Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter
chapter 2, 1 Peter chapter 2, and we'll
read the first nine verses.
Therefore laying aside all malice, all guile, hypocrisy,
envy, and evil speaking, as newborn babes desire
this pure milk of the word that you
may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted
that the Lord is gracious.
Coming to him as to a living stone,
rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God
and precious.
You also as living stones are being built
up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through
Jesus Christ.
Therefore it is also contained in the scripture,
Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone,
elect, precious, and he who believes on him
will by no means be put to shame.
Therefore to you who believe he is precious,
but to those who are disobedient, the stone
which the builders rejected has become the chief
cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling, and a
rock of offense.
They stumble being disobedient to the word to
which they also were appointed.
But you are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people,
that you may proclaim the praises of him
who calls you out of darkness into his
marvelous light.
In the last session we talked about Christ
being the head of the church, and our
obligation to recognize him as the head, and
seek his guidance in the control and administration
of the assembly.
We also mentioned that all believers are members
of the body of Christ, and this taught
us to recognize all true believers as our
brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we
might not agree with them on everything.
But we can draw a tight circle around
ourselves as far as the principles of the
word of God is concerned, and then a
wide circle as far as affection for God's
people are concerned.
And then we also spoke of every believer
being gifted, every believer has some gift.
Now we want to see that all believers
are priests, and that's why I read this
portion of the word of God.
All believers today are priests to God.
Women are priests, men are priests, all believers
are priests.
They're holy priests, verse 5.
You also, as living stones, are built up
a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer
up spiritual sacrifices.
And then they're royal priests, verse 9, that
we would go forth and show the excellencies
of him who called us out of darkness
into his marvelous light.
In the Old Testament, in order to be
a priest, you had to be of the
tribe of Levi, and of the family of
Aaron, and of course you had to be
male as well.
And the purpose of the priests in the
Old Testament was to offer up physical, material
sacrifices to God.
Sometimes it was a sacrificial animal that was
offered to God, sometimes it was a grain
offering that was offered to God.
It was largely a system of rituals.
The priest was really a ceremonial drudge, and
he went through endless ceremonies that, as you
know, did not succeed in putting away a
single sin.
It made atonement for the sin.
The priest made atonement for the altar.
The priest made atonement for the vessels that
were used in the temple.
They never sinned.
No, it's just a ceremony that set those
things apart as ritually clean for the service
of the Lord.
But as we say, all the blood of
beasts on Jewish altars slain never put away
one sin or cleansed the guilty stain.
The sacrifices of the priests in the New
Testament are quite different.
Spiritual sacrifices.
What are some of these spiritual sacrifices that
we can all offer to God?
Well, first of all, of course, is the
sacrifice of our bodies.
Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service.
Be not conformed to the world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
you may prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God.
This is the highest form of worship that
anyone can offer.
That is to get down on his or
her knees and turn over his body, and
in doing that, of course, he's turning over
himself to the Lord for whatever the Lord
might want him to do.
It's the most reasonable, rational, sensible thing a
person can do.
If the Lord Jesus Christ is God, and
he died for us on the cross of
shame, the least we can do is turn
over our bodies to him to use as
he wishes to use.
But it's a big stumbling block in the
lives of Christians.
You remember C.T. Studd said, If Jesus
Christ be God and died for me, then
no sacrifice can be too great for me
to make for him.
And he also said that he had always
realized that Christ had died for him to
purchase him, and if he took his body
and used it for what he wanted to
use, that he was a thief, because he
was taking something that didn't belong to him.
And he said, When I saw that, it
didn't seem too difficult to turn my life
over to the Lord.
That's the first sacrifice we can offer to
the Lord.
The second is the sacrifice of our praise.
Hebrews chapter 13.
I might just turn to that, because it's
not the only one that's there.
Hebrews 13, 15.
Therefore by him let us continually offer the
sacrifice of praise to God.
Actually, when we praise the Lord, when we
worship him, we're really fulfilling the purpose of
our existence here on earth.
