As the lengthy vacancy of the pulpit of
Knox Church comes to a close, let me
express here and now my own personal appreciation
of the several opportunities for ministry in God's
Word, which have been my privilege during these
months.
Lord willing, in just about a month from
today, I expect to be ministering the Word
of God in southern Italy, and thereafter by
way of Damascus to Kabul, Afghanistan, to do
mission survey, and beyond that to Lahore in
Pakistan for a conference on the West Asia
phase of the work of our mission, and
thereafter to New Delhi itself, where we expect
to hear reports of continued new opportunities for
service in the needy nation of Bangladesh.
It is most appropriate that the text chosen
for today deals with the subject of the
Christian ministry.
You have called a new minister.
What is the ministry?
Let us hear what is written by the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 2 Corinthians,
chapter 4, at verse 1.
2 Corinthians, chapter 4, at verse 1.
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we
have received mercy, we faint not, but have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking
in craftiness, not handling the word of God
deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending
ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God.
But if our gospel be hid, it is
hid to them that are lost, in whom
the God of this world hath blinded the
minds of them which believe not, lest the
light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who
is the image of God, should shine unto
them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus
the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake.
For God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
What is the Apostle Paul saying in this
text?
What is he telling us concerning the nature
and significance of the Christian ministry?
Let me share with you some of the
truths that I have found in this text
of Holy Scripture.
The first thing that the Apostle Paul tells
us here is that the Christian ministry centers
in Christ.
The Christian ministry centers in Christ.
Notice the conglomerate of phrases that Paul uses
to describe the message of the ministry.
In verse 2, for example, he speaks of
the word of God.
This word may come through Paul, this word
may come through Peter, this word may be
spoken through James or John or Joel or
Jeremiah, but the message is not invented by
men.
The message comes from the heart and mind
of God, and so it is called the
word of God.
Men are merely the instruments.
It is God who is the author of
the message, and that is why the Christian
message of the Old and New Testaments has
such a tremendous authority, because it comes from
a divine author.
We are not dealing here with legends from
the past.
We are dealing with a contemporary word that
has a tremendous relevance that comes from God
Himself.
The ministry centers in the delivery of God's
word.
The Apostle Paul further describes the message of
the ministry by saying that it not only
has to do with the word of God,
but that it also can be referred to
as our gospel.
Not our gospel in the sense that we
have concocted it, not our gospel in the
sense that we have ransacked our minds and
dug deep into our feelings and come forth
with this program, but our gospel in the
sense that Jesus Christ has entrusted it to
us.
We are aware of the fact that He
has entrusted it to us.
We have claimed it as our own, and
we have personally experienced its power.
That is why we are not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for we know through
personal experience which has made it ours that
it is God's divine dynamic able to shatter
the shackles of sin and to set men
free and to make them saved.
The message of the ministry is the word
of God.
The message of the ministry is the gospel
that we have made our own personal possession
through personal experience of its power.
And this gospel, this message is above all
the glorious gospel of Christ, according to verse
4.
Why is it called the glorious gospel of
Christ?
It's called the glorious gospel of Christ because
through the gospel, through the message of the
Christian ministry, the glory, the splendor, the wonder,
the excellence of Jesus Christ is made known.
It is in the gospel that we are
offered Jesus the Messiah, the prophet who reveals
to us God's will for our salvation, the
priest who sacrificed himself on the altar of
Calvary to atone for our sin and now
is ever alive, making intercession for us at
God's right hand, the king who will with
his majesty and sovereignty and righteousness bring forth
peace, subduing all his enemies and ours and
bringing in a kingdom of everlasting righteousness.
The burden of the ministry, the message of
the ministry is to declare the word of
God, is to announce a gospel that we
have made our very own through personal experience
of its power and is to reveal the
glory of our prophet, our priest and our
king.
For at the very center of the message
of the ministry is Jesus Christ who is
called the image of God.
Whatever God is, Jesus Christ is and the
fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in him.
For Jesus Christ makes known to us the
invisible God and Christ himself can say, he
that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
And again in verse 5 Paul says, we
preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord.
We preach this Christ who is the Messiah,
prophet, priest and king.
We preach this Jesus whose very name is
a mini gospel because it signifies that he
shall save his people from their sins.
We preach him who is the Lord, king
of kings and lord of lords.
The message of the ministry centers in this
Jesus Christ.
The second thing that the apostle Paul tells
us about the Christian ministry is that it
not only centers in Christ but that it
requires genuine integrity.
The Christian ministry requires genuine integrity and the
apostle Paul makes that plain by stressing a
negative and emphasizing a positive.
What's the negative?
The hidden things of dishonesty, those shameful things
that are covered in darkness lest their exposure
should cause us much embarrassment.
The walking in craftiness similar to the malice
and guile of the devil who deceived Eve
in the garden of Eden and caused their
paradise to be lost.
Not walking in craftiness, not handling the word
of God deceitfully, not distorting the word of
God.
When instead of presenting the gospel there is
a parading of gimmicks.
When instead of presenting the gospel there is
the smokescreen of hypocrisy to advance under that
cover partisan aims of jealousy and of envy.
