Six Wrong Reasons to Enter the Gospel Ministry

Introduction and Format of the Seminar

0:00 By way of introduction, I should like to say just a word about the format of our time together this afternoon and in future sessions similar to the one we're conducting today. And then a few remarks about the focus of our study, the content. We really have two specific groups in mind and it will be to our profit to keep that in mind as we continually meet and as we work through these materials together. And then I will introduce the subject matter of our consideration this afternoon.

0:34 First of all, then, a word about the format of the class. I propose to take the first hour, approximately, a little more, a little less, for lecture. It'll be more lecture than exposition. I make a distinction between the two.

0:50 I won't take time to tell you what I feel are the distinctions. You'll probably notice some of them as we work our way through the material. We'll have an hour for lecture and then we'll open up the class for an hour or so of questions, particularly, I trust, relevant and relative to the subject matter covered in the lecture. But as time goes on, it no doubt will move out in other directions.

1:14 And I would like you to feel free to look upon it as a seminar in which you're free to ask any questions relative to the work of teaching, preaching, or the work of the ministry in general, whether we conceive of the ministry in its more limited pastoral context or in its broader context of ministry within the local church as a layman. Now, just a word about the focus of the remarks. All that I'll be saying has in mind two classes of people. Now, we're not talking about class distinctions such as they have in India.

1:48 And we are not denying the concept of the priesthood of all believers, but some of the remarks that we'll be making have particular reference to and relevance to those who are committed to a ministry in the word in which they labor in the word and in doctrine. I think that's the most accurate biblical phrase I know of to describe what we call, I don't think the terminology is good, but we use it, a full-time pastor, a full-time teaching elder. Then, of course, some of the remarks will be focused upon those who exercise a teaching gift within a local church or another situation, but who do not have the office of a ruling and teaching elder. Now, I hope you'll use your own judgment continually in sorting out some of the things we say,

2:38 because some of them will have more particular relevance to this other to this. But I hope, in general, it will be applicable to both groups. And I don't want to continually stop and say, now, this only applies here. This more generally applies there.

Scriptural Framework: Four Key Texts

2:55 I credit you with enough intelligence and basic biblical perspective that you'll be able to do some of that sorting out for yourself. All right. I want to address myself today to what I'm calling what constitutes a call to a teaching ministry. And to set the field of our study to get our minds thinking in a biblical framework, I wish to read and then make a few comments upon four very pivotal texts of Scripture.

3:25 First of all, 2 Timothy 2 and verse 2.

3:30 We have some navigator friends with us, and I always like to remind my nav friends that they don't have a copyright on this text.

3:39 Second Timothy 2, 2.

3:42 Now, we could back up to verse 1. Thou therefore my child, speaking to Timothy, who was Paul's spiritual child, thou therefore my child to be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things which thou has heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Now, it's obvious that Timothy had to make a judgment in two areas. He had to make a judgment as to Christian character, faithful men, and he had to make a judgment with regard to God-given gifts of teaching who shall be able to teach others.

4:24 Now, that responsibility is no longer given to apostolic representatives such as Timothy, but it is given to the church. And the church has a responsibility to make a judgment in the realm of Christian character and in the realm of ministering gifts with regard to her young men and to men within her fellowship. So, the moment we come into this subject of what constitutes a call to a teaching ministry, we are out of the realm of crass individualism, which has been one of the curses that has rested upon our evangelical life for at least the past 50 to 75 years, where if a man had some deep inner urge and some deep sense of spiritual pressure that he ought to teach,

5:14 then it was tantamount to blasphemy for anyone to question that he was called of God, because God had told him he was to speak. God told him he was to be a teacher. God told him he was to be a preacher. Well, you see, when we put that type of mentality into the perspective of a text like this, it just absolutely crumbles.

