Fill him with your spirit so that he can teach us and edify us tonight, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Man, it's great to be here once again at Steadfast Baptist Church in Jacksonville.
I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is.
And so it's great to be here. It's great to see the faithful members here that are serving the Lord.
And keep it up. And be not weary in well-doing. In due season we shall reap if we faint not.
Now, the title of my sermon tonight is, What Defines Good Preaching?
What defines good preaching? And what I want to do tonight is preach a sermon about how to become a better preacher.
Now, I know we've got a lot of preachers here. And there are a lot of guys here who preach on a regular basis.
And so I hope that this would be helpful to you that are the preachers here.
And also to other young men in the church who are maybe going to be the preachers of tomorrow.
Maybe even little boys and children here one day that are going to be another generation of fire-breathing preachers.
Daniel just showed up. Amen. Alright. So, now we can get started.
So, I just, I always like to pick on him and embarrass him. I'm just kidding.
But anyway, so here's the thing about this. Let's say you're here tonight and you're not a preacher. Alright.
You say, well, I think I'm just going to kind of tune out and think about that Chinese food for a while.
But even if you're not a preacher tonight, I think you can benefit from this sermon just for a couple of reasons.
First of all, number one, when you're in college, they offer a class called Music Appreciation Class.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
And you go to a music appreciation class and you learn about music not because you're going to play music,
but just so that you will actually have a discerning ear when you listen to music.
You kind of know what to listen for and you can have a greater appreciation for it. Okay.
So, consider this like a preaching appreciation class. Okay.
Where you can actually learn how to listen to preaching and what to look for in preaching.
Because if you become a preaching connoisseur, then you will seek out a church like this and not a bogus church down the street. Amen.
Because you want to be a connoisseur. The word connoisseur, who here speaks Spanish?
You know the word conocer, right? Well, conocer is just like connoisseur.
It means you know what is good preaching and you know what is not good preaching.
You know what is right. You know what is not right. And that's a pretty good thing to know.
Because the Bible talks about when the preacher gets up to preach, according to 1 Corinthians 14, it says,
let the preachers preach, let the prophets prophesy two or three and let the other judge.
You know, we're obviously not to just be a passive listener when we're in church,
but we're to be an active listener where we're looking things up in our Bible.
And then we go home and search the scripture daily whether these things are so.
We receive the word with readiness of mind, but we also are not just a passive listener.
Just, well, whatever the preacher says, you know, we're going to listen.
We're going to think about it. We're going to comprehend it. We're going to test it with scripture. Amen.
So let me get into some points here about preaching. Preaching is difficult.
Preaching is not easy. Preaching is not something that you learn how to do overnight.
Okay. So it takes a lot of work.
And I hope that these teachings from Ecclesiastes 12 will help you because Ecclesiastes at the front of the book,
it even says in my Bible, at least Ecclesiastes or the preacher to say that in your Bible as the title of the book,
the preacher, that's actually what Ecclesiastes means.
Means we've all heard the term Ecclesia or Iglesia right in Spanish.
Well, Iglesia, this is the guy who's basically speaking in the Iglesia.
All right. Ecclesiastes or the preacher as it defines it for you there.
So let's start out in verse number nine. I'm going to give you six points on preaching and how to be a good preacher.
And what defines good preaching. Verse number nine says this.
And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge.
Yet he gave good heed and sought out and set in order many Proverbs.
Point number one is that the preacher must continually be learning.
He must continually be learning. That's why the Bible says here the preacher was wise.
Okay. In order to be a good preacher, you got to be wise.
I mean, you got to know the Bible. You have to know the material.
You have to understand the Bible. And it says because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge that he has himself, of course.
And then it says, yeah, he gave good heed and sought out and set in order many Proverbs.
He sought information. He sought wisdom. He sought learning.
He went on a quest and was constantly looking for truth so that he could then deliver that truth to the people.
But not only did he go on this quest to seek for knowledge, it also says he gave good heed.
What does it mean to give good heed? It means he listened. He paid attention.
Okay. Now flip back if you would to Proverbs chapter one.
Proverbs chapter one, I'm talking about how to be a good preacher, how to preach well, how to improve your preaching.
What defines good preaching? Well, a good preacher is continually learning. He's a lifelong learner.
He doesn't just go to Bible college for four years, get trained, put the degree on the wall and say, all right, now I've got this knowledge.
I'm going to spend the rest of my life dispensing the knowledge that I already have. Wrong.
The true preacher is a lifelong learner. He's continually learning.
Look what the Bible says in verse number two of Proverbs chapter one.
To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice and judgment and equity,
to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. Watch verse five.
A wise man will hear. He's going to listen, right? He's going to take good heed.
A wise man will hear and will increase learning. He'll increase learning and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.
So he's increasing learning and he's also learning from other teachers. He's listening to what other people have to say.
He's listening to advice. He's listening to training and instruction from others. He's seeking knowledge.
The Bible says to understand a proverb, verse six, and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
It's a fool who despises learning. Now, I just don't really like to learn new things.
You're a fool. Learn, grow in wisdom, grow in understanding, grow in knowledge.
Seek it like you would seek for a hid treasure, the Bible says, because wisdom is more precious than rubies.
We need to be learning all the time. And if you're not learning, you are losing knowledge and you're becoming dumb.
If you go weak and you don't learn anything, you don't read anything, you don't study anything, you're not in your Bible, you're not listening to teaching,
you know what's going to happen? You're going to know less at the end of that week than at the beginning of that week.
You can't just stay locked in at a certain level of knowledge or understanding or knowledge.
You're either getting more or you're going dumber. I mean, you're either gaining or losing.
There's no such thing as being static in life. Nothing in life. I mean, think about it.
It's just like with anything else. You go to the gym and you work out, you're getting stronger.
You stop working out. You just stay the same? Oh, well, I mean, I haven't done a bench press in three years, but I mean, I'm sure I can do the same I did three years ago.
I mean, why would it change? Because you're atrophying.
OK, so the true preacher is a lifelong learner. In order to be a good preacher, you have to be one who loves to learn.
You have to love reading the Bible. If you don't love reading the Bible, if you don't love listening to preaching,
if you don't love learning new things and studying and growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
you're not going to be a good preacher. You're going to preach shallow messages because you're not learning new things.
You're going to become a broken record where it says week after week, month after month, year after year,
you're just saying the same things over and over again because you're not learning anything new.
