Ten Indictments (A Historical 21st Century Message) - Part 3

I want to submit to you, I believe in personal one on one discipleship, but, my dear

friend, the Church got along for a thousand or more years without it, without what we

know as personal, one on one, discipleship with all the books and all the different things.

I want you to think about this. One on one discipleship became gigantic in the late 70s

and until today. What was the cry? Just as many people are going out the back doors,

coming in the front door and the reason why that is happening is because we are not

discipling people.

No. The reason why it is happening is because people aren't getting converted, because

his sheep, they hear his voice and they follow him, whether you disciple them or not.

Now we ought to disciple, but that is not why they are leaving. They went out from us

because they were not of us.43 And they hardly got a chance to be of us because they

never heard a true gospel and no one ever dealt with their soul.

So we spend a fortune discipling goats, hoping they will become sheep. You can't teach

a goat into a sheep. A goat becomes a sheep by the supernatural working of the Spirit of

almighty God.

Now Church discipline... I moved my family to this church because they practice Church

discipline, because I need to be under Church discipline, the watchful care of elders and

other members who take this seriously. I want my children, if they are converted one day,

they are all tiny right now, but if they are converted or they make a profession of faith

and then go awry, I want to know that my children will be brought before the Church, if

necessary for the salvation of their soul.

Some of you in here would get so mad if a pastor walked up to you and said, "Honestly, I

have been praying about your child and I fear that they are unconverted."

You would get so mad you would rally up a group to have that pastor kicked out instead

of realizing, "Oh, praise God, we have got a man of God here."

Eighth indictment: A silence on separation.

There is a void of serious teaching about holiness. My dear friend, general teaching on

holiness, everyone agrees. Let's be holy. We need to be more holy. Let's have a holiness

conference.

But when you get specific about what that means, that's when everything turns into a

turmoil.

"Pursue peace with all men," the writer of Hebrews tells us, "and the sanctification

without which no one will see the Lord."44

Does anybody believe this?

You say, "Brother Paul, I have been blamed so often for teaching, you know, works

religion."

Listen to me. Listen. Again, it goes back to regeneration and the providence of God. If

God truly converts a man he will continue working in that man, through teaching and

blessing and admonition and discipline. He will see to it that the work he has begun will

be finished. And that is why the writer says, "Without sanctification, without holiness no

one will see the Lord."45

Why? Because if there is no growth in holiness, God is not working in your life. If he is

not working in your life it is because you are not a child.

Look at the difference between Jacob and Esau. "Jacob I loved...Esau I hated."46 Yet God

fulfilled all his promises to both of them. Jacob was blessed. Esau was blessed. How

did God demonstrate his judgments and wrath against Esau and his love toward Jacob? I

will tell you how. He let Jacob run wild. He let Esau run wild, no work of discipline, no

work of godliness, nothing. But he beat Jacob to death almost every day of his life.

The loving discipline, the correction of God to bring us to holiness.

Now there is so much teaching on this, but let me just say this. "Therefore I urge you,

brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice."47

Romans 12:1 and then go on to two.

Your bodies. Why does he say "body?" I think to avoid all this super spirituality.

"Well, I have given Jesus my heart and you can't judge a book by its cover."

Well, as a matter of fact, you can judge a book by its cover. Jesus never said you couldn't

just a book by his cover. He said you could. "You will know them by their fruit."48

And if you think that you have given him your hear, then he will have your body. And I

will tell you why. The heart, my friend, is not some blood pumping muscle or some

figment of a poet's imagination. It refers to the very essence or core of your being. Don't

tell me Jesus has the very essence and core of your being and it doesn't affect your body.

It is just not going to happen.

And so what do we do? We go through Scripture, what, legalistically? No, drawing

inferences? No. Just standing on the commands of Scripture.

About what?

I do not agree with everything the Puritans said, but I love the Puritans and one of the

reason why I love them because I believe they honestly made an attempt to bring

everything in their life under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Their minds, because they wrote 800 page books on what should I think about according

to the Scriptures. What should not enter into my mind according to the Scriptures? What

should I do with my eyes? What should go in these ears and what should not go in these

ears? How should the tongue be ruled? What should be the direction of my life?