5:36 The assessment was to be made external to the person who was faithful and was one who would be able to teach. All right, now move back to Romans chapter 12 for a moment. And all I'm seeking to do now is to give a brief comment upon a few of these verses that will set the field of our study this afternoon. Romans chapter 12.

6:02 Having looked at the church's responsibility with regard to the call to a teaching ministry, we now see the individual's responsibility.

6:12 The exhortation to all believers in the light of the great panoramic display of grace and mercy that the apostle has expounded in the first 11 chapters of Romans, he says, this new light and new understanding should elicit a commensurate response of new yieldedness. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Be not fashioned according to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You may prove that is experimentally realize what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God for I say through the grace that was given to me to every man that is among you.

6:57 Now, this is addressed to the individual believer, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but so to think as to think soberly according as God has dealt to each man the measure of faith. For even as we have many members in one body and all the members have not the same office, so we who are many are one body in Christ and severally members one of another. And 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, or he that teachth to his teaching, he that exhorteth to exhorting, he that giveth, let him do it with liberality, he that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.

7:43 And you see the apostle is admonishing the Christians at Rome to come to a place of sober self-assessment with reference to their gifts.

7:55 Don't think more highly than you ought, but don't think more lowly than you ought. It's a sin on either end of the spectrum. Some men think more highly of themselves than they ought, and they think for sure God's given them gifts to teach when their gift is probably showing mercy. Others think more lowly of themselves than they ought to, and God has given them gifts to teach, but they're too selfy facing either to recognize it or having recognized it in false humility or in a sinful kind of diffidence they back off from giving themselves to their teaching.

8:25 Well, both of those things are condemned here. In the context of sober self-assessment, he says, let a man then give himself to the gift that God has given to him. All right, then over to 1 Timothy, Chapter 3,

8:43 where we move now into the area of what we might call ambition. We saw in the 2 Timothy 2 passage the responsibility of the church in assessing her sons with reference to graces and gifts, Romans 12, the responsibility of the individual believer to assess his gifts. Now in 1 Timothy 3.1, we have a statement of an honorable ambition.

9:06 Faithful is the saying, if a man seeketh the office of a bishop, and here, of course, he's speaking of an overseer, a teaching and a ruling elder, he desireth a good work. And implicit in this word of the Apostle Paul is approval upon godly ambition to a teaching and overseeing responsibility. There's nothing in the text to indicate that this kind of ambition is sinful in itself. And apparently, it had already become one of the little catch phrases amongst the people of God, a saying that was already in vogue and already part of the verbal currency of the early church in the area where Timothy ministered, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.

9:52 And Paul says, when you hear that saying, I want you to know that I put my imprimatur upon it. It is a faithful saying, just as the saying in 1 Timothy, where he mentions 2 Timothy, Chapter 1. This is a faithful saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. It's 1 Timothy 1.15.

10:11 Faithful is this saying, another saying that apparently had become common currency. So ambition for the office is not of itself sinful. But now turn over to James 3 and verse 1.

10:28 James 3 and verse 1. Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that ye shall receive the heavier or the greater judgment. Now, here's an apparent discouragement from seeking the teaching responsibility. And if our perspective of 1 Timothy 3 is not colored by James 1, it won't be wholesome.

10:54 If our approach to James 3.1 is not colored by 1 Timothy 3, it will not be healthy. Be not many of you teachers, my brethren. Don't all of you clamor for the responsibility of a teaching ministry.

11:09 Don't all of you clamor to be teaching elders. He said, if you do, it's indicative of ignorance of the responsibility that attaches itself to that sphere, namely heavier judgment. And so putting all of these four texts together, or just as we're letting them stand out there before us, I believe it can get our minds thinking in the direction of the tremendous seriousness of the whole issue of seeking to understand what constitutes a call to a teaching ministry, whether we think of that in its more developed form of a teaching, ruling elder who lives of the gospel, which would be synonymous of what we would call the call to the ministry, or whether

11:58 we think of it in its more limited sense of exercising the teaching gift as a layman within a given situation of service. All right, now with those perspectives before us, as time permits, let me suggest six wrong reasons for aspiring to a teaching or preaching ministry. And then if we have time, I'd like to suggest four proper reasons for aspiring to a teaching ministry. All right, six wrong reasons.

