Jesus because he wasn’t the kind of Messiah they wanted him to be and they were going to cry, “Crucify him!” in the end. They’ll just not have this trouble maker from Nazareth come in and upset the apple cart. They’ll do away with him.

Now, verses 47 and 48, not only does this righteous reformer come in and start purifying, cleaning up, of course, he didn’t get through because, look, when Jesus cleansed the temple of the moneychangers and the sacrifice sellers, he was giving you a foreshadow, that was a type, a foreshadow of what he’s going to do when he comes again in final judgment. He’s going to clean it all up then. He’s going to clean it all up. He’s going to go all the way down to Washington, DC and right through the Supreme Court and in every corner of this globe. He’s purifying every bit of it. Every bit of it. I don’t care what they rule or what they say or what they base their decisions on, the vile wickedness that is coming out of our government and is being applauded in the world will one day be purged by none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. When he comes, he’ll purify it all and his cleansing of the temple was a foreshadowing of the ultimate cleansing and purifying that’s coming.

But not only his purifying efforts, purifying and driving out the world, you’ll notice his teaching and preaching of the word. His teaching and preaching of the word. There is a replacement principle in Christian truth. It means, look, Jesus not only drives out the old, he always brings in the new. You never leave a vacuum. He drives out the old and he brings in the new. He drives out the old and he brings in the new. Preaching the word of God and I think that’s one of the things that wears on a pastor’s soul is that you never get done.

I’m task oriented. I like to devise something, organize it, strategize it, work it, work yourself to death and accomplish the goal but God has had to humble me that when I get done, when I finally wear out and I finally die and you’re done with me, I’ll know that I didn’t get done. There was still some more driving out and some more building up yet to do because you just don’t get done. Now, when Jesus comes again, it’s going to all be done and so you just have to fight the good fight until God calls you home. That’s what our job is to do.

So Jesus is performing in this replacement, reciprocal replacement ministry. He’s driving out error, unsound doctrine, worldliness, sin, rebellion and he’s putting in the true, pure, wonderful word of God. So we see in verse 47, “And He was teaching daily in the temple,” that’s the first part of verse 47. Teaching daily. Purifying and edifying always go together. He’s edifying with the word while he purifies out the old. He drives out the old, simultaneously he brings in the new. Jesus is teaching the truth that the truth might overcome and supplant the false religion and the error so established in Jewish culture and in the Jewish heart and that’s what’s happening in the church today. 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he i s a new creature; the old things passed away,” driven out, “behold, new things have come in.” Ephesians 4:22-24, “that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self,” that goes out. Verse 23, “and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” The mind with the Spirit of God takes in the truth of the word of God and you have new convictions, new conclusions, new viewpoints, new perspectives on life from a God centered perspective. Verse 24 of Ephesians 4, “You put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” That’s what Jesus is visualizing for us. He comes in and he drives out the old and he begins to teach the truths of the Gospel and men’s sin and the true way of salvation and the true way to worship the true God. He’s trying to uproot and expose the error of trusting in human works and ritual and religion and going through the motions.

There is a real application in all this for pastoral ministry. Now, I know a lot of pastors follow our ministry, especially a lot of young guys who are trying to build sound and good churches, so they need to hear this and we need to hear this. Pastors must be committed to purify the church. They do it primarily with sound Bible preaching and sound teaching balanced with sound biblical practice. In this pattern, we become faithful undershepherds of Christ because he was the foundational shepherd. He is the chief shepherd. As he was a purifier and an edifier, so pastors under Christ must purify and edify. Expounding the truth faithfully and administering accountability and discipline based on that truth is foundation to both a church’s being and a church’s health.