Now, let me just say a word of caution. If you would go back to Ecclesiastes 12, of course, here is a word of caution.
Don't say, oh, well, Pastor Anderson said I got to keep learning, so I'm just going to get up and preach something new all the time and come up with all these wild doctrines.
Here's the thing. If you actually put in the hours and hours and hours of true study,
you'll have all kinds of wonderful things to teach that are actually sure things, right things, certainties, right?
But a lot of people, what they want to do is take a shortcut to this. They don't want to do the study.
They don't truly love learning in their heart. They don't love instruction. They don't give good heed. They don't attain unto wise counsel.
And so what they do is they try to simulate this by just getting up and preaching exotic and wild things.
Look, if you actually study your Bible, you'll find enough good, concrete, right things to preach
without having to go chop up some wild gourd into the stew and throw that thing in there and poison the whole pot. Amen?
Don't preach that which is wild and exotic. Don't be carried about with every wind of doctrine.
But we should rather dig deep into the well of God's Word and get some of that cool, fresh, clean water of the Word.
And that's what we ought to preach. Amen?
You have to really truly love learning and you say, well, that's not me. Well, then you have no business preaching.
Because why would we want to listen to somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about?
That's the blind leading the blind. Last thing we need is another preacher who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Let's go to verse 10. So that's what we derived from verse 9 where the Bible said,
Moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge,
yet he gave good heed and sought out and said in order of many proverbs.
Verse 10. The preacher sought, and I don't want you to be confused by the word sought.
It's the past tense of the word seek. It means he looked for, diligently looked for, searched for, was on a quest for.
The preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
So point number two about good preaching is that good preaching is true. It's the words of truth, right?
One of the most important things about being a preacher is that you make sure that everything that you preach is actually right,
that everything is actually true. Here's a good rule of thumb, preachers. When in doubt, throw it out.
If you're not sure if a point is biblical, don't preach it, because you're just going to be kicking yourself later when you realize that you were wrong.
And there are so many wonderful teachings in the word of God that we can be 100% sure about,
and we don't have to wonder if they're right, that we don't have to just have these strange exotic stretching of a passage,
and I think that I might know what this means.
And you know, I'm constantly getting phone calls from preachers who call me up and say,
hey, I think I know what this passage means, but I'm not really sure. I want to run it by you.
And here's what I always say. I always say, well, you know, I think you might be on the right track with that,
but you probably shouldn't preach that because you're not sure, and I'm not sure.
You know, why preach something if you're not sure when there's so much good stuff that you can be 100% on?
And the temptation's there to be puffed up and want to get up, and you've solved all the mysteries of the universe,
and you've got all these exotic interpretations to difficult passages that nobody's ever been able to figure out yet,
and you're going to utter things which have been kept secret since the foundation of the world.
But you know what? What people need is to be fed from the word of God.
And look, I'm not saying just preach things that are ultra simple or ultra, you know, we've heard it all before.
No, that's where point one comes in, where you actually dig in and you learn and you learn and you learn.
Well, you'll find all kinds of great things right there on the surface of the Bible that haven't even been touched yet.
1189 chapters in the Bible. How long has this church been around? We're celebrating the anniversary, right?
So how many sermons have been preached in this church? Around 300 or something?
Okay, and I guarantee you a lot of chapters were repeated during that time, and yet there's 1189 chapters in the Bible.
And I'm sure there are many, many, many things right on the surface of the Bible that haven't been touched, that haven't been preached.
It's all right there, but you've got to be willing to go through the work to find it all, and find the real stuff,
and preach things that are true. Preach things that are right, not things that are questionable.
If they're questionable, take a step back. Take a hundred steps back. Take a thousand steps back, okay?
Just wait. There's no rush to roll out your wild new doctrine.
Make sure that what you preach is right, and the constant study and learning of point one will help you not to make the mistake in point two of preaching things that aren't true.
Let's move on to the third point. Look at verse number 11.
The words of the wise are as goads and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies which are given from one shepherd.
Now that's a pretty powerful verse. I'm actually going to derive three points from this verse, all right?
So half of my points are coming just from verse 11. The words of the wise are as goads.
That right there deserves its own point, all right? So let's just stop right there.
The words of the wise are as goads, and we're talking about preachers. We're talking about the wise man who preaches specifically.
What is a goad? A goad is a sharp stick that you poke someone with.
Now, no, you don't poke someone with it. You poke an animal with it, all right?
But anyway, you know, you take a sharp stick, and you poke it into an animal, and it makes it go forward, right?
Because it got stabbed with a sharp stick. So the Bible is using this illustration that preaching should be like a sharp stick, okay?
That when it pokes you, you move. You do something, right?
So the point that I want to make with this is that whenever you preach, you should preach to motivate a specific action.
So basically there should be a clear message in the preaching of this is what I'm supposed to do.
Here's what I'm supposed to go do now, right?
So when you get up and preach, you want to make sure that it's a sharp stick that you're using.
This is where the hard preaching comes in, right?
And we want to make sure that it's poking somebody to go in a certain direction and do a certain thing.
You see, I remember talking to my friend Pastor Roger Jimenez like 18 years ago.
You know, we were just a couple of young guys, and we had almost no experience preaching.
He was like 16 years old. I was like 20 years old.
You know, when young guys get together in church and they talk about things,
and we were philosophizing about preaching and about what we like in preaching.
Because he and I, we used to exchange preaching tapes.
Tapes, all right? Cassettes for preaching.
So I had my preaching tapes, and he had his preaching tapes.
We were constantly trading preaching tapes and going back and forth.
Oh, man, you've got to hear this sermon. You've got to hear this sermon.
So this is, you know, the way our early friendship was 18 years ago.
And I remember sitting down with him, and we were talking about, you know, what makes for good preaching?
Like, what is the difference between sermons that we like and sermons that we don't like?
And what is the difference between hard preaching and watered-down preaching?
And the answer that we came up with, I don't know who came up with this, probably him,
but we both kind of came up with this answer that, you know, hard preaching is actually specific,
whereas watered-down preaching will sometimes make the same points but just be really vague.
That's what a watered-down sermon is. That's what dull preaching is.
The sharp goad isn't just this kind of vague, broad...
It kind of homes in to that sharp point of exactly what is being rebuked.
So let me give you some examples of this, because point number one was the preacher must continue learning.
You've got to keep growing in knowledge.
Number two, the preacher's got to make sure he's preaching what's right.
It better be true. You don't want to get up and lead people astray.