The Westminster Catechism was right when it said,
The chief end of man is to glorify
God and enjoy him forever.
And praise is the due outpouring of our
lives in gratitude for what the Lord has
done for us.
Then good works are another sacrifice.
It says, verse 16, but do not forget
to do good and to share.
So with such sacrifices, God is well pleased.
Do good.
Good works.
And you know, anything that a Christian does,
when we think of good works, we think,
well, getting up and preaching, you know, or
going out soul winning, or some spiritual work
like that.
Actually, anything that a Christian does in obedience
to the word of God, with a view
of glorifying the Lord, of helping other people,
is a good work.
When you go to your office, to your
work, and you're doing it to glorify God,
that's a good work.
God counts that as a good work.
It's not spiritual.
Yes, it is spiritual.
God doesn't make that distinction between the spiritual
and the secular that we make.
So you have your bodies, your body, praise,
your good works, your possessions.
Hebrews 13, 16.
Yes, but do not forget to do good
and to share.
With such sacrifices, God is well pleased.
The wonderful experience of becoming a hilarious giver
to the Lord and to the work of
God.
To share.
To know the joy of shuffling it out
for God and watching him shovel it in
to you and realizing that his shovel is
bigger than yours.
And then our prayers are spoken of in
Psalm 141 as a sacrifice to God.
Psalm 141.
It's a beautiful verse.
I think it's worth turning to, isn't it?
Psalm 141 verse 2 says, Let my prayer
be set before you as incense, the lifting
up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
I think that's beautiful.
Isn't it amazing that there are things we
can do on earth that affect things in
heaven?
That a Christian can pray and it fills
the area around the throne of God with
fragrant incense.
I think that's great.
And I believe it.
I'm just a simple believer.
Let my prayer be set before you as
incense, the lifting up of my hands as
the evening sacrifice.
And then, of course, our service for the
Lord, too, is one of the sacrifices that
we can offer to him.
Paul uses it that way in Romans chapter
15.
Romans chapter 15 and verse 16.
He says, That I might be a minister
of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the
gospel of God, that the offering, here it
is, the offering of the Gentiles might be
acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
What a wonderful, exalted view of Christian ministry
that is, coming and offering, for instance, the
Gentiles up to God as a sacrifice.
And, of course, Paul was called to be
the apostle to the Gentiles.
And I said that women were priests as
well as men.
And that's true.
A woman can offer these sacrifices to the
Lord.
I just want to add this.
While all believers are priests, there are controls
placed on priesthood in the New Testament.
It would be easy to point this out.
For instance, if you were to turn to
1 Corinthians chapter 14, there are at least
seven controls placed upon people who would like
to get up and speak in tongues in
the early days of the church.
Seven controls.
You say, what are they?
Well, the first control is do not forbid
to speak in tongues.
The second is, if a man speaks in
tongues, there must be an interpreter.
The next is, not more than three may
speak in tongues in any one meeting.
Next is, what they say must be edifying.
Next, the women must remain silent.
And the last, everything must be done decently
in order.
This is in the meeting of the church.
Incidentally, if those controls were followed strictly, there
probably would be no tongues movement today.
But there are controls of the Holy Spirit.
Paul never speaks against tongues in the Word
of God, but he speaks about the abuse
of tongues.
And because of the terrible abuse he lists
by the Spirit of God, these controls on
the use of tongues.
There are others.
In 1 Timothy chapter 2, you have controls
on a person's priesthood.
1 Timothy chapter 2.
And it goes for men as well as
for women.
1 Timothy chapter 2.
It says, I therefore exhort, first of all,
that supplications, prayers, intercession, and giving of thanks
be made for all men.
And just let me skip down here.
Verse 8.
Therefore I desire that the men, and the
word there is males, the males, and speaking
about public meetings of the assembly, that the
males pray everywhere.
Here's a control.
Lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.
In other words, when a man gets up
and leads the congregation in prayer, his life
is important.
