Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit lancelumbert.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates.
[00:00:10] What's the difference between preaching that's dead and ministry that lives?
[00:00:15] In today's episode, Lance shares seven principles for ministering God's Word, effectively emphasizing that we must be ministers of Christ, not just our own ideas.
[00:00:24] Let's listen to how to minister the word of God, Luke 1:2 even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, Ministers of the world. This is what really we're talking about tonight. And we but the first thing I'd like to just say is that we are ministers of the Word.
[00:01:02] That is, not ministers of our own ideas, of our own conceptions, or of our own thoughts, but we are ministers of the Word.
[00:01:15] That's very, very important.
[00:01:17] Ministry must never be prostituted so that it becomes a channel by which you put over your own ideas.
[00:01:26] You and I, we must be servants of the Lord.
[00:01:31] This is very important. We are not masters of the Word.
[00:01:35] We are ministers of the Word.
[00:01:39] Then again, if you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 1, we have this Let a man so account of us as of ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, Let a man so account of us as of ministers of Christ. Now, ministers of the Word are ministers of Christ.
[00:02:11] We are not just ministering some dead teaching. We are not just preaching some cold technical doctrine.
[00:02:21] We are ministers of Christ.
[00:02:24] Now this means that we are taking of Christ and giving it to giving him to others.
[00:02:32] We are ministering him to others. The idea, of course, again, is of we can minister at the table.
[00:02:41] We are taking the things on the table and serving them to others.
[00:02:48] So we are to take the Word of God. We are to take Christ and serve him to others.
[00:02:56] Now this is what it means, a ministry of the Word.
[00:03:01] In its simplest form. It means that we are taking of what we have experienced and know of Christ and sharing it with others, passing it on to others.
[00:03:16] Now, if we can get hold of that to begin with, it will help us very greatly.
[00:03:23] The ministry of Christ, of course, is tremendous.
[00:03:26] The ministry of the Word is only one part of the ministry of Christ.
[00:03:31] If you look in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, you will find a catalog of gifts.
[00:03:42] I do not believe that the catalogue is exhausted. The list of gifts is exhausted. In those two chapters, I am myself convinced that we have only there a summary of the gifts. There are many, many gifts and this is what we call the ministry of Christ.
[00:04:04] The ministry of the Word is one part of that ministry of Christ and a very, very important part. In Ephesians 4:11 we are given to understand a little bit more about this aspect of the ministry of Christ.
[00:04:27] The ministry of the Word, apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers.
[00:04:36] A pastor doesn't necessarily, is not necessarily a minister of the Word, but here you've got a various facets of the ministry of the world. The evangelist the evangelist is a man with a clear cut ministry in the Word to unsaved people.
[00:04:58] He is, he has been gifted in this way of reaching those who are without the kingdom of God. The teacher is someone who is to instruct and train those who have been saved through the ministry of the evangelist.
[00:05:19] The prophet is someone who brings from God a message from God at a particular time to a particular situation, to particular people.
[00:05:31] Prophetic ministry in its most general sense is when God gives the message in a specific way to his own.
[00:05:41] The apostle is usually one who combines a number of gifts. However, this is all just a little bit of background. We are going to talk this evening about public speaking.
[00:05:58] Now, what do we. What would we consider to be the most essential principles behind public speaking?
[00:06:13] Well, the first principle, as I call it, that I would consider to be absolutely vital, fundamental is what I've called history and experience.
[00:06:29] History and experience.
[00:06:31] A minister of the Word must have a personal history of Christ.
[00:06:40] In other words, anything that does not come out of a living, continual experience of Christ is of no real value.
[00:06:56] You see, any person can study the Bible.
[00:07:02] A man with a certain amount of intelligence can get hold of this book as many unsaved men who are called ministers do and preach little messages and sermons.
[00:07:14] And there are some Christians who who don't seem to have any living walk with the Lord or living relationship with the Lord. The two Christians, but who will speak from what they have studied.
[00:07:27] I think you can always detect when a man is speaking from a history with the Lord and from an experience of Christ.
[00:07:38] There is some factor in that ministry.
[00:07:44] I can't really explain it, but you must all have known it.
[00:07:48] You can put your finger on it almost. You can say, well, it was very good, but it was wooden, it was somehow dead.
[00:07:58] It wasn't vital, it didn't live.
[00:08:00] You may hear another message which is not nearly as eloquent, not nearly as well put over. And yet you have to come away and you say that lived there was something vital in that.
[00:08:12] Now, this matter of history and experience is tremendously important. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 3.
[00:08:25] Here we've got it in principle. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ. But whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort which worketh in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we suffer. Now, Paul has taken only one example, but he says here that this affliction that has come to them is for one reason, that they might learn something of the comfort of God in their sufferings and thus be able to comfort other believers.
[00:09:26] Now here is the very principle of history and experience.
[00:09:30] Anyone can give a lovely little word about comfort.
[00:09:36] If you've got an average intelligence and a certain amount of acumen, you can take God's word, take a concordance, look up the word comfort, find out two or three scriptures about comfort, and give a nice little word to God's people about it. But no one will be comforted.