But point number three, you need to preach to motivate a specific action.
So let me give you some examples. Here's the vague preaching.
Keep God number one.
And I remember when I was in liberal churches, I heard that a thousand times.
Who's ever been to a liberal church that's just like, put God first, keep God number one.
What does that even mean? I mean, it means a lot of things, but they're not telling us what that means.
Now, I can think of a lot of ways that you can keep God number one or put God number one,
seek first the kingdom of God.
See, hard preaching actually provokes a specific action.
It actually tells you what to do.
And I remember being so frustrated sitting in the liberal church.
I remember just sitting there and hearing all this preaching.
Serve God, serve God, serve God, put him first, keep God number one.
I'm just like, I want to. What do I do?
It's like, what do I do? What's the next step? I don't know what to do.
It's like, man, I want to serve God. I want to put God first. I want to keep God number one. What do I do?
And as long as I even walk up to the pastor or the youth leader, hey, can you just point me in the right direction?
Can you just show me where to serve God? Oh, well, we don't really have anything for you to do right now.
What do I do? Where do I sign up? And they don't even have anything for you to do.
They don't even have enough for them to do.
It reminds me of my sister. She got a government job one time. She was working for the state.
And she would walk around. She said, sometimes I would just get so bored that I would want to work.
Because in this government job, I'm just sitting at my desk, I'm just fooling around.
Sometimes I longed for work. And she said, she literally walked up to a desk of another worker and said,
hey, do you have anything for me to do? And she said, nope, we're just as bored as you are.
But folks, that's how it is at a lot of churches.
You go to the pastor, you go to the leaders and say, hey, is there any work to be done?
Well, we're just as bored as you are. Hey, at Step Fast Baptist Church, there's a way, a concrete way,
for you to actually get involved in soul winning. It's something everybody can get involved in.
And it's not like you're being given some job of just like, go clean the toilet.
You're actually getting to do the big job. I mean, soul winning is a big, important job.
It's a great job, right? You're actually doing the most important job.
So isn't that cool that everybody gets to be involved in the most important job?
Everybody gets that opportunity to get out there and do soul winning.
I remember asking my youth leader as a teenager to take me out soul winning.
I didn't know that it was called soul winning, but I asked him to take me out and evangelize,
and he wouldn't take me because he didn't know how to do it.
He didn't know, you know, so he just kind of hemmed and hawed and beat around the bush.
And so I never got to go soul winning until later when I got into an independent, fundamental Baptist church.
But I wanted to go soul winning, but nobody was goading me in the right direction.
Nobody was poking me and saying, hey, giving me that prodding of, here's what you do.
You go out and you knock doors and you win people to Christ. There's something to do.
You know, or what about other kind of preaching?
Because not all preaching is just to motivate us to go to church, go soul winning, pray, read your Bible.
Those are the positive things we should be doing, right?
We should be reading our Bible every day. We should be praying. We should be going to church.
We should be preaching the gospel to every creature.
What about all the negative preaching that needs to be done?
The preaching that gets up and says, hey, fornication is wicked. It's filthy.
And then they'll explain to you, hey, this is what fornication is.
It's going to bed with somebody that you're not married to.
It's wicked. It's filthy. God killed 23,000 people in one day.
Hey, that's the kind of hard preaching we need, not just a preaching that says, hey, let's just be moral.
Let's not get into immorality, folks.
Let's not be sexually immoral, like the NIV says.
Or like a lot of preachers will say, just a vague thing.
What does that mean exactly? Not to be immoral, not to be involved in immorality.
Well, that could mean whatever people want it to mean.
That could just mean, well, you don't really love each other.
You know what I mean? Just some kind of twist. No, no, no.
If it's outside of marriage, it's sin.
The Bible calls it unclean, and it's wicked, and God has severe punishments for people who go out and indulge in that lifestyle of being a whore or a whoremonger.
Hard preaching tells you exactly what the sins are.
Hey, they'll tell you, hey, don't drink. Don't take drugs.
You don't fornicate. Don't tattoo your body.
Don't go out and party at these clubs.
People say, well, that's going to offend people.
Well, it's kind of like getting poked with a sharp stick.
When you're sitting there and the pastor hits on your TV show, the pastor hits on the movie that you like,
the pastor hits on the clothing, the inappropriate clothing that you tend to wear or that you let your wife wear or let your daughters wear,
and when he hits on that point, whether it be the clothing that you're into, he hits on your music,
he hits on your TV show, he hits on your pet sin, whether it's the fact that you're a smoker or drinking, pot, pornography, whatever it is,
hey, of course there's going to be a sting when that sharp stick hits you, but you know what?
It's going to get you moving in the right direction.
Hard preaching works.
When you come to church and you hear the preacher preach hard against your sin and he turns to a scripture that just nails your sin,
that just spells it out, you know what that does?
That actually gets you right with God, and you actually end up saying, okay, I know what to do.
I need to stop doing this sin. I need to get this out of my life. I need to grow in this area or that.
So good preaching is like a goad in that it calls you or motivates you to a specific action.
So, therefore, when you're preaching, have a point. Have a point, right?
And no pun intended, right? Have a point.
What does it mean to have a point?
It means you're not just getting up and just rambling like the LA Times accused me of doing or whoever that article was.
They were trying to just criticize us in every possible way.
They said, Pastor Anderson preached a rambling sermon.
That really hurt, you know?
The LA Times thinks that I rambled. I felt like that was kind of a rambling article, but again, that's another.
I don't want to go there.
But anyway, the point is that have a point.
Look, everybody should walk out and know exactly what the sermon was about.
I remember when we would have the preaching class at our church and I would come home
and my wife would ask me, who was there and what did they preach?
She was just curious.
And some people, I'm like, oh yeah, he preached on this. Oh, he preached on this.
And then some people, I'm like, what?
I don't know. I can't remember what he preached.
There probably wasn't much of a point there.
You know, if there's a point, people typically know what the sermon was about
because there's a clear point of like, look, folks, I'm trying to accomplish a certain goal with this sermon.
That goal could be to get people not to fornicate, to get people not to drink, to get people off drugs,
to get people not to commit adultery, to get people to stay married and not get divorced.
Whatever the point is, get people to read their Bible, to get people to pray, to get people to go to church.
I'm trying to get people off so many. What am I trying to do with this sermon?
Hey, I'm trying to help people become a better preacher and I'm trying to help the church member
to become more discerning of what preaching is and isn't, what to listen for.
