2 Timothy 4, the Bible reads in verse 1,
I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom,
preach the word, be instant in season, out of season,
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
Now let me just quickly remind you what the book of 2 Timothy is about.
The recurring theme in all of the chapters, especially chapter 1,
is that Paul is just really hammering Timothy,
don't quit, don't change, other people are forsaking me,
other people are changing their doctrine,
a lot of people don't want to be associated with me because I'm being persecuted,
but you need to endure afflictions, you need to preach the truth.
He's saying, look, I'm going to be gone soon,
and I need somebody else to carry the torch,
and you need to preach and teach other faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
You can just feel that he's very concerned about Timothy here,
that he really wants him to stay by the stuff.
And in chapter 4 verse 1 here, when he says that he's charging him before God,
a charge is a command.
He's saying, look, this is what you need to do,
and he's saying I'm charging you before God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
He's saying, look, Timothy, you don't just have to answer to me,
you don't just have to face me and be ashamed in front of me if you get watered down
or go the way of the soft preaching.
He's saying, look, you've got to stand before God,
you've got to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ,
and Jesus Christ is going to judge you someday on your works.
And he says that the Lord Jesus Christ will judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
When is that?
Well, his appearing has to do with when he comes in the clouds, right?
The glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
So when Jesus Christ comes in the clouds, that's his appearing.
And then his kingdom is obviously when he sets up his millennial reign on this earth,
where Jesus Christ rules and reigns for a thousand years.
Well, at the beginning of that millennium, before that millennium,
there's that judgment seat of Christ where he rewards the saints and the prophets,
and he gives unto them according to their works.
He said, behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be.
So I believe that the judgment that he's referring to here is not the great white throne judgment
because that's actually after Christ's kingdom.
It's after the millennium.
And that's a judgment where the unsaved are cast into the lake of fire and so forth.
But before that, there's another event called the judgment seat of Christ.
And it's not a judgment where we're judged for our sins.
That was already taken care of on the cross.
The Bible says that God has separated us from our sins as far as the east is from the west.
The Bible says that our sins will not be mentioned unto us anymore.
The Bible teaches that our sins are forgiven and forgotten.
He's cast all of our sins behind his back.
He will impute us no sin.
But we will be judged at that judgment seat of Christ, and he will look at our works,
whether they be gold, silver, and precious stones, or whether they be wood, hay, and stubble.
And he's going to reward us.
And if we have wood, hay, and stubble, we will suffer loss.
We will suffer loss of reward.
But the Bible said that if one loses that reward, yet he himself shall be saved.
And without any works that add up to gold, silver, and precious stones.
Because we're not saved by works.
We're saved by faith alone.
And so we'll lose reward, but we'll still be saved.
However, we don't want to be ashamed before him at his coming.
And we don't want to lose rewards.
We want to receive the crown of being faithful and righteous and so forth.
So you know, this judgment seat of Christ should matter to us.
And when it says that he shall judge the quick and the dead, I believe that what he means
there is the people that are alive as he's writing, that would be the quick.
And he's going to judge the dead, meaning those who've already gone on to be with the
Lord, those who are asleep in Jesus, those who've already died.
So it's a reference to the judgment seat of Christ at the beginning of the millennium.
That's why the timing is his appearing and his kingdom, premillennial right there, okay?
Look at verse number two.
Preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
long suffering and doctrine.
Now this is primarily talking about from the pulpit.
He's talking to a preacher who goes into the church and he preaches the word.
He reproves, he rebukes and exhorts with all long suffering and doctrine.
But a little bit later on, he says in verse number five, but watch thou in all things
endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy preaching.
So there's other preaching that goes on outside the pulpit where you're doing the work of
an evangelist, which is preaching the gospel to the lost, which is taking the gospel to
those who need to hear about Jesus and getting them saved, okay?
The reason I want to make that point is that when the Bible says be instant, in season,
out of season, obviously, yes, the preacher needs to be ready.
Instant means ready, okay?
Think about instant coffee.
It's ready.
It's ready to go, right?
It's instant.
And he's saying here, you know, be instant, be ready to preach, be ready to preach hard,
be ready to rebuke, to reprove, to exhort.
But you know what?
We also, according to the Bible, need to be ready to preach the gospel in season and out
of season.
There's plenty of scripture on that elsewhere, and here he tells Timothy to also do the work
of an evangelist.
And look, I want to say that because right now we're out of season on soul winning, right?
I mean, if there's ever an off season, it would be now, but let me tell you something.
Faithful Word Baptist Church is in full swing right now.
We're not scaling back soul winning for the summer.
We're not canceling soul winning for the summer.
We're going to be instant with preaching from the pulpit, yes, but we're also going to be
instant with our soul winning, ready to preach the gospel and do the work of an evangelist
year round.
We don't cancel it for the summer.
Now look, in the summer, especially if you're new to Arizona, you've got to take precautions,
and you need to drink water, and you need to salt your food, and get your electrolytes,
and drink the sports drink, and put on a hat, and put on the sunblock, but you can still
get out there and do it.
People have been living in this state for hundreds and hundreds of years, and they didn't
even have air conditioning, and yet they survived.
They adapted to it, and we need to get out there and preach the gospel to the lost and
not shut down for the summer.
And here's the biggest reason not to shut down your soul winning for the summer because
when you get out of that habit, it's pretty hard to get back into it.
A lot of churches are shutting it down for the winter over here, shutting it down for
the summer over here.
I say let's do it in all seasons.
Paul said, you know how I've been with you in all seasons, and how I taught you publicly
and from house to house.
In all seasons.
Spring, summer, winter, fall, doesn't matter, we are to preach the gospel to the lost at
all times.