[00:09:54] Everyone will go away and they will say, it was an awfully good word, but no one's actually comforted. But you get a person, for instance, who had a serious illness and found in it, has found in it the comfort of God.
[00:10:08] You find someone who's gone through very deep waters, so deep perhaps, that they went through blackness of darkness and found the Lord in.
[00:10:19] And you know, it lives. I shall never forget when one old sister, no preacher of the one, but one old sister, said to me when I was going through a very dark, dark patch indeed, when a number of people tried to comfort me with various anonymous words, none of which helped me, this old sister just said to me from Psalm 139, she said, you know, once I was in a mental home, and I thought it was a terrible disgrace for me to be in a mental home. And I thought, why has the Lord allowed this to come to me? She trusted him for healing. But it didn't come. She got worse.
[00:10:55] And then suddenly the verse flashed into her mind, if I make my bed in hell, even there I will find thee. And the next day she was completely healed, and she came out.
[00:11:09] It is it Saved her life.
[00:11:13] She realized that in that place she could find the Lord. Now she just passed that on to me. And, you know, it lived. I lived on it for weeks because it came out of a history and an experience.
[00:11:26] A history with God and an experience of Christ.
[00:11:31] So here we've got it. You see, we do need this tremendously important that we understand that there must be a history with God behind our ministry of the Word. It must be a ministering of Christ to others. This can never be theoretical. I can minister doctrine and truth in a cold way. But if I'm to minister Christ, I must have a history with him and an experience of him in order to pass on to others something of what I've gained of Him. I think this can never be overemphasized. Spiritual character must lie behind all true ministry of God's Word Christlikeness.
[00:12:31] Now, this finds us all out. But unless there is a Christ likeness in the minister, I wonder very much about the value of the preaching.
[00:12:43] We have got to be people who know something in our experience of the love of God and of the peace of God and of the joy of the Lord and of what it is to be justified with Christ and so on and so forth. We could go on and we could go on, but there's no need to say more, is there? We must have an experience of the cross. We must have an experience of the Holy Spirit. You can teach these things, you can preach about them, but unless it's your experience, no one else can really be helped if you've had an experience.
[00:13:20] Now, just in case a number of you are thinking, well, that cuts me out altogether for any ministry of the Word, let me say this. We can all start with what we have of Christ.
[00:13:35] If we've just been saved, we can pass something on from our fresh, real experience of Christ as our salvation.
[00:13:44] You see, there's always a point in our experience when we can pass something on. We may not be able to pass on what we haven't got to, but we can pass on what we've got.
[00:13:56] This is the way to go on.
[00:14:00] And of course, as we've often heard, said example is better than precept.
[00:14:06] So the first thing is history and experience. The second thing is responsibility.
[00:14:12] 1 Timothy, chapter 3 and verse 15. 1 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 15.
[00:14:21] That thou mayest know how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. Now, this word responsibility. What do we mean by responsibility? We use it rather a lot and rather loosely. Well, responsibility, listen carefully. Is the attitude of an adult towards duties.
[00:14:46] When you're a teenager, you often can be very irresponsible. You sit on arms of chairs, you bounce on the springs. You come in late.
[00:14:57] You don't tell your parents often if you're going to be late for a meal or if you're going to miss a meal, you. You're irresponsible. It's not that you mean to be irresponsible, it's just that you're adolescent.
[00:15:09] You don't think about it, you see. But when you get married, generally, but not always if you have a family, suddenly the person who was quite irresponsible becomes quite responsible because they have to take responsibility for others.
[00:15:25] And immediately they've got to keep time. They've got to be at meals, They've got to let others know when they're going to be in and when they're not going to be in, you see, Suddenly they've become adult.
[00:15:39] And it is the. If I may put it this way, it is the attitude of the adult to duties and responsibilities.
[00:15:46] That's what we mean by the word responsibility.
[00:15:49] Now, there is a kind of ministry consciousness amongst God's people, you know, I don't know why. I suppose it's because in our free churches we always have the pulpit in the center. I don't know. But it seems to me that way that ministry of the Word is thought to be the sort of crown of everything.
[00:16:09] If you can only minister the Word, then you're really something amongst God's people and you can get a ministry consciousness.
[00:16:21] Now, I could often tell you by just watching a person whether they're a minister or not, because so often there is about the very gait of a person who is a minister something that betrays that he's a minister. Certainly there is about the handshake and often there is about the smile. No, it's not funny. It's actually true. And I can go so far as this that in a convention, although I may not know the speaker, I can tell you who a Baptist and who's an Anglican, often by the very. It's amazing the characteristics that have developed in the way. In this. In the ministry. And you know, sometimes when a person thinks they've got a big ministry, you can see it, you know, little people, but they think they've got a ministry. And so there's a certain kind of handshake and there's a certain kind of.
[00:17:09] And they're set apart, you know, set apart. They're not ordinary people in anymore they're set apart.
[00:17:16] You mustn't get too near to them. You must be kept at an arm's length, you see? Now, all this is the exact opposite of what we mean by responsibility.
[00:17:30] You see, we really mean that we have got to be people whose attitude to everything in the family of God is the attitude of a spiritual adult to duties.