It's a preaching appreciation class to help you understand what constitutes good preaching
and so that you can get the most out of preaching when you listen to it,
sort of like the class to teach you how to get something out of music when you listen to it.
So number three is preach to motivate a specific action. Point four also comes from verse 11.
Look down at your Bible there in verse 11.
The words of the wise are as goads and as nails. Another nice sharp illustration there. Pointy, sharp illustration.
He says they're as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
Now, what are the masters of assemblies? Well, again, this is where the book derives its title from.
The preacher is that master of the assembly or the Iglesia, the church. He's the master of the church.
Now, obviously, this is not in violation of Christ's command. We're not going to actually call him,
like, hello, master, because that's a title that we're not supposed to have. Amen?
We should never be called rabbi. We should never be called father. We should never be called master.
These are religious titles that are off limits.
Paul still used an illustration where he said, hey, you have many instructors in Christ, but you don't have many fathers.
I begat you. So he's using an illustration where he said, I'm like a father to you.
But he didn't go around and be called Father Paul. That's wrong.
But what the Bible is saying here when it says masters of assemblies, it's basically like our modern word, master of ceremonies.
So let's say you go to a wedding and you have the master of ceremonies. What's he doing?
He calls everybody to order. All right, everybody, let's gather around. Okay, now they're going to cut the cake.
All right, now that's the master of ceremonies shortened to MC.
So this is similar to that, the master of assemblies. Basically, it's just the guy who's running the assembly.
He's the guy who's running it. He's the guy who gets up and preaches and runs the service.
So even if you're not a pastor, you still may end up being the master of an assembly at some point where you're basically the guy who's running the service.
You know, where you're up there. You know, MC Theo. Right? I mean, that's, you know, that might even stick at Nate.
No, I'm just kidding. You know, MC Ben the Baptist. You know, I mean, that has a ring to it.
No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, the point is, you know, when the Bible says here there as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, here's what he's saying you should do when you're preaching.
Here's what the preacher should do when he's running that assembly, when he's, you know, in the church leading the congregation.
Here's what he should do. He should be fastening nails. So he should be goading people, getting them to do a specific action.
But he should also have a spiritual hammer in his hand and be fastening nails. And the Bible says that the word of God is like a hammer in the book of Jeremiah.
And he should be fastening nails. What do I mean by that? Nail things down. So when I'm up here preaching, I want to nail things down.
What does it mean to nail things down? Well, I like what it says in the book of Daniel that Daniel was a dissolver of doubts.
He was a dissolver of doubts. What does that mean? That means when Daniel spoke the word of God, when Daniel preached the word of God, people didn't walk away with doubts.
They walked away with certainty. They didn't walk away wondering and having more questions than answers. They walked away with answers. Nail things down.
So when you're not goading people to a specific action, like, hey, let's get you out soul winning, or hey, let's get you out of fornication.
Hey, let's get you off the bottle. You know, let's get you off the drugs. And you laugh at that, but you know what?
Would it really shock you if somebody in this room is taking drugs? Because, you know, it wouldn't shock me at all, because I've been in the ministry now for like 13 and a half years.
And let me tell you something. You think, like, nobody in my church would ever do drugs. Nobody's looking at pornography. Nobody's drunk. You don't always do it. Nobody's...
Oh, it's out there, folks. That's why we got to keep on nailing things down and keep out the goat and keep poking people, because you don't know what sins are out there.
You know, everybody puts on their Sunday best, but guess what? All of sinning comes from the glory of God. So there are sins out there, right?
So if I'm not goading somebody to a specific action, the other thing I want to be doing is nailing down a doctrine, right?
You know, because what happens if we don't nail things down? They get loose, right? They start to get loose. They start to rattle.
They start to slide around a little bit, and they need to be nailed down. They need to be fastened, right?
Look at the first four letters of that word, fastened, in verse 11. Fast. To be fast, it's like to be held fast. To be steadfast.
So anyway, you know, steadfast. To be steadfastened. Amen? You want things to be nailed down.
Because the Bible says, let us therefore give the more earnest heed to the things which we've heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
So we don't want to let the doctrine on the Trinity slip. We don't want to let the doctrines on salvation slip, right?
We don't want to let the doctrines on the inspiration of the word of God slip, so we constantly have to nail down those doctrines, you know?
Nail down the doctrine on creation. Nail down the doctrine on the virgin birth. Nail down the doctrine on the Jews, or Christians, and Israel, or just whatever the doctrine.
That stuff is going to slip. And you know what? You never know what's going to be the next thing that comes unhinged, or slips, or comes loose.
So let's just hit every nail every year. You know what I mean? Just constantly just hit every nail. Just nail things down.
And you know what? Good preaching nails things down and gets up and preaches, thus saith the Lord, not just, well, I mean, here's what a lot of good men believe.
You know, a lot of good men think this, and you know, it's a pretty good theory, and you know.
And again, this goes back to point one. Know what you're talking about. Point two. Make sure what you're preaching is true.
Look, if you have done points one and two, and you know that what you're preaching is true because you've done the learning, because you've done the study,
then you should be able to get up and say, this is the truth, period. Let me prove it to you beyond any shadow of a doubt.
You know, and don't just say, hey, it's true, believe me, because I said so. Hey, prove it from the word of God.
Take the hammer of God's word and nail that thing down. Beat that nail in so deep that people will walk out and say, case closed.
That was airtight. That was rock solid. I mean, there's no way anybody who believes the Bible is going to disagree with that sermon,
because there was so much evidence, so much scripture, it was so clear, but I have no doubt now.
Maybe I had a little doubt before about that particular doctrine. I don't have any doubt now. Why?
Because the preacher dissolved my doubt, and he fastened that doctrine down with a nail. Now I'm sure.
Case closed. That's not even something that is going to need to be revisited for a long time in my life, because he really nailed that sucker down.
That's good preaching, amen, when somebody nails it down. Look at Luke chapter one. Keep your finger in Ecclesiastes 12.
That's where we're going to keep coming back. Luke chapter one, I like this verse at the beginning of Luke.
We're just going to start at the very beginning of the Gospel of Luke. Luke 1, verse 1.
And the Bible reads in Luke 1, 1, for as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things,
which are most surely believed among us. So he's saying, look, a lot of people have sat down and they wanted to write down an account of the things that we believe about Jesus Christ.
They wanted to write down his life story. They wanted to write down his teachings. They wanted to write down his miracles.