And yes, I am going to scare you to death. How should I dress?

Now here I am going to be careful here. I don't want to draw inferences and things. My

dear friend, my wife says it this way. If your clothing is a frame for your face from

which the glory of Christ springs forth, it is of God. But if your clothing is a frame for

your body, it is sensual and God hates it. Enough said?

Now I can't go through everything of holiness and holiness isn't just outward expression,

but we have become to be a people that uses the interior work of the Spirit as an excuse

to say nothing is ever going to happen on the outside. And that is not true.

Some of you young men, you cry out probably more than I do that the Spirit of God

would fill you and work in you, but it only takes one half hour of television to so grieve

him, he will be miles from you.

Ninety-nine percent pure, 1% sewer I am not drinking.

One time I was struggling and Leonard Ravenhill was talking to a dear friend of mine

who was saying, "Brother Leonard, a young man, brother Paul, he is really struggling."

And he sent a tract. I still got that tract. I will never, never part with that. It said, "Others

can, you cannot."

I don't necessarily agree with everything.

Young man, listen to me. I don't go to malls. I don't, not because I am more holy than

you. It is because I know what I am.

There is the story of one of the finest, greatest violinists in Europe playing his final

concern, an old man. And when he finished a young man walked up to him, violinist and

said, "Sir, I'd give my life to play like you."

And the old man said, "Son, I have given my life to play like me."

"I want the power of God on my life." Then something has got to go.

"I want to know him." Then some separation has to occur.

Let me tell you something, young man, everyone else is running around, all their little

retreats and all their conferences and getting together with group hugs and singing

Kumbyah and everything else. Maybe you need to get alone in the wilderness with God

and fast for seven days on your knees studying the book of Psalms, just being alone with

God, belonging to him.

To be a man of God there has got to be a sense where sometimes even your wife who is

of your own flesh, one with her, she looks you in the eye and she knows she can't go

where you are going.

There is silence on separation. I think, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for

what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness?"49 Nothing. "Or what fellowship

has light with darkness?"50 Nothing. Darkness is the opposite of God's revelation.

At what harmony Christ was [?]. Nothing. Or what has the believer in common with the

unbeliever? Nothing.

He says, "Come out from their midst."51 Come out from the midst of what? Come out

from the midst of lawlessness, darkness, satanic devices and the life and worldliness of

the unbeliever. Come out from it.

I have a ninth indictment and this is very important to me as an older man with a young

family. I didn't get married until I was 30. My had something of a little brain tumor for

the first eight years. We couldn't have children and then, oh, praise God, a child was born

and then another and then another and then, who knows?

Psychology and sociology have replaced the Scriptures with regard to the family.

My dear friend, pastors, leaders, think about this. Our churches or our Sunday morning

services--better said--are so cosmetic. Just because there seems to be beautiful worship

and the sermon went well and people seem to be moved, that is not evidence. I will tell

you what evidence is. The home, the marriages, the families.

Judges 17:6. "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in

his own eyes."52

If I talk to people because I go for all kinds, I find a godly man who has raised godly

children and I go and I latch on to him. But in most cases do you know what I find out?

The people I talk to in church all of it is wive's tales and sociology and this and that and

every other thing, what is right in their own eyes and can't give me one biblical verse.

But every once in a while I find a man and a woman who set themselves to set their

family according to Scripture and the difference is overwhelming.

When I am on an airplane I love to do this. Men will sit down beside me and they will go,

"What do you do?"

I go, "Oh, I'm a husband."

They go, "Oh, what else do you do?"

"Oh, I'm a father."

"What else do you do?"

"Well, if I have any time left over I preach a little."

What does it matter if a man win the whole world and lose his family? And let me just

put it to you this way. Based upon what are you raising your children and loving your

wife? Based upon what? If you can't start going into Scriptures right now and pulling

them apart and showing me how your family is founded upon it, I can assure you, you are

a captive of psychology, sociology, the whims and the lies of this age.