When there is the distortion of the message
through the elimination of certain elements of the
message which may be unpalatable to the sin
warped mind of modern man.
When there is the exaggeration of some elements
of the message resulting in the minimizing and
distorting of the other elements of the message.
When there is the adulteration of the message
through the admixture of human error and contemporary
fads and hoary traditions, then there is deceit
and distortion.
And that manner of handling the message ensures
that God's truth does not come through and
Christ does not reach those for whom he
died.
The work of the ministry requires integrity, not
deception, not distortion, but rather the plain positive
manifestation of the truth.
Recall the way Jesus made the truth plain
in that third chapter of the gospel according
to John.
With such a depth that the most profound
theologian can never plummet and with such a
simplicity that even a child could understand it.
Jesus makes the truth manifest.
Jesus proclaims the truth plainly.
Except a man be born again, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God.
Except a man be born of water and
of the spirit, that man can't see the
kingdom of God.
God's soul of the world that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish but have everlasting life.
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life.
He that believeth not on him the wrath
of God continues to abide.
A plain proclamation and manifestation of the truth
is what is required in the integrity of
the gospel ministry.
To hold forth the promises of God and
also to let loose the thunder of the
warnings against impenitence.
To make known the wonder and the delightful
taste of the honey of the gospel and
the bitterness of a law that we break
and will inevitably break us unless we repent
and believe.
The integrity of the gospel ministry, not deception,
not distortion, but the plain proclamation of the
truth, unpalatable as it may be, to man.
Paul says that the integrity of the gospel
ministry involves an appeal to every man's conscience.
What do you really look for in a
minister?
What are you expecting of God's servant, Glenn
Owen?
You should not expect of him that he
will amuse you, though to have a sense
of humor is not out of place in
the heart of a minister.
Nor should you expect that he will merely
inform you with a veritable Niagara and a
torrent of facts and statistics.
Nor should you merely expect of him that
he should enthuse you and whip you up
like a cheerleader would a crowd at a
football game.
The main work of the gospel ministry is
neither to amuse nor infuse or to enthuse,
but rather to speak to the conscience.
For you and I are responsible moral beings.
We have left undone those things which we
ought to have done, and we have done
those things which God in his law clearly
forbids.
And there is no health in us, and
therefore the word that the minister of God
must initially bring must be a word that
addresses itself to our conscience, causing us to
recognize our sin, causing us to hate our
sin, causing us to confess our sin, causing
us to turn from our sin, causing us
to hate our sin with such a holy
hatred that nothing will satisfy our hunger and
thirst but righteousness and a new obedience.
It is this that we must expect.
It is this that we must seek.
And when we do, God will abundantly bless
us, speaking to every man's conscience as in
the sight of God.
The ultimate responsibility of a minister is not
to the customers.
The ultimate responsibility of a minister is not
to a board of trustees.
The ultimate responsibility of a minister is not
to a Kirk Session.
The ultimate responsibility of a minister is not
to the Presbytery of East Toronto.
The ultimate responsibility of a minister is not
even to the venerable General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in Canada.
The ultimate accountability of him who engages in
the sacred solemn office of the gospel ministry
is to him who has called him and
who shall at the last summon him before
the throne of his great glory.
Commending ourselves to man's conscience and serving as
in God's presence.
For all things are naked and open before
the eyes of him with whom we have
to do, ministers, managers or members.
Our ultimate accountability is not to please men
but to beware of displeasing him.
The next thing that the Apostle Paul tells
us after stressing that the Christian ministry centres
in Christ and requires genuine integrity is that
the Christian ministry encounters satanic opposition.
The God of this world has blinded the
minds of them which believe not.
Running right through all of scripture there's a
note of realism.
How does the prophet begin that 53rd chapter
of Isaiah that speaks of the suffering servant
of the Lord?
Lord, who hath believed our report?
Lord, who has accepted the message that we
try to share?
Lord, whose heart has really been opened to
hear what you would speak?
The note of realism.
Who hath believed our report?
Though the gospel be ever so plainly manifested,
ever so clearly demonstrated, there are those to
whom it is ignored.
There are those to whom it is unseen.
There are those to whom it is hidden.
We hear these days of the tremendous results
being achieved through the spread of the gospel
in wildfire fashion in Korea.
We hear of tremendous gains in membership being
made in Latin America through evangelism in depth.
We've heard of the after effects of the
mighty revival and shaking in Indonesia.
The Bible and medical missionary fellowship with which
I serve, laboring in a predominantly Hindu and
Muslim context, has had the opposite experience of
sowing the seed on soil that is hard
or stony or shallow or infested with thorns.
And therefore I can identify with the author
of the gospel here when he says that
there are times when our message is hid.
It is hid to those who are on
the way to perdition.
It is hid to those who refuse to
believe.
It is hid to those who have come
under the spell of Satan.
Now Satan has come back upon the scene
these days.
They speak of the exorcist.
They read of the exorcist.
They twist and turn at the exploitation of
the exorcist.
Satan worship has become commonplace on the edges
of several campuses.
It's associated with the subculture in drugs and
promiscuous sex.