They wanted to pass that stuff on to the next generation. He said, you know, many people have set out to do that.
Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also,
having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,
that thou mightest, watch this, this is the part I like, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou has been instructed.
So here's Luke saying, look, we already believe all this stuff. We most surely believe these things according to verse 1, right?
Look Theophilus, I know you believe the Bible. I believe the Bible. You believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus.
You believe in his miracles, his teachings, his sayings, and his death, burial, and resurrection. But he said, you know what?
I want you to know the certainty. I want you to know the certainty of those things wherein thou has been instructed.
I don't want doubt to enter in later. I want you to be sure of these things, knowing of whom thou has learned them, as Paul said to Timothy.
I want you to know the certainty. And you know what? That's what a preacher does. He gets up and he wants you to know how certain our faith is,
what rock we stand on, how we know whom we have believed, and we are persuaded that he's able to keep that which we've committed unto him against that day.
We are without a doubt on these things, right? So we want to make people sure of salvation,
these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
We want to make sure people are sure that they're saved, that they're sure that they have the right Bible.
I don't want somebody to just have a King James Bible. I want them to be sure that it's the right Bible, to know that it's the right Bible,
to walk out of a sermon on the King James. Boy, that's something that needs to be nailed from time to time.
I want them to walk out of that King James sermon and say, man, I know what the right Bible is. Doubt is gone.
King James. Okay, this is what we need out of preaching. We need it to nail things down.
And then go back to Ecclesiastes 12. I'll give you the fifth point. Quick review.
Number one, the preacher's got to keep on learning, keep being instructed, keep growing in knowledge.
Number two, he better make sure that what he preaches is right, and those two go hand in hand.
Number three, he needs to preach to motivate a specific action, right? That ox goad illustration.
Number four, he needs to nail things down and dissolve doubts. Why?
Because the words of the wise, verse 11, are as goads and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies,
which are given from one shepherd. That's the other part of the verse that I haven't dealt with yet.
These nails that are fastened by the masters of assemblies are given from one shepherd.
So the nail came from Jesus. The nail came from, because he's the good shepherd, isn't he?
Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep. The nails came from one shepherd.
We're just the masters of assemblies here, but the real true shepherd is Jesus, right?
We're the under shepherd, and he's the over shepherd, right? He's the head of the church.
We work for him. We are his assistants. We serve him and help him as pastors.
Or even if you're not a pastor, if you're the guy who's called upon, hey, run the service, right?
Run that service. Preach that sermon, right? Well then, at that point, you're being deputized to do a job of fastening nails.
But where do the nails come from? The nails come from one shepherd.
So don't bring your own nails. Use the nails that Jesus gives us.
So how do we use the nails that come from one shepherd? We use the word of God.
So what is the nail that's going to hammer down a doctrine? Is it logic?
Is it human logic where, well, that's just an impeccable argument from logic,
therefore I'm convinced that Jesus must truly be the son of God. Logic proves it.
No, what's going to prove to us that Jesus is the son of God but the word of God?
So what is it that fastens down our doctrine on the Trinity versus about the Trinity?
What is it that fastens our doctrine on salvation versus about salvation?
What is it that fastens our doctrine that, hey, fornication's a sin, it's always wrong?
What fastens our doctrine against adultery or divorce? What is it? It's the word of God.
It all comes from one shepherd. Here's the shepherd right here, right?
This written word right here, Jesus Christ is the embodiment of this written word.
Jesus is the word. The word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And so what we see here is that when it says that the nails that are fastened come from one shepherd,
we know who that one shepherd is. That one shepherd is Jesus.
And how does Jesus deliver those nails to us? He delivers us his word.
We have the mind of Christ. We have the word of God. We have the words of Christ.
And so that is what we need. So point number five is when you preach, use the word.
Use the Bible. Boy, I can't emphasize this enough. Preach the word, Timothy.
Now, this is where the old IFB went wrong. This is where they went wrong.
Now, they went wrong in multiple areas. And look, I'm not saying that I don't do anything wrong,
that other pastors that I'm friends with don't do things wrong.
We're all human. We do our best. We study the Bible. And we keep learning.
We keep growing. And we teach the people. And we seek knowledge. Nobody's perfect.
But let me tell you something. We can, in hindsight, easily look back at the old IFB.
Now, from where we're standing in 2019, we can look at the old IFB and we can kind of see how they ended up.
And it's pretty easy to identify one of the major problems with that movement was not using the Bible when they preach.
I mean, it's pretty hard to argue with that, folks. And look, who is probably the most famous preacher of the old IFB
or the most influential or maybe even the most influential preacher of the 20th century? Jack Hyles.
You know, I mean, there's a pretty good example of an old IFB guy who's pretty much a household name
who thousands of pastors look to, who did a lot of great things for God. He even coined the phrase,
Romans Road. All right. He came up with that term. That's a pretty popular term.
You know, he wrote the book. Let's go soul winning. And look, here's the thing about Brother Hyles.
You know, I listened to a lot of Brother Hyles sermons back in the day with Roger Jimenez passing cassette tapes back and forth.
of a lot of preachers. But Brother Hyles was a big one that we listened to. And let me tell you something.
Brother Hyles said a lot of good stuff, but he used very little Bible. Very little Bible. And nobody's going to argue with that.
Nobody can honestly go listen to a bunch of Brother Hyles preaching and say that he used a lot of Bible.
I mean, you can just do the math, folks, on how many Bible verses there are in each sermon.
And look, even though he preached a lot of good truth, he didn't use a lot of Bible. OK?
We need to use more. And I'm not just trying to put shade on him. You know, God bless him for what he accomplished.
What I'm saying, though, is that we need to use more Bible because here's the problem.
Brother Hyles didn't use a lot of Bible. But what happened is the guy who came after Brother Hyles,
he didn't use a lot of Bible either. But the difference is that what the guy came after him was preaching was all junk.
But people were already used to listening to sermons with very little Bible in them.
They were used to just listening to sermons that sounded great, but with very little Bible.
So then when a guy comes on who's a total liar, he can preach a bunch of sermons with no Bible and people are already used to that.
And, you know, he kept getting weirder and weirder and weirder. He kept like the frog in the hot water.
Kept getting weirder, weirder, weirder, and led the church into false doctrine and heresy.
Now, thankfully, he was destroyed by God. That false prophet, Jack Scott. He was destroyed by God.