You see, you don't have the right to do... You have no authority, sir, apart from the

Word of God.

Look at Genesis 18:19. "For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children

and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and

justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him."53

What a beautiful thing?

And listen, Romans chapter 12 verses one and two. Well, verse two tells us that the will

of God is perfect. So if you ever come up with this idea as a man of God, "I am

sacrificing my family for the sake of the ministry," I will tell you, you are a bald faced

liar. You are sacrificing your family for the sake of the little kingdom you are trying to

build because the will of God is perfect. That means I do not have to violate the will of

God with regard to my family in order to fulfill the will of God with regard to the

ministry.

God doesn't need you. He does desire that you be obedient, that you be obedient.

I just want to give you two examples. Now before... It is like when someone asked me

one time, "Brother Paul, are you against evangelism?"

I said, "Yes and no. I am not against biblical evangelism, but I am against the way you

are doing it."

"Are you against Sunday school and youth groups?"

"Yes and no."

I want to explain something to you. Now, for some of you I am not going to be enough

and for some of you I am going to be too much. I just want to use these two things to

point out what is wrong with us.

Sunday school. No matter what denomination you are a part of, if you are a part of some

denomination that is kind of organized I can assure you that your denomination spends

multi millions of dollars on Sunday school material, multi millions of dollars of

conferences, on teaching teachers how to teach Sunday school, on doing everything in the

book to promote Sunday school. I know that for a fact.

Let me ask you. How much money does your denomination spend and how many

conference and man hours are put in to teach fathers to teach their children? So now you

have found it, haven't you? God doesn't have a plan B. He has a plan A. You

circumvent plan A, plan B won't work.

Now I am not saying that children can't come together in groups and be catechized or be

taught or anything, but if that ever even begins to hint to supplant the ministry of the

Father in the home, blow it to pieces.

Do you see what I am saying? Look at just that one tiny instance. Everything for Sunday

school, everything for Sunday school. But there is hardly a conference in this entire

country to teach men how to teach their children. And most of the time in the Sunday

school it is nothing more than entertainment because the Sunday school teacher doesn't

have the authority to discipline your child. And even if they did they wouldn't do it

because they don't believe in it.

That's just one tiny instance. Let's look at youth groups.

"Well, youth need to be together. You know, they need to be together."

Ok, well, let's look. Proverbs 13:20. "He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the

companion of fools will suffer harm."54

Who ever told you youth ought to be together? Who ever told you that? I'll tell you who

told you that. 1960s psychologists, generation gap. Youth are to be with adults so that

they stop acting like naïve fools and join adulthood and put away foolishness which leads

to destruction.

Now I am not saying you can't bring youth together, but I submit if you do, have all their

parents there.

And you say, "Well, what about the lost youth that come into our church?"

Well, what are they seeing now? The lost youth come in to your Christian youth in

Church and they see almost the same thing they see in their own home, no parents, kids

teaching kids. Or one guy a little bit older with mousse in hair teaching your kids.

But what would happen if lost youth came into your church and they saw the children

there, the youth in a loving, wonderful relationship collectively with their parents and

they would go, "Whoa. I have never seen anything like this before. His dad, look at him.

He loves...I mean he loves his dad. I mean look at the... So is this Christianity?"

You see, my dear friend, let us say... I am no doctor, but a man comes up to me with a

bleeding forehead and he says, "Brother Paul, I have been everywhere. No one can

diagnose my problem."

And I say, "Well, I am no doctor, but I'll follow you around for 24 hours."

And I notice that every time the hour strikes if it strikes one he hits himself in the head

with a brick one time. If it strikes two he hits himself in the head twice with a brick. If it

strikes 12, he hits himself 12 times in the head with a brick.

After observing this, cautiously and carefully, taking notes for 24 hours, I come up to him

and I say, "You know, I think I have figured out your problem. I am no doctor, but I think

I have figured out your problem."