[00:17:48] You know, Isaac Wolfson, the great millionaire, once wrote in an article about people that he gave managerial positions that he always noticed whether they were punctual.
[00:18:04] And if they were not punctual, he never gave them a managerial post.
[00:18:09] Now, punctuality is only a small thing, but it is often a key to character, and it's certainly a key to responsibility. A person who's really responsible is rarely unpunctual because they carry the thing in the heart.
[00:18:28] I can't explain it any other way. There are many other things we can say about responsibility, but there are many duties and responsibilities in the family of God.
[00:18:39] And this is one of the things that must lie behind a ministry of the Word. We have the attitude of a spiritual adult to these things.
[00:18:54] Well, that includes all kinds of things. The chores, the hidden difficulties that have to be borne with and shared much else. All this comes into what we call responsibility.
[00:19:09] A third thing. And I had very great difficulty, and I'd be very helped if anyone would like to suggest another way of putting it. I called it continual functioning. It's an awful word, continual functioning. And I just could not think of a word for 2 Timothy 1:6. 2 Timothy 1:6.
[00:19:32] For which cause I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee through the laying on of my hands. And 1 Timothy 4:14.
[00:19:47] Neglect not the gift that is in thee.
[00:19:51] Stir up the gift that is in thee. Neglect not the gift that is in thee. Now, I've called this continual functioning, and I couldn't think of how. I thought of aliveness as another word. But I don't think that gives the idea really. What we mean is that one of the principles behind a ministry of the Word is that we've got to exercise that gift.
[00:20:13] If we don't exercise it, well, it dies on us.
[00:20:17] It's so simple.
[00:20:19] Now, I often wonder why some of you don't really. I know some of you have a real ministry in one way or another, and yet you don't actually launch out.
[00:20:33] And I'm sure that it's because of two things.
[00:20:37] One is that you are neglecting, not stirring up gift that is in me. The other thing is that you're waiting for some dynamic experience that will blast you into the ministry.
[00:20:54] Now, I know it happens in one or two cases.
[00:20:59] It certainly is true that there are people who have a very real experience and are bought into a ministry of the Word. But, you know, I don't know of any where people have waited.
[00:21:11] Do you know what it was said to Wesley?
[00:21:13] Wesley went and inquired of one of the Moravian Brethren, should he preach faith when he hadn't got it.
[00:21:20] And the most astounding bit of advice was given to him. He was told that he was to preach it and he would get it.
[00:21:28] It's exactly what Wesley did. He went out and preached faith. And shortly afterwards the Lord opened his eyes and he had faith.
[00:21:36] It's an astounding piece of advice. But, you know, it is true, absolutely true, that if we have a gift, we must exercise that gift. Now, that's what I mean by continual functioning. Muscles are stronger for the using.
[00:21:54] If we don't use them, they waste away and it becomes, in fact, in the end, very difficult to use them at all.
[00:22:02] Now, if you've got a gift, don't wait for some great experience, because this is the very method the devil uses with people who are not saved. He tells them to wait.
[00:22:14] Wait until suddenly there's a flash of light. Wait until somehow or other something happens. And some people, they wait and they wait and they wait.
[00:22:23] Unless they take a step forward in faith, nothing ever happens.
[00:22:29] Now, all I want to just say is that if there is a gift there, if there is a gift there, don't neglect it.
[00:22:38] Stir it up. Now, the word stir it up is very interesting. It means rekindle it.
[00:22:44] Stir the embers back into flame.
[00:22:47] You see, a gift can sort of cool down.
[00:22:52] Well, give it a prod.
[00:22:54] Just prod the embers and a flame will appear again. Put a bit more fuel on and there'll be a fire again.
[00:23:01] It's as simple as that.
[00:23:03] So I do hope there are none of you here waiting for some kind of spiritual gale that will blow you forward into the ministry. You will be here in 20 years time, and if I am here, we shall have another course and you will probably come to it. And still you will have never really ever uttered a word in public that's worthwhile.
[00:23:30] Do take note of what I say there. Then again, another principle is originality.
[00:23:37] Originality. Now, I often wonder which of these points I'm making is the most important.
[00:23:45] Certainly this one is tremendously important. Originality. There's very little originality amongst Christian preachers.
[00:23:53] They all seem to copy one another in one way or another.
[00:23:58] Now, I have one little verse in Revelation 1, verse 9. There are a number, actually.
[00:24:06] Revelation, chapter 1, verse 9. I think it's very beautiful the way John says, I, John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation. I, John. Now, you can never mistake John.
[00:24:20] John is quite different to Paul. John has a tremendous spiritual gift from God. He ministers Christ, and yet always, somehow it's Johannine. Somehow or other, his very ministering of Christ comes through his temperament and his lips. And it's I, John.
[00:24:40] And you've got Paul. He's quite different to John, and he's got a tremendous gift. And he ministers Christ, but somehow his ministry of Christ is Pauline. And it comes through Paul's lips and through Paul's temperament. And then you've got Peter. And again, Peter is quite different to the other two. And yet he has a great gift. And he ministers Christ and he is Petrine. Everything comes through Peter's lips and Peter's temperament and Peter's mind. These men are crucified men. That's very important. They're not exhibitionists.