He's in federal prison right now. He's been exposed to the world for being a wicked person who was a statutory rapist
and did horrific things, a pervert, a weirdo. So he's been put behind bars where he belongs.
He's been exposed. And from what I understand, the church has, you know, come back to sound doctrine as far as I know.
I'm not saying it's a perfect church, but that's what I've heard, and so I hope that that's the case. Amen?
But the point is that the old IFP made a mistake of not using enough Bible.
They'd get up and read like one verse and then just talk about it for the next half hour, just talk about their thoughts, their ideas.
You know, well, it's time to get a bigger nail, time to get a bigger hammer, okay, and fasten things down.
Sometimes at the old IFP they'll read four or five verses at the beginning and then maybe turn to one place during the whole sermon.
I mean, that's pretty typical in a lot of churches. Folks, this is not the right way to preach.
The Bible says preach the word. God's word has power. We should use a lot of scripture in our preaching.
But it's not just enough to use scripture. And hear me well, gentlemen that preach. Hear me well.
When I say preach the word, use the word, you know what I mean by that?
It doesn't just mean read a bunch of verses in your sermon. That's part of it.
That's, of course, essential. But actually make the points that those verses make.
Right? And actually make the point that the chapter is making.
And this is one of the great things about reading the whole chapter before the service. At least it gives a little bit of context. Amen?
And obviously we don't have time to read the whole chapter. I mean, look, I just took you to Luke 1 to make a point about the first four verses.
Can you imagine if we read all of Luke chapter 1? Isn't Luke chapter 1 like 80 verses long?
So that would take away from the sermon of just, all right, let's just stop everything and read 80 verses.
Look, I'm not saying you need to read the whole chapter, but you know what I am saying is in your study by yourself you read that whole chapter.
You read all 80 verses and you make sure that those four verses that you're going to read actually say and mean what the 80 verses are trying to get across.
Preach in context. Right? Figure out what the chapter is about.
You name the false doctrine and I promise you that the key verse of that false doctrine is not what that chapter is even about.
It's not what the chapter is. It's always out of context. False doctrine is never preaching a verse from a chapter and making the point that that chapter makes.
Folks, when you read the Bible, stop and ask yourself, what is the point of this chapter?
When you open up 1 Corinthians 6, what's the chapter about? It's about not suing your brother in Christ.
It's about how the church has the right to judge and people in the church, even the least esteemed in the church, are better judges than that guy in a black robe or a wig or whatever bozo thing that our government sets up and calls it justice.
Folks, it's a criminal injustice system. You know how you get justice in America? By hiring a lawyer and spending a ton of money.
You have enough money, you'll get off the hook for just about anything. If you don't have any money and you get stuck with that public defender, you're going down.
Obviously the exception proves the rule, but in general, no lawyer, no justice. No money, no justice. Pay to play. Hey, that's not right.
God said, but don't mess with that. But people love to take verses out of context of 1 Corinthians 6 and teach some totally other doctrine that's not what that chapter is even trying to say.
And then they'll basically use it to reject the teaching of Romans 1, which guess what Romans 1 is teaching? What the chapter actually teaches. It's actually in context.
It's interesting, when we go to talk about Romans 1, we don't just read one verse, do we? We typically start in verse 18 and end in verse 32, and we typically exegete and exposit every verse in between, do we not?
Look, anytime you hear a reprobate sermon, it pretty much starts in verse 18 and ends in verse 32, and we're just enjoying every verse of it. Every verse is like another nail in the coffin.
18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Let's pray. Oh, wait a minute. Chapter 2, verse 1, chapter 2, verse 2, 3. Don't even take pleasure in them.
You hypocrite. Folks, we're just like battering it down, and then it's just like somebody will just take some verse totally out of context that that's not even the point that's even being made in that chapter and want to just deny clear scripture.
And look, I know you probably get harped on this a lot, just because of the history of this church, but the Trinity, amen? But you know what? Hey, you can't nail it too much. Amen?
So here's the thing about, what's the big oneness? You know, every false doctrine has the big verse, right? You know, with the work-salvation crowd, it's James 2. And of course, what's the context of the chapter? Is the context of the chapter how to be saved?
Hey, let me tell you how to be saved. No, he's saying, get your butt to work. That's why he starts out saying, my brethren. He's talking to save people, telling them to get out and do works. That's the point.
And by the way, if you're going to use James 2 to teach a work-based salvation, I want to back up to verse 10 that says if you keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, you're guilty of all. So good luck repenting of all your sins, because if you repent of all of them, except one, you're guilty of all.
You're doomed. James 2 10. Yeah, James 2. Yeah, James 2 10. Well, what about James 2? Yeah, James 2 10? Yeah. Yeah, what about James 2 10? With your repent of your sins, salvation.
How about James 2 10? If you keep the whole law and offend in one point, you're guilty of all. That's the James 2 in regard to salvation. Amen?
But anyway, the point is, every false doctrine has its verse, and it's always out of context. Always.
Now look, we have old chapters about how to be saved. Right? Where John chapter 3, we've got Jesus with an unsaved guy telling him how to be saved.
Right? I mean, he's like, hey, here's how you get into the kingdom of God. Here's how you get born again. Here's how you have eternal life. Here's how you get everlasting life.
I mean, that's what chapters about. It's like, believe, believe, believe, believe. Right?
I mean, what's the context of Acts 16? What must I do to be saved? Believe. So these things are in context. They make sense.
It's talking to an unsaved person, telling them how to get saved. These are all great things. False doctrine is always out of context.
Isaiah 9.6. I mean, look, is Isaiah 9.6, which is the big oneness verse, is that teaching people? Oh, let me roll out the Trinity for you in Isaiah 9.
Trinity is not something that is clearly explained in the Old Testament. No, of course, it's there all the way back to let us make man in our image after our likeness, but it is not revealed in all of its glory until the New Testament.
In the New Testament, you have all chapters explaining the Trinity in the book of John. I mean, you have just in-depth, in-context teaching in John chapter 1 about the nature of who God is, who the Son of God is, right?
Explaining where Jesus falls into all this in John chapter 1. That's a clear passage. The context is, let me introduce you to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and explain to you who He is.
That's in context. That's where I'm going to get my doctrine on the Trinity, John chapter 1. You know where I'm going to get my doctrine on the Trinity is John 17, where we see this long, drawn-out interaction between Jesus and God the Father.
That's a great place to go. But you know where the Bozos get their doctrine on the Trinity? They go to the book of Job, where Job's like, will you contend for God? Will you accept His person?