Wrong Reason 1: Inaccurate Assessment of One's Gifts

12:33 And I've not gleaned these from a book. I've gleaned them primarily from observation, and I trust study of the scriptures. First of all, and may the searcher of hearts be pleased to be present in power to expose any of these things where they may be resident in any of your hearts, the first wrong reason for seeking a teaching ministry is an inaccurate assessment of one's own gifts and graces, an inaccurate assessment of one's own gifts and graces.

13:10 It's almost proverbial that in every little country church, you've got some dear old sister who's convinced that she's second cousin to Renata to Baldi or to Lily Pons in bygone days, and she is absolutely convinced that the best thing she can do for the waiting years of the congregation is to sin the solo every single week. But the problem is there's only one person who appreciates her voice. It's her and everybody else. It just kills them to tolerate old sister Bessie warbling away with a vibrato that covers about three notes. And I think if you've had some contact, I hope not too much, but you know that type of person. And what's so difficult is

14:01 many times the person's very sincere, and they really feel that they can bless the congregation by the use of their, quote, talent. But the problem is there is a totally inaccurate assessment of their vocal furnishings. And what complicates it is they will not listen to anyone who really is hearing them rightly. They just feel that they just don't have an appreciation for the finer things of life. Well, it's a tragedy when you find dear old sister Bessie, but one can tolerate a few poor notes once a week. But when dear saints of God have got to sit week after week and be punished by men in the pulpit who have no God given gifts to communicate, and they must go on

14:52 week after week being tortured by this. And the problem is there is a failure to come to grips with the truth that we read in Romans chapter 12 and verse three. The key phrase in that matter of self-assessment is this phrase, Romans 12, let every man judge soberly and let no man think more highly of himself than he ought to think. Romans 12, and let me get the exact reference, verse three, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think so as to think soberly according as God has dealt to every man a measure of faith. And as I indicated earlier,

15:45 sober thinking neither exaggerates nor depreciates such gifts as God has bestowed. Now sometimes it's just downright uncrucified pride that causes a man to have an inaccurate assessment of his gifts. Sometimes it's just sheer ignorance. He doesn't know what constitutes gifts and graces to teach. And I think most often it is unwillingness to listen to one's brethren.

16:15 A man will go on with this inaccurate assessment of his gifts because he has separated himself from the counsel of his brethren and in so doing has brought this terrible blight upon himself and subsequently upon others. I shall be quoting from time to time from Spurgeon and Bridges, both of whom say some very helpful and perceptive things on this matter of the call to the ministry. And he gives an illustration of a man who had ambitions to preach because of this very reason and inaccurate assessment of his own gifts. Listen to what happened. I heard of a gentleman who had a most intense desire to preach and pressed his suit upon his minister, not his clothing but his request, old English suit, until after a multitude of rebuts he obtained permission

17:04 to preach a trial sermon. That opportunity was the end of his importunity, for upon announcing his text he found himself bereft of every idea but one, which he delivered feelingly and then descended from the rostrum. And this was the one idea he could deliver feelingly. My brethren said he, if any of you think it an easy thing to preach, I advise you to come up here and have all the conceit taken out of you. And then he sat down. The trial of your powers will go far to reveal to you your deficiency if you have not the needed ability. I know of nothing better.