It is biblically arguable that a neglect of sound doctrine and a neglect of accountability and discipline in a church renders a congregation no longer a church. What I tell a lot of pastors when they call and there is a pastor in our area that took over a large church and they’ve been into some really strange stuff over the years and counseling with him, he said, “How can I get us back to the truth and sound doctrine?” I said, “You’re going to have to preach the truth of the word of God and begin to implement that truth and it’s going to be bloody and difficult and you’ve got to understand that in most congregations, just like what Jesus”….now, what does Jesus find when he heals in Jerusalem? Are the majority of these people on board and really get what he’s about and really support him? No, the majority are not but there is a remnant. Now, they’re still ignorant and they’re still learning, the remnant. Their minds are being blown too but their hearts have been changed. There is always a remnant and I tell those pastors, “What you’ve got to do is go so preach the word of God to your congregation you begin to form a church within the congregation.” Are you with me? There is a church out there that really loves Christ but it’s not the group; it’s not the whole group. It’s exceedingly rare when you can say a good majority of my congregants are regenerate followers of Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact, this is going to be a two-parter, I can tell it. You’re listening way too slow to get through this. 2 Timothy, would you go to 2 Timothy 3? Now, this is a pastoral epistle. Paul is talking to a young pastor and he gives a model, he gives a pattern that all pastors have to be aware of and function in and understand what it’s going to be like. 2 Timothy 3:1, “Realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.” Well, when are the last days? We’re in them. When Jesus rose from the dead and the church age was commissioned, that was the beginning of the last days. The last thing God’s going to do on earth before Jesus returns is build his church. The church age is the last age, the last time, the last thing on God’s counter before his coming.

Why? Why is he going to be tough? Verse 2, “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” My goodness, do you know to grow a congregation today they’re basically telling you you’ve got to build the church so that people have fun all the time or they won’t come. Here’s what I’d say, “Go somewhere else.” Now, we have fun here. We laugh here and we love each other. This isn’t about loving pleasure first, it’s about loving God first.

Verse 5, “holding to a form of godliness,” that means they’ll gladly walk down the aisle. They will gladly say the prayer. They’ll gladly jump through some hoops. They’ve got the outward form, verse 5, last part, “although they have denied its power.” You don’t see a powerful work in their hearts. “Pastor, what does it look like if a powerful work is happening in their hearts?” Overwhelmingly what you must see is a broken humility before God that they’re a wicked sinner, unworthy of anything from God. Only God’s power can make a human heart that way. Only God’s power can take proud, powerful, wealthy men, come into a church and say, “I just want to serve my God in God’s church because God has changed my heart.”

This is what Paul tells Timothy he’s got to be ready for. “So many of them are going to jump through the hoops, Timothy. So many of them are going to put on the form. They’re going to look like a good Baptist, a good Methodist, a good Presbyterian, but their hearts haven’t been changed by the power of God.” He said, “When you see those kind of guys, Timothy,” verse 5, last phrase, “Avoid such men as these. Get them out of your church. Get them out of your church.” That reminds me of Jesus. He went into the temple and got rid of those guys and drove a bunch of them out.

Timothy, verse 6, “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” He said, “Timothy, you’re going to find that over and over and over again the problem in the church is a bunch of women who are not under the authority of their husbands and they’re chasing the next guru and the next spiritual teacher and the next book they read and they’re always running. Oh, we’re going to do this. We’re going to do this. We’re going to follow this. We’re going to follow that. Oh, this is the godly way. Oh, this is the godly way. Always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” What’s the truth? That you’re to humble yourself under your husbands and under your elders and grow in God’s church in a humble, sweet, meek spirit. That’s the truth.

Did I tell you we had some problems in this church years ago? Did you know that? I called a man and I said, an older pastor and I said, “All these people are leaving and they’re following a person that is a proven, open, immoral man.” I said, “Why would these faithful church members follow a man that has been shown to be an immoral man?” I’m not talking about he told a little white lie either. He said, “Anybody that would follow an adulterer is unsaved.” Then he said this, “And if you’ll look at it carefully you’ll find the majority of those marriages are a wife led household because women are prone to the temptation to function on their emotions, not objective truth.”

So he says, “Timothy, be aware.” Now look, I’m not just trying to make up with my ladies this morning. I don’t know of any weak or silly women in this church. I mean that. I don’t know of any women that I’m fearful that they’re doing this but, ladies, all of you have to humble yourself before God and say, “God, we know we’re capable of being led astray so help us to stay under our men and under our elders so that we’re not chasing everything that runs by that calls itself of God.” By the way, it would do a few of y’all, not many, a few of y’all some good to turn Joyce Meyers off. Turn on some John Piper or some John MacArthur or some John O. Simms, something like that.

So he says, “Timothy, you’re going to have to be ready because a lot of mess is going to happen, a lot of problems are going to be caused by weak women who think they’re so spiritual and they think they know how the church ought to be run. They won’t say it themselves but many of them will pull their husband’s strings like a little puppet. He’ll do the talking but they’re in charge.” Are y’all okay? I’m not sure I am.