[00:25:13] Very important. It's not the old man that is shouting.
[00:25:18] It's Christ in a crucified John who is revealing himself in an absolutely original way through John.
[00:25:28] Now, it's a great tragedy if in this company there were a lot of little lancers. Not that I think any of you would want to be, but there's just that possibility. Or a lot of little wrongs or a lot of little Mr. Sparks. God forbid any. There should be any.
[00:25:46] It doesn't matter who. We all have been greatly influenced by various brothers. We must be. And there I just say this, that when we talk about originality and say, be yourself, be yourself and admit your measure. This is very important. You know why most people superimpose upon themselves someone else's temperament and ministry. Because they want to be more than they are.
[00:26:15] So they go and listen to someone, you see the wonderful. I'd love to be like that, you see. And then they try to copy and really it's the other and it's no longer original.
[00:26:28] And instead of there being a pure ministry of Christ, you're getting something artificial brought in. It's a compromised mixture, you understand.
[00:26:40] If John had tried to take hold of Paul, you know, we would have lost an awful lot.
[00:26:48] And Peter. Well, I love the way Peter puts in his letter. And our beloved brother Paul has written some letters which are hard to be understood.
[00:26:57] You see, it's not easy he's really just admitting his own measure. He has to say. They are hard to understand. I suppose he was thinking of the Ephesian letter, I don't know, or Colossian letter.
[00:27:07] They're really rather hard for us to understand. But they're the word of God, he says, so they're scripture. He calls it scripture.
[00:27:14] Yet, you see, it's not as if Peter's trying to hide the fact and sort of pretending that he's a very big man. Me, I got the keys of the kingdom. I understand what Paul says. Of course I do.
[00:27:25] But he says, well, no, it's hard to understand. That man has been caught up to the third heaven and he's uttering things which no one else has.
[00:27:34] He is himself. Now, originality is absolutely basic to real ministry. Don't imitate.
[00:27:45] Don't even imitate in diction. Don't imitate in gestures. Don't imitate in any way. Be yourself.
[00:27:53] Develop your own original style. Don't, of course, go to the other extreme and think up your own original style, which, of course, some people I remember one minute that will remain nameless, who used to stand in the pool. He had the most amazingly long arms. He really did have amazingly long arms and huge hands.
[00:28:18] They were like butcher's hands. I can't explain it. And do you know what he used to do? He used to go like this when he was speaking, like this. And when I was a boy, I used to be flabbergasted. I forgot all the message looking at the sight of this man with his enormous hands and outstretched arms at either end. And he used to do it for perhaps five minutes while he was speaking, you see, so that in the end you weren't looking or listening to what he said. You were absolutely amazed at the size of his hand.
[00:28:47] Don't take on any gestures or behavior or things, and don't develop an original style in inverted commas. Just be yourself. If you're a quiet type of person, you don't use your hands much. Well, don't use your hands. By the way, I had. I got the answer to this dear brother's gesticulations.
[00:29:15] I went to a course that he took for those who would like to minister the word. And in it he said to us, preach with your body, he said. Spurgeon said, preach with your body. And suddenly the penny dropped, you see, I thought that's what's happened with him. He should never have preached with his body.
[00:29:34] You see. He'd read it in Spurgeon's book. And felt that you must preach with every part of you. You see, now, some of us can preach with our bodies.
[00:29:44] A man who can preach absolutely with every inch of him is Lindsay Glegg.
[00:29:49] He can. He can do it.
[00:29:51] And there are others too, that can preach with their. But if you are not the type, don't. Whatever you do, do it because it becomes macabre in the most extreme way.
[00:30:07] But I would just like to say that to be influenced by others is not wrong.
[00:30:16] You see, all of us are human beings and we all have to be influenced. This is part and parcel of human life and society. And it certainly is true of the church, these brethren who sort of stand apart as unique people, never to be influenced by any other Christian. I sometimes feel sorry for them.
[00:30:39] We are to be influenced. We are to gain from one another.
[00:30:43] And in fact, if you have sat under a person's mouth ministry, you must of necessity, if it's a real ministry, be influenced by it. But to be influenced by something is altogether different to copying and imitating it slavishly.
[00:30:59] So this is a point I'm sure that we should remember.
[00:31:04] Then another point I'd like to make is what I've called receptiveness.
[00:31:11] Receptiveness.
[00:31:13] 2 Timothy 2, 2 Timothy 2, chapter 2, verse 24. The Lord's servant must not strive, but be gentle towards all act to teach, forbearing in meekness, correcting them that oppose themselves.
[00:31:42] And then again in John 13, John 13 and verse 12.
[00:31:56] So when he had washed their feet and taken his garments and sat down again, he said unto them, know ye what I have done to you. Ye call me teacher and Lord, and ye say, well, for so I am. If I, then the Lord and the Teacher have washed your feet. Ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that ye also should do as I have done to you.
[00:32:22] Receptiveness.
[00:32:24] Be careful of being the big teacher or someone who is sort of gifted and therefore above others.
[00:32:35] Be prepared to learn from all.
