Accurately Handling the Word - Charles R. Swindoll

when I was in high school the playing ball I would hear from the sidelines two bits four bits six bits a dollar all four we were the Cougars stand up and holler and that was probably be replicated in story after story school after school well this morning we won't do two bits four bits six bits but we'll do 20 years 40 years and 60 years as a means of introducing our chancellor and the pastor of Stonebriar Community Church 20 years ago the week after next the Stonebriar will celebrate 20 years of ministry in Frisco Texas it's hard to believe it's been 20 years already 40 years ago as next year will be the 40th anniversary of insight for living ministry which is not only a radio ministry but its internet its publications and I'm sure you have listened and P I'm sure you have read something that dr. Swindall has spoken or has written or has been published through that ministry and 60 years ago he sat where you said as beginning students at Dallas Theological Seminary and so for those of you who are visiting today welcome you're in a great train of history and heritage and many many more as well but it's a delight to introduce to you our Chancellor he served on our board before he was president he now serves as our Chancellor but the founding pastor of the Stonebriar Community Church dear friend Chuck welcome to our chapel would you go Indian left [Applause] well I extend to you who are guests on the campus of a warm green from the seminary you've received it from others but not from me so it's my turn right now to say that and I commend you for taking a good look at the school this is one of those decisions you certainly don't want to jump into it's too important it's uh it's too demanding it's too expensive it's it's going to take a chunk of your life for you to do it right because as I always say to incoming students if you're going to start finish so don't just come and kick a few tires and then leave buy-in if you're going to do it do it right and of course do it well you're surrounded by students who are involved in the process and they would be great to talk with while you're here not just faculty members but but the student body as well we who have gone through the school and and the school has gone through us in the process would tell you that it's like a puzzle I often illustrate it that way the the first year you you hardly get the border of the puzzle put together and to leave after the first year is not even to get a picture of what the school is about and then in your second year you get the corner pieces the border is in and you begin to see how it fits together depending on what course or what track you are involved in whether it's a three year course or a four year course or four some seven or eight year course depending on how long it takes you to to finish the task you get the full picture put together and honestly it is not until you were out and are able to look back and you realize those who set up the program really knew what they were doing not at the time you'll you'll wonder if they if they did and do we really need this do we really need that rarely have I looked back on any part of my training here and said no I that wasn't really that important it is important admittedly depending on the realm of work you go into some will be more important than others for you but it is all a part and you hear this when you enter college it's all part of a well-rounded education dr. Hendrix and I used to sit around and and talk about the school almost in terms of of an academy as the Military Academy prepares one to be a person of military strategy who understands warfare and weapons as well as the disciplines of life and the responsibilities of leading others as you will do when you when you graduate from an academy you when you graduate from the school you're usually involved in leading others and so you you don't want to pay close attention during your visit to see how it fits your your frame of reference your way of thinking it isn't for everybody and I say that every time I get a chance to talk about Dallas seminary it isn't for everybody and and some who come realize later in the time here it wasn't for them and and they do leave early and they should leave because it wasn't for them but you want to do your best to figure it out as soon as you can is this for me and as soon as you can get that put together in the answer is yes plan to come we are about accuracy we're about a lot of things but we are really strong on accuracy living an accurate life communicating accurate information presenting the information accurately in a way that people can get it and the training for that is invaluable it's just it's just invaluable we've all witnessed dear individuals who are very sincere but they've not had the training and you see them struggle to say what they're trying to say or wanting to say but not having had the training it just doesn't come across it doesn't come through clearly so here at the school you will learn to think in ways you've not thought before you will learn a system of interpretation you've not been taught before it is deliberate it's carefully thought through and it's pretty consistent over over years it's been carefully honed the reason all of this is important is that people trust us as a as a minister of the gospel we're to be trustworthy my wife is going through spinal challenges these days and we have talked often she and I have about the value of trusting her physician the reason is when he does his work she's asleep and I'm not in there which is a good thing and we are therefore at the mercy of his training and his integrity and the ability of his mind to work with his fingers and to do in that delicate part of her body but no one else can do but a neurosurgeon a physician who doesn't do his work well is guilty of malpractice an attorney who does not do his work or her work well does illegal work and should be arrested should be reported financial individual who does that kind of work can commit fraud and we read a bit from time to time because they weren't trustworthy a minister of the gospel must be trustworthy I read Steve artaphernes book called toxic faith some time ago and if you've not read it you owe it to yourself it's easy reading it's it's good reading some of it will disturb you I and the reason I was interested