But I say to you on the authority
of God's word that for everyone who may
be a Satan worshiper, there are a thousand
who are under the influence of Satan and
may not even be aware of it.
My Bible tells me that if they are
blind to the wonder of Christ who is
revealed in the gospel and if they have
unseen eyes and have a darkened understanding and
see nothing attractive about Jesus Christ, they are
under Satanic influence.
You get intellectuals like Professor John Allegro, late
of Manchester University in England, interviewed at considerable
length in one of our respectable papers of
the City of Toronto in yesterday's edition.
And incidentally they give a tremendous amount of
play to Allegro's views, but they have never
given even so much as a shred of
print to an intellectual equal of Allegro's, Professor
F.F. Bruce, who teaches on the same
faculty and is one of the world's greatest
experts in New Testament and Old Testament studies.
Well now, what does the so-called learned
Professor Allegro say?
With all his degrees and with all his
knowledge and with all his research, the man
shows himself to be a satanically influenced fool.
For he denies that Jesus Christ ever existed
and sees in the cross a mere phallic
symbol and he reduces biblical Christianity to a
crutch that is needed for the psychologically defective.
The Bible tells me that if a man
denies that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh, that man is animated by Antichrist.
And the secret of human unbelief, whether you
find it among the illiterate dropouts of Satan
worship or the pseudo-sophisticated intellectuals, is to
be found in satanic activity and opposition.
It is the god of this world that
is the prince of darkness masquerading as an
angel of light.
It is Satan who, appealing to man who
will not be governed by God, who instigates
and stimulates and agitates so that a man's
spiritual sight is blinded and he can see
nothing attractive about Jesus Christ.
And the wonder and the splendor of the
gospel light never dawns on him.
And therefore because we are up against satanic
opposition to the gospel and therefore because unbelief
is the outward evidence of the inward work
of Satan, because we are not up against
flesh and blood but against principalities and powers
and spirits of evil in high places, let
us understand that the strongholds of Satan can
only be cast down by those who are
mighty in prayer and who prevail in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Pray for Dr. Owen.
Pray for all who preach the gospel.
Pray for all who would live a Christ
-honoring life, that they may be used of
the Lord to cast down the strongholds of
Satan and to liberate those whom Satan, through
unbelief, has taken captive at his will.
The fourth and final thing that I would
share to you from this text, which speaks
so eloquently of Christian ministry, is that Christian
ministry not only centers in Christ, it not
only requires genuine integrity, it not only encounters
satanic opposition, but it offers everlasting benefits.
It offers everlasting benefits.
Paul says in verse 5, We preach not
ourselves, but we exalt Christ Jesus the Lord,
and we look upon ourselves as your servants
for Jesus' sake.
It is the work of the ministry to
benefit the body of Christ by building it
up in faith, building it up in hope,
building it up in love.
It is a ministry, not a mastering.
It is a serving of the Lord's heritage.
It is not a lording it over the
Lord's heritage.
It is a service, a service that is
rendered to comfort, to teach, to exhort, to
warn, to encourage.
The minister is your servant to edify you
in the things of God, but more than
edification is involved.
It is never enough to comfort the saints.
There must also be outreach to the community,
leading to the conversion of those whom Satan
has deceived and dominated.
And that is why the apostle adds that
the ministry is not only to serve you
and advance your holiness and knowledge and righteousness,
but that the ministry exists in order to
enable others to receive the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ, the God who in
the beginning spoke that creative word that brought
light into the midst of darkness, order where
there was chaos, beauty where there was only
a formless void.
That God of creation is the God who
recreates and makes us into new people at
the time of our regeneration and conversion when
he again says, Let there be light, and
the truth dawns upon our soul, and we
see as never before in the dying form
of Christ crucified, him who was wounded for
our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.
We see in him the one who is
triumphant over death and has brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel.
But our conversion, our enlightenment, our salvation are
never an end in themselves.
It is so that we might share it
with others.
God has shined into our hearts, has converted
and illumined us.
Why?
So that we might give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ to others.
The comforting of the saints is never enough.
There must be the conversion of those who
should yet be transformed into saints, you and
I then, and not alone the man whom
you have called to occupy this pulpit.
You and I as members of the body
of Christ who have been enlightened by the
Holy Ghost and seen the glory of God,
you and I have been saved so that
we may communicate the gospel to others, so
that we may share with others and give
them the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Christ
Jesus.
How will we do this?
We will do it by what we affirm.
For more than 150 years this pulpit has
affirmed the fundamentals of the faith.
We do it by affirming.
We do it not only by our affirmations,
but by our actions.
By what we do, by what we are,
we give credibility to what we say.
We do it by our attitudes.
For we can affirm the thing that is
true, and we can do the thing that
is right, but if we speak the truth
without the proper attitude, and if we perform
the right action without the attitude that God
requires, it is nothing worth in His eyes.
God has illumined us, not that we should
put the light under the bushel, but that
we should hold it aloft and introduce others
to the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God resplendent in the face of
Jesus Christ.
Let your light so shine before men that
they, seeing your good works as well as
hearing your good words, may be led to
glorify our Father who is in heaven.