[00:32:39] In fact, you will be very surprised the people who can teach you.
[00:32:44] Sometimes you will find the most difficult people in the company will be your best teachers.
[00:32:51] We can learn from everything and from everyone. I believe it was the secret of Watchman Nee's ministry that he was able to learn from everyone and everything there was.
[00:33:06] This is the secret of Watchman Knee's greatness. Spiritually, he was able to learn even from people who were his great antagonists.
[00:33:17] Now you know you can learn from anything and everyone you know. If you watch the devil. You'll even learn from him.
[00:33:25] You can learn from anything and everyone if you are under the government of the Spirit of God. Now just remember that little lesson because I don't know what happens when a person starts to minister the Word. They seem to get into a trap.
[00:33:43] They seem suddenly to get onto a level and into a position where they can't accept anything from anyone else.
[00:33:52] They must, they must always be teaching others and never able to sit and learn.
[00:34:00] And if they are able to sit and learn, then it must always be from really top notch spiritual giants.
[00:34:09] Then they'll sit and they'll listen from such. But you know you can learn and I mean it. You can learn your biggest lessons from some of God's top notch saints who've never graced a platform but in fact are quite unknown and insignificant people. But you know you can learn some of your greatest lessons from such people. So be receptive if you want to have a living ministry in the word of God. Love.
[00:34:41] The secret of a ministry is to learn and to learn more and to learn more. I think this is true of any profession.
[00:34:51] You learn and you learn and you learn and you learn and you learn.
[00:34:55] I don't know what it is behind Christian ministry, so called, that as soon as a person's gone into a Bible college and come out after a few years they're closed to any more learning except what they get by direct revelation apart from anyone else. It's the most amazing thing. No, I think we must be people who can learn.
[00:35:20] And then another little lesson. 2 Corinthians 4:5. 2 Corinthians 4:5.
[00:35:32] I've called this abandonment. It sounds rather amazing. I've deliberately found words that I hope will stick in your minds.
[00:35:40] 4, 5. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake. Now I'm sure this wasn't some nice little phrase.
[00:35:52] We often hear ministers using this, we are your servants for Christ's sake. But I sometimes really wonder the way things go on, whether they really are our servants for Christ's sake or whether the church is not their servant for Christ's sake. Now here is a very, very important point. Abandonment. What do we mean by abandonment? Well, we mean there must be no professionalism in our ministry at all.
[00:36:23] No nothing profound professional about it. We must serve the Lord, we must serve his people, and we must serve the world.
[00:36:34] And the word is serve.
[00:36:38] Now this is one of the hardest lessons that most of us can learn. It's not always easy to serve people who are difficult.
[00:36:46] It's very easy to talk about serving the Lord. If it can all be up there, abstract, mystical, in the air. We can talk about serving the Lord when in fact we're not doing anything of the kind.
[00:36:56] But to service people is a very different thing, because there are quite a large awkward squad amongst God's people, and we are to serve them as well as those who obviously are easier to love and get on with to serve. How can a man serve the Lord unless he is abandoned to God and has lost his own life?
[00:37:23] He that loseth his own life shall find it unto life eternal. This is the secret of ministry. Otherwise what happens is this. People get into the ministry of the Word with a kind of glamorous notion, a notion of glamour.
[00:37:43] There is some idea that it's exciting to stand on the platform and preach, that it's somehow exciting to stand before the people. And there's no doubt about it that once you have stood before the public and in any way captivated them, a bug bites you.
[00:38:01] It sort of gets into your bloodstream. And unless you have got big meetings, you sort of wither and fade away.
[00:38:10] It is true. And one has got to be very, very careful, very careful of that kind of thing.
[00:38:18] You see, it's. There can be an idea of glamour attached to the ministry. And if we go in on that basis, then we shall hug the platform.
[00:38:30] But avoid all the real crosses that come in ministry. And there are many.
[00:38:39] There are many qualities.
[00:38:42] After you've given a word, one person will come to you and say, thank you so much, I've met the Lord.
[00:38:50] And almost immediately someone else will come to you and say, my dinner's burnt.
[00:38:56] Or you'll get someone else who'll come and say that so and so and so and so and so and so. Or someone else will ask you about something not anything to do with the day, the ministry, or anything else.
[00:39:09] There are crosses to be borne in the ministry of God's Word.
[00:39:16] And I think that we have to be very, very definite about this question, this matter of abandonment. We have to have ourselves abandoned. We must be servants of God, Lord, and servants of his people.
[00:39:30] And the last principle I would like to mention is boldness.
[00:39:35] Boldness. Galatians 1:10 Galatians 1:10. For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Nor am I striving to please men. If I were still pleasing men, I should not, not be a servant of Christ.
[00:39:56] Yes, we've got to be bold.
[00:40:01] We've got to refuse to compromise. Now you Know this, this sounds marvelous, but when it comes down to it, it can be very difficult. If you know that in the company that you're speaking to there are one or two really strong minded and strong willed people who have some bee in the bonnet about a certain matter, it's very, very difficult indeed to be absolutely faithful.
[00:40:25] Thank God we don't receive wages. I'm awfully glad about that because I believe that although people will never mention it, this is one of the biggest holds on the ministry.