in it is because often we will have people come to visit who have been exposed to toxic religion and and they are suffering the consequences of it they trusted people in ministry who were not trustworthy they follow the leadership of those who shouldn't have been followed and theirs they are now suffering because of it unlearning things is often harder than learning brand new truth anyway he writes of this and I want you to listen to this true story my grandmother died in 1989 if there were ever a person of strong faith in conviction it was nany all alone she reared her three children including my mother after the suicide of my grandfather she never gave up never stopped believing never lost her faith for her death was merely a step into a better place at Manny's funeral the minister told of one of the frustrations my grandmother had to endure and audit by the Internal Revenue Service the IRS went to a lot of expense and trouble to make sure that someone who made every bit of eight thousand dollars a year paid her fair share of income taxes while others were hiding millions of dollars from the federal government special agents were hard at work on the case of pearl Russell making sure the country would not be shorted a few hundred dollars by a sweet old lady who lived her life in Athens Texas an issue was Nancy's large deduction for charitable contributions the government could not believe that a woman making so little could give 35 some years forty percent to the church and Christian ministries and still have enough money left over to pay her bills the IRS finally backed off when she dug out of the Attic all the canceled checks the television ministers and radio preachers and and her local church agents did not understand it but they were convinced that she had given every penny she had deducted Artur Bern continues my grandmother not only gave away almost half of our income she paid off her car loans early paid off her house mortgage and still had enough left over to bake her special pies for hurting people nanny was an amazing woman of faith it seemed that no matter how much she gave away she she still was provided with enough to live fairly comfortably what little she could do for God she did she did it because of a real faith in God not of faith motivated by the idea that if if she gave she would become rich she knew she would never have a lot of money neither did she give because she hoped to buy her way to heaven she had taken care of her place in eternity years ago no she gave because she wanted to give back to God a portion of all he had given her her pure motives set a great example for all who had the privilege to know her and watch her live her life there was nothing toxic about nannies faith she never gave to a particular minister but always to the ministry such as to a children's home or to a project to feed the homeless when she gave a dollar she knew how that minister was going to spend it at least she thought she did some of the individuals to whom she gave her money were not so admirable they're toxic faith robbed my grandmother of the great blessing of knowing her money had been used to further the kingdom of our God they took her money and spit it on themselves their big plans and schemes that had nothing to do with my grandmother's desire to tell the world about God's love or to feed thee and clothe the orphans some of those ministers she so faithfully supported wound up in jail or divorced their spouses or were arrested for indecent exposure or fell into other public sins they proclaimed a faith on television or over the radio but they lived something else they didn't shrink from asking my grandmother and others like her to sacrifice their food money so they could buy jet fuel to fly to Palm Springs for a weekend getaway what they did was dishonest unfair and very human the kind of faith they lived look radically different from the one they proclaimed on the public airwaves these unfaithful men and women who spent nanny's money put more faith in themselves than they did in God they relied more on their manipulations than on God's provisions they were more concerned about their own comforts than they were for the people who gave them money or for those whom the donations were intended to help they were building big empires for themselves while my grandmother turned off her heater at night so she might be able to save a few dollars and therefore give more their faith was toxic it poisoned many who had trusted them and had distorted the view of God held by many who watched as these ministers in the media fell from grace as a result many today believe all ministers are charlatans and they're out only to fleece the flock these cynics have derived a toxic unhealthy view of faith from the toxic examples they saw in the media unfortunately media ministers are not the only ones who poisoned faith that's a long story I realize I normally don't use something that lengthy but I wanted to drive that point home who knows how God will use any one of you in some significant way and I will assure you with a Bible that you're able to teach with a fair amount of clarity and ability and personality you'll convince people that you're dealing in the truth and they'll trust you they'll really like I trust I neural surgeon I don't sit in the waiting room worrying over whether he was well trained or knows what he's doing I trust him would he get that scalpel or makes that decision on the spine of the woman that means more to me than anyone on this planet I trust him I've looked carefully into his training I've talked with him somewhat at length about his method of a practicing medicine it's always bothered me a little that it's practicing medicine but and and we he and I've laughed about that word but it is that he's only human and with a as he put it when he goes through her neck he works between the esophagus and the carotid artery and he said that's the easy surgery the difficult one is when he goes in through the back of the neck through the muscles that will later give her intense pain in recovery to take care of what he thinks right now are some bone spurs where the nerves are hanging up and the pain is horrible every day people will come and those who are not jaded who have not been turned off by those kind of ministers I just read about you can call a ministers they will come and they will they will