Verse 8, “Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses.” What he’s saying is this is nothing new. From the very beginning of time, godly men God has called like Moses had trouble with these kind of people. “So these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.” In other words, they show that God has rejected them, has not received them because they oppose the man of God as he tries to lead.

Verse 9, “But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all.” In other words, give it some time, Timothy, and if you’ll be faithful, God will start exposing the truth of who is really with God. “It will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.”

Verse 10, “Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance,” 11, “persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me!” He said, “I’ve been at this ministry a long time, Timothy. You’re just starting. I’ve been at it a long time. Look, look, you’re going to get through it. You’re going to get through it. If you’ll just stay faithful, you’re going to get through it. There is a good season coming ahead if you’ll just stay faithful.”

Verse 12, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors,” you mean the church is going to have just lots of folks come in who claim to be God followers and they’re really not? Yes. That’s what I mean. That’s what Paul means. That’s what Paul is telling Timothy. “Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” And that is so very, very, very frustrating when a church is immature because they just keep being misled, misled, misled, misled and as a faithful undershepherd you’re trying to fight this thing and fight that thing and reprove that thing and correct that thing. It’s such a blessing and I mean this with all of my heart, it’s such a blessing to have a congregation like you where I don’t deal with hardly anything anymore because you deal with it before it gets to me.

We had a man in our church some years ago, a powerful man, a very wealthy man. He had a meeting with one of our staff. One of the first things that he said was, “What do you think about Brother Jeff?” He didn’t know what he was dealing with. “What do you think about this direction? That direction?” That staff member said, “If you’ve got a problem with Brother Jeff, you make a meeting with Brother Jeff. I don’t talk with you about these things. By the way, I need correcting from time to time. One of the men who works here is a volunteer. I preached something a year or two ago and I missed it and he came and very honorably, very lovingly, because we’re buddies. It wasn’t a reproof. He said, “Pastor, you said dadada but it’s dadada,” and I argued with him a little bit and I came back the next week and said, “Do you know what? You’re right. I blew it there. Thank you, brother.” We need correction, amen? We need correction, but you don’t go starting you a little power movement. You don’t go starting you a little group to cause division. That man felt God had called him somewhere else after he couldn’t get a following started and I believe God did move him to somewhere else.

Men and evil men, verse 13, “evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Verse 14, 2 Timothy 3, “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” Then he goes on and he continues on with, “Here’s what Jesus was doing and, Timothy, like your Lord and like your forerunner and like your example Jesus, here’s what he did to reform.”

Chapter 4, verse 1, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom.” Paul is saying, “If I can throw anything else on here to make you understand, Timothy, the gravity of what you must be about, I’m going to do it. All of that authority is behind what I’m about to say,” verse 2, “preach the word.” Preach the word, “be ready in season and out of season.” In season. Grace Life Church, we’re having a glorious end season time where I don’t get any resistance to the preaching of the word. I’d only get resistance if I did not preach the word. But it hasn’t always been that way and it’s certainly not that way in every church. Most pastors will endure many seasons where they are radically opposed just for preaching the doctrines of Scripture.

One of our church plant guys was fired from a church in Mississippi in a university town because he very nicely articulated the doctrine of repentance from our Baptist faith and message and they fired him over it. They didn’t like the call to repentance. They thought, “I just pray the prayer and go on. What’s all this stuff you’re teaching?” I want to tell you, whatever pastor is letting churches get to that kind of place will have a very difficult day at the judgment bar of God. How did our churches get this way? Unfaithful shepherds.

Timothy, verse 2, 2 Timothy 4, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.” In other words, you’ve got to do it and do it and do it and do it and do it and do it. A pastor called me and said, “Brother Jeff, I’m having this problem. I’m having that problem. What’s going on? I don’t know if I’m going to make it.” And I want to say, “Brother, you’d better have a 20 year vision. You just lash yourself to the study and lash yourself to the word of God and you preach the word of God. Come what may, you stay faithful.” That’s what Paul is telling Timothy. That’s what Jesus did in the temple. He exhorted and preached the Gospel, Luke 19 and 20 tells us.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.” There are a few of you right now not enduring sound doctrine. You’ve got a little burr under your saddle right now. Do you know what you need? You need to repent. You need to repent and you need to repent and you need to repent if you don’t receive the sound teaching of the word and say, “Yes Lord, you’re right and I’m wrong.”