[00:40:36] I remember one minister saying to another, the man who was my pastor when I was first saved and, and he told me about it, he said, this man had said I could never preach that. It was about the Lord's second coming. In my church, they were all believers. I could never preach that because Mrs. So and so believes that we shall go through the tribulation and she's our greatest financial support.
[00:41:04] This is a tremendous thing.
[00:41:07] Money really often controls boldness in preaching God's word is of vital importance. We've got to be bold. I do not believe that God will show us anything further and give us any more light unless we're prepared to be uncompromisingly bold in what he has shown us, whatever the cost.
[00:41:34] Now, I know there are people who always say to me, don't do this, don't do that. Even a dear brother that I respect very much, a younger brother, but I respect him very, very much.
[00:41:42] He said to me a little while ago about another brother of his own age, a little older than me, he said to him, oh, I do wish that he wasn't preaching about so and so and so and so and so and so. He said his whole worldwide ministry will be jeopardy.
[00:42:02] Now you see, this is the point.
[00:42:04] You see, so often there comes this alternative. Either we're going to be popular and we're going to have all of God's people at our feet, which means that we've got to be very careful about certain subjects and very careful about certain lines or we're going to be uncompromisingly bold. And it often means a lot of shut doors and a lot of unpopular.
[00:42:29] Well, I'm convinced that it's better to be absolutely bold and faithful to the Lord and stand before that judgment seat of Christ with clean hands as to one's stewardship of the ministry than to go before it and have to stutter out some excuses about, well, so many doors. I'm sure they will wither, they will dry up on our lips as we say to the Lord, well, you see, so many Doors would have closed if I'd said so. And so, how is a message born?
[00:43:08] A message from God born?
[00:43:11] Well, there are two things which go back over what we have said.
[00:43:16] The first is we must be walking with the Lord.
[00:43:21] I am sure of that. We must be walking with the Lord, and we must be walking in the light.
[00:43:27] That is, everything which is wrong, everything which is defiling, everything which is sinful must be in the light and cleansed by the blood of Christ, must be walking with the Lord and growing in Christ. That's a fundamental necessity.
[00:43:46] Otherwise, a message cannot be born.
[00:43:50] A message must be born, not worked up.
[00:43:54] I do believe there are some who think that messages are worked up, but they are not worked up. They are born of God's spirit if they are a real message from God. The other fundamental necessity in the birth of a message is to be stirring up the gift that is within you. Now, believe me, no message will ever be born in anyone's heart who's careless. Now, I really mean this because there are a number of us in this room who are careless about the gift that is in us.
[00:44:23] And we are. Our attitude is this. If a message came to me, of course I'd give it.
[00:44:31] But you see, the whole point is a message never will come to you. It never will come to you unless you stir up the gift, unless you refuse to neglect the gift.
[00:44:40] If you walk with the Lord and you keep that gift, as it were, aflame, you will find God brings to birth messages in your heart.
[00:44:52] Now, those two things are very important. If you'd like to look at a few Scriptures, Romans 12, 6 and 7. Really is the two verses where it says having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us. Whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith or ministry. Let us give ourselves to our ministry. Let us give ourselves to our ministry. Now, if you don't give yourself to your ministry, your message will never be born in your heart.
[00:45:24] Got to be given.
[00:45:26] And then again, you'll find the same thing in Colossians 4, verse 17, where Paul speaking of, I think a man called Archippus, little Archippus, take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfill it.
[00:45:42] A ministry doesn't just automatically get fulfilled. This is the idea some Christians have got. Well, if it is really of God, then he'll sort of launch it and he'll fulfill it. No, we're to take heed that it is fulfilled. And again, you'll find the Same idea in 2 Timothy 4:5, where it says this.
[00:46:04] Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill my ministry. Fulfill my ministry. He is commanded to fulfill his ministry. Now, if you have a gift, you mustn't neglect it, but you must stir it up. You must fulfill it.
[00:46:19] That's important.
[00:46:21] Well, now, having said that, how is a message born?
[00:46:25] Well, it can come at any, anytime, in any way. That's the only way I can explain it. A message is born.
[00:46:35] You see, a message is a living thing.
[00:46:41] It might come listening to another. Sometimes I've been listening to someone else speak. Suddenly something's planted in my heart. I know there's a seed been planted. It's a message from God.
[00:46:55] Sometimes when we're praying in a time of prayer, suddenly something's born in the heart.
[00:47:02] Sometimes it's when you're reading a book, anything to do with what you're actually reading. It's just that somehow it's triggered off something. And suddenly the Holy Spirit's brought to birth a message. Now, it can come anywhere. I had it almost when I'd been dropping to sleep at night.
[00:47:19] Sometimes when I've been waking in the morning. And I've even had a message born in my heart when I've been brushing my teeth. I know it sounds very irreverent, but it's absolutely true. A message can be born in the heart at any time, in any place.
[00:47:35] But I'll tell you what I think is very important.
[00:47:39] Always jot down what is born in your heart. For the devil will do his utmost to blot it out afterwards. Jot it down. I always do that. That's why sometimes I've asked someone near me for a pencil if I haven't got one. Suddenly something's come.