His life is important.
There should be a life of holiness that's
offering those prayers to the Lord.
Lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting.
And then the role of women is told.
Let a woman learn in silence with all
submission.
I do not permit a woman to teach
or to have authority over a man but
to be in silence.
For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
Adam was not deceived but the woman being
deceived fell into transgression.
Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbearing if
they continue in faith, love, and holiness, and
self-control.
So while it is true that men and
women are all priests, it's also true that
the Spirit of God places controls on the
public exercise of that priesthood.
There should be no problem there because God
has assigned different roles.
What role does he assign to women?
Many, many different ones.
But I think the last verse, raising a
godly seed, nevertheless she shall be saved in
childbearing, has nothing to do with the salvation
of her soul.
It's the salvation of her position in the
church.
The preceding verses might have created the impression
in your mind that a woman is reduced
to a non-entity.
Not true at all.
Paul says she's saved in childbearing.
In raising children for God, and it's interesting,
the first verse of the next chapter says
if anyone desires the position of an elder,
he desires a good work.
And there's no chapter break, of course, in
the original.
So, if you want my candid opinion, I
think the woman has the highest of all
ministries.
The highest of all ministries.
We think of platform work as being the
highest.
I don't think so.
I think God knows something higher than that.
I think of a woman like Susanna Wesley
who raised 19 children for the glory of
God.
John Wesley, who saved England by his ministry
from the ravages of the Revolution.
And Charles Wesley, to whom we're so indebted
for the hymns that he wrote.
Can it be that I should gain an
interest in the Saviour's blood?
Wonderful, you know.
Be worth living a lifetime just to write
one hymn like that.
Susanna Wesley was in back of that.
And I really say that sincerely, that I
really believe the greatest ministry that God has
given to man or woman is the ministry
of the woman producing a glorious, holy seed
for God.
Maybe somebody would like to talk privately after
that.
I'd be glad to do so.
Now I just want to switch over to
a subject that we touched before.
And that is the clerical system.
And this is probably difficult for people today
because for hundreds of years the church has
known the clerical system.
We have one man leading a congregation.
Let me say at the very outset, it's
unknown as far as the New Testament is
concerned.
It didn't occur in the early days of
the church.
It didn't occur until the second or third
generation in the history of the church.
And it has been with us ever since.
When Paul wrote to the Philippian believers, you
remember, he said to the saints with their
elders and deacons.
We went over that in a previous message.
To the saints with their elders and deacons.
He didn't say to the pastor.
He didn't say to the minister.
He didn't say to the cleric in charge.
Paul was a gentleman.
If there had been such a person, he
would have sent greetings to him as well.
You can depend on that.
The reason he didn't mention such a person
is because such a person didn't exist.
In the King James Version of the Bible,
in the old King James Oxford Bible, at
the end of 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy,
there was a little footnote that said Timothy
was the first bishop of the church in
Ephesus.
Completely without warrant, unfortunately.
In the Bible you don't have that footnote,
I'm sure.
Unless you have the King James.
And Titus also, first bishop of the church
in Crete.
Entirely without warrant.
These men were itinerant men.
These men were troubleshooters for the apostle Paul.
He didn't stay in one place.
The longest Paul stayed in one place in
his ministry was two years in Ephesus.
He spent a total of three years in
Ephesus, all told.
But at one time, the longest he stayed
was two years.
He was a man on the move.
So the clerical system is really foreign to
the New Testament.
Not only so, it's hated by God.
Turn to the book of Revelation, please.
Chapter 2.
Revelation chapter 2.
And here you have mention of the Nicolaitans.
The Nicolaitans.
Chapter 2, verse 6.
But this you have, that you hate the
deeds of Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
The word really means victory over the laity.
That's what it means, victory over the laity.
Down through the centuries, a group of men
have taken this position of dominating the laity.
And God doesn't like it.
Verse 15 of that same chapter.