And listen to me, I, the pastor of this church, will confess to you that if I didn't have
a schedule telling me, hey, we need to go soul winning every week, and monthly soul
winning trips, and just everything planned, I guarantee you that weeks would go by without
me going soul winning because you just find other stuff to do.
And you get busy, and you've got all kinds of work to do.
And look, as a pastor, you can find other stuff to do.
And that's what pastors do.
They get busy with everything else, but you've got to carve out that time for soul winning.
No matter what job you do, whether you're a plumber or an electrician or a pastor, look,
there's always something else that you can get busy with and work hard, but we need to
keep the main thing the main thing.
And so even if you're super busy with your job, and super busy with family, super busy
with other things, you can always carve out that one hour a week at least.
As a minimum.
Why?
Because if you can at least get out for one hour a week, you'll keep the habit.
And I'm telling you, you go two weeks, three weeks, pretty soon you're just going to quit
doing it.
I mean, it's just like anything else.
It's just like anything else.
You've got to have a routine.
Let's say you're into exercise, and you go running.
I can't even count how many times I think like, oh, I've been keeping up pretty good
on my running.
And then I look at the log book, and it's like, whoa, I ran three weeks ago.
Because time just flies, and you get busy.
And it could be the same with soul winning.
You need to just make a decision, hey, I'm going to pick a soul winning time.
I'm going to stick with it.
I'm going to be faithful to it.
And if I can't make that one, here's my backup time.
And plan to take some trips, and plan to do missions, and plan those things.
And let the brethren and sisters here encourage you, and motivate you to do more soul winning.
Because I'm telling you, if you just take a break for a few months, it's really hard
to get back into it.
It's a lot easier just to put in that one hour minimum, and just to stay in the habit.
You got to be instant in season and out of season.
And you know what?
Then when you have an opportunity to give the gospel in your personal life, you're going
to be ready to go.
Because you do this every week.
I mean, some people, I guarantee you, that are godly Christians, but they get weak on
soul winning.
I guarantee you, somebody walks up to them, and just asks them how to be saved, and they
stammer and stutter.
Whereas if you're a weekly door to door soul winner, somebody comes up and asks you, it's
just another day at the office.
Or if you're alone with someone.
And this is a good rule of thumb, if you're alone with someone, witness to them.
That's a great rule of thumb in any situation.
If you're alone with someone, that's an opportunity to witness right there.
And if you do, and you go door to door soul winning, it's going to be easy for you.
Because you're in the habit.
So we need to be instant in season, out of season.
Another meaning of in season, out of season, could be when it's popular or unpopular.
Not talking about a literal season, but it's out of season, meaning it's not fashionable.
Right?
It's like, don't wear white after Labor Day.
Of course, we live in Arizona, the land of endless summer, so we can wear white whenever
we want.
But, you know, hey, it's out of fashion.
It's not popular.
It's not cool.
Well, you know what?
We preach it anyway.
The whole Bible, we don't care what is cool or what the trend is or what the popular thing
that the mega churches are doing.
No, no, no.
We just keep it instant in season, out of season.
And what are we talking about here?
Negative preaching.
Reproving.
There's no way to put a positive spin on reproving.
To reprove someone means to tell them that they're wrong.
Rebuke.
That's a strong way of telling someone that they're wrong.
And then exhort is to tell someone that they need to be doing something that they're not
doing.
So, you're wrong, you're really wrong, and you need to start doing right.
That's the kind of preaching that we need to do.
But then we also need to remember the last part with all long suffering and doctrine.
Now what's with the long suffering?
Long suffering means that we don't just expect people to just instantly be a mature Christian,
but we instantly have it all together and instantly be doing everything right.
We've got to be patient.
Long suffering means we're patient with people and we understand that everybody's at a different
level of spiritual growth.
Some people might have been saved for a week or a month or a year or a decade.
And even people who've been saved for a decade could still be a babe in Christ if they haven't
read the Bible, if they haven't gone to church much.
And so we need to be patient with people and not expect people to just have it all
together immediately.
And not only that, but he says doctrine.
Doctrine is teaching.
So we don't want to just get up behind the pulpit and start yelling and ripping face
on something that you haven't even taught, right?
First give people a chance to learn and then you turn up the heat on that.
You know, I've heard somebody say this, when we talk about standards of the way that we
live our life, we have standards, right?
Of the way that we dress and standards of the way that we live our life.
We want to live our life at a high standard and not just go with the way of the world.
Just anything goes.
We've got to follow biblical standards for our life.
But I heard a preacher say this, don't preach standards until you teach standards.
You don't just get up and just start ripping and rebuking people until you've patiently
taught that stuff to them.
Because why would you rip on something that people didn't even know or they haven't even
been taught, right?
You got to be patient.
You got to have long suffering and doctrine.
Don't tone down the preaching.
Preach hard, reprove, rebuke.
But you know what?
If you listen to the sermons I do that are hard on sin, whether I'm preaching hard on
drinking or hard on fornication or hard on whatever the sin, you'll notice that I go
to scripture and I teach the concept.
And I explain it and I prove it from the Bible.
So there's doctrine there.
And then there's long suffering where people aren't just expected to just immediately,
the week they're saved, have all the sin out of their life, right, and just have it all
together.
Look, none of us is to that point.
But we're all growing and we're all at different levels.
The way I look at it is this.
As long as somebody is moving in the right direction, then that person's great.
As long as they're moving in the right direction.
You know, it's just that we're all at different stages.
What you don't want to see is when people are backsliding.
People are moving backward.
You know, that's a problem, right?
And in fact, let me just bring a few people up here just to illustrate this.
Brother Dominique, come on up here.