He said, “The time will come when they will not endure.” Why does he use a word like “endure”? Because when you come into church – now listen to me – when you come into church and sit under the preaching of the word, there is a work involved in denying yourself and pushing down your inclinations and your feelings and receiving God’s truth. There is a work in that and some people get tired of coming to church and working. They want to come to church and it should be happy, happy, happy, fun, fun, fun. We’re going to do the green lights next week. Sissy, whiny, effeminate churches, full of worldliness, weak doctrine because we don’t have Pauls and we don’t have Timothys and we don’t have Jesus purifying and edifying.

The time will come, they don’t have the discipline to repent of their own inclinations when the word of God rebukes them and say, “Yes, I welcome God to repent. I welcome and thank you I can repent and to receive the truth of the word.” “But wanting to have their ears tickled,” in other words, what’s the latest fad? What’s the coolest new thing churches are doing? That’s what we want. “They will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.” They will not – listen to me – Paul says, “Timothy, they will not keep on letting you disrupt their lust with the word of God.” That’s what he’s saying. “They will be a crowd that call themselves followers of Jesus and they’re just not going to tolerate you messing up their sin lives by preaching the truth to them so, Timothy, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard.”

Now, Jesus was God incarnate but we saw in the text earlier that when he looked at Jerusalem and saw their worldliness and their wickedness and their lust and their sinfulness, what did the Bible say he did? He wept. It wasn’t easier for Jesus either. He wept. He wept.

Verse 4, 2 Timothy 4, “and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship,” endure the hardship, Timothy, “do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” Now Paul comes back to himself. Paul is finishing up and he says, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.” Basically what Paul was saying is, “I’m just about worn completely out. I’m just about spent and spent up.” It’s a shame Paul didn’t have mature churches. He had to start so many and wrestle and fight with all of these new church plants and all the problems and the errors and the weakness and the false teachers. He didn’t get the privilege of what I enjoy today where a mature church learns to take care of the man of God. That’s the right thing, but Paul didn’t experience a lot of that. The Philippians made sure he was treated that way but some of the others didn’t.

So he said, “I’m already being poured out.” Verse 7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

So Jesus goes to church. Jesus the Messiah comes into his temple – now listen to me – and there he finds his most ardent enemies. Is that not ironic? It’s his temple. It’s his temple. I submit to you that nothing has changed in 2,000 years. You can add up every lost nongoing church member in the Shoals area and multiply them by a thousand and they will not have done one ounce of attack and opposition to me as church members have. Jesus didn’t have that much trouble with the wicked Gentiles of the world, it was the guys in Israel. It was the leaders of Jerusalem. It was the religious folks.

Try to reform the average Baptist or evangelical church to be glory of God focused and Bible based and you will encounter stiff and almost unrelenting opposition. It’s not unusual, it’s the norm and too often when a pastor does have a long tenure of peace, it’s not because the Spirit has reformed the people as I enjoy, but it’s just that the people have so beat him down and worn him out, he’s given in and yielded to the people’s carnal desires. Now, once again, these principles are all through Scripture. We’ve got to go so that some of you don’t get mad at me and start meeting in little groups.

Moses goes up on Mount Sinai. Moses is receiving the law, the blessing of God for the people. Aaron, the associate pastor, Brother Matt, is left behind. Now, Matt has never done this, by the way. The people decide, “This ain’t much fun anymore. Aaron, we don’t like the direction this thing is going. We’re not comfortable.” Aaron, “Oh gosh, I’ve got to keep them happy. What’s going to happen? Moses is going to come back and what are we going to do?” He said, “Okay, here’s what. Give me your gold. Give me your jewelry. Give me your ornaments of gold.” He put it in a fire. He melted it down and he fashioned an idol, a golden calf, and the Bible said they danced and they worshiped and they sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. It sounds like the modern church growth movement. “Wooo! Let us have some fun! Bring in the world. Bring in our worldly idols.” And do you know what Aaron did? He called it a worship of Jehovah. He put the right label on it but it was just wicked worldliness in the church. Do you know what Moses did? He’s a type of Christ. Moses came down from the mountain and killed about half of them and made them drink the brew when he boiled down that old idol because he’s a faithful man of God.

Jesus, the righteous reformer, he purifies and he edifies with the word of God.

Let’s stand in prayer.