Thus also you have those who hold the
doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
It's interesting when the word of God says
that he hates us twice in the same
chapter.
Why does he hate it?
Well, first of all, it ignores the purpose
for which the gifts were given to the
church.
Remember, in our last session, we learned that
the gifts were given for the purpose of
the saints under the work of the ministry.
The work of the ministry belongs to the
saints, to every child of God, every believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Again, there's a danger that people would gather
to a man rather than to the Lord
Jesus Christ in this clerical system.
And people speak with affection and almost adoration
of their minister, of their preacher.
You know, God doesn't like to share his
glory with another in that way.
And oftentimes he stains the pride of human
glory when men take that position to themselves
with pride.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the gathering center
of his people.
And I think that's a great truth.
If you get an assembly of God's people
who realize that they gather to Christ, it
gives stability to an assembly that nothing else
will do.
People will go there because they believe Christ
is there.
Did he not say, where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am
I in the midst.
You know, that's hard for people to take
in.
There am I in the midst.
Just be a simple believer and appropriate it
by faith that when you gather with Christian
people to worship the Lord Jesus Christ, he's
there.
Well, you say, he's everywhere.
Well, that's true, he's everywhere.
But he's there in a special way when
you're gathered in his name.
There was a couple, a farm couple, that
used to gather at a little church.
And they could look out the window and
they could see their farmhouse and the barn
right there, not far away.
And one day they were sitting there and
the husband's head was bowed and worshipped to
the Lord.
The wife took a quick look out the
window and she saw the barn on fire.
She leaned over and she said to her
husband, dear, the barn is on fire.
And he said, hush, the Lord is in
this place.
You know, if we really believed that, it
would make a tremendous difference in our meetings,
wouldn't it?
He really believed the word of God.
He accepted that by faith, that the Lord
was there in a special way.
And what good would a garden hose do
anyway?
That's a tremendous motivation for regularity at the
meetings of the assembly.
There's a danger when all the teaching is
done by one man.
There's no system of checks and balances.
I heard directly of a minister in a
church and he's all excited about this new
millennium starting.
And he's teaching his church to get food
together and make provision for this time because
the whole world was going to fall apart.
And the next thing you know, he had
a split in his church over cellars filled
with food.
Well, it's too bad that there weren't other
brothers there that could sit with him and
reason with him from the word of God
and encourage him to have faith in God.
God hasn't forsaken his people yet.
And no man has the ability to provide
the diversity of teaching that the Holy Spirit
can do through a group of men.
I think that's very important.
My earliest memories are of conversational Bible readings
when the saints would be studying their Bibles
and they'd come together and start through the
book of Isaiah.
And they would be sharing insights that they
had received from the Lord.
Really, there's nothing quite equal with that, with
the liberty to speak and to share those
things.
The clerical system stifles the development of gift
in the church.
I say this to young fellows and young
girls in our meeting.
You have an opportunity in an assembly such
as the one with which you're connected to
exercise your gift that you wouldn't have in
many of the average churches.
Think of that.
You could just be a bump on a
log in many churches today.
Just fulfill your responsibilities there and go on
your way.
And the clerical system hinders world evangelism.
I think I'll quote from a man named
James Stewart.
He said, the world will never be evangelized
the way God intended it to be as
long as there's a clerical system.
That's very, very true.
Now, I'm going to just take a moment,
more than a moment, to quote to you
from some men.
You say, MacDonald, you're pretty hard on the
clerical system.
I can hear some of you saying that.
Let me tell you what some clerics say
about it.
Are we wrong in the position that we
take?
Alexander McLaren, some of you might have his
commentary.
He was a cleric.
He said, I cannot but believe that the
present practice of confining the public teaching of
the church to an official class has done
harm.
Why should one man be ever speaking in
hundreds of people who are able to teach
sitting dumb to listen or pretend to listen
to him?
J.I. Packard.
Some of you have read his book, Knowing
God.