Brother Charles, you want to come up here?
You know, let's say this represents just a complete babe in Christ.
Somebody who's just pretty much living the way of the world.
They're just learning and just starting to make changes.
And so maybe a lot of people would look at them and not even really see a big difference
between them and the world around them.
But they're starting to learn.
They're starting to make changes.
This is just your babe in Christ.
This is your starting point, right?
And then over on this side, let's say this represents being a really mature, separated
Christian who knows the Bible really well, serving God faithfully.
He's doing the work.
She's doing the work, doing the soul winning, lives a clean life, right?
Not perfect, but a godly example, okay?
Well here's the thing.
This guy right here, okay, let's say he's a pretty new believer.
Let's put him over here, okay?
But he's coming this way.
He's facing this direction.
And as I get to know this guy over the months, he keeps moving this way.
He's still pretty close to first base here or home plate, but he's making progress.
Every time I see him, he's moving the right direction, right?
Now this guy's been saved for 10 years, right?
And he's actually a lot more cleaned up than that guy.
Because, I mean, look, he's over here.
He's all the way over here.
But he's facing this way.
And in fact, as the months go by, I'm noticing him drifting this way, right?
Now if I took a freeze frame and I look at these two guys, this guy is more spiritual.
He's got more together.
You know what?
But I'd rather hang around with this guy any day of the week.
Because this guy's heart is right.
This guy's got a problem in his heart.
That's why he's pitching his tent towards Sodom.
That's why he's getting backslidden.
Because you know what?
This guy's heart is in the right place.
You just got to give this guy time.
He'll get there.
This guy, you give him time, he's going the wrong way.
And look, hanging around with this guy could drag me down.
Because he might start bringing me this way.
You know what I mean?
And pretty soon, if I walk with him, now I'm going this way.
You know, I'd rather hang around with this guy even if he's a little worldly, even if
he doesn't know the Bible that well.
But at least this guy loves the Lord.
You know what I mean?
He's going the right direction.
Go ahead and sit down, guys.
So the point is that we need to be patient with people, be long-suffering with people,
and understand where people are coming from if they're a new believer, new to church,
or whatever.
So yeah, rebuke, but have long-suffering and have doctrine.
You know, before you rebuke, you got to teach.
For example, when I first started the church, the first person that I baptized was a young
lady who was a Native American, and she worked at the casino dealing blackjack, all right?
Living with her boyfriend that she's not married to.
Now, this is not a godly situation, is it?
You're working at a casino, you're dealing blackjack, you're living in sin, I mean, that's
a pretty bad situation, right?
Well, you say, well, why did you baptize her?
Because you know what?
There's only one prerequisite to baptism.
If thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And so this girl definitely believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
She got saved.
And you know, I started to work on these things as far as starting by just preaching from
the pulpit.
You know, instead of just go, I'm not just going to go and confront her and be like,
all right, you've got a lot to change.
Buckle up, buttercup, because there's a lot that, you know, your whole life needs an extreme
life makeover here.
No, you know, what I did is I taught one thing at a time, you know, line upon line, precept
upon precept, and I preached things from the Bible, and I taught why fornication is wrong,
and I taught why the casino is bad, and I taught, you know, and I didn't even have to
tell her that the casino is bad.
She was telling me how bad the casino was.
She said, yeah, I just watch people destroy their lives, and when they first start coming,
they're happy and they're having fun, and she said it always ends the same way with
every person where they end up months and months later after they've lost all their
money being dragged out by security and accusing us of cheating and screaming and being pulled
out by security after they've lost everything.
She said, I watch people's lives destroyed, but she just said, you know what, it's just
hard because I make 300 bucks cash a night, and it's tax free, and it's just hard to resist
that temptation to go down there.
You know, the spirit's willing, but the flesh is weak.
You know, and so I, you know, I preach, and there were other people coming to the church
and everything like that, but, you know, there came a point when I preached everything from
the pulpit.
I'd explain things one on one, and it got to a point where I gave an ultimatum, and
I told this girl, I said, look, you can't be in fornication and be a part of the local
church, and so I showed her, I said, look, this is what the Bible says.
You know, you can't be, so you either have to get married or you have to stop living
together or you have to stop coming to the church, and unfortunately, they stopped coming
to the church, and, you know, in the early days when you're only running like 15 or 20
people, this is like four months into our church's existence.
You know, you want people to be there, but I had to do what was right, but first I had
doctrine and long suffering, though.
I didn't just right away just say, all right, you've got to make all these changes right
now.
Now, look, we don't allow drunkards at our church.
We don't allow fornicators at our church.
Oh, this is a church place for sinners.
Go read I Corinthians 5 and get that dumb, you know, I hate religion, man, it's just
a relationship.
You stumbled into the wrong church, okay?
That church is down the street.
The Bible says that we're to put away from ourselves any brother that's called a fornicator
or to put away from ourselves that wicked person, but see, I don't consider somebody
being called a brother if they just got saved last week, so I give them a few weeks, teach
them, let them grow, and then it comes to a point where they got to decide are they
going to get in or get out and make that decision, and I've delivered that ultimatum over the
years to probably about 25 people.
I would say a lot.
It happens a lot, and I'd say about, you know, most of them end up leaving, but a lot of
them have gotten married.
I give them seven days to get married, and a lot of them take me up on that and get married,
you know, within seven days, so I, you know, it's been a mixture of both.