It is that pathetic among us, church. Why do our children do what they do? Why is

everything...?

It is like one old dear saint, someone asked him one time, he wouldn't let his teenage son

go out with a young lady to be in some private place. And they said, "Don't you trust

your son?"

He said, "No, I don't trust my son. What ever made you think that? I don't trust his dad.

I wouldn't put his father alone with a woman that wasn't his wife and yet I have much

more to lose than boy. I have much more control of my will than a teenager with raging

hormones. So what would you... What would make you ever think I would do that?"

We violate biblical principle after biblical principle after biblical principle and then we

wonder why everything is a mess.

Lastly, just real quick turn with me... You know when I say real quick I am speaking an

allegory or something. Go to 1 Timothy. I was listening a few months ago as to all the

horrendous things that are happening to our--I don't know what you would call them

anymore: republic, democracy, country, I am not really sure, socialistic state--and I was

so burdened as I sat there listening and I was saying, "Oh, God, what can I do? I would,

right now, Lord, honestly with all that is in me I will jump in the middle of the fire. I

will... If there is a charging rhino I will jump in front of it. Just tell me what to do. Do

you want me to go to Washington and just stand in front of the White House and preach

until they throw me in jail? I am tired of just preaching to Christians and in churches and

all of this. God, just... The country is going to hell. Just throw me. What do you want me

to do? Just throw me at them."

Verse one of chapter four. "But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall

away from the faith,"55 1 Timothy 4:1, "paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines

of demons."56

Now, he goes on to basically tell young Timothy that all hell is going to break lose in

culture, that everything is just going to be maddening, men as beasts.

I was with Conrad and [?] a few months ago and I heard him preach. They call him the

Spurgeon of Africa and rightly so. If you get a chance to listen to him, listen to him. He

is one of my favorite preachers in the world. And he said this.

He said, "In Africa we no longer fear of beasts. We don't run from beasts. We fear men

and run from men." He was talking, of course, about depravity.

But he said here that, "Just the world is going to come unglued, Timothy."

Now what does he say, too? Verse six. In "In pointing out these things to the brethren,

you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the

faith."57

And right there this text just started unraveling for me. Paul, yeah. The world has lost its

mind. Everything is going to happen. It is under my providence, but listen to me. Here

should be your reaction in the midst of all hell breaking loose, in the midst of apostasy, in

the midst of persecution. Here is what you need to do. Be constantly nourished on the

words of faith.

We always want to run out there and do something. We want to fix something. God is

seeking men of character, polished, swords. First of all, son, be "constantly nourished on

the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following."58

This "you have been following" is very important. I think it is indicating to us that a

simple intellectual study of Scripture will not, will not achieve the goal that God has for

his men. They must obey it. They must begin following. You cannot learn doctrine well

until you follow the doctrine you learn.

And then he says this. He says, "But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for

old women."59

My dear friend, let me tell you something. All this Emergent Church stuff, much of the

Church Growth stuff, all of the cultural sensitivity, throwing out the window biblical

sensitivity, it is just a bunch of little boys wanting to play church without the power of

God on their life. And I will stand on that statement.

It is a lesser than David trying to fit himself in Saul's armor. To the wind with it.

The more you trust in the arm of the flesh, the less you are going to see of the power of

God.

He says this, "On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness."60

Man of God, you want revival. So do I. We need an army, though. If powerful swords,

if mighty, flaming pipes and swords and weaponry are to be dropped out of heaven for us

to fight, then we must be the caliber of men who can yield those things and wield those

things and fight with them with sound character. We should discipline ourselves to the

purpose of godliness.

Young men, discipline yourself to prayer. Discipline yourself to the systematic reading of

Scripture from Genesis to Revelation over and over and over and over again. Discipline

yourself in your speech. Discipline yourself in the company you keep. Discipline yourself

in when you go to bed and when you rise up. This is a war. Discipline yourself.