He says, by clericalism I mean that combination
of conspiracy and tyranny in which the minister
claims and the congregation agrees that all spiritual
ministry is his responsibility and not theirs.
A notion that is both disreputable in principle
and spirit-quenching in practice.
I didn't write that.
J.I. Packard wrote that.
John Stott.
You know John Stott, many of you.
Anglican cleric.
What model of the church then should we
keep in our minds?
The traditional model is that of the pyramid.
In which the pastor is perched precariously on
the pinnacle, like a little pope in his
own church, while the laity are arrayed below
him in serried ranks of inferiority.
It's a totally unbiblical image because the New
Testament envisages not a single pastor with a
docile flock, but both a plural oversight and
an every-member ministry.
Are you shocked to hear that from John
Stott?
He's the one who wrote that.
Not somebody in what we think of as
little, simple New Testament assemblies.
Donald Ray Barnhouse, probably the greatest Bible teacher
I've ever heard.
Myself, 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
Layton Ford, brother-in-law of Billy Graham.
He says our whole vocabulary of church activity
will change if we really begin to take
seriously the New Testament pattern.
As Richard Halverson has said, when we ask,
how many ministers do your church have, the
traditional answer is one or two or five,
depending on how large the paid staff is.
But the true answer is 200 or 2
,000, depending on how large the membership is.
Every believer is a minister.
You'd think that was written by folks like
within your assembly.
It wasn't written by that.
It was written by Layton Ford.
He says the church which bottlenecks its outreach
by depending on its specialists, its pastors or
evangelists, to do its witnessing is living in
violation of both the intention of its head
and the consistent pattern of the early Christians.
E.
Stanley Jones was a Methodist missionary in India
for many years, and he was very outspoken
on this subject.
He said the church at Antioch was founded
by laymen, carried on by laymen, and spread
through the world by laymen.
That is important for the reconstruction of the
church of today.
The next great spiritual awakening is going to
come through the laity.
Hitherto the center of gravity has been on
the minister.
Now the center of gravity has shifted to
the laity.
We ministers, missionaries and evangelists are never going
to win the world.
We're too few to do it, and if
we could do it, it wouldn't be good,
for it would take away from the laity
that spiritual growth and development which comes through
sharing one's faith.
But we will never get the laity to
take the responsibility for the Christian movement and
its spread by saying, come on and help
the pastor.
Their inner response and sometimes outer response is,
why should we?
That's his job.
We pay him for that.
He says the very setup of the ordinary
church tends to produce the anonymous.
That's kind of clever.
The average church tends to produce the anonymous.
The congregation is supposed to be silent and
receptive, and the pastor is supposed to be
outgoing and aggressive.
That produces by its very makeup the spectator
and the participant.
By its very makeup it produces the recessive,
the ingrown, the non-contributive, and the parasite.
Men and women who during the week are
molders of opinion, directors of large concerns, directors
of destinies, are expected to be putty on
Sunday and are supposed to like it.
They have little responsibility, hence make little response,
except perhaps, I enjoyed your sermon.
They have little to do, hence they do
little.
He says the laity on the whole have
been in the stands as spectators, and the
clergy have been in the field playing the
game.
If the clergyman kicks a goal or makes
a touchdown, he's applauded.
Good pastor, hope he will stay.
That setup must be changed.
The laity must come out of the stands
as spectators and take the field as players,
and the clergyman must come off the field
as players and take the sidelines as coaches
of the team.
The clergyman must be guides, stimulators, and spiritualizers
of an essentially lay movement, downgrading them.
No, upgrading them, for it's better to be
a coach than to be a player.
Better to get ten people to work than
to do ten men's work.
You'll notice that many of these men use
the word clergy and laity.
Of course, those words aren't found in the
New Testament, but I think you know what
they mean.
Brian Green says the future of Christianity and
the evangelization of the world rest in the
hands of ordinary men and women, and not
primarily in those of professional Christian ministers.