Over the years, and that's fine with me, but we can't allow fornication, drunkenness, and
things like that to go on in our church, but we need to understand that other sins that
are not on that list, that are not drunkenness, that are not fornication, that are not on
that specific list, you know, just because somebody doesn't have it all together, just
because somebody maybe isn't dressed just right or maybe they're listening to the wrong
music or whatever it is that you catch them doing or whatever, you need to just chill
out and realize that people need to grow, and that everybody's not going to be exactly
like you, and that it took you a long time to get it the way you are, and so we need
to understand that people are at different stages of growth, and we need to be patient
with people and gentle with people and talk to people, try to help them grow, but not
just bite their heads off or be rude to them or be unkind to them.
You know, we need to be gentle and loving and kind, because, look, I've seen it over
the years, even in our church, where people will be rude to a visitor or rude to somebody
who's been in church for only like a month or something or just maybe somebody who's
a new believer, and they don't have the long suffering, and you know what?
They're not really even bringing doctrine.
They're just bringing attitude.
They're just bringing disrespect.
They're just bringing rudeness, and so we need to make sure our heart's in the right
place and that we understand that, hey, as long as somebody's come in the right direction,
that's a good person, and, look, I'm going to treat somebody different who's new in the
Lord and new to our church, then I would treat somebody who's been saved for a long
time.
I mean, look, if somebody's been saved for years and years and they've been coming to
Faithful or Baptist for many years, and then all of a sudden they start going into sin,
you know, then, yeah, obviously I would be more stern with my rebuke of that person than
just somebody who just doesn't know or they're just learning or they're just getting started.
I mean, you know, be kind.
Give them time.
Give them space.
Give them long suffering and doctrine.
So that's what the Bible, I think, is saying here when he says, yeah, reprove, rebuke,
exhort, with all long suffering and doctrine.
See the balance there?
Because I've heard some preachers get up and rip and snort and beat the pulpit, but they
didn't really explain it.
They didn't really teach it and show all the scripture of, hey, why we need to make these
changes.
And also sometimes people just, they just expect everybody to just fall in line and
they just got saved.
I mean, that's just ridiculous.
I mean, do you just expect a baby to just take itself to the toilet when it's three
weeks old?
What are you doing?
You've sold your diaper again?
It's a three-week-old.
It's an eight-month-old, right?
Kyle, you're making a mess with your applesauce.
Come on, you're 11 months old.
But people would take an 11-month Christian, right, or an 18-month Christian, and they
expect them to do what?
To go work a full-time job?
To go run a marathon?
To eat a steak dinner?
To use the right fork for the salad and the right fork for the meal and then yet another
fork for the dessert?
And they're two years old?
Just be glad if they're not stabbing themselves in the eye with a fork at that age.
So the Bible says we need to rebuke, but we need to do it with long suffering.
We need to do it with doctrine.
Know when to be gentle and kind and patient.
Verse 3, for the time will come when they'll not endure sound doctrine, but after their
own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears.
Now notice, he told them, preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort, and then he says,
they'll heap to themselves teachers.
Now there's nothing wrong with being a teacher.
Teaching is good.
He just finished telling us long suffering and doctrine, which is teaching.
But what we have today is the absence of preaching.
I'll put it this way, all good preaching includes teaching, but not all teaching includes preaching.
And what we have today are preachers who don't really do any preaching.
They're not really preachers, they're teachers.
And I remember when I was growing up, if you'd ask about a certain preacher, sometimes this
is the answer you'd get.
Oh, he's more the teacher type.
And that was like a code word for, he's boring.
He has no fire.
He has no zeal.
He's watered down.
That was like a code word.
Oh, he's more the teacher type, right?
It's sort of like if you ask, you know, when you're a teenager, you ask what a girl looks
like, it's like, hey, she's got a great personality.
And obviously the personality is much more important than the looks.
But when you, you know, when you ask that question, that's kind of an answer to the
question in a sense.
Oh, he's a teacher type.
He's boring because you can preach and still teach the Bible and still be a preacher and
still rebuke and still reprove and still exhort.
But we have today, instead of a leather long preacher behind the pulpit saying, thus saith
the Lord, smiting with the hand, stomping with the foot, we have the PowerPoint, right?
We got the teacher.
We've got the one who's so calm and peaceful and he'll explain everything to you.
And people just, oh, I just can't stand this kind of hellfire and damnation or screaming
and yelling.
Look, I've heard people speaking out against this my whole life and even now I hear it
all the time, oh, the yelling, oh, the screaming, oh, the beating the pulpit, oh, you're being
so theatrical or, oh, you know, you're just trying to entertain people.
But here's the thing about that, it's biblical.
Say whatever you want.
It's biblical to beat the pulpit.
It's biblical to stomp and yell and scream and Jesus yelled when he preached, all the
prophets yell when they preach and you say, oh, you're just trying to entertain people.
Well, you know what?
I want my sermons to be as entertaining as they possibly can be.
You know why?
Because no matter how good the truth is in the Bible and no matter how good the sermon
is, if nobody's listening, it doesn't help anybody.
So if I can make the sermon entertaining and if the spoonful of sugar will make the medicine
go down, great, because I'd rather be entertaining and have tens of thousands of people listening
to biblical truth than to be boring with the PowerPoint and slow and quiet and calm
and soft and peaceful and nobody's listening.
You know, people listen to the biblical prophets because they were hairy men.
I mean, you know, when John the Baptist is preaching, he had crowds of people coming
to hear him preach and he's yelling and calling, he's pointing out the Pharisees, you vipers,
who's warned you to flee from the wrath to come, right?
He's ripping on them and people listened.
People are like, wow, I want to listen to this guy.
Oh, it's so theatrical.
Camel's hair, leather girdle, eating locusts and wild honey.
Isn't that a little dramatic?
Well, you know, God's Word is a pretty dramatic book.
I mean, God had Ezekiel setting up a bunch of army men and setting up fights between
army men, cutting off his hair and throwing in the fire, right?
