Dear congregation, first I want to thank you for inviting me to participate in this joyous occasion. And just thank you very, very much that I can come and preach. As I was thinking about what would be appropriate words from God's Word to speak to my son and to you all, My heart went right to Timothy and Paul to his spiritual son Timothy as he was preparing to close out his ministry and to pass the baton on to Timothy. So I read through 1 and 2 Timothy and studied it and meditated on it and then picked out some of the appropriate texts. Mine also went to the fourth commandment. Now some of you might say, well, I don't quite understand how that's connected. But you will when you recall how the Heidelberg Catechism interprets the meaning of the Fourth Commandment. So let's turn there first a moment to question 103 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which asks the question, what is God's will for us in the Fourth Commandment? And the answer is, first, that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained. Now I have to confess that I didn't know that when I was eight years old and Dad said on Sunday you can't play baseball with the neighbors and you have to study your catechism and learn that before you can go outside of the house after the dinner time. And you know, you had some other concepts about what Sunday was and how you kept the Sabbath day holy and at that young age I don't think that I thought keeping the Sabbath day holy had anything to do with maintaining seminaries and preparing men for the gospel ministry. But this week I read Ursinus' commentary on it, and of course Ursinus was one of the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, and he more than fully persuaded me that his interpretation is certainly biblical, and that indeed what is the heart and core of the fourth commandment is that God's people be taught how to worship God and that it's necessary for them, therefore, to gather together on a regular basis and to be trained not only to how to worship God in public worship on Sunday, but indeed how to worship God seven days a week in everything we do. And we can see that in the second part of his answer. First, he says that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained and that especially on the festive day of rest I regularly attend the assembly of God's people to learn what God's word teaches to participate in the sacraments to pray to God publicly and to bring Christian offerings for the poor but second that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways let the word the Lord work in me through his spirit and so begin already in this life the eternal sabbath so if you had to put that into a few words you'd have to think a little while and try to bring that down and it's basically saying that sunday is one of the major things that god uses to train us to be christians and to build his church and if we're going to train you to be christians as the leaders of the church we first need to be trained by god and by the church as to how to do that most serious and important task. So now we turn to Timothy. As you note, many of the proof texts that are given there are from 1 and 2 Timothy. And so we'll read some scriptures from 1 and 2 Timothy, Paul's word to his spiritual son. 1 Timothy 1 verses 3 through 7. As I urge you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work, which is by faith. The goal is this, command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm and then turn to chapter 4 and we'll read the verses 11 through 16 command and teach these things don't let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example for the believers in speech in love in life in faith and in purity until i come devote yourself to the public reading of scripture to preaching and to teaching do not neglect your gift which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you be diligent in these matters give yourself wholly to them so that everyone may see your progress watch your life and doctrine closely persevere in them because if you do you will save both yourself and your hearers and then if you turn to chapter 6 verses 20 and 21 the final verses of the first letter of paul to timothy timothy guard what has been entrusted to your care turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge which some have professed and in so doing have wandered far from the faith grace be with you and then just a couple verses from second timothy chapter 2 the first two verses you then my son be strong in the grace that is in christ jesus and the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses and trust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others now it's impossible for me to do justice to the Catechism and all of those texts tonight, and if I did, you wouldn't remember it, because my speech would be so scattered, you would probably forget everything. So we'll do sort of the best we can, and I don't want to keep you here more than an hour. So dear congregation, one of our esteemed brethren who's present here tonight was speaking at a conference last year at Walnut Creek, And the conference theme was reviving our minds and our hearts so that we be devoted Christians and have a devoted church. And in his final speech at that conference, he laid out the plan, the challenge as to how to do that. And one of his three points in the final challenge is that we should reawaken the proper observance of the Sabbath day as part of a revival of the Christian and of the Christian