believe you hear me please hear me they will trust what you say they don't know Greek they don't know Hebrew and and it's a powerful thing to learn those languages we teach them here as well as any school I'm aware of among the seminaries and and some of you will be very gifted linguistically in the light in those languages and and and you can manipulate with that I know I said in congregations were that was done and then I came to seminary and and learned a little of the languages and when I went back to the pastor that we had said under and and pointed out that what he had presented was not what the Greek thought he looked at me over the top of his glasses and said don't you ever question me $1 graduate so so it isn't limited to the to the weirdos out there it isn't it isn't it isn't limited to the to the ones that you know anybody if you've got a brain cell working you can tell and Gaza off the wall he can't be trusted but some don't even had the discernment to know that so would you sit in the classroom here and when you you pay your hard-earned money and you give your time and you sacrifice all of that's part of it by the way it's it's designed to be difficult because ministry is difficult it's rewarding it's magnificent nor the work I could do and be ever be satisfied in but it is a it is a constant demanding work and and people won't let up some who criticize and and I mean what you've watched and the guy running for nut guy but the gentleman running for the position of our was he running for yeah Cavanaugh my heart went out to him when he just lost it the other day I don't care how you vote on that I'm not talking about that I'm just saying the people that just come after you and I said they're under Cynthia and I both washed enough of it to say with kind of a sigh been their harshest things I've ever read had been written to me signed in Christian love and so I know what I'm talking about now they're all that was introductory second Timothy chapter two I'm intrigued by verses 15 to 19 as a matter of fact I've written something in the margin alongside verse 15 that appears nowhere else in my Bible it reads my life verse I'm not big on life verses I don't have favorite hymns that to me is like saying this is my favorite child IIIi don't have favorite verses however when I read 2nd Timothy 2:15 I wrote that in fact I wrote it in red it's what I want to be true in my life be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed accurately handling the word of truth how's that for a verse as good enough to go on my granite stone and it's one I want to suggest for you to give serious thought to now we're going to get serious Paul's in the dungeon he's only got a little bit of time left I often remind myself when I get into second Timothy this is dungeon talk I've never spent a night in a dungeon but I've been to the memory time prison where if it is the same one it was a terrible place in Rome it was cold and it was dark and it was every day was treacherous and when he writes Timothy he hadn't Dinkin around he's got Timothy by the collar pulled up close and he's saying get this straight I'm soon gonna be gone you're on do it right so I'm not surprised that he starts out with be diligent be diligent but there's a profession in the world where you can be lazy it's ministry you can golf your way all the way through and I'm not down on golf I just think the holes are too little so I it isn't fair and so they were big I'd be interested in betting in little tiny holes I'd silly put a little tiny ball little tiny hole know what everybody cusses it that that plays God you you you you be diligent Timothy first of all be a good student of yourself and as I say then I'll remember the words of first Timothy 4 where it says pay close attention to yourself toxic ministers have no self-awareness they don't care they're in it for the money or the glory or the whatever you Timothy you be diligent to present yourself approved to God diligent workmen stay at it I don't care if you've been doing it for 50 years stay at the study do your own work don't get your sermon off the internet that's sloppy theology that's lazy preaching you dig it out you build a library you go to the hard work of preparing it so that your messages are original and no one can say yeah that's a great message I heard Charles Stanley do that three months ago or David Jeremiah are those great guys you don't need Stanley's or Jeremiah's messages you need God's message you be diligent to do that you'll learn to be diligent when you study here so the clear picture is be a diligent workman make certain that you yourself are authentic tried and true and as you handle the word handle it accurately I love that accurately handling the word of truth now what does it really mean as best I can understand it has in mind the idea of cutting something straight it was yours three different ways among the Greeks in the first century if you if you drove your your cart or cherry or whatever across the field you went in a straight line if you were a farmer and you were plowing you you ploughed a straight furrow if you were stone mason and you're cutting a block of stone to fit into this wall that you're building you cut it straight that's that's the idea here and you accurately handle the word when you cut a straight line as best as you're able to do and the time you have between what God has written what it meant to the people to whom he wrote it and now what it means to us who live today and I'm going to tell you something you do that faithfully and regularly people will love you for it they are starving for it and they don't get it most places genre W Stott has written on this a the late John Stott writes on it so well this is his words I love his stuff we must daily soak our selves in the scriptures we must not just study as through a microscope the linguistic minutia of a few verses but take our telescope and scan the wide expanses of God's Word assimilating the grand themes it is blessed wrote Charles Spurgeon to eat into the very soul of the Bible until at last you come to talk in scriptural language and your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord that great writing and your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord so that your blood is biblia in that great next time I'm at the doctor's and he wants to know what type blood I'm gonna say