I mean, have you ever read the book of Ezekiel, laying on his side, eating bread with whatever
smeared all over it?
I mean, there's some pretty intense sermons in the Old Testament and the New Testament.
And so, you know, we need preaching.
We need somebody to give this generation a swift kick in the pants.
We need somebody to grab them and shake them and yell at them.
We don't need a soft, but in the end times, they'll heap to themselves just heaps upon
heaps of teachers, not preachers, teachers.
You think that's a coincidence that he switched words?
Hey, preach.
They'll heap the teachers.
The soft, the ones who will not preach hard because, look, yes, long suffering, yes, doctrine,
but when you get up behind the pulpit, you also have to rip some face.
Otherwise, you're on the wrong side of the balance in the other direction.
Plus, there's a big difference between preaching behind the pulpit and one-on-one interaction.
You know, when I go soul winning with people who listen to a lot of my preaching online
but they don't know me in person, they often say to me like, wow, I'm surprised that you're
such a nice guy because I thought you were just, I thought you were going to be a lot
meaner and they thought I was going to just go to the people's door and just get in their
face and tell them you're going to split hell wide open.
You know, they were like, you're so kind and peaceful, but here's the thing, kind and peaceful
has its place and then hard preaching has its place.
You don't go to the red hot preaching conference and preach on, you know, the love of God.
You know what I mean?
Unless your text verse is, this is the love of God that we keep as commandments.
And then, you know, there's a time to preach hard and there's a time to be nice and gentle
and soft and kind.
So we need to get the balance right there.
He says in verse number 4, he says, or at the end of verse 3, he said, they'll heap
to themselves teachers having itching ears.
You know, you think of a dog has itching ears.
They want to have that itch scratched, right?
So people want to hear a certain thing and they don't want to hear the truth.
They just want to hear a certain thing.
And so they'll heap to themselves teachers that are going to tell them stuff that they
like.
I mean, Joel Osteen, why is he so popular?
He's everywhere.
Walmart, he's smiling out at you like a dentistry ad, right?
Everywhere you go.
And you talk to people out, oh, I love Joel, I love listening to Joel.
Why do they like him?
Because they have itching ears and he tells them what they want to hear.
Your best life now.
Not later.
Not endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Not unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also
to suffer for his sake.
No, no, no, it's your best life now.
Not God's angry with the wicked every day.
Not God's wrath was kindled against Moses.
No, no, no, it's Joyce Meyer's new book, God is Not Mad at You.
God is probably, I mean, most people who see that book cover, God probably is mad at them.
God's angry with the wicked every day.
So for most people that's a lie.
You know, I hope I could pick up that book and it would be the truth.
But here's the thing.
The people who would actually pick up that book, the people who God is actually not mad
at won't touch that book with a 10-foot pole.
And the kind of people who buy that book, God's mad at all of them.
So it's pretty much a lie for every person.
You know, they'll turn away their ears from the truth and they'll be turned into fables.
What's a fable?
It's just anything that's just made up.
It's just a story that's made up.
It's not based in truth.
It's not based in reality.
It's just a made up thing that people want to hear.
He says, but watch thou in all things.
Endure afflictions.
Do the work of an evangelist make full proof of thy ministry.
See in the Bible, there's a guy called the evangelist, right?
Just like there's a bishop and a deacon.
There's also the evangelist.
Now, the evangelist is a guy who brings the gospel into an area that's, you know, unevangelized,
right?
A place that needs the gospel.
So this is what we would today call a missionary, right?
Somebody who goes to a heathen place and brings the gospel.
Or like right here in Arizona, we've got the heathen Indian tribes where 80% of them don't
claim the name of Christ in most of these areas, right?
They need evangelism.
But that's not just one guy's job who's known as the evangelist, right?
Where that's his main function.
He's saying to a pastor, you do the work of an evangelist.
So pastors shouldn't get an attitude that says, oh, that's the evangelist's job.
Because God tells the pastor what?
Do the work of an evangelist.
The pastor needs to be a soul winner.
Not just, oh, that's for missions.
Or that's for the church members.
You know, they're to be sent out.
I'll send them out.
And then just kind of sit back and see what happens.
No, no, no.
We're all supposed to be involved in doing the work of an evangelist.
He says make full proof of thy ministry.
What does that mean?
Proof proving something.
We use the word prove to affirm that it's true with facts and evidence.
But actually proving in the Bible can often be testing something to make sure it's right.
So to prove all things means to test all things and make sure all things are correct.
So make full proof of thy ministry.
What is he saying?
You know, check every aspect of your ministry and make sure it's all there.
Make sure it's all right.
Make a full proof.
Don't have a ministry that's great in certain areas and then other areas it's falling apart.
Make full proof of thy ministry.
For I'm now ready to be offered, Paul says.
And the time of my departure is at hand.
He's talking about departing to be with Christ.
He's talking about death.
I fought a good fight.
I have finished my course.
I've kept the faith.
Henceforth there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day.
And not to me only, but unto all them also that love is appearing.
Connect verse 8 with verse 1.
Because remember, he's charging him by God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge
the quick and the dead is appearing in his kingdom.
And then he turns around and says, you know what?
I have finished my course.
I have made it all the way to the finish line and I know there is a crown waiting for me
at that day.
Jesus Christ will reward me on the judgment seat.
Look at verse number 9.
Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me.
For Demas hath forsaken me having loved this present world and has departed unto Thessalonica.
Can you imagine how Demas felt when he, you know, once he realized his name was in scripture
like this?
Because Demas at one time had been doing the right things.
But then he forsook Paul loving the present world and now, anybody have a kid named Demas?