17:39 We must give ourselves a fair trial in this matter, or we cannot assuredly know whether God has called us or not, and during the probation we must often ask ourselves whether upon the whole we can hope to edify others with such discourses. You see, when a man is caught the biblical perspective, let all things be done unto edification, then in sober assessment comes to the realization that God has not furnished him with the necessary gifts to be an instrument of edification. He does not want to punish the people of God by remaining in a teaching responsibility. Regardless of how much personal enjoyment may come, he recognizes that any teaching office or responsibility exists not for the good of the teacher but for the good of the

18:28 body of believers. Let all things be done unto edifying. And you see, we can fall into the same era that the tongue speakers at Corinth did. They said, man, I don't care if anybody out there gets blessed. I get so blessed when I get carried away in tongues. I just got to speak in tongues. Paul said, look, when you come into the congregation, you don't think about your own edification. You think about the edification of your brother and your sister. Therefore, he says, if there be no interpreter, keep quiet. I don't care how blessed you get. Wait until you get home in your closet, then get all blessed up and speak in tongues all you want in your closet. But when you come into the assembly, your concern is to be edification of others, not yourself. And so, let me urge upon every one of you to cry to God for the grace of sober, sane self-evaluation. For an inaccurate

Wrong Reason 2: Uncrucified Lust for Authority and Attention

19:19 assessment of your own gifts can be the reason why you might aspire to and maybe even attain a teaching or preaching responsibility only to blight those who must be the recipients of the same. All right. In the second place, another wrong reason why men aspire to teaching offices and teaching opportunities is what I'm calling an uncrucified lust for the authority and attention connected with public ministry. An uncrucified lust for the authority and attention connected with public ministry. There's a classic example of this in the case of the

20:06 scribes and the Pharisees. Our Lord in the 23rd chapter of Matthew begins by saying, the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. That is, they sit in the place where they are administrating the law of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe to the extent that they expound the law of Moses, bind your conscience by divine revelation, all is well. But he says there's a worm in the gourd of all of their ministry.

20:38 And this is what it is beginning with verse five. But all their works they do to be seen of men, for they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments and love the chief place at feasts and chief seats in the synagogues and the salutations in the marketplaces and to be called of men rabbi. See the picture? Their own uncrucified lust for authority and attention fed upon the carrion of men's praises and men's adulation. As I said this morning, would to God that Herod's question had died with Herod, but it hasn't. It lives with us today.

21:28 Would God that this uncrucified lust had been fed enough decaying carrion of men's praise to have gorged itself and died its own death? But it hasn't. It's very much with us. And to this hour there are men aspiring to teaching responsibilities because of an uncrucified lust for the authority and attention connected with public ministry. They look upon a teaching situation as a platform upon which to parade their flesh and a pedestal upon which they may stand to gain the admiring glances of men. They have a lust for attention that feeds upon the supposed, and I use the word carefully, the supposed glamour of leadership. For leadership

22:17 assumed under the constraint of the Holy Ghost has such built-in dangers, liabilities, and pressures that only the man constrained many times against himself stays on in that place of responsibility and leadership. You'll notice in almost every instance where God called anyone in Scripture, they didn't just jump up and say, well, Lord, I just wondered when you were going to wake up to the fact that all my gifts and talents were lying here on you, did not know when God called and they wanted to run. They said, Lord, not me. Not me, Lord, somebody else. And this business of people just traipsing up and saying, well, Lord, let's get on with it now, you know. It bespeaks tremendous uncrucified areas of lust for authority and attention connected with public

Wrong Reason 3: Unbalanced Concept of Spirituality

23:05 ministry. Then there's a third reason why men aspire to offices of responsibility and teaching and preaching that is an unworthy motive, and it's what I'm calling an unbalanced concept of spirituality. This is not as liable to censure as the first two. A man who has an inaccurate assessment of his own gifts and stops his ears to the pleadings of his brethren, he's to be blamed and sharply rebuked for his arrogance and his pride. The man who has an uncrucified lust for the authority and attention connected with the ministry, he's to be rebuked for that thing that scripture so clearly condemns. But this third person is not so much to be rebuked as he is to