church. And I agree with him wholeheartedly. The Christian Sabbath Sunday has become a day for sports and recreation. People live for the weekend to do what they please. And one thing people please to do is satisfy their fleshly desires for sports and entertainment and partying. And what you do on Sunday probably will have a great effect or otherwise it will reflect what you probably do the rest of the week. But there's one thing that is needful. According to Jesus, one thing is needful, he said to Martha, and Mary has chosen the good portion. What had Mary chosen to do? Luke 11 verse 39 says, Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to His teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. Martha was preparing a nice feast, but Mary was partaking of the better feast of God's Word that would nurture her soul and her life. unto eternal life according to the heidelberg catechism sabbath observance or sunday observance is all about maintaining that one thing that people god's people sit in the pew every lord's day and listen to jesus through the living preaching of the word one of the curses of Shiskew County, where I live, and Shiskew County is way up in northern California. It's the fifth largest county in California. Only has 44,000 people. It's about the size of the state of Connecticut. Sixty percent of it is trees and bears and lakes. And I minister to them from time to time also. But one of the curses of Shiskew County, northern California, where I live, is the terrible preaching of God's Word, coming from preachers who are untrained or badly trained. I'm on the board of the Ministerial Association for Northern Siskiyou County, and I know most of the preachers in Wyreca, Montague, Big Springs, Aetna, and Fort Jones. And I pity them because they were not given the privilege of going to a Christian college and a seminary. Most of them are untrained. The most they've had is just a few years of Bible college. Now, anyone who's going to speak for God is taking on an impossible task in some senses. A daunting task. A task that puts fear in your bones. For you to stand up in front of fellow human beings and say, Thus saith the Lord, you had better have picked your training carefully. Charles Spurgeon said, If the church despises the pulpit, God will despise the church. For the gospel ministry, for Sunday, for the church to be truly devoted to God, we need professors who can teach students how to preach Christ from all of Scripture. The gospel ministry today in America is pathetic. I get to hear a lot of sermons. I did not get to hear a lot of sermons in my previous pastorates. I did when I was here at Westminster, and it revived me wholeheartedly. But now I get to hear a lot of awful sermons because we only have services once on Sunday and because I work at the prison in Susanville and get to hear all of the volunteers who preach there because we split all the services equally and the services are two and a half hours and so we all get an hour or a half an hour depending on how many preachers show up to preach at the services. And even sometimes when I'm on vacation I get to hear preachers preach. And once while I was listening to a pastor from the pulpit of my wife's church, and he was a visiting pastor, so don't try to figure that out, Jackie had to physically restrain me. I wanted to stand up right during the middle of the sermon and tell him to sit down and be quiet. Because what he was saying was not only not reformed, it was heresy. I have prayed on more than one occasion that God would somehow shut up the preacher or remove him from the pulpit immediately lest he continue to lead the little ones astray at the prison. Someone said sermonettes produce Christianettes. And I would add that bad preaching produces bad thinking and bad thinking produces bad lies. As a man thinks, so he is. And there is an abundance of bad preaching in our churches today and on our media, TV and airwaves and radio. I have prayed, Lord, please let it go in one ear and out the other because it's not worth hearing. I have heard a preacher say, a man with an experience is superior to a man with a doctrine. That is very popular today. Translated, that means let me tell you what happened to me instead of let me tell you what Jesus taught. An experience is always an interpreted subjective event that usually is embellished. A doctrine of Jesus is one thing that God chooses to use to edify his people. It is absolute truth, it is objective, is it relevant, and it's life-changing. No one can be saved or built up by hearing what God did for me. Only the gospel of Jesus saves us from our sins and can correct my misunderstandings and properly apply God's will to my life, to true conversion. The Apostle Paul, with divine authority, as an apostle and under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit, charges Timothy to do several things. And so now we're going to get to the text. 1 Timothy 1, verses 3 through 7. Timothy charged certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. I have to go way back in my life, but I thank God that I was so privileged to go to a Christian high school. And boys and girls, young men and women who go over here across the street and next door, you are some of the most privileged people on this earth. You don't ever have to be jealous of anyone and wish that you had it better because you couldn't have it better. The boys and girls that I see go to schools where you can graduate from high school and not know how to read and write. I know many of them who have graduated from Wairika High School and they can't read or write. And that's not the important thing. The important thing is they don't know God at all. And they have no fear of God. And 20% of them are on meth or marijuana. 