Person singular. Folks, is that what Job is about? Is that what that chapter in Job is about? Is that what any chapter in Job is about? No.
Every false doctrine is based on verses being ripped out of their context and being used to teach something completely different.
Now look, I'm not saying that it's never okay to use verses out of context. Because verses can be used out of context because the Bible is really deep and sometimes a verse will have a double, triple, quadruple meaning.
But folks, don't make that the bedrock of your doctrine. And certainly don't make that the bedrock of your sermon.
Why not read a chapter in the Word of God and sit back and get rid of the microscope?
Take a step back. See the forest for the trees and say, okay, what is this chapter about? And then teach that. Why not teach that?
I mean, why not sit down and figure out what's Romans 1 about? I'm going to teach that. What's Romans 2 about? Hey, let's teach that. What's Romans 3 about?
You're going to teach that. What's Romans 4 about? Let's teach that. Instead of just finding one verse and then just getting some other spin on it and then you just call somebody up on the phone.
Hey, I've got an idea about this verse. It's a little wild, but let me just run it by you. And then it's like if I give the stamp of approval, it's like, let's run with it. Let's go with it. Let's go.
Pastor Anderson said, yes, let's do it. Folks, there's too much good stuff in the Bible that we can be sure of where we don't have to go with doubtful things.
Right? I mean, there's a lot of great stuff that's crystal clear. So use the word. And when I say use the word, I mean use the word. The way the word is intended to be used, right? In context.
And lastly this, look at verse 12 there, if you're in Ecclesiastes. We said use the word from verse 11 because it's got to come from that one shepherd. Verse 12,
And further by these, my son, be admonished of making books. There is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Now the point that I derive from verse 12 is balance. Be balanced. Because he just finished telling him how he needs to seek knowledge and have wisdom and learn.
But then he says, look, don't go overboard. Because in making many books there's no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
You can go overboard and you can go too crazy on studying the word of God where you're neglecting other things in your life. Where you're not living your life.
You're not doing the soul winning. You're not doing your family life the way it should be. God wants us to have a balance in our lives. Not to just go overboard and do too much study.
Now most people are doing too little study. But you know what? Sometimes there is a temptation to go overboard and just get to where all you do is study the Bible.
And that's where people end up in these seminaries and they're just like locked up in their ivory tower and they're not interacting with the real world.
And they're just deep in theological studies. And they're so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good.
They need to be able to condescend to men of low estate. And you know what? Here's a bonus point. Because I only have six points in my outline.
But a bonus point just popped in my mind. Look at verse 13. Let's just keep going in the chapter. Let's get to context.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Because I was thinking like I got a conclusion but it looks like God's got a little conclusion here too.
So let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man.
Here's point seven, a little bonus point. Don't demand people to do things that the Bible doesn't demand them to do.
Fear God and keep his commandments. That's the whole duty of man.
You know I've heard a preacher get up and say, you know, bless God if you're not giving eleven percent you're not right with God.
He said ten percent is not enough but you ought to be giving eleven percent. That's not what the Bible says.
Tides and offerings. You've got to go beyond the tithe. Folks, no you don't have to go beyond the tithe.
You know what? You can live and die and put your tithe in the plate and not give a cent above your tithe and you're not sinning.
That's all God has asked for the tithe. Or I should say he's commanded the tithe. He's demanded the tithe.
But you know what? He didn't say you've got to give eleven percent, fifteen percent, twenty percent.
Look, that is a false doctrine. So we don't want to just put more burdens on people or go further or go crazy.
Look, people sometimes do this with clothing. And then pretty soon you're wearing a hijab.
Look, I'm for modesty. But you know what? When it comes to modest clothing, let's just fear God and keep his commandments.
That's the whole duty of man. Is there any duty beyond that?
Well, God said that your clothing needs to cover your thighs but I think it has to go to the ankle.
Okay, that's great if you want your family to be dressed to their ankle all the time.
You want your wife and your daughters to be dressed to the ankle all the time.
But guess what? That's not what the Bible demands. So you can't just get up and preach that as fact.
And just get up and say, well, you know, if you're wearing...
And for the men too, because guess what? Men aren't supposed to be naked any more than women.
You know, today there's a trend, it's a scary trend that's coming back, short shorts on men.
It's like, even so come Lord Jesus. But you've been saying it, haven't you?
Because, you know, when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, everything was long and baggy.
Those were the days, amen?
You know, everybody wore baggy clothes and long, you know what I mean?
If you wore anything short, you would have been considered a complete loser when I was growing up.
But the trends, they go through cycles.
Everything's cycling back. We're kind of like re-entering the early 80s again.
Trump is kind of like Reagan. All the neon colors are coming back.
You know, the music. Everything is like getting 80s, I've noticed a little bit.
Who kind of thought the same thing a little bit?
We're kind of entering a new... only a couple people.
But I was there folks, all right? I was born in 1981.
But anyway, the point is, and Trump and Reagan do have a lot in common.
This is not a political sermon, okay? But they're both like the oldest president ever.
Wasn't Reagan like the oldest and then Trump's the oldest?
And didn't he even take the Make America Great Again slogan from Reagan? Or no?
Am I making that up? Is anybody old enough to know that?
Everybody's so young here. Such a young crowd, you know?
But anyway, the point is though, these styles come and go.
Now there's this style of shorts on men. Well, here's the thing about that.
We need to have shorts as men that go down to our knee, amen?
But I've been in churches where they said no shorts allowed of any length.
It has to go to your ankle. That's not biblical.
You know, the Bible said that it needs to reach from the loins, cover the loins and thighs.
From the loins to the thighs they shall reach.
So I do think that our pants or our shorts as men should go down to our knees, amen?
But then somebody will say, well, what if you move a little bit and then like a little inch of...
You know, you move around a little bit and then like an inch or two of your thigh shows.
But here's the thing about that though.
God already thought about that when he told you to wear the shorts down to your knee.
Here he thought about that in Exodus chapter 28 verse 42 when he said it needs to reach and cover the loins and thighs.
So here's the thing about that. Guess what?
If you move around a little bit and like a couple inches of your thigh shows, you know what?
That's really not a big deal.
Okay, so what God has provided here is like he's provided like a buffer zone that's not a big deal.
Like if somebody sees a little skin above your knee, that's not that big of a deal.
But what the problem is when you start having the skirt that's four inches above the knee, six inches above the knee,
now that buffer zone's gone and people do start to see too much and people do see things that they shouldn't see.