23:53 be lovingly instructed. He has imbibed an unbalanced concept of spirituality, and I believe the mentality goes something like this. Because the Bible speaks of relative worth in the realm of gifts, 1 Corinthians 14, covet earnestly the what? The best gifts. There is an ascending ladder of importance, usefulness in the realm of gifts, and Paul puts at the top of the list of the gifts of usefulness to the church, the gift of prophecy, that is the intelligent communication of divine truth in the authority of the spirit. And he says this is the gift that brings the greatest edification. Now here's where the fallacy comes into the thinking. Since there is a relative

24:43 degree of importance and usefulness in gifts, people then assume that to have this gift means it puts me on the top rung of the ladder of spiritual character. Since the better gift is prophecy, therefore the presence of that gift must mean I have attained greater grace. And that connection is nowhere assumed or taught in Holy Scripture. Nowhere. In the two or three passages which treat most thoroughly the concept of differing gifts, Romans 12, we read it earlier, 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14, are the chapters which most clearly teach the concept of

25:31 the body. So that whatever there is in terms of relative importance in the exercise of the gifts, there is no degree of being more spiritual in terms of the membership of the body. This hand may serve a far greater and more vital function in my body than, say, my earlobe. I could have that earlobe cut off and have very, very little loss to the total function of the body.

26:02 If that hand, if this hand, my left hand is special, if that were cut off, there'd be tremendous crippling of the total function of the body. But that lobe shares the same life stream that the hand shares. It is as much an integral part of the total life structure, this organism called my body, as is any other member, prominent or non-prominent. And that truth, you see, is dominant in these passages so that a false concept of spirituality often leads people to aspire to the ministry of prophecy, of teaching and preaching, because they have convinced themselves that is to attain the highest degree of spirituality. And this mentality has been

26:51 fostered in pulpits. You let a young person who does not evidence gifts or inclinations to the ministry say to his pastor that he feels he ought to go to ag school and end up being a farmer, and he'll pat him on the back and say, fine. Let his brother say, I feel led to the ministry, and suddenly he's a hero in front of the whole church. And everybody's encouraged to pray for it.

27:14 Now, this is not an exaggeration. This goes on all the time. At the end of youth rallies, people will be invited to come forward to present themselves as missionary candidates.

27:28 Well, if he just is right to say, how many present themselves to be godly housewives? It's purely a matter of vocation and calling, and it has nothing to do with spirituality. And so I'm convinced, as I've talked with young men about this and tried to analyze what it was that was moving them to be inclined in the direction of the ministry, wrongly, it was this unbalanced concept of spirituality. And you find this mentality so often reflected when the person say, who goes off to Bible school with some inclinations that he or she is going to be a preacher or missionary, and then time proves along with accurate self-assessment, along with the crucifixion of those very immature spiritual attitudes, which led them to say they were missionary volunteers. Let true spiritual growth lead them to say, I am not called of

28:19 God to be teacher, missionary preacher. And then everybody looks upon them as a second rate citizen, a tragedy of missionary statistics. Now, brethren, this is wrong. This cannot be supported by the perspectives of the word of God. And so I would say to any of you, and I would say it at this point tenderly and lovingly, if you have absorbed this mentality, may God through the word and the spirit, drive it out of you. For there is no necessary connection between the highest gifts and the highest measure of grace. No necessary connection. Thank God when there is, but there is no necessary connection. All right, then there's a fourth wrong reason why men aspire

Wrong Reason 4: Inadequate View of Ministerial Qualifications

29:04 to teaching and preaching responsibilities. And it's what I'm calling an inadequate view of the breadth of qualifications for a teaching or preaching ministry, an inadequate view of the breadth of qualifications for a teaching and preaching ministry. When a person is born of the spirit, there is implanted in his heart, in some measure, a love for people, an understanding of truth, and a love for truth. Would you all agree with me that if a man has been born of the spirit of God, those things are there at least in some measure. The spirit of truth has come to