40% of them are messing around with the opposite sex. It's a tragedy. I thank God I went to a Christian high school and I learned Burkhoff's Summary of Christian Doctrine. And I thank God that in seminary I had to get out the big manual and read it from one end to the other. And since I've been in the ministry, I've read many other systematic theologies by Dr. James Boyce, by John Calvin, the Institutes, by Hodge, by Warfield, and I've read almost everything that R.C. Sproul has ever put into print or said. Why? Because what that does is it puts a grid into your brain, into your mind. And everything that comes into your mind has to go through that grid, and that grid helps you sort out and discern truth from falsehood. The definition of a fool in the Jewish concept is a person who is open-minded. In the 20th century America, that person is exalted. We should be open-minded to all possible opinions and all possible truths. Well, if you are open-minded to every possible truth, you are closed-minded to absolute truth. And so a fool is someone who's open-minded, but a wise person is someone who guards his mind carefully, who has in place certain unshakable boundaries about God and man and right and wrong and God's holy will. The definition of tolerance in America will lead to the greatest intolerance of our age and the persecution of the Christian church because the only thing that will not be tolerated with a modern tolerance is those who are fundamentalists. That is, they believe in a revelation from God, whether they be Muslims or Christians. But they believe that God actually spoke to human beings and that that's absolute truth. American tolerance is irrational, illogical, relativistic, post-modern and post-Christian and it's wrong, false, plain, simple. True tolerance will tolerate falsehood in others, but it will never say to that person who believes that falsehood, well, if it works for you, that's okay. Paul says these people in the church, in verse 7, who are teaching these false doctrines and are dwelling on all these other things, except the main thing, they have no understanding of the things about which they are making assertions. Translated, they don't know what they're talking about. There are countless people in the church in America today who don't know what they're talking about. And there are millions of people listening to them and being led utterly astray. And so to maintain a true church and the true worship of God, we must maintain the gospel ministry and train well those who lead us in worship each Lord's Day. Good Bible teachers in Christian high schools who are trained. I taught Bible at Manhattan Christian in Montana for five years while I was the pastor at Gateway. And both before me and after me, they appointed whichever faculty member had the lightest load. That is a curse on a Christian high school. I hope you don't do that at Calvin Christian. I hope you have someone who's teaching over there who's been given the training to teach. We need good Bible teachers in our colleges and universities and in our seminaries. And the only way we can do that is if we maintain the gospel ministry and the training for it that is necessary. People of God, we need a sense of office. We need a sense of the gravity and the seriousness and the heaviness of the task of teaching God's Word. And that includes your Bible study. It is tragic today what is being taught in Bible studies in Reformed churches. Paul charges Timothy several times that the faith once and for all time delivered by God in Christ to the apostles must be faithfully taught to others who must teach it again to the next generation. 1 Timothy 6.20 O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. 2 Timothy 2.2 What you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So guard against false doctrine. Take what you have learned from your godly grandmother and mother Timothy and from me and boldly teach it and preach it and refute false teaching and then teach it to others. If you're going to do that, of course, you have to know what you agree on. And that's why we're a confessional church. And everything we teach should somehow fall underneath the teaching of our creeds and confession, which we confess each time we hear a profession of faith, that these are the faithful interpretations of God's Word. We have agreed that this is the best human formulation of god's word the best summary of god's word it's not god's word but it's the best human formulation we have the heidelberg catechism and the belgic confession the canons adored and i respect the westminster confession of faith and these are tried and tested this is the truth that's been passed on from one generation to another and this is where we should start and until we have them fully down i don't think we should be expanding our curriculum to be current and relevant because i can guarantee you you'll be irrelevant because if you miss the main thing it doesn't matter how relevant you are if you preach the five points of a wonderful marriage and you teach all these other things but you don't teach jesus christ and him crucified you've missed the main point we should and could go into biblical teaching of office and ordination tonight but we can't begin to cover that whole