Young men, I can tell you this. Unless you are some exception, being born in the age

that you have been born, if you are under 30, yea, even under 40, you probably lack

discipline because you have never been able to work. You have never had need to work

for your food and your fathers never made you work so hard that your bones cried.

The men who have accomplished much and been used of God have been men of labor in

the ministry. This is hard and it will cost you everything.

And by the time you are an old man you will be broken, but strong in the things of God.

Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is

only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds

promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 61

Oh, my dear friends, who cares about your best life now? Eternity. The day you stand in

those granite halls before the Lord of glory and kings and the greatest men on earth are

divided and split and culled, some cast into eternal hell and some invited into eternal

glory live for eternity.

These Olympians, how majestic they are, but only for a moment. They start training

when they are four and five years old. They never do anything but train until they are 22.

They run a nine second race for a medal they hang up and that's it.

Cannot you give equal for eternal things?

Some of the greatest men of God have been men very limited in their bodies. In their

abilities they were so limited that they had to focus themselves into one thing. It is the

ministry.

"For bodily discipline is only of little profit."62

It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. For it is for this we

labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God.63

This is not some martyr thing in which we uselessly give our lives to nothing only to be

pulverized with out hope. No. We serve God and God will honor us. We affix our hope

on that and that gives us strength, strength.

Oh this life is a vapor. I am 47, but yesterday I was 21. Where did it all go? It is a vapor?

While you have strength, preach. I praise God that in his providence as a young man I

spent myself in the Andes Mountains and in the jungles of Peru doing what I no longer

have the strength to do.

While you are a young man, while there is strength in you, labor with all your might.

Take those stupid video games of yours and crush them under your feet. Throw the TV

out the window. You were made for greater things than these.

If you are a child of the king nothing on this earth can satisfy you, nothing.

"Prescribe and teach these things."64

Now, there is so much here, but look at 15. "Take pains with these things; be absorbed in

them, so that your progress will be evident to all."65

Let's say that on a wooden table my child spills a glass of water. And by the

consistencies of nature, the laws that God has placed in her, the water heaps up a bit on

the table, so much that you can see it as a pool. You walk by it and you say, "There is

water spilled on the table." It is evident to all.

But then I come by and I take a towel and I lay it across the spilled pool of water and I lift

it up.

And you say, "I no longer see any water. Where is it?"

It is absorbed in the towel.

Men, you are to be absorbed in these things of godliness and character. Men, I plead with

you. Listen to me. This is so important. You are not errand boys. You are not to spend

your days wiping the noses of carnal churchmen. Get yourself in your study. Drink deep.

Be so absorbed in the knowledge and the knowing of God that people say, "Where is he?

He used to be such a man about town, such a friend to everyone, such a personable

fellow. Where is he?"

He is absorbed in these things.

We are men of God. We are ministers of the most high. There should be an otherness

about us. We should have a distant gaze in our eyes towards a distant [?]. The greatest

thing we can do for our people is to be men of God absorbed in the things of God so that

when we open our mouths the Word of God comes out.

Where I go to church Jeff Noblett is the main preaching pastor. He has always given

himself to study, but when I got there I talked to him and I talked to other leaders. And

any time someone asked me something I said this. "Please do this one thing. Take as

much of the burden off of brother Noblett as we possibly can and let him live in that

study with God because I have got children out here. And the greatest gift that man could

give to me is to study to show himself approved and to come out in that pulpit in the

power of the Holy Spirit and proclaim, 'Thus saith the Lord,' correcting and rebuking,

giving great promises and warnings. Please do that for me."

Pastor, please do that for your people because he says, "Pay close attention to yourself

and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure

salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you."66

I want... Let's just finish with this. This verse means almost nothing in the evangelical

community today. How many pastors do you think and preachers take it seriously, "I

need to pay close attention to myself to insure salvation for me and for those who hear

me"?

I have a question, pastor, when was the last time you examined your own life to see if

you were in the faith, to see if you really know him.

You see, my dear friend, I have great assurance when I study my own conversion, when I

discuss it with other men, when I look over the...