[00:47:54] It may prove to be false. Just a little idea that never really germinates and develops. But whenever the thought comes into the heart, jot it down. Jot down what God gives. You always have a spare piece of paper in the pocket or a little notebook. When anything comes, jot it down. Now, when you come back to it, you'll find it's dead. Dead as a dodo or alive.
[00:48:19] And when it's alive, it will develop. It will take root in your mind. It will start to grow and develop. And as it does that, you know that you have a message from God. But don't forget what I said about jotting it down.
[00:48:33] It's a very, very important little point. I found the enemy come after me and sort of try to blot it out. But it's there and God, in the end, can bring it to birth, fully develop it. And what about its development?
[00:48:50] You will find that if it is of God, it will grow and become clearer. If it is not, it will die. And in fact, in the end, when you look at it, you will think, what on earth did I put that down for?
[00:49:03] I've had one or two little bits and pieces I've jotted down. I thought afterwards, no, only what I saw that point, because it makes no more sense to me. But others have sprung to life and developed.
[00:49:18] I think this is the way to distinguish whether or not it is born of God. A true message is like a plant.
[00:49:26] It's sown like a seed, and it germinates. It germinates and grows.
[00:49:33] If it is alive and it persists, you can be sure that it is of God.
[00:49:41] If it dies or becomes wooden, you will know it's not of God. Now I must say this, that the only way to tell really whether something's born of God or not is by experience.
[00:49:53] It's very hard to put this into words. I only know that sometimes I get a thought and it's really of God, and it grows and develops and I know it's the Lord.
[00:50:06] Other times I find that there's a counter thought comes.
[00:50:10] And for a while I'm perplexed as to really what is God's word.
[00:50:15] But I always know in the end because I've learned to detect a wooden feeling about something.
[00:50:22] Now, in days gone by, I never took any notice of this wooden feeling.
[00:50:27] And I've learned a bit of experience.
[00:50:30] I used to find it in the Bible studies when in the Bible studies on the books. I was really full of life.
[00:50:38] As I was writing down notes and studying, I always came to a point where suddenly it became wooden. It used to bother me, but I used to laboriously plough on and it became more and more wooden until all the life had gone. And I invariably found that in the study that was the point where we. We had to break off.
[00:50:59] The next week when we came back to it, it was far from wooden. It was always alive.
[00:51:04] I can only just say that I've got to the point now where as soon as anything becomes wooden, I stop. I just don't give myself the labor anymore because I know that it's no more of in life, it's not of God any further.
[00:51:18] So I just make that point. You have got to learn that yourself.
[00:51:23] But there is a great difference between a message sown in the heart by the Holy Spirit, germinated by the Holy Spirit and developed by the Holy Spirit. And a laborious working up of a word where a person sort of puts a towel and an ice pack on their head and works for hours and hours and hours in the Word.
[00:51:46] I do seriously wonder sometimes better. Now, let me say one word of warning. I don't mean that we shouldn't study.
[00:51:54] I think we should study very seriously. But I don't think a message is born like that. I was very interested when talking with Paul Madsen, that he said to me that he takes his studies in the Gospel, say the Gospel of Mark, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with his ministry. It goes on plowing deep into it, looking up everything, studying it all, finding out the background, you see, and so on. But that's his own way. It's his study. If a man doesn't study somewhere, there will not be a rich ministry.
[00:52:26] But we must not think that by mere study we can produce a message. A message has to be born of God. I think that's very important.
[00:52:39] And then I think also if we say that study has its right place, we ought to just be free before the Lord. Sometimes as we study, it will be God will bring the message from what we study. Other times it's something altogether different.
[00:52:56] I hope that's clear. And then I think another matter we ought to say in the question of a message being born of God is the need to be wary of the devil submerging it.
[00:53:08] Submerging the essential message under false additions. Now, this often does happen, especially for those of us who by nature are more verbose.
[00:53:22] The law brings to birth a message.
[00:53:24] And then we start to add all the frills to the message that God has given us.
[00:53:31] And what almost invariably inevitably happens is that we spend more times on more time on the frills.
[00:53:40] And there's a kind of heaviness and dullness about it. And when finally we get to what really was the message, we've got to finish anyway because of the time.
[00:53:50] So I think we must be very, very careful that when God has brought to birth a message, it doesn't get submerged by the evil one under false additions. Because if you've got a fertile mind and a fertile imagination, God can give you a word. But then you start to sort of draw in all kinds of things, make sure that the development is really of God.
[00:54:23] I think that's quite important to say that because, you know, the ministry of God's word is the ministry of Christ.
[00:54:33] And the devil hates Christ.
[00:54:36] And if he can divorce God's people From Christ, he will do so. And if he can starve them, he will do so. So be absolutely certain that if a message is born in your heart which is going to feed someone else or is going to meet someone else's need, the devil will be dead.
[00:54:52] If he cannot paralyze it, if he cannot cut it off, then he will seek somehow or other to bring other things in and weave them around it.
[00:55:04] Of course, there must be a development in the word. It must be a true development. But you've got to learn to distinguish what really is the development of a word born in your heart and what the enemy is seeking to do. And then I think also we just say one word about the way to discern the Lord's time for giving a message.