I mean it's not a popular child's name because of the fact that, you know, the guy goes down
as the guy who loved the world so much and quit on the apostle Paul.
Crescents to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia, and we can only hope for the best with Crescents
and Titus that they just had a legitimate reason to go to those places and that they
weren't loving this present world and, you know, getting out of the fight.
But he says only Luke is with me.
That's the Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke and also wrote the book of Acts.
And when you're reading the book of Acts, you'll notice that when you get to a certain
point, instead of everything being in the third person, it starts saying we did this
and we did that.
Did you notice that?
Why?
Because that's Luke writing firsthand.
Hey, we went here, we went there because he was traveling with the apostle Paul toward
the end there.
So he says only Luke is with me.
Take Mark and bring him with thee for he is profitable to me for the ministry.
Now Mark was a guy that in the book of Acts, you can read about John Mark, he ended up
quitting on a missionary journey.
He got partway into a missionary journey and he quit and went home.
Well, on the next missionary journey, Barnabas wants to take him again.
And Paul says, I don't want to take that guy because last time he quit partway through,
you know, so I don't want to even bring him at all.
And Paul and Barnabas had a really sharp contention about this very angry fight, which shows that
even good godly preachers can sometimes not get along or have a fight and it doesn't mean
that they're bad people.
It's just that they're human, right?
So Paul and Barnabas have that fight.
Well, it ends up that Barnabas takes Mark and goes on his own missionary journey.
And then Paul ends up taking Silas instead.
And so, you know, maybe God just worked it out that way because maybe God just wanted
to get Silas more involved and maybe it was just better that they went two different directions,
they're hitting more cities that way.
Perhaps that was God's plan all along.
But either way, it just goes to show you how people are human and they, you know, they
have differences of opinion and conflicts.
But at least we see here that Paul's not holding a grudge because now he's saying, hey, Mark's
a good guy.
Bring Mark with you.
He's profitable to me for the ministry.
So we can only guess that Mark probably went on that journey with Barnabas.
He must have done a good job and didn't quit.
And so he lived it down.
And we should let people live things down, right?
If people have done wrong in the past, if they repent, if they get it right, let them
live it down.
Well, keep bringing it up.
Well, yeah.
But remember a couple of years ago, remember that whole situation with her or with him
or with whoever?
No, no, no.
I don't remember.
I forgot that.
I pushed that out of my mind because I don't want to hold grudges and be bitter.
I want to let people live things down, right?
Throw things in people's faces from the past that they've gotten right.
You know, when somebody gets something right, we should forgive and forget.
So that's a great example of Paul letting it go with Mark.
He says, take Mark and bring him with thee for he's profitable to me for the ministry
and Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus.
The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus when thou comest bring with thee and the books,
but especially the parchments.
Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.
The Lord reward him according to his works of whom be thou where also for he had greatly
withstood our words.
So here he's being warned.
Timothy is being warned about a bad guy.
Alexander the coppersmith, he's saying, look, this guy did me much evil.
The Lord reward him according to his works, but he didn't just leave it there because
he could have just stopped there.
He could have said, you know what, let me just get this off my chest.
Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.
The Lord reward him according to his works.
Nuts to that guy, right?
And this kind of reminds me because remember, this is a guy that's about to die.
He said the time of my departure is at hand.
This is his final letter to his young protege in the ministry.
This reminds me a little bit of David where he talks about some people who'd burned him
and he brings up Shimei, the Benjaminite, and he says, hey, you know, you need to deal
with that guy.
And so, you know, Paul's not just bringing this up randomly.
He tells him in the next verse, hey, beware of that guy.
Beware of him also for he had greatly withstood our words.
And let me tell you something, when there are people who hate our church or are trying
to harm our church or are enemies of our church or they've been thrown out of the church,
you know what, you should beware of those people.
You beware also.
You know, I could sit here and say, oh, man, these people did me much evil.
The Lord reward them according to their works.
But let me say to you, you beware of them also.
They greatly withstood our words.
And by the way, when somebody's thrown out of the church, it says, let them be as a heathen
man or as a publican unto you.
It doesn't say that they're your buddy.
And you say, oh, this sounds like a cult.
You're telling us not to be friends with certain people.
Well, don't be friends with the devil either.
Okay?
And you know what?
You can go be friends with those people all you want.
Why don't you go along with them too?
Maybe you can be a part of the cult that they're starting.
The oneness cult that denies the Trinity.
And you know what?
Don't fall into this junk of, no, they just have a different take on the Trinity.
Yeah, they have a take on the Trinity where they don't believe in it.
We just have this other take on the Trinity where there's not three persons in the Godhead.
We just have this other take on the Trinity where Jesus is God the Father and where the
name of God the Father is actually Jesus and where it's just different manifestations
or modes of one person, right?
I mean, it's a one-man band.
There's just a different take.
No, no.
That's not a different take.
That's rejecting the Trinity.
That's like saying, well, I just have a different take on the Trinity where Jesus isn't God.
I just have another take on the Trinity.
There's four of them or whatever.
No, you can't just teach oneness and say, well, that's what I call the Trinity because
after all these three are one, it's got one in it.
So you know, I just lean toward the one.
Look, the Trinity is the Trinity and oneness is oneness, okay?
And if you're going to sit there and say that there's no chain of command between the Father,
Son and the Holy Ghost which is just to deny clear scripture which shows that there's always
been a chain of command.
There was a chain of command when Jesus was on this earth and even after the millennium,
there's still going to be a chain of command.
If you don't believe that the Son follows the commandments of the Father and submits
and subjects Himself unto the Father, not because they're not equally God but because
of the fact that He is in obedience to the Father and that He does always those things
which please Him.