subject but we have certainly lost in our midst and in our culture and a culture that went through the 60s in the anti-authoritative and the anti-institutional days of our 60s and 70s the church has suffered greatly and the offices of the church have suffered greatly in this egalitarian age where everybody is equal not only in person which i would agree with but in job callings and work which i don't agree with i think we have really let the culture eat us up in terms of office and ordination and the process with the new testament church recognized gifted persons like timothy and laid their hands and ordained them but we don't have time to go into all of that tonight but let me just give you a simple illustration tomorrow Jackie and I will head back north and on the way I will stop and go to classes meeting on Tuesday and you know which church I'm in and I won't say its name but we will examine four candidates for the ministry and one ministry associate and I dare say will be done before suppertime on Tuesday when I was examined in 1976 they examined me from nine o'clock in the morning until supper time five o'clock in the evening and then they started on normstein and they didn't get done with him until after midnight we'll average about an hour and a quarter for the four candidates we'll examine on tuesday what does that tell you about the gravity that we place on the office of the person who's going to lead god's church oh how the church suffers today from a multitude of self-ordained people. Oh, how sad it is that people misuse and abuse God's Word and what it teaches about pastors and evangelists and about what it teaches concerning spiritual gifts and what a mess and what confusion and what damage is done today in the church in America and these things. What is being done here tonight is no small matter. I've waited a long time for it. And he's went through a lot, many, many years of training at home, at school, at university, and at seminary. And he's been examined many times, and I sat through his exam in Boise, Idaho, and it took most of the day. And I was not fidgety, and I didn't say, good grief, why don't they leave the guy alone? I said, go at him. I want to make sure he's sound. And he represents his church and his God and his Savior well. And otherwise, don't put him out there. What's being done here tonight is no small matter of ordination to office in the church of Jesus Christ is a most serious and weighty matter. The weight of responsibility to be a faithful professor, pastor, teacher is enormous. And you know the scriptures that talk about that. Don't let many of you be teachers because you will be judged by a higher standard. And if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it's better that a millstone be put around your neck and you be cast into the ocean. When they laid their hands on me in ordination in 1976 in Woden, Iowa, I was scared to death. When I thought that I was going to have to preach two sermons every Sunday for the rest of my life, I prayed. Lord, help me, because there's no way I can do it. To get up behind this pulpit on an official worship service and proclaim God's official word to his people is a very high and holy calling. Therefore, in our tradition, we have always emphasized the necessity of training well and checking out these people who we are going to ordain to office. They must feel a deep sense of calling. Anybody who knows my past knows that this is not what I was like when I was at Dort College. When I supposedly saw a PC in the sky. And I preached my first chapel service at Dort College and the professor came to me afterwards and he said, Young man, I don't think you know how to interpret the writing in the sky. He says, I think you think PC means preach Christ. I think it means plow corn, go home, you're no good. It's exactly what he told me after my first sermon at Dort College. And I'd have quit. And I'd have quit a couple other times, and Jackie could tell you about those times at Calvin Seminary, when I'd have quit. But like Jeremiah, I didn't have a choice. God made the choice. Anyone who's going to take up this task has to know that they're called by God, and especially in the age in which we live or they won't make it. And they have to know who they're working for and that He alone hires and fires. And then they have to be approved by the church because there's lots of people who think they have the call and they don't. And how do we know they don't? Because God's people don't see it in them. They don't see it in their lives. They don't see it in their thinking. They don't see it in their discernment. they don't see it in their intellectual ability they don't see it in their pastoral heart they don't see it in their personality and so they don't affirm that call you have to have the call from God and then you have to have the gift from God but then the gift has to go through some real training and it must be very exceptional that we would other follow that church order article in our church order that says people can become ordained ministers without that formal training because they are exceptionally gifted by God and I think it has a little cultural baggage about coming from the Netherlands and they didn't have enough preachers at the time and they were willing to take some who weren't trained because of the great necessity of the hour but today if you feel called of God we have all the time and all the ability and all the schools and all the thing to train you and if you're going