Harnack claims that when the church won its
greatest victories in the early days of the
Roman Empire, it did so not by preachers
or teachers or apostles, but by informal missionaries.
True.
And this is J.A. Stuart's quote.
Looking back to the apostolic age, he said
each member of the local assembly went out
to win souls for Christ by personal contact,
and then brought these newborn babes into these
local churches where they were indoctrinated and strengthened
in the faith of the Redeemer.
They, in turn, went out to do likewise.
In another place, he said boldly that the
world will never be evangelized the way God
intended as long as we have a clerical
system.
Now, I haven't quoted anything from men from
small New Testament assemblies as we would think
of them.
All of these were men who were largely
in the clerical system themselves, and they say
this is not the way to go.
At a time when many evangelical Christians are
moving away from the clerical system, many assemblies
with only a plurality of elders and deacons
are moving toward clerising.
Isn't that funny?
They hire one man to perform their religious
functions for them.
They're buying high and selling low.
Their cry is, give us a minister like
the other churches.
They're like those in the social sciences who
adopt popular trends of thought at the time
that secular professionals are beginning to subject the
trends to serious criticism.
It's a matter of climbing on the bandwagon
just about the time it's slowing down.
Well, let me just say something.
You say, what about some of these godly
men that we hear on the radio preaching
the word of God?
Well, I thank God for them.
It's not that.
I turn on the radio, I hear John
MacArthur, I hear Vernon McGee, I hear these
men.
It just rejoices my heart to hear the
word going out like that.
I think there's something better.
God's way is the best way.
That is a simple New Testament assembly with
a plurality of elders, with deacons, and with
every member evangelism.
Where the saints go out and in the
context of their daily work, they witness for
the Lord, they see people saved, and they
see them brought into the feeding station.
Where they can grow and nurture and serve
the Lord.
Connected with the one-man ministry, there's always
the problem of a salaried ministry.
If you go to the average seminary, you
can take a course in pastoral psychology or
pastoral theology, perhaps.
You can learn how to draw up your
contract when you go to a church, and
what your salary is going to be.
What's not included, anything you make from weddings
or funerals is in addition to that.
Your house will be provided, and a car
will be provided, or gasoline for the use
of your car.
You can learn all that in a seminary.
But you know, the whole idea of a
salaried ministry is foreign to the word of
God.
Why?
Because those who pay the salary can oftentimes
control the message.
When we were at Mayesh years ago, there
was a big denominational church across the street
from us.
And the pastor said to us one day,
he said, I could preach the gospel the
way you men preach it.
But he said, my people wouldn't take it.
They wouldn't take it.
And he subsequently left and became a public
relations man for General Motors, which was good,
good stuff.
Those who pay the salary often require evidence
that something is happening.
For instance, in many cases, the one man
minister has to give a count, maybe to
the church board or to the denomination.
What has happened during the year?
How many people have come by transfer?
How many people have come to the church
by baptism and so forth?
Well, maybe the man has preached all year
and nothing has happened.
He can't control the number of people that
are saved.
But there's always the danger of lowering the
message in order to reduce the numbers, isn't
there?
There's always the danger of watering down the
message of the gospel in order to lower
spiritual standards.
And of course, there's always the subtle temptation
to avoid subjects that the people might not
like.
You say, well, what was it like in
the New Testament?
Well, it was a life of faith.
These men in the New Testament went out
and they believed if God called them, God
would take care of them.
Have they never worried about finances?
Paul, writing from prison in Philippi, says, I
have all things that abound.
He had received the gift which had been
sent to them by Epaphroditus.
That's wonderful, you know.
It would be hard for people to realize
today that an assembly like yours can commend
a man to the work of the Lord,
or a woman, let's say, to the mission
field.
And sure of the call of God, that
person can go out and know that his
needs are going to be provided for.
It's God's way.
Hudson Taylor said, God always pays for what
he orders.
It's absolutely true.
You have to be sure of the call
of God.
But if you're sure of that, you never
have to worry about it.
