Mentoring Manna:  Preach the Word!

© 2003 Pastor Keith Hassell

MM00026

2 Timothy 4:1-4  “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing: Preach the word!  Be ready in season and out of season.  Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”  As saints of God, we are called to teach and preach the word of God.  Paul makes it clear in this passage that we will one day stand before God to give account for what we teach and preach.  Paul charged Timothy to preach the WORD. Rather than being fed a diet of religious junk food that has no substance, people need to be convinced in the sobering truth of God’s word.  They need to be rebuked when they stray from it.  They need to be challenged to live according to its teachings.  Why? Without a good diet of the word of God, people will not appreciate or embrace sound doctrine.  They will turn to opinions, fads, experience, and spiritual fables.  Eventually they will believe these fables are truth and that the truth is a lie.  They will gather teachers who promote these fables while rejecting those who preach the word.  Surveys reveal that people will join a church where they feel loved and accepted even though the doctrines are unscriptural.  This is a dangerous sign of the times and a ploy of cults!  We live in a generation that is more stimulated by fads than by truth.  People have sold the truth in order to buy into a lie. Paul’s exhortation to preach the word implies urgency, consistency, and confrontation when necessary. Throughout church history heroes of the faith proclaimed and defended the truth in the face of great opposition.  Many gave their lives because they would not back away from their stand on the word of God.  What part of the “word” should we preach?  First we must preach the word of God in its entirety.  We live in a generation of Bible illiterates.  Few are familiar with the genuine and are therefore susceptible to the counterfeit.  Because they do not know the truth, they cannot discern a lie. Preaching the word also includes addressing the specific area of truth that is currently being attacked, neglected, or ignored.  Martin Luther, the great reformer, said:  “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not professing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.  Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battle fronts besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”  We must take a stand for truth or many will fall for the lie.  How will we counter the spiritual ignorance and deception that has entered into the church?  How will we prepare a people who will not be susceptible to a lie?  The solution is clear:  “Preach the word!”

Application:  We are all called to “preach” or “proclaim” the word.  Proclaiming truth is not limited to a pulpit on Sunday mornings.  We must proclaim the truth on every battlefront. This includes the battlefronts at home, in the church, at work, at school, in the market place, in government, and in the streets.  We must turn away from self-willed opinions and commit ourselves to God’s word as our source of final authority.  We must study it, allow ourselves to be transformed by it, and then proclaim it.  The days are dark, but darkness cannot overcome the light.  Lift the light---preach the word!

Prayer:   “Heavenly Father, I make a commitment to teach and preach Your word rather than my opinion.  Help me to be a faithful soldier on the battlefronts where truth and the lie engage. Help me to convince, rebuke, and exhort others to live according to the truth found in Your word.  Help me to speak the truth in love.  In so doing, may others be spared the darkness of deception as they embrace the light of Your truth.  I thank You for this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

Grace Fellowship     P.O. Box 260       Rusk, Texas 75785       (903) 683-6550

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