to be responsible you better seek fine training so that when you get up and you say thus saith the Lord you at least are sincerely convicted that you've done everything in your ability to be true to God's word and you better know your confessions and your canons of Dorton and your Westminster Confession and that you stand with a historic Christian church these are the instrument the church uses to refute false doctrine and maintain the unity of the church and this is how we sit at the feet of Jesus every Lord's Day. And what we do on Sunday morning ought to affect what we do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as well. The problem in America is not bad morality. The problem in America is not crime, corruption, lawlessness, broken marriages, and homosexuality. The problem in America is we do not know the fear of God. our theology is rotten that's why our lives are immoral we don't know the doctrine of god the doctrine of man the doctrine of sin the doctrine of the cross the doctrine of salvation the doctrine of the church and the doctrine of the last things and so paul's first challenge to timothy is preach good doctrine the second challenge is timothy you've been given the gift and you've been ordained they laid their hands on you now don't be afraid to do the task timid timothy young man paul says no do not be ashamed even though you're a young man you have been gifted and ordained for the task i was scared to death the first time i sat in a consistory room i was the youngest one by 25 years i was 26 years old and i was supposed to lead this consistory of elders who were all over 50 and deacons who were all over 45 and the only reason i dared to sit there is because i've been called by god and trained by the church to do what i was supposed to do and so i just did what i was supposed to do timothy joshua men who've been called to do this ministry you must be totally unafraid if you fear god you don't need to fear anybody else be bold and be zealous because the task that you've been given is the only thing that builds god's church and changes the world that's what the scriptures teach that god through his holy spirit uses his word to convert to form faith to renew minds to inflame hearts and to build his church and kingdom and then finally Paul has all of these things that he challenges Timothy with that we're going to kind of all scrunch together he says Timothy be faithful today that especially applies to all who are trying to build the church of jesus christ in an age of mega churches in an age of tv evangelism in an age when the business model has come into the church and the church is run like a business and everything is counted in terms of success and numbers and the first questions that even ministers end up asking each other is how big is your church that's a terrible question to ask a minister ask him how faithful are you and properly representing Christ in your ministry. How big his church is is really totally irrelevant. But that's the kind of pressure we are under today. So be faithful. Endure. Endure suffering. Endure lots of things for Jesus Christ. Be strong in the Lord. A good student of the Word. Don't be afraid to suffer. Preach the Word everywhere, every time. Be urgent in season and out of season. And remain a good student of the Word. The congregation knows exactly what's going on in the preacher's heart and life. Maybe he can fake it for a week or two. But if they're authentic people, they know whether the preacher's walking with God. They know whether the preacher's living and walking the talk. They know whether the preacher's staying close to God and reading His Word and is involved in prayer and meditation in his own life. And you can't give to somebody else what you haven't received from God. And so, Timothy, you have to remain. You have to feed yourself so that you can feed others. And you have to keep yourself on track. And thus, you will save also many of your hearers. The only way to make it in the ministry of the word and the sacraments today is by guarding yourself from false doctrine. Paul mentions also this concept of knowledge and new knowledge. They need to take a little church history, a lot of church history, because there's nothing new under the sun. And every new knowledge is often an old heresy and new garb. And the only way you can know that is if you know history. And most people think history is what happened in the last 20 years. History is not what happened in the last 20 years. History is what happened in the last 4,000 years. They started writing history about the time of Abraham, I understand. And there's nothing new under the sun. And so if you know your history, you won't hopefully repeat old mistakes. If America knew any history, we wouldn't be in the economic crisis we're in right now. Because we've done this before. The temptation of new knowledge is very popular today. People are much more interested in what is new and cute than what is old and lasting. Guard yourself from worldly entanglements. That would be the neglect of the office and the duties of the office. Devote yourself to God and your calling and enjoy your work. I don't have to, Jackie doesn't have to kick me out of bed in the morning. Sometimes she tries to keep me there a little longer. Thinks I'm a little too excited. There is nothing in your life that is more satisfying than listening to God and then giving it to somebody else. And seeing what it does in their lives. Other than those moments when I sit at the feet of