29:52 indwell him, opening his eyes. He now looks upon scripture with enlightened eyes. 1 Corinthians 2 12. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. And then there's a love for people. The love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit. God's love to him then finds expression in his love to men. Hereby do we know that we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. Some measure of love to the brethren is a necessary attendant of the new birth. And then there is this love for truth, love for the thing which was the divine seed by which he has been begotten again. Now realizing this, and as these things begin to develop, then people wrongly assume

30:44 since I have a love for people and some understanding of truth and a love for truth, why then the Lord must be leading me to teach people for how can I better help people than by communicating the truth that God has made so real to me. And so they mistake what are the necessary and normal consequences of the new birth for a distinct call to the teaching ministry. And often this is complicated by the fact that when we live in in a stage of low spiritual tone and someone just gets normal biblical experience in conversion, it looks like such a rare thing that everybody hovers around saying well my with such love for truth and insight for truth. This fellow must be someone upon whom the Lord's hand is resting for ministry. Well that's not necessarily

31:33 true at all. Every true Christian has these graces in some measure. Love for people, understanding of truth, love for truth. But there is much more required if a man is to be a teacher at this level and much much more if he's to be a teacher at this level. I would quote again from Spurgeon in his lectures to his students speaking to this very point.

32:03 Oops I've got bridges instead of surprises. All right those of you who have this same copy it's on page 29. We must however do much more than put this matter of whether or not we are qualified for the ministry to our own conscience and judgment for we are poor judges. A certain class of brethren have a great facility for discovering that they have been very wonderfully and divinely helped in their declamations. I should envy them their glorious liberty and self complacency if there were any ground for it. But alas I very frequently have to be mown and born over my non-success and shortcomings as a speaker. Here the most powerful

32:49 pulpit orator of that part of the 19th century. I have frequently to be mown and mourn my non-success. There's not much dependence to be placed upon our own opinion but much may be learned from judicious spiritual minded persons. You see what he's saying because Spurgeon had some assessment of all that is required to be an effective communicator of divine truth in a biblical perspective he felt his own inadequacies whereas others who don't have one tenth his gifts feel quite confident that they are fairly adequate for the task and what's their problem an inadequate view of the breadth of the qualifications for a teaching and for a preaching

33:38 ministry. Much more is required than understanding of truth love for people and a love for truth. Much more is required both in gifts and in graces and the sooner we come to understand that and have our perspective molded by a much more accurate assessment of what is required and we hope to get that in the second session the better off we will be. Well there is a fifth reason wrong reason why men aspire to the office of teachers and preachers and I don't know what else to call it but unmet psychological needs for personal identity. I haven't gone hog wild in

Wrong Reason 5: Unmet Psychological Needs for Identity

34:25 psychology I don't think I've ever read one book through from a pagan psychologist I've tried to read a little bit from those whose minds are disciplined by scripture but I do believe that there is something to be said about this reason why some men aspire to the office of the ministry and the responsibility of teachers. There are unmet psychological needs for personal identities all of you have met the fellow at work or you remember the kid on the block he had no proper self-image he felt very insecure wondered if anybody liked him ever watched him listened to him noticed him so he determined he was going to make his mark by becoming the bully on the block

35:11 and so he made his mark by becoming the bully on the block so that if nobody noticed him for what he was in himself they'd notice him for being little johnny bully and everybody'd be afraid when he put his dukes up because they knew the kid could fight and and lock the stuffing on it well what was the problem well in many cases when you trace it back to its source the kid didn't have a father who made him feel his true worth or a mother problems in the home he had no true self-image in which he learned to accept himself for what he was and therefore he had to project some image that would gain attention and bring him the adulation and respect of his peers well it's tragic that this thing happens in the christian church there are those who have not