Or if you're a man or whatever, you understand what I'm saying?
So look, preach what the Bible says.
Don't add to it and don't subtract from it.
Preach the Bible's standards. Let the Bible's teaching on a subject be enough.
Okay, you know what I mean?
Look, keeping God's commandments, that's the whole duty.
That was the bonus point, not in the notes.
So let me just close by saying this.
I hope that you preachers that are here, I know I'm preaching to a lot of preachers here.
A lot of guys who preach on a regular basis, they cycle through.
Hey, I hope that some of these tips, that you'll take some of these to heart and become a better preacher.
And you say, well, how dare you tell us to be a better preacher?
We already know everything. Well, guess what? You don't.
Guess what? I don't because we're all supposed to keep learning.
You missed point one of the sermon.
Taking good heed, learning, getting the tips.
Becoming better at preaching.
It's a sign of immaturity when you think that you don't need to listen to anybody and you don't need any improvement.
I feel like I need improvement.
And I've been doing this for a long time.
If I were to grade myself as a preacher, I would not give myself an A+.
I wouldn't even give myself an A.
I don't know what I would give myself because I can't judge myself because it's not my place to do that.
Let God be the judge. Let the listener be the judge.
But the point is, I need to keep learning.
I feel like there are parts of the Bible that I don't have a firm enough grasp on.
I think about certain books of the Bible and I'm like, man, I don't know that book like I should.
There are certain books that I've preached on Wednesday nights where I feel like, man, I've got a grasp of that.
You know, after 52 chapters in Jeremiah. I know what that book's about.
But I'm saying, you know, there are certain books that you look at them and you're like, man, I've got to learn more about that book.
The Bible is huge. Life is huge.
And we've got to keep learning. We've got to keep listening. Keep growing.
But to those that are not preachers, I want to give a conclusion for you as well.
Because I've been preaching to preachers tonight.
But what about everybody else?
Remember how I talked about this like a music appreciation class where you're learning what to look for in preaching?
Look, make sure you go to a church where this is the kind of preaching you get.
Obviously, no preaching is perfect, but this is the kind of preaching you should be looking for.
You should be looking for preaching from a guy who's been studying his Bible, who's preaching things that jive with the Word of God,
where you feel motivated to do something specific when you walk out like, man, I need to read my Bible.
Man, I need to pray. I've got to get this sin out of my life.
Where you walk out being more solid on doctrine, not more foggy and hazy with more questions.
Where you go to church and you're hearing the Bible frequently referenced.
You're being told to turn to this scripture and that scripture.
And the Bible's frequently being quoted, frequently being referenced.
You know, you go to a church where there's a balance. Remember we talked about point six was balance.
What do I mean by that?
Not that every single sermon is about freedom and liberty and America.
There are churches that you go to where every sermon is about politics, freedom, America, liberty, Republican.
Folks, that's not a balanced diet.
Every sermon is about the King James.
It's like, okay, we get it. Let's talk about something else.
You've got to talk about everything, right?
Look for a balanced diet. Preaching on the family, preaching on evangelism, preaching on sin, preaching on doctrine.
And then, you know, you look to a church that's preaching to you what God commands, not just teaching for commandments, the doctrines of men.
And constantly having standards that the Bible doesn't have.
So this is what you look for in a church.
This is what you should seek out as far as being in the right church.
And when you come to church, you should become to continually be learning, right?
Shouldn't every mother and daughter also continually be learning?
Or do we want to just have a bunch of dumb females around that we can just order around and they're too dumb to know the difference?
No. We want our wives and our daughters and our sisters to be intelligent servants of God that have a discerning...
Look at all the wise women in the Bible, amen?
You know, it's out there.
And then also, you know, we need to make sure that as listeners, we're making sure that what's being preached is right.
That when there's a specific action, we should sit in the sermon and say, okay, if preaching is supposed to elicit a certain action, what action is being elicited?
And I'm going to do that action.
Right? So this is telling you how to listen to preaching.
I'm going to nail down that doctrine.
I'm going to listen to the Word of God.
I'm going to live a balanced life.
I'm going to keep the commandments of God.
So there's something in this sermon for everyone, but I hope that this is a blessing to the preachers to help them preach and do a good job.
Because look, we all need to become better preachers because this country is doomed.
This world is doomed.
And you know what? Christ is the answer.
Who's going to be the next generation of preachers?
Who's going to carry that torch?
Who's going to proclaim and thunder forth the Word of God if it's not us in this room and other churches like us and other people like us?
Folks, we need to stand in the gap.
We need to make up the hedge.
Every man, woman, boy, and girl needs to enlist in the Lord's army.
And we need some masters of assemblies that can get the hammer in their hand and beat down some nails and not a bunch of milk-toes, watered-down leadership.
Hey, we need a trumpet that gives a certain sound so that we know what to do, we know where to go, and we say,
Hey, point me toward the battle. I'm equipped. I've got the weapon. I know what to do with it.
I know where the battle is. I know what the objective is.
The objective is charge! That's what we need.
And it's the right preaching that's going to get us there. Amen?
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. We thank you so much for preachers, Lord.
You gave us preachers. You gave us teachers for the edification of the body.
And Lord, thank you for all the preachers and teachers that I've had in my life from the time that I was born all the way up until now.
Men of God who have taught me the word of God, preached the word of God to me, invested in me.
And Lord, I pray that you would just raise up a generation of men that would lead us back to God and would lead many lost souls unto Christ.
And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
All right. In closing, let's go to Psalm 150. You've got a laminated pamphlet nearby. You can use that or you can use your Bible.
Psalm chapter 150.
Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in the firmament of his power.
Praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise him with the psaltery and ark.
Praise him with the timbrel and dance. Praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Praise him upon the loud cymbals. Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that have breath.
Praise the Lord. Praise God the Father. Praise God the Son. Praise God the Holy Ghost.
Praise God in three persons.
All right. Great singing everybody. You are all dismissed.
Praise God the Father.
Thank you sir and everybody knows there's plenty of food so please hang out and have some dinner with us.
Praise God the Father.
All right everybody. We're going to pray for those who will play with us. All right?
Let's just say a quick word of prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for this food. Bless it from our bodies.
And please bless this time of fellowship, Lord. I hope it will be encouraging and edifying to everybody who's here.
And please take a break. Amen.
I'm going to set the example.
Praise God the Father.