other teachers. And am enlightened in my soul. And delight and feast upon the truth. The greatest moments in my life are when I get to feed it to somebody else. And I get to see the flash of understanding in their eyes. I went through physical therapy from May until the end of July when I was released from physical therapy. And the name of the young man was Mike. And Mike was a typical teenager of today. I mean, he's 40 years old, so he was, whatever, a few years ago. But he was one of these extreme sports enthusiasts who rides hot motorcycles and bangs himself up and does a few other weird things. And I didn't know anything about Mike, except he was a very good physical therapist. And so we talked, and I listened, and went on for about two weeks, three times a week, one hour each week, or for those three sessions, and I just got to know Mike and his hurts. And pretty soon it became quite obvious that Mike didn't have a purpose in life. He was too old for extreme motorcycles. He wasn't yet married, didn't have a family. He was dating a woman, engaged to her. He was married, had two kids. He wasn't real pleased that he was going to be the father of a teenager, who he didn't think was exactly the perfect teenager, although he hadn't been a perfect teenager. But anyway, we talked about all of his life, and I listened and listened, and then the second month, I started talking. And I started sharing with him my life and my purpose and my goal. And then towards the end of the session, I knew I only had two more sessions with him. I said, Mike, can I ask you some questions? And these are personal questions. And if you don't like them, just tell me you don't want to talk about it. So I asked him those two diagnostic questions. Mike, if you die tonight, do you know you're going to go to heaven? And Mike, let's pretend you did die tonight. You're standing in front of God. Why should he let you in? And he hemmed and hawed, and he obviously didn't know how to answer either one. I said, Mike, do you want purpose in your life? What do you think Christianity is? And he said, what most people would say. well, I think Christianity is believing in God and trying to be good. And I said, you're dead wrong. Because if that's Christianity, I'm in big trouble. I believe in God, but I can't be good. So I explained to him the covenant of works and the covenant of grace and all of Reformed theology in the next two sessions, in a very brief encounter. And at the end of that session, the last time I met Mike, Mike said, where's your church at? I said, 16 miles out of town. I'm going to be there Sunday morning. I said, that's great. Mike was there with his fiancée. And after church, he's introducing his fiancée to me. And he says to his fiancée, he says, this is the preacher God hit with a car so I could meet Christ. Well, that made my whole year worth getting hit by a car. One soul saved from hell for all eternity by God's grace. We need the gospel ministry. It's the only thing that's necessary, Jesus said. And we need to maintain the training for it. And so if Josh isn't going to be a preacher, I'm glad he's going to be a professor. He's got a more important task than I do. He has to train men who are going to go out there and teach people how to worship on the Lord's Day. And teach people how to live on the other six days. What a task. You talk about power? You and I believe that's the only power, resurrection power, that can change the universe. The living preaching of Jesus Christ, crucified and raised from the dead. I think I've said it. I don't know what else I have to say. I just know how humbling it is that God has chosen human instruments to build His church and His kingdom. Let's pray. Dear people of God and dear Heavenly Father, tonight as we ordain one more person to the ministry of God's Word, the church is recognizing its task in the world and trying to preserve the fourth commandment and maintain the gospel ministry and the training that needs to take place for people to be gospel preachers and to teach people to live the gospel every day of their life. And Lord, this is what we believe life is all about. We were created to glorify You and enjoy You forever. And that's why Sunday is so important. Because on Sunday, we come to learn how to worship and how to work and how to play and how to live. For eternity. And so Lord we pray that you will bless everyone here tonight. Who takes it upon themselves. Or has been given that commission by your church. To teach. And to preach. And to evangelize. And to witness. And we pray especially for those offices Lord in the church. Which we have recognized. As those who have been especially set apart. And called by you. to teach and train and mature your people to the fullness of Jesus Christ, to maturity. Lord, we're here to make disciples and to teach them to observe everything you have commanded us, not to build nice buildings and not to fill them with nominal Christians. We are here to train soldiers of the cross. And so, Lord, give us good lieutenants and corporals and commanders and admirals and everything else. give us good pastors and a good seminary and people who know the gravity of the task and who wait upon you, who learn to pray, Lord, command whatever you please and give everything you command so we can do your work. Lord, help us. And thank you, Father, for tonight and for this moment in Joshua's life. And may he sense his task for the rest of his days here on earth. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.