bibley see what he says so that your blood is big lean and the very essence of the Bible flows from you people will love it when you take them into the word unfold the word explain the word and then leave them with the word and and that bibley approach is just in great demand in every generation it was when I graduated and it will be when you graduate it is rare to be at a church where the pulpit faithfully declares the full counsel of God from the Word of God it's rare it's rare I remember when I started seminary my mother said to me I hope you will learn son while you're at that school I was a married man and and you think this would come from my wife it did so I got both barrel but but my my dear mother said to me don't fill your sermons with a lot of people stories don't try to be cute and clever give them the Word of God that's what we're starving for son what am i yelling now store stock goes on apart from this daily dogged discipline in those good words apart from this daily dogged discipline a Bible study we shall need in particular to apply ourselves to the passage selected for exposition from the pulpit I'm gonna give you my own definition of exposition just a second we shall need strength of mind to is qu short cuts get this you won't learn short cuts at this school you shouldn't and I know time is close tight always tight Sunday comes every three days it seems I mean if the deadline is constant but to do the work you don't take shortcuts we must spend time studying the text with painstaking thoroughness meditating on it wrestling with it worrying at it as a dog with a bone until it yields its meaning and sometimes this process will be accompanied by coils and tears I love it sometime in my SETI I'm sitting all alone as a marvelous place to stay I've got my my study here and in the next room I've got my full library I've never had a place where I could put all my books under one roof it's just night nificent to be up there I just love it did I mention that I love being up there and and III think this illustration worrying over it as a dog with a bone and listen to what he says here we shall also use all the resources yeah of our library in this work lexicon and concordance modern translations and commentaries but above all we must pray over the text because the Holy Spirit who is the book's ultimate author is there for its best interpreter man that's good stuff now become an expository don't become an entertainer they're a dime a dozen everybody wants to build a quick little church by being an entertainer so they'll out entertain the guy down the street and they'll use all the gimmicks to bring in the people you you faithfully deliver the Word of God I've been doing it now over 50 years and I still had people write me saying I'll never forget those days when we worked our way through John I'll never forget your teaching through revelation never forget when we went through Daniel never forget when you taught us the life of David or Joseph or Jacob or Abraham and they'll go on and on all from the Scriptures all from the scriptures very encouraging because I am an expository and to do it right here right here much of it I've taught myself having gotten out with just a bag of tools I've kept them sharp I've forgotten stuff like how old I am and and how long I've been doing it and what other people may say or think I am NOT an envious kind of person I don't worry about someone else's success I just do what I'm called to do and it wound up on the radio of all things I was amazed at that it's wound up in books of all things and the amazing thing is some people buy them and actually read them I just set out to write books I didn't set out to go on radio I set out to go into the Word of God and to be a workman who presented myself approved to God accurately handling the word of truth that's it that's the goal now that my definition of exposition just wrote it out I don't have a slot I don't have it on the screen i I don't okay I don't know how to do screen so I just want it I know I know I know don't don't write me I know exposition is in three parts as I see it exposition occurs one from the Bible when the biblical text is carefully studied and clearly understood and interestingly explained that's first part second when it remains the central focus of attention during the delivery of the message and three when it is illustrated and applied in keeping with today's real world needs that's exposition staying with the text is essential if you expect to be an expository Mint's square with the scriptures that accuracy that you use terms anyone can understand even the uninitiated I'll tell you about one just a second that we have recently at our church and that's clarity when you speak in words that anybody can understand remaining sensitive to your audience which means you're connecting all the while your remaining real and unguarded and when necessary vulnerable said a great big guy come down front at our church a couple of three Sundays ago I mean he even he was he was big and I never quite know what to expect and he walked up he said he took I said yep I'm he said come here so I walked over he began a hug that almost got me in to see a neurosurgeon after he and I'm like and he said with tears I just got out of prison yet tattoos all over it and the gallery's livid with standing right by him I love guys like this he said you kept me alive in solitary confinement as is real stuff this is ministry this is the product of ministry at its best here's Kate by this kind of moment not I put my hands on his shoulders he said come here and I thought okay you'll be go again and he hugged me again he said you just wouldn't believe my past I said I don't care about your past I like your present I like where you are he said man my life has been transformed he couldn't find the words I think he said transform that would be a big word for him if he think he said transform and he said I'm not sitting caught solitary he said I was able to have a Bible they lent him a Bible and I was able to pray and believe it or not I was able to listen and I never missed your broadcast every said you know what I loved I said I don't I don't know but I'm listening and he said I loved it that you just told us what it says and what it means and how we can live like that I never heard that in my life so I said I know love Jesus and I thought I