[00:55:27] When should one give a message? When it's been born in the heart.
[00:55:32] When should one give it?
[00:55:35] Well, I think there are one or two quite rational, logical things we can say. First of all, it must be complete.
[00:55:43] Don't. Don't ever give a message unless it's absolutely vital to do so before it is complete again. The enemy sometimes tries to edge us forward and sort of. And speak a message when it's not really. It's not completely formed. You understand?
[00:56:05] That's an important point. Don't give it before it's fully formed. The message must be complete.
[00:56:12] When it's complete, it's obviously time.
[00:56:14] The time's ready right for it to be given. I think, too, that it must be alive, really alive in the heart.
[00:56:23] Another point, and I think too, and this is a very important point.
[00:56:29] Don't give a message unless you can put the aim or purpose of that message in one single sentence. Sentence. This is the acid test, I think, that we can apply to any message. If you can't put in a single sentence what you're going to say in half an hour, you can be pretty sure that no one else will be able to.
[00:56:52] That's an important point.
[00:56:54] Always ask the Lord, or something is given to you now. What is the purpose of what you've given him? What is the supreme aim that we are of this word? You see, you should be able to put it, I think, into a sentence. Once you're absolutely clear, then you will become clearer and you will be able to prune out anything that has been added. Do you understand what I mean? You see, once you can understand clearly what. What is the aim of the Holy Spirit in giving this particular word, then you will know more clearly if there have been any false additions that are just rambling or Taking you off onto side tracks. I think that's quite important. Say there are some enigmas in ministry of God's Word and where a message is born.
[00:57:53] I think we can call them sp. Spiritual myth.
[00:57:56] Sometimes there are spiritual myths that come upon us. I. I particularly suffer from these things.
[00:58:02] I'm not sure that everyone else does, but I do. I find so often that when I am about when I'm due to give a word or preach, I find a kind of mist sometimes comes down that leaves me abstract, absolutely blank.
[00:58:23] Absolutely blank. And sometimes it would go on for hours.
[00:58:27] Now, at the beginning, when this first used to happen, I used to get into such a sweat about it. Used to pray so much about it. Used to get into such a sort of.
[00:58:35] Almost into a sort of. Not hysteria, but you know what I mean, a sort of really frantic state. Especially as I thought of thinking. I've all been a nervous type of person. And the thought of the meeting coming near and nearer and nearer, not having a single thing in one's heart has always sort of worried me. Until I used to get the most splitting headache simply from strain.
[00:58:57] Until suddenly one day it dawned upon me that this was a safety device of the Lord to just wipe out my own fertile mind.
[00:59:09] Because it always so happened that God always, always gave me the Word that I had to give at the right time.
[00:59:17] And I often found that if I was kept in the dark, there was more blessing as a result of that word. Now, I won't say that this is a method the Lord will use with everyone, but don't be afraid of such things. The minister of the Word must be a man in the hands of the Holy Spirit. And he must learn that the sovereignty over God's word is not his, it is God's.
[00:59:42] Therefore, the Lord can keep you absolutely in the dark, but he is faithful, and at the right moment he will give you what is necessary. Now, it may not apply to most of you here in this room, but it certainly has helped me. It helped me very greatly once when I saw it in Luke 9, when Peter and James and John saw the Lord transfigured and they saw Moses and Elijah and Peter ran forward and said, let's build three tabernacles. One for you, Lord, one for Elijah, and one for Moses. And then a cloud came down, and it says, they feared exceedingly as they entered into the cloud. And then a voice came, this is my beloved Son. Hear ye him. Then the cloud lifted and it was Jesus only.
[01:00:28] And I found that with me that when this cloud comes Down. Well, you hear in the end, God's word. And when it lifts, it's Jesus only. And then again, another enigma is the fainting fit. Spurgeon called it fainting fit. The minister's fainting fits, he called it. There are such things when for some unknown reason you just finish and Paul has got it in 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, and, and I think it's verse 9 where he says, and we despair even of life.
[01:01:01] It's a fainting fit.
[01:01:03] There are times when we go through dark waters. A minister must go through dark waters. If you've got a minister. If you're going to be a minister of the word, you won't always be on the mountaintop. You must go through dark periods, and you must go through them more than the ordinary person, if you know what I mean. If you're going to be a vessel through which God can minister, then you must go through some deep experiences and thus learn of God in them. Fainting fits, as Spurgeon called them, are one of the enigmas of ministry. When perhaps we're down for a while.
[01:01:40] But even though we're pursued, we're not destroyed, smitten down, but not destroyed. So we can thank God. And of course there's spirit, spiritual storms and antagonism. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and world rulers of darkness and hosts of wicked spirits in the heavenlies. And Paul said, after the manner of men, speaking after the manner of men, I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus. Well, if his letter to the Ephesians came out of such a spiritual battle, we can of think thank God. That's all. And I think it must always be like that.
[01:02:20] May your walk with the Lord be a real experience that can be shared with others. May you learn to comfort others with the comfort you have received from the Lord. May you know the deep, deep love of Jesus.