For over 50 years, I've looked to the
Lord for the supply of my needs.
I've never worried a single moment about where
the money, I didn't know, still don't know
where the money will come from in the
next two weeks.
But I know God, and I know he
will provide.
He's never failed me yet.
And I've had more opportunity to invest in
the work of the Lord, as a full
-time servant of the Lord, than I ever
did as an investment analyst in the First
National Bank of Boston.
I tell you, God's way is the best
way.
And, you know, it's always the temptation of
a minister on a fixed salary, hearing a
call of God to go to a bigger
church with a bigger salary.
You know, it's a temptation.
I mean, we're all human.
And it's just a very valid temptation that
he must face.
You know, according to Deuteronomy 15, 18, a
bond servant is worth twice as much as
a hired servant.
This is an interesting verse, you might turn
to it.
Deuteronomy 15, 18, says, It shall not seem
hard to you when you send him away,
that's the servant, when you send him away
free from you, for he has been worth
a double hired servant in serving you six
years.
Then the Lord your God will bless you
in all that you do.
Here's the law concerning a bond servant, a
bond slave.
The difference between a bond slave and a
hired servant is the bond slave belongs to
the master.
The hired servant works for pay.
And this verse suggests to you and to
me that a bond slave, one who belongs
to his master and who loves his master
and serves his master out of love, he's
worth twice what a hired servant ever is.
And it's true today in the century in
which we live.
Those who serve as unto the Lord are
twice as valuable, can accomplish twice as much
as those who work for a salaried income.
Now I'd like to remind our hearts as
we come to the close of another session,
that just following the New Testament pattern as
it's found in the pages of the New
Testament, it's not enough.
We might comfort ourselves with the fact that
we remember the Lord every week.
I think it's good.
We might comfort ourselves with the fact that
we believe in baptism by immersion.
I think that's good, too.
I agree with that.
We can just go down the list and
be very orthodox and all of these things,
but I like to emphasize over and over
again, it's good, but it's not enough.
We have to have New Testament power.
We have to be walking in the Spirit.
We have to be filled with the Spirit
of God if we're going to be the
best for him.
What do you mean, filled with the Spirit
of God?
Well, I mean available to the Lord to
use us in any way he wants.
Filled with the Word of God.
You can't be filled with the Spirit of
God unless you're filled with the Word of
God.
Men and women of prayer.
Men and women who live sacrificially for the
spread of the gospel.
This is where it really counts for the
Lord, and I think this is what we
need to constantly remind ourselves.
God is not a ritualist.
God isn't just satisfied that you do 60
cartwheels in penance for sin.
It doesn't mean anything to God.
God is concerned with the inner person.
God is concerned with the heart.
He wants us to follow the New Testament
path.
I think it's very, very important, but I
still say that what the world is looking
for is power.
There are those today who say that there's
no use just preaching the gospel.
You have to preach the gospel.
You have to see it accompanied by miracles.
But when they say miracles, they mean raising
the dead, healing the sick, giving sight to
the blind, and then...
I say, well, there's a measure of truth
in what they say.
The world wants to see the miracle of
a transformed life.
And I tell you, when you get an
assembly of people whose lives are transformed by
the grace of God, I'm going to tell
you there's an impact in the community when
that takes place.
I continue to pray for many of these
men who are in the clerical system that
we've been talking about today.
I love them.
I love them in the Lord.
I really do.
But I think there's something better than that,
just the simplicity.
Gathering to the Lord himself, where every person
is a Bible student.
Every person is witnessing for the Lord Jesus.
Every person is obeying the word of God
for himself.
Shall we pray?
Father, we just thank you for your word.
We think of how the church has drifted
down through the centuries.
All kinds of accretions have been made.
And so much so that people can't imagine
that it would be any other way.
We pray that as we come to the
word of God, we might be sensitive to
hear your voice speaking to us.
And as we see these things in the
word of God, we pray that we might
be faithful to them.
We ask it in the Savior's name.
Amen.