35:57 accepted themselves as image bearers of god who can't believe that people accept them and love them for what they are and so because they know that generally speaking teachers and preachers are respected and loved in the church they're determined to come into the place of respect and therefore they're determined to become teachers or preachers now i'm not saying they sit down and they calculate this and that's why my prayer is that even as i speak these things the holy spirit will will mirror your own life if these things are true but there's that person can't believe that the people of god will accept him just as another believer just humble oh me when mother flashy gibson just come and i take my place and seek to honor god in my legitimate

36:45 calling and so there is this drive this this tremendous push to come to a place of teaching come to a place of authority right then people will notice me then people will look at me then people respect me not so much that these people have an uncrucified lust for authority it's that they have an unmet psychological need for their own identity or it can be and this would come under this same category they want the insulation of the office of the ministry they somehow feel that they could get a pulpit between them and the people the very place of responsibility would elevate them above the people sufficiently that they wouldn't have to be transparent so that

37:33 people really know them for what they were they can protect themselves and insulate themselves with the pulpit or with the lector and that's a tragic thing because you see one of the very essential elements of true ministry is transparency our lord was a man amongst men i am among you as he that serve i have given you an example that he should do as i have done unto you and one of the curses of the ministry and i can't help but feel that this is one of the reasons is this concept of the elevation you see of the teacher or of the preacher to the place where he doesn't need to be a man amongst men and he's comfortable in the insulation and isolation of

38:24 the office bearing responsibility or it could be and this comes under this same category and i've seen this there are people who have unmet psychological needs who long for a platform from which they can pour out their own frustration in their own bitterness how well i remember a young man who was crippled not physically but spiritually by one or two areas of sin in his own life and i remember one day him telling me and i don't believe i'm exaggerated i want to try to convey it as accurate as possible he said if i could ever get victory over these sins then i'd get in that pulpit and i'd tell those people look on his face i said god have mercy don't ever let him get the deal you see he looked upon the pulpit as a platform from which

39:15 he could pour forth the bitterness and the frustration of his own spirit upon the poor people of god and i'm afraid i'm terribly afraid that that thing has been repeated many times over i've heard preachers who scold it who berated who castigated who seemed to feed their own souls and try to feed the souls of their people upon declaiming against this thing and declaiming against that thing and if you took away all of that constant stream of negative from them they'd be left without a message unmet psychological needs and the pulpit has become the as it were the sluice gate through which all of this now pours upon the poor people of god well then there

Wrong Reason 6: Unsanctified Ambitions of Others

40:04 is a sixth reason why men aspire to teaching offices that is far from the biblical reason and it's what i would call the unsanctified or unwise ambitions of others the unsanctified or unwise ambitions of others i know of one situation where a mother reared her children conditioning their conscience with this concept we could not go to the mission field and a pastor told us then we ought to raise missionaries and preachers and they let those kids know from the time they were this high that they were being raised to be preachers and missionaries is it no wonder that those kids went through tremendous trauma when it came to sober self assessment of what their gifts and callings might be they had been conditioned to believe that the

40:52 very reason they were breathing air i mean really the only reason they were breathing air was to be missionaries and the tragedy the tragedy of many so-called missionary casualties one term on the field and never back again dropouts from the ministry i believe much of it is right here people were in that responsibility having been pressured to it by the unwise or the unsanctified ambitions of others many times people whom they greatly respected whom they dearly loved not only mothers and fathers who quote raise missionaries and conditioners who were mothers and fathers who quote raise missionaries and condition the consciences of their children

41:38 to feel that's what they're here for but may the lord have mercy on pastors who look upon all their ministerial students as notches in their rifle and i've actually met men who when they're giving you their spiritual battle history will tell you 17 men into the ministry of my ministry you know very humbly of course there's another notch in the rifle we have sitting here right today a young man who could have been the tragic product of that who because he'd been converted and had a little fluency in giving his testimony was encouraged to pursue the course of the christian ministry and he'd tell you today with tears that it would have been the most tragic thing in the world to him and to anyone else who would have sat under his ministry but there was the ambition