am so glad so glad as he'd be one mean motorscooter if he if he didn't have Jesus and he he would say that and I said I want you to be come back off I don't want to see more of you and we made plans to give him a little Study Bible and and all that and he was so wonderful to be with you were so real that's kind of guy want to touch with the message of the Scriptures cuz you get him convinced are you done something and you know what God did it I don't even know him great thing about radio they don't even know what you look like that's usually a turn-off when they finally meet you but but when you are you just out there and they hear a voice and they and they connect it with the teaching of the scriptures and they link it up guess what I learned to do it right here at this school and before I started my studies here I was very sincere and I loved Jesus as close to the navigators then a lot of scripture memory a lot of their stuff but I have a real system a method and you learn a method so that you do what Paul warns again you you you don't do what Paul warns against avoid worldly and empty chatter he leads only to further ungodliness and the talk spreads like gangrene and he names a couple of guys that have plagued out and then he says nevertheless the firm foundation of God stands having the seal the Lord knows those that are used for a privilege to be able to study in a place that takes the Bible series of Ian teaches it accurately so that you can be trusted even when they don't even know what you look like my very first place of ministering as a senior pastor if you could call it that I was just a pastor there and was in New England and one cold wintry day I decided I would go down to Harvard and Cambridge snow was about needy and I was determined to find the cornerstone of Harvard I doubt that most of you have ever stood there and read it I never had so a little background and I finish with this John Harvard 1607 to 1638 he died when he was 31 okay join the Puritan emigration to the New World settled in Massachusetts and became a member and teaching elder of the congressional church Congregational Church excuse me teaching elder of the Congregational Church at the Charles at Charleston in his will he left half his estate with a library of about 400 volumes to the new college that had just been established founded by the colony in 1636 the General Court of Massachusetts named the College after him they called it Harvard College that was in 1638 39 and with the aid of his legacy buildings were erected below is the cornerstone that remains etched into granite on a wall across from his statue at the Harvard Yard you see Harvard statue there and the cornerstone is here I was right there on a cold winter day this is what the cornerstone says Harvard after God had carried us safe to New England and we had builded our our houses provided necessaries for our livelihood reared it convenient places for God's worship and settle the civil government one of the next things we long for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuated to posterity dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers lie in the dust how's that for eloquent and how's that for heartbreaking a bar they drifted there was a place originally planned to train the minister like this place like where you're gonna sit interestingly about 10 miles from that old church that I pastored in Massachusetts there's another church that was fighting for survival had an interesting history the man who had been there for several years was a fighter and and and and he absolutely took people on and church a little but a little just emptied it sheep were beaten up mistreated and ultimately ultimately he left and a handful of people ever still with him left with him and they called another guy who came his first Sunday there were maybe a couple dozen people at digital Church and you had to get there early to get a back seat so they were all in the back so he took the puppy and and he dragged it down the middle aisle it's a true story and he set it up two rows from the back and he said you won't come to me some will come to you I'm gonna Shepherd this flock and I'm gonna teach you the Word of God as best I can I have no fight I I'm a shepherd I'm not fired but I'm gonna teach you how to teach yourself and feed yourself the Word of God he didn't announce that he would need to do this but Sunday after Sunday he began to drag that pulpit back toward the choir loft and so finally the church is packed and he's bumping up against a packed choir loft places full and the church became a kind of a beacon of hope in that community interesting same building same Bible to different people both Dallas graduates sorry thankfully one knew what he was doing and he understood what it meant to present himself approved as a diligent workman and also to accurately handle the Word of God all a while loving the people and it was a beautiful thing to get to know him I was young and and just in the process of making every possible mistake you could make in ministry I was making it and he was so gracious and what a model he was I am honored to be able to speak today and to think that you would listen so carefully is it is a is a real expression of of sincerity and I thank you think before you come here but when you come make this your life verse wherever God may use you however he may choose to use you for however long let's bail [Music] it's a long journey from earth to heaven and it's rugged Lord and that shouldn't surprise us your your son was on this old earth for 33 years and he got beat up those last three and a half years more than most could even imagine but he he'd finished the task he left us with the plan he modelled it beautifully in he trained a handful of men all of whom were very human and they turned the world upside down you still want to do that Lord and and we we love you for that thank you for not expecting perfection from us but for calling us to do a rugged task and yet to do it well and always for your glory we love you Lord in fact the word we use and we adore you we adore you our great God because of Jesus in his name we serve you and we pray everyone said you

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

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Length: 58min 48sec (3528 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 12 2018