If you're going to deny that there's a chain of command in the Godhead, if you're going
to deny that we're talking about three distinct persons or entities and just say, oh, well,
you know, you're going to get up to heaven and see one guy, no, I'm going to get up to
heaven and you know what I'm going to see?
I'm going to see the glory of God the Father and I'm going to see Jesus seated at His right
hand.
That's what I'm going to see when I get to heaven.
Now when they get to the other place, I don't know what they're going to see down there.
They might only see one person down there because it only talks about them being tormented
in the presence of the Lamb.
You know, and it also talks about, you know, I guess wither shall I flee from my spirit
if I descend into hell, thou art there also, but you know what, I know that when born again
children of God get to heaven, they're going to see the glory of God the Father and they're
going to see Jesus at His right hand because they're not the same person.
There's one God that is composed of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
And these three are one God.
Three witnesses, one God.
And look, it's written in your law, the testimony of two men is true.
I'm one that beareth witness of myself and my Father beareth witness of me also.
That's not the same person, folks.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost collectively make up God, all right?
One God, three persons, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but
Jesus is not God the Father, He's God the Son.
And God the Holy Spirit is there as well.
And there's no blurring of the lines.
There's no fuzziness here.
That's what the Trinity teaches.
Now look, I realize there are people who still believe in the Trinity, who are a little confused
on certain aspects of the Trinity, or maybe their doctrine is a little weak on the Trinity,
I get that.
Maybe they're a little weak on the Trinity, maybe they're a little bit off on the Trinity,
or maybe they do a bad job of explaining the Trinity, and that doesn't make them a heretic,
right?
To not have a full understanding of this doctrine.
Believing in the Trinity is the milk of the word.
Fully grasping the Trinity is something that's a little meatier.
So I can understand people being a little off, a little mixed up, a little bit unclear
on certain aspects of this doctrine.
But let me tell you something, none of the people who we threw out of the church were
in that category.
I don't care what anybody says, every single one of them said, I believe what Tyler preached.
And you can hear it out of Tyler's own mouth.
Just fully rejecting the Trinity, saying, oh, I used to believe in the Trinity, I used
to believe in these three distinct persons, but now I just believe there's just one God
that's one person up on that, you're gonna get there, it's gonna be one guy, and he just
manifested in the name of the Father's Jesus, the name of the Holy Spirit's Jesus, and it's
his full-blown oneness, no chain of command, blah, blah, blah, look, folks, that's not
being a little mixed up.
That's being a heretic.
That's rejecting clear scripture.
And if people are a little mixed up, then you know what happens when people are a little
mixed up?
You show them clear scripture, and they fix it.
I mean, look, I believe that a person could be saved, and don't misunderstand me here,
I believe that a person could be saved and believe in evolution if they've never been
taught, if they've never seen Genesis 1, if they've never seen Genesis 2, and you just
walked up to them and taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ, they believed the gospel,
they received Christ as Savior, they could be saved and still believe in evolution.
But let me tell you something, as soon as you show them in the Bible Genesis 1 and Genesis
2, and you show them the timeline, and you show them people's ages, and you show them,
look, the world can't be millions of years old because it's right here in scripture where
it states, you know, if that person, if they say, well, I still believe in evolution, then
I would say that person's not saved.
Because if somebody rejects the biblical account of creation, I don't think they're saved.
Look, I don't think somebody's saved if they reject any part of the Bible.
When you're rejecting scripture, and I understand sometimes people could have a different interpretation
of scripture, but when you're just rejecting scripture, you're not saved.
And so that's what we need to understand, that distinction, that obviously when a person
gets saved, they're not going to know all the doctrine.
But when you show somebody who's saved clear doctrine, they're going to receive it.
They're not just going to say, well, I don't care what that says, or, well, here's what
I believe, and it just shows a complete lack of understanding of what they were just showing.
Now look, I'm not talking about Bible prophecy.
I'm not talking about things in the Bible that are open to interpretation.
I'm not talking about minor things here, folks.
I'm talking about big things.
And I'd say that whether or not everything brings forth after its own kind or whether
we evolve from monkeys, that's a pretty big thing.
And if somebody's going to reject that teaching of the Bible and say that God picked a certain
ape and breathed into him and he became Adam, that person's not saved.
That's overboard.
Or if somebody's going to sit there and deny the deity of Christ, they're going to deny
the Trinity.
They're going to deny just clear, basic, plain as the nose on your face, biblical doctrine.
Something's wrong with that picture, because he that is of God heareth God's words, and
you therefore hear them not because you're not of God, and hereby know we the spirit
of God.
Everyone that is of God heareth us, and he that is not of God heareth not us, and thereby
know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
We're not talking about opinions on Bible prophecy.
That's all future.
We see through a glass darkly sometimes.
We're not talking about their political views.
We're not talking about Israel.
I'm talking about stuff that is foundational and fundamental to our beliefs and our faith.
If somebody sits there and says, hey, I don't believe hell is eternal, and we show them
all the scripture on hell being eternal, I still don't believe in hell.
That person's not saved.
You know what I mean?
When they're denying clear scripture.
The Bible said here, Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.
The Lord reward him according to his works, but he doesn't stop there.
He says, of whom be thou where also?
For he hath greatly withstood our words.
If any of these people were a little confused, why did they hide their false doctrine and
go sneak around with it?
Number one, why don't they come to me?
I'll clear it up for them.
If they're just a little confused, then how come after all the crystal clear preaching
that came from this pulpit, they're still confused because they don't want to learn.
They don't want to get it right.
They don't want to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And so they are founding, I don't know which ones of them for sure, but they are founding
a church in Jacksonville, Florida apparently still.