42:24 of pastors who again and it's not wrong for pastors to pray lord raise up of our sons those who preach your word but then to condition people and push people beyond a facing of the biblical things that comprise a call to the ministry is a tragic tragic thing indeed and so i would say this is the sixth unworthy reason for aspiring to a teaching responsibility the unsanctified or the unwise ambition of mothers fathers or pastors or friends and i would lay these six things six things that's a tongue twister before you for your sober consideration because if anything would grieve me it would be that this

43:12 clash should be the occasion of the lord having to say as he did through the prophet jeremiah they have run and i have not sent them that's one of the most tragic statements in all the scripture they have run but i have not sent them it's found in jeremiah 23 in the indictment against the false shepherds they ran ready to go ready to speak but i never sent them well i didn't have any idea how long would take me to get through the six negatives and this is the first time i've gone down this pathway

Preview of Four Positive Elements of a True Call

43:50 so i think rather than move into the four positives i think it would take me too much time maybe i'll just give them to you and then enlarge on the next time how will that be all right because i do feel it essential that we really enlarge on these things and i've got to have some throat left to preach another hour in another hour all right the four factors which comprise a biblical mosaic as to why a man should aspire to a teaching and preaching responsibility

44:23 are one desire born of right motives desire born of right motives if any man seeketh desireth the office of a bishop first peter five taking the oversight not of constraint but willingly there must be desire born of right motives and then i want to open up what the right motives are the lord willing next time secondly there must be graces indicating genuine christian experience graces indicating genuine christian experience first timothy three again of course is the dominant passage on this i'm always suspicious when a man's longing to teach is

45:13 stronger obviously than his longing to be a holy man i i tell you i smell a rat

45:20 when a guy wants to has more longing to serve christ than to be like christ i smell something fishy so there has to be graces must be graces indicating genuine christian experience thirdly there must be gifts indicating divine provision having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given unto us whether prophecy whether teaching whether ministry whether giving whether showing mercy let me just use one little illustration quickly here because it's football season i think in terms of football and there's this kid you know he's just gung-ho for his old alma mater man he goes to every scrimmage he's out there during the week he goes to every single game he's right there in the 50 yard line rooting on his team man he just

46:08 wants to see him win and there they are playing some team and they're constantly running over his team's right tackle position gaining yardage six seven eight yards a clip and everything in him he longs to get out there and plug up that hole everything in him he's just consumed with desire he's proven his genuine love for the team but there's only one problem he's five to 110 pounds

46:36 and to put him up against an offensive tackle with six foot four two hundred and forty pounds all of desire in the world i'm going to help him much he needs he needs some auver du pois he needs some raw bone and muscle all right you get the point do you there must be gifts indicating divine provision a guy may be consumed with passion to proclaim the word but if god has not endowed him with the gifts or if it's not evident that the lord is endowing him with the gifts then god has not called him to preach and then last of all there must be opportunity indicating a providential opening opportunity indicating a providential opening and a verse that's come back to me again and again in the past couple of years from the book of proverbs a man's gift make it room for him

47:26 and set it in before princess a man's gift make it room for him and i'm so suspicious i get letters from people saying the lord's called me to preach and i'm all prepared but i have no opening that's something disturbs me a man's gift make it room for him and set it in before princess and so one of the factors of a god-given call to teach at this level or this will be an opportunity indicating a providential opening all right the lord willing next session will open up those things in the meantime i would encourage you to read the section in bridges on the christian ministry the call to the ministry and then the section in spurgeon's lectures to my students

48:16 the call to the ministry and spurgeon said when he was giving his lecture when he started he said i wasn't aware of newton's advice to a young man and so he quotes it verbatim at the end so you don't even need newton's paperback for his advice to a young man who wrote to newton on this matter of what constitutes a call to ministry now you have it there in spurgeon's lectures to his students all right the lord willing next session will open up those things