And let me tell you this, it's going to be a cult.
It's a cult.
When you go out and start a church that believes something unlike anybody else is teaching
in the Christian world, that's how cults get started.
Every Baptist church believes in the Trinity.
Every Southern Baptist, every Independent Baptist, every Evangelical church believes
in the Trinity.
And you're going to borrow this heresy from a bunch of tongue-talking baptismal regeneration,
oneness Pentecostals, and borrow that and say, oh, we're going to merge that with being
a Baptist.
You are starting a cult.
Because the Holy Spirit doesn't just lead you into things that nobody else is being
led into.
Why didn't I get led into that?
Why didn't any of the rest of us here tonight get led into that?
How come 18,000 Southern Baptists didn't get led into that?
How come 6,000 plus King James only Independent Fundamental Baptists, how come none of them
are being led into this?
I'll tell you why, because we don't have that devil that's messing with us and seducing
us like that.
We have the Holy Spirit guiding us into all truth.
Beware of these people.
They've greatly withstood our words.
They've done evil.
They go out of here, and they attack us, and lie about us, and you want to be their buddy.
Well, you know what?
Just ask yourself whether you think that's right.
Because you know what?
I wouldn't want to be buddies with anybody who hates our church or is an enemy of our
church.
I wouldn't want to be buddies with that person.
Say, oh, you're ostracizing them.
You got it right.
That's called throwing somebody out of the church.
What do you think it means to throw somebody out of the church?
Well, they just can't sit here with us.
They can just live stream every sermon, and then we go hang out with them.
No, they're thrown out.
If there was a way I could cut the connection, I would, so that they don't even deserve to
hear these sermons.
They're listening right now, and they don't even deserve it, because I don't want to cast
my pearls before swine.
Let's keep reading.
I'm glad I got that off my chest.
Now withstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.
I'm sorry.
Go back to verse 16.
In my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.
I pray, God, that it may not be laid to their charge.
See, people who forsook him in the past, but they got it right, he's saying, God, forgive
those people.
Let them live it down, right?
People who got it right.
Let them live it down.
He's not saying that they forsook him now.
He's saying that my first answer, they forsook me.
But you know what?
I pray to God that it may not be laid to their charge.
Now withstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching
might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the
mouth of the lion, and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve
me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen.
You know, it's interesting that all my life I've heard this story, but I believe it's
a fable that the Apostle Paul was beheaded by Nero.
Have you heard that one?
That's what I've been taught my whole life, that the Apostle Paul died a martyr's death.
He's beheaded by Nero.
But that's not what the Bible teaches, because at the end of the book of Acts, it ends with
Paul living in prosperity.
He's on house arrest, but he's allowed to preach every day and have his friends come
visit him.
And it says that he continued that way for two years, preaching and doing all this.
And then the last words are, no man forbidding him.
That sounds pretty good.
Two years of deserving God, no man forbidding him.
Now wouldn't it be kind of weird if right after that he got his head cut off?
Oh, oh, wait, whoops, we forgot to mention one thing, then he got his head cut off.
It ends on a positive note.
I believe that at the end of those two years, he passed away of natural causes.
Now why do I say that?
Because what does the Bible say right here?
He said he's about to die.
The time of his departure is at hand.
He's fought a good fight.
He's ready to meet the Lord.
And what does he say?
He says, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion, and the Lord shall deliver me
from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to him be glory
forever and ever.
Wouldn't it be kind of weird if he was saying like, you know what, I was delivered out of
the mouth of the lion, and instead I'm getting my head cut off tomorrow.
He knows he's about to die.
So if he was going to die a martyr's death, that means he knows he's about to have his
head chopped off.
Does this sound like a guy who knows that he's about to have his head chopped off?
The Lord's going to deliver me out of every evil work.
I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
Obviously he didn't die a martyr's death.
You know, it's a great story, but it's not in the Bible.
I believe it's pretty clear here that when he says the time of my departure is at hand,
he feels his life slipping away.
He's on his death bed.
He's dying.
He's an old man.
God delivered him from the mouth of the lion.
There was a chance, because he was delivered unto Caesar, there was a chance he could have
been thrown to the lion, but God delivered him out of the mouth of the lion.
And so I believe that he died of natural causes.
I think that's what all the evidence in the Bible points to, and if I'm missing something,
you know, see me after the service, but it looks pretty clear to me.
He said in verse 19, salute Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus, and then
he goes through some other greetings, Erastus, Abodic, Corinth, Petrophemus, have I left
him?
I lead him sick.
Do thy diligence to come before winter, Eubulus, Greetethi, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all
the brethren.
One quick thing to point out, all these movers and shakers that Paul refers to, did you notice
one thing they all have in common?
They all have Greek names.
You notice that?
He didn't say, hey, you know, greet Slomo.
Greet Brother Goldstein, you know, but I'm saying, even if they don't even have Old Testament
biblical, he's not saying, hey, greet Benjamin, greet Elijah, greet Judah, greet Simeon.
You know, what's he saying?
He's saying, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, right, Eubulus, Trophimus, Tychicus.
These people are, a lot of them, Greek, so don't ever buy into this lie of, oh, most
of the early Christians are Jews.
Nope, wrong.
Most of the early Christians are Gentiles because the Gentiles were the more receptive.
Jews got saved also, but the Gentiles were more receptive, so they got a lot more people
saved and a lot of the guys that were right there with, and even the villains in this,
Alexander is a Greek name.
So the villains in these Epistles, and it's not just Paul.
When John writes, who's the good guy, Demetrius, right?
Who's the bad guy, Diotrophes, so, you know, all the players are Greek.
So don't buy